Is this a case of biodiversity before biofuels?
“Uganda’s cabinet suspended the proposal by President Yoweri Museveni to give 7,100 hectares or nearly a third of Mabira Forest to Mehta’s sugar estate in May, following a public outcry…
“Critics said razing part of Mabira would have threatened rare species, dried up a watershed for streams that feed Lake Victoria and removed a crucial buffer against pollution of the lake from two industrial towns.”
from Reuters via Planet Ark via Glen Barry
On October 16 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization celebrates World Food Day – and this year’s theme is “The Right to Food”. As well meaning as this campaign may be, it ignores the real reasons why the majority of farmers in developing countries are poor. In order to set out a better way for agriculture and development, The Sustainable Development Network is releasing a list of the worst myths which afflict the debate, two of which are below:
1. Myth: A country must produce its own food in order to feed itself in times of difficulty.
Reality: Markets and the freedom to trade are the best ways to improve food security and to reduce the cost of food. Trade means that resources are used more efficiently in each place – countries like Hong Kong, who cannot grow food, use their labour, capital, and knowledge to produce other goods and trade. On the other hand, many Sub-Saharan countries are nearing self-sufficiency – but hunger and poverty remain high.
The World Bank estimates that global free trade would add $287 billion to world income each year, half of that accruing in poor countries. Much of this would come from agriculture. Access to markets would allow poor farmers to generate income for themselves and their families, making it more likely for them to escape subsistence farming and poverty.
2. Myth: Wealthy countries should eliminate subsidies and trade barriers, but developing countries should not
Reality: Agricultural subsidies and regulations hurt the poorest farmers and consumers, while benefiting the elite – in rich and poor countries alike. As subsidized farmers in wealthy countries overproduce commodity crops like sugar and dump the surplus on world markets, prices are driven down – to the ultimate detriment of farmers in poor countries.
Moreover, around 70% of tariffs paid by developing countries are actually paid to other developing countries. This makes food difficult to obtain and artificially expensive.
Douglas Southgate, an agricultural economist at Ohio State University, commented:
“Governments need to get out of the way, cut restrictive tariffs, and remove state marketing boards, to allow businesses to work — because people are perfectly capable of feeding themselves, if only they were allowed to.”
For more myths and realities about agriculture, read:
“Agriculture and Poverty- Myths and Realities”, by the Sustainable Development Network– available for download at http://www.sdnetwork.net/files/pdf/Agriculture_and_Poverty.pdf
Note: Never mind that trees plantings to offset emissions actually makes the environment worse according to one study. (See: Carbon offsets ‘harm environment’ – BBC. The poor farmers are bearing the brunt of misguided and scientifically unfounded global warming fears and “solutions.”
CNNMONEY.com
The other side of carbon trading
Planting trees in Uganda to offset greenhouse-gas emissions in Europe seemed like a good idea – until farmers were evicted from their land to make room for a forest. Fortune’s Stephan Faris reports.
(Fortune Magazine) — Planting trees in Mount Elgon National Park in eastern Uganda seemed like a project that would benefit everyone. The Face Foundation, a nonprofit group established by Dutch power companies, would receive carbon credits for reforesting the park’s perimeter. It would then sell the credits to airline passengers wanting to offset their emissions, reinvesting the revenues in further tree planting. The air would be cleaner, travelers would feel less guilty and Ugandans would get a larger park.
But to the farmers who once lived just inside the park, the project has been anything but a boon. They have been fighting to get their land back since being evicted in the early 1990s and have pressed their case with lawsuits.
Last year, when the courts granted three border communities an injunction against the evictions, the farmers took it as permission to clear the land they consider theirs. Now a stubble of stumps – all that’s left of the trees meant to absorb carbon dioxide – dots the rows of newly planted maize and budding green beans.
The project in Uganda is part of a growing trade in voluntary carbon offsets, in which environmentally concerned consumers pay to have others remove an amount of carbon equal to what they emit. Vendors earn carbon credits by planting trees, which capture carbon from the atmosphere, or by modifying existing factories to consume fewer fossil fuels.
Australian farmers and consumers can find the information they need to make informed decisions about GM canola in a new report released today by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Peter McGauran.
Mr McGauran said that GM Canola – an information package, commissioned by the Australian Government,brought together a wide range of current information.
“Covering everything from regulation, supply chain management and market acceptance of GM crops to agronomic, economic and legal liability issues at farm level, this package is intended to make a well-informed contribution to the current debate about the GM crops,” Mr McGauran said.
“With reviews of the moratoriums under way in four states, Australian farmers will potentially start growing GM canola from 2008.”
Mr McGauran said today the report found that Australian farmers stood to gain significantly from the introduction of GM technology.
“The study concludes that Australia’s main competitor, Canada, has been growing GM canola for 10 years without any appreciable loss of market share or prices, while enjoying significant agronomic benefits,” Mr McGauran said.
“It also found that GM canola offers some solutions to the problems facing conventional canola in Australia and is likely to make a valuable contribution to farming systems once farmers are able to access the technology and adopt it to their individual circumstances.”
Key points in the report are:
● Canola is an important crop in Australian winter crop rotations;
● Canola has benefits for farming enterprises beyond the direct returns the crop generates. Other crops in the rotation benefit from the weed control and disease management options canola provides;
● Weed resistance to conventional canola chemicals and disease pressures are threatening canola’s contribution to farming systems in Australia.
The report was produced by the consultancy firm ACIL Tasman.
“This report adds further weight to the argument that State Governments should immediately lift their moratoriums on GM crops so that Australian farmers can have access to the benefits of this technology,” Mr McGauran said.
“Australian farmers are extremely efficient and innovative producers, but to remain internationally competitive, need to be able to compete.”
The report is available at http://www.daff.gov.au/agriculture-food/biotechnology
End media release.
Frustrated with the many laws and regulations in Australia that now make it difficult for farmers to manage trees, including woody weed regrowth, on their land a TREE CHOP CAMPAIGN kicked off on 1st July.
The NSW Farmers Association has failed to condemn the campaign that encourages farmers to cut down trees. The Australian Beef Association is actively supporting it.
Jeff Angel, Director of Total Environment Centre, said farmers were misled if they believed these actions would affect politicians in their favour. According to the Wilderness Society website: “Environment groups are calling for a criminal investigation into the activities of all individuals and groups who have publicly incited illegal land clearing, and for action to be taken against the ringleaders.”
Not so many years ago environmental activists rather than farmers would have been more inclined to break the law. Now it is once law abiding farmers who feel so aggrieved they have resorted to civil disobedience.
“The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its first projections of world grain supply and demand for the coming crop year: 2007/08. USDA predicts supplies will plunge to a 53-day equivalent-their lowest level in the 47-year period for which data exists.
“The USDA projects global grain supplies will drop to their lowest levels on record. Further, it is likely that, outside of wartime, global grain supplies have not been this low in a century, perhaps longer,” said National Farmers Union Director of Research Darrin Qualman .
from http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5660.cfm
Most important, 2007/08 will mark the seventh year out of the past eight in which global grain production has fallen short of demand. This consistent shortfall has cut supplies in half-down from a 115-day supply in 1999/00 to the current level of 53 days. “The world is consistently failing to produce as much grain as it uses,” said Qualman. He continued: “The current low supply levels are not the result of a transient weather event or an isolated production problem: low supplies are the result of a persistent drawdown trend.”
In addition to falling grain supplies, global fisheries are faltering. Reports in respected journals Science and Nature state that 1/3 of ocean fisheries are in collapse, 2/3 will be in collapse by 2025, and our ocean fisheries may be virtually gone by 2048. “Aquatic food systems are collapsing, and terrestrial food systems are under tremendous stress,” said Qualman.
Demand for food is rising rapidly. There is a worldwide push to proliferate a North American-style meat-based diet based on intensive livestock production-turning feedgrains into meat in this way means exchanging 3 to 7 kilos of grain protein for one kilo of meat protein. Population is rising-2.5 billion people will join the global population in the coming decades.
“Every six years, we’re adding to the world the equivalent of a North American population. We’re trying to feed those extra people, feed a growing livestock herd, and now, feed our cars, all from a static farmland base. No one should be surprised that food production can’t keep up,” said Qualman.
Qualman said that the converging problems of natural gas and fertilizer constraints, intensifying water shortages, climate change, farmland loss and degradation, population increases, the proliferation of livestock feeding, and an increasing push to divert food supplies into biofuels means that we are in the opening phase of an intensifying food shortage.
End of media release.
Thanks to Aaron Edmonds for this link.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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