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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Groundbreaking report rejects biotechnology and modern industrial farming
  • Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:40:52 -0600


Groundbreaking report offers holistic remedies for famine relief and
environmental protection in developing countries

Regenerative farming practices, local knowledge and regionally appropriate
technology favored over biotech and industrial agriculture.

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080418/fp1

Agribusiness-as-usual was dealt a swift blow in Johannesburg April 7 as 57
nations signed onto a groundbreaking action plan that set a bold new course
for developing nations to feed themselves while also addressing pressing
environmental concerns.

The report, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science
and Technology for Development (IAASTD) Global Report, was commissioned in
partnership with the United Nations after a group of biotech companies asked
the World Bank what it thought of genetic engineering technology as an
agricultural strategy for developing countries. Ironically, the ensuing
report roundly rejects biotechnology and modern industrial farming as a
viable solution to the problems confronting the developing world, such as
soaring food prices, hunger, social injustice and environmental degradation.
The report instead calls for a major paradigm shift that would place strong
focus on small-scale farming and agro-ecological farming methods to feed
local communities, address social inequities and protect the environment
while scaling back broadly on energy-intensive, chemical agriculture and
addressing trade imbalances that hurt the rural poor.

“Decades of industrial agriculture and harmful economic policies have
contributed to massive chemical pollution, loss of biodiversity, water
scarcity and climate change, and to the destruction of farmers’ livelihoods
when Northern governments dump cheap subsidized produce overseas,” said
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network and a
lead author of the IAASTD report. “This (and unfair trade regulations) has
trapped rural communities in persistent hunger and poverty. The problem comes
back to deep structural inequities in and between our societies that must be
reversed.”


By integrating livestock more intensively into their crop production systems,
farmers in Thiawène have created an economic safety net for themselves, while
improving food production and food security.

The good news, she said, is that the report concludes we have options,
Investment in organic farming practices, ensuring poor farmers have control
over resources, creating more equitable trade agreements and increasing local
participation in decision-making are a few. “What remains is for governments
to take action before it’s too late.”

“This marks the beginning of a new, real Green Revolution,” said Benny
Haerlin of Greenpeace Germany. “The modern way of farming is biodiverse and
labor intensive and works with nature, not against it.”

Authors of the report included more than 400 scientists from around the world
representing a variety of disciplines, with input coming from governments,
major research institutions, industry and the public at large, including
farmers, the rural poor and other traditionally underrepresented members of
society.

“Agriculture is not just about putting things in the ground and then
harvesting them," United Nations Environmental Programme Executive Director
Achim Steiner proclaimed at an intergovernmental plenary outlining the plan
in Johannesburg. “It is increasingly about the social and environmental
variables that will in large part determine the future capacity of
agriculture to provide for 8- or 9-billion people in a manner that is
sustainable.”

Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are among a
handful of countries that have yet to endorse the report, with the U.S.
repeating allegations coming from the agrochemical and biotech industries
some months before that the report was unbalanced. Those defending the
process said the report’s lack of support for further industrial and
globalized agriculture—and for modern biotech in particular—was based on
intensive, peer reviewed assessment of empirical data by development experts
and scientists across a wide variety of disciplines. These experts, they say,
were chosen by the same governments and companies now calling the report
biased.


Abderahmane Sow (his son pictured here) intercrops his bananas with a variety
of other crops, including sugar cane, corn, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, and
eggplants. The many benefits he sees in this system are backed up by research
worldwide that has demonstrated synergistic relationships between intercrops
such as improved yields and reduction in pest and weed pressure.

“This assessment is by far the most comprehensive and rigorous report of its
nature, involving more than a thousand practitioners and scientists from all
over the world,” said Rodale Institute International Program Director and
IAASTD co-author Amadou Makthar Diop, PhD. “The scientist in the sub-Saharan
Africa report are, in majority, Africans who have capitalized on many years
of experience in research, extension and training in agricultural and rural
development. Those industrialized governments who are still hesitant should
realize that it is time that they listen to the voice of whom they want to
help. This is critical if we want development aid and assistance to be
effective.”

Bob Watson, PhD, director of the IAASTD, and the World Bank’s chief scientist
at the time the project got under way, echoed that plea in a press release
sent out following the Johannesburg meeting.

“To argue, as we do, that continuing to focus on production alone will
undermine our agricultural capital and leave us with an increasingly degraded
and divided planet is to reiterate an old message. But it is a message that
has not always had resonance in some parts of the world. If those with power
are now willing to hear it, then we may hope for more equitable policies that
do take the interests of the poor into account.”

see IAASTD executive summary
http://www.agassessment.org/docs/SR_Exec_Sum_130408_Final.htm
---------------------

paul tradingpost@lobo.net






  • [Livingontheland] Groundbreaking report rejects biotechnology and modern industrial farming, Tradingpost, 04/19/2008

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