Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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I N S T I T U T E F O R A G R I C U LT U R E A N D T R A D E P O L I C Y
PRESS RELEASE
New agriculture research alliance on climate should focus on low-input, 
sustainable farming
Research can't continue unsustainable, business-as-usual model for agriculture
CopeNhageN ­December 16, 2009
http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/pdf2html.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iatp.org%2Fclimate%2Ffiles%2Fdocument%2FClimateAlliance_pr.pdf&images=yes

A new global research alliance, led by New Zealand and the U.S., on
agriculture and climate change should include participation from farmers in 
countries
facing food insecurity and emphasize practices that are low-cost and ready 
for imme-
diate application, said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) 
today.
The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases was announced
today in Copenhagen at the global climate talks. The proposal was initially 
made by
New Zealand, but has now added the U.S. and over a dozen other countries 
including
Denmark, India, Japan and Uruguay. The alliance agrees to boost funding 
within the
participant countries to focus on "improving management practices and 
technologies"
to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and support food security.

"We are concerned that this agenda will simply duplicate the pitfalls we've 
already
seen within the U.S. agriculture research agenda, which for example spends 
billions
of dollars on genetically engineered seeds that largely benefit transnational 
corpora-
tions and can take a decade to develop," said Jim Harkness, President of 
IATP. "This
new alliance recognizes food security within the framework of climate 
research, and
that should be applauded. To truly support food security requires developing 
research
in-country, based on local experience and indigenous knowledge."

"The loss of traditional knowledge and seed varieties in the Global South is 
a much
more urgent crisis, and much more crippling to the world's capacity to 
address climate
change, than what has been the traditional U.S. research model," said 
Harkness.
"Unfortunately, national research institutions have largely ignored the types 
of low-
input, sustainable, small-scale systems that are needed for both food 
security and
climate-friendly farming."