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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] New agriculture research alliance on climate should focus on low-input, sustainable farming
  • Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:38:10 -0700


New agriculture research alliance on climate should focus on low-input,
sustainable farming
Research can't continue unsustainable, business-as-usual model for agriculture
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
December 16, 2009

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."





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