digging deeper

African maize yields will fall under increasing temperatures

2011-03-16T10:41:00.003-05:00

To those following the scientific research on climate impacts on agriculture in Africa, the theme of this post should come as no surprise. Stanford research David Lobell and colleagues merely add to work that has already been published by that research group. Their latest study adds much more empirical data analysis to much modeling already undertaken, with confirmation of the grim scenarios foreseen for agriculture on the African continent.

Using data from maize/corn variety trials carried out over more than ten years across Africa they provide further evidence of the effects of temperature on maize production. In particular, the number of degree days that exceed 30 degrees C has significant effect -- "each degree day spent above 30 degrees C reduced final yield by 1% under optimal rain-fed conditions, and by 1.7% under drought conditions."

High temperatures affect the moisture status of the soil, thereby increasing stress on the plant. As well, high temperatures were especially problematic during silking and pre-silking stages.

Their work concludes with analysis of the cumulative impact of degree days above 30 degrees C -- linking the impacts of daily temperature maximums seen during a season with what would be expected over the next decades with each 1 degree C of warming seen.

For sites with average temperatures above 25 degrees C yields decline rapidly with increasing temperatures, "because of frequent exposure to temperatures above 30 degrees C, with more than 10% yield loss per degree C of warming... Under drought conditions, even the coolest trials are harmed by 1 degree C warming, with losses exceeding 40% at the hottest sites."

The graphs and maps included in the paper are sobering.

Climate change in your coffee cup

2011-03-13T15:15:00.004-05:00

Changing climates in Colombia threaten coffee prices and a way of life.

"Heat damages Colombia coffee, raising prices."

Pepsi and IDB

2011-02-22T19:21:00.002-05:00

PepsiCo and Inter-American Development Bank Sign Agreement to Spur Development in Latin America and Caribbean

Here's what I wrote to a colleague about this rather lopsided and misguided venture:

Pepsi invests $2.6 million and the farmers take out $40.4 million in microloans. And they (Pepsi) get sunflower oil much cheaper than their current sources -- currently US and Canada i'm guessing. Geez, who wins there? So the farmers can produce oil for the junk food that makes Mexico second only to the US globallly in the number of obese inhabitants.

But I'm guessing that climate change in Mexico means they won't produce sunflowers there for that long. Too bad for the farmers that put all that effort into converting from food to oil production.

Sigh.

Reframing the question: Bolivia's challenge to the Copenhagen Accord methodology

2010-08-04T05:57:00.011-05:00

How to fairly and equitably distribute the remaining carbon budget left for a 2°C (or a 1.5°C) world? That’s one way to frame the central question on emission budget allocation under consideration by both the UNFCCC AWG-KP and the AWG-LCA, the approach taken by Ambassador Pablo Solon of the Plurinational State of Bolivia during his presentation on 3 August to the AWG-KP workshop on the scale of Annex I emission reductions.

If we start with the irrefutable premise that there is a carbon budget -- a certain amount of carbon that can be emitted, say between 2010 and 2050, to have a reasonable chance of staying below 2°C or 1.5°C -- then the most logical way forward is to first quantify the total size of the budget, then collectively develop the criteria to use to divide up that budget.

The methodology is really not much different from the process for allocating a household budget. There are constraints imposed by a monthly salary. If you spend all your salary in the first week of the month, eating will be difficult for the rest of the month. Rather than ad hoc spending, a wiser approach would be to discern all possible expenditures for the month and then prioritize and allocate the budget based on personal criteria.

This is the logic laid out by Ambassador Solon in his presentation to the AWG-KP. Using numbers generated by well-known climate experts, he proposes that a budget for 2010-2050 and a 1.5°C world is 420 Gt of carbon. For a 2°C world, emissions during the same four decades could amount to 750 Gt. It is now time for countries to engage in the necessary exercises of prioritization and allocation; if some countries spend all or most of the global carbon budget in the first ten years of the period, we will have a serious crisis on our hands.

With this approach, the next step is to collectively develop the criteria whereby the remaining atmospheric space will be allocated. The Bolivian proposal, as presented by Ambassador Solon, is to use two basic criteria to determine equitable division of the remaining atmospheric space: population and historical responsibility. Using a per capita approach, where cumulatively over the next four decades the A1 countries house 16% of global population and non-A1 countries are home to 84%, yields the following carbon allocation:

	percent of global population	carbon allocation for a 2C world	for 1.5C world
Annex I	16%	120 Gt	67 Gt
Non-Annex I	84%	630 Gt	353 Gt
Total	100%	750 Gt	420 Gt

Using the approach of historical responsibility, with 1850 as the reference year for historical contributions, yields the following carbon allocation for the total 1300 Gt emitted in the last century and a half:

	a fair allocation	the actual allocation	global emissions debt
Annex I	25% = 325 Gt	72% = 932 Gt	-607 Gt
Non-Annex I	75% = 975 Gt	28% = 368 Gt	+607 Gt
Total	1300 Gt

Ambassador Solon had no desire to mince words in commenting on the historical numbers, telling the Annex I countries in the audience directly: “You have overused atmospheric space.”

Unfortunately, the current approach of the Annex I countries is to ignore historical responsibility, spend what might be in their per capita budget now, and hope for the best. According to the analysis outlined by Ambassador Solon, the average annual carbon expenditure of Annex I countries in the next ten years is estimated to be 13.3 Gt. Over the course of the next decade, the Annex I countries could well spend their entire carbon paycheck.

The approach of the Copenhagen Accord (CA) pledges, and indeed the approach used to derive the first commitment period pledges under the Kyoto Protocol (KP), is illogical and irresponsible, driving us far beyond 2°C and threatening serious climate disruption. The CA approach is this: put the supposedly politically feasible emission reduction pledges on the table and if things don’t add up, well, we’ll deal with that problem sometime in the future. It’s a fundamentally irrational process, deliberately designed to obscure the fact that developed countries are claiming a much larger share of atmospheric space than is fair and equitable.

Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008 | Mother Jones

2009-03-07T12:31:00.000-05:00

Our way of producing food and feeding people has to change. Not many who look at food production and distribution doubt that. The UN Agriculture Assessment says it pretty succinctly: "business as usual is not an option." What, then, is to be done? Good article here by Paul Roberts provides his two cents.

Town Green - In Connecticut, Turning Cow Manure Into a Growth Industry - NYTimes.com

2009-03-02T20:46:00.000-05:00

Continuing on that cow manure theme...

Op-Ed Contributor - Yellow Is the New Green - NYTimes.com

2009-02-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

Human and animal waste are vastly underused sources of nutrients for agricultural production. Yet globally prices of fertilizers, nitrogen and phosphorus in particular, have been skyrocketting. Phosphorus supplies are finite, and we'll soon start hitting the wall with our phosphorus supplies. The sooner we start figuring out how to recycle wastes on a large scale for use in agriculture, both human and animal wastes, the better.

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research - NYTimes.com

2009-02-20T00:30:00.000-05:00

This is a very strong statement from a community that is not known for its political engagement -- university researchers. Things have to be pretty bad for them to speak out. Of course, the stifling of research by biotechnology companies has been going on for decades, so it's about time the scientific community made a fuss.

Newly Poor Swell Lines at Food Banks Nationwide - NYTimes.com

2009-02-19T13:48:00.000-05:00

New Yorkers Try Composting With Worms - NYTimes.com

2009-02-19T13:36:00.000-05:00

One step at a time, connecting the cycles that power the ecosystems that feed us.

In eat local movement, Cuba is years ahead | Environment | Reuters

2009-02-15T13:11:00.001-05:00

Texas Ranchers and Farmers Struggle in Drought - NYTimes.com

2009-02-12T00:05:00.001-05:00

Next year floods? Hurricanes? The uncertainty of distribution and timing of climate change impacts will make adaptation to these extreme climatic variations very, very difficult.

Food for the next administration

2009-02-07T19:24:00.002-05:00

Beyond the useful resources on the website with respect to food and farming in the greater New York City area is a link to a great panel presentation on US food policy. The speakers featured are: Mark Ritchie, Judith Redmond, Michael Berwick and Michael Pollan.

Sustainable Food Monitor | Growing Better Global Food Policy

How Meat Contributes to Global Warming: Scientific American

2009-02-04T22:35:00.000-05:00

By Nathan Fiala, an economics PhD student.

Home Work - Perusing the Seed Catalogs, Feeling Dizzy With Possibility - NYTimes.com

2009-02-03T21:16:00.002-05:00

in maine, in the middle of a snowy white winter, the colors and imagined smells and flavors in seed catalogs are an absolutely indescribable delight.

Blog: Living on Food Stamps - CNN.com

2009-02-02T15:23:00.002-05:00

A blog to watch over the next month. The CNN reporter writing the blog, Sean Callebs, is going to try to feed himself on $176 for the entire next month. $176 is the amount of food assistance that the federal government would give a single individual through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- formerly known as food stamps.

IBM and food miles?

2009-01-31T19:47:00.002-05:00

Check out the frozen chicken video posted on IBMs "Smarter Planet" blog:

A Smarter Planet: Food for Thought

as well as their background pages.

Obamas Hire Chef From Chicago - NYTimes.com

2009-01-28T22:37:00.001-05:00

The Obama's chef from home focuses on local and healthy food. Does he avoid GMOs?

Obamas Hire Chef From Chicago - NYTimes.com

Guest Column: A Low-Tech Treatment for Bee Plague - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-01-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

Guest Column: A Low-Tech Treatment for Bee Plague - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

the other side of the food crisis coin.

2009-01-26T10:23:00.002-05:00

Ronkh Journal - West African Villagers Stake Their Fortunes on the Future Price of Rice - NYTimes.com

This article comes on a day when world food leaders are meeting in Madrid for a high-level meeting on global food security, following up the June 2008 summit held at the FAO in Rome.

Chuck Hassebrook as Deputy Secretary of USDA? A great idea!

2009-01-24T22:43:00.001-05:00

Who Will Vilsack Name Deputy Secretary at USDA? | Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural

Food needs 'fundamental rethink'

2009-01-03T12:27:00.002-05:00

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Food needs 'fundamental rethink'

(the following are some short excerpts from the much longer article by Mark Kinver. it's well worth reading the whole article.)

A sustainable global food system in the 21st Century needs to be built on a series of "new fundamentals", according to leading food expert, Professor Tim Lang:

Oil and energy: "We have an entirely oil-based food economy, and yet oil is running out. The impact of that on agriculture is one of the drivers of the volatility in the world food commodity markets."
Water scarcity: "One of the key things that I have been pushing is to get the UK government to start auditing food by water," Professor Lang said, adding that 50% of the UK's vegetables are imported, many from water-stressed nations.
Biodiversity: "Biodiversity must not just be protected, it must be replaced and enhanced; but that is going to require a very different way growing food and using the land."
Urbanisation: "Probably the most important thing within the social sphere. More people now live in towns than in the countryside. In which case, where do they get their food?"

Professor Lang said that in order to feed a projected nine billion people by 2050, policymakers and scientists face a fundamental challenge: how can food systems work with the planet and biodiversity, rather than raiding and pillaging it?

"We are going to have to get biodiversity into gardens and fields, and then eat it."

"We have to do this rather than saying that biodiversity is what is on the edge of the field or just outside my garden."

Our Good Earth

2008-11-25T13:28:00.003-05:00

Just stumbled upon this wonderful homage to the foundation of our agricultural systems: soil. The final line? "We're simply not going to be able to keep treating it like dirt." Highly recommended.

The Good Earth, Charles Mann, National Geographic, September 2008.

food crisis? what food crisis?

2008-11-22T23:17:00.002-05:00

Remember the food crisis from the first half of 2008? It's evaporated, at least for the moment. U.S. farmers are struggling to figure out how to pay the bills, which are even bigger now as seed companies and fertilizer manufacturers worked hard to siphon off as much of that high-price income as they could.

Fields of grains and losses, New York Times, 20 November.

Finding a solution to soil's carbon problem

2008-11-21T14:24:00.003-05:00

Soil is a natural carbon sink but its ability to store it is being compromised. Could a return to organic farming be the answer?

General Assembly President calls for ‘food democracy’ in face of global crisis

2008-11-21T13:59:00.004-05:00

19 November 2008 - General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto today called for a new politics “that starts from the bottom up, not the top down” in the face of the current global food crisis of soaring prices and mass hunger.

“Without innovative and broad changes in our food policies, we will see hunger once again spread across the world like a mediaeval plague,” he told a conference on the politics of food at Columbia University in New York.

“The shameful reality is that, despite the fact that we have the knowledge, the financial and technological means to prevent it, half of the human population subsists at levels of malnutrition and poverty completely incompatible with their inherent dignity and rights. This is not only shameful – it is, to use religious terminology, downright sinful.”

Mr. D’Escoto called for an end to the dominance by the monoculture of industrialized food giants and the birth of a multi-functional policy focused on the poor and their right to food.

“In food politics, I would advocate food democracy,” he said. “We can move our food provisioning away from dominance by a few very large corporations to the control of people-oriented food systems that respect communities and their right to food sovereignty, and localized and regionalized food systems at the local and regional levels.”

But for many, solutions are coming too late. “Hunger and malnutrition, exclusion and poverty are taking thousands of lives each day,” he said. “We must stop deluding ourselves and face up to the fact that the ‘haves’ of this world must change their way of life, the patterns of consumption that show little or no regard for the disastrous impact of their lifestyle on the wellbeing of their neighbours, our brothers and sisters, and our shared home, the planet Earth.”

Diouf appeals for a new world agricultural order

2008-11-20T21:33:00.001-05:00

Proposes 2009 Summit to reform present system, find $30 billion

19 November 2008, Rome - FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf today appealed to world leaders to meet together next year to design a new agricultural order and find $30 billion a year to eradicate hunger from the Earth once and for all.

Addressing a special session of the FAO’s 191-member-nation governing Conference, Diouf declared the World Summit was needed because, “After more than 60 years [since FAO’s foundation] it is essential to create a new system of world food security”.

The Director-General continued: “We must correct the present system that generates world food insecurity on account of international market distortions resulting from agricultural subsidies, customs tariffs and technical barriers to trade, but also from skewed distribution of resources of official development assistance and of national budgets of developing countries”.

The Summit, proposed for the first half of 2009, “should lay the ground for a new system of governance of world food security and an agricultural trade that offers farmers, in developed and developing countries alike, the means of earning a decent living,” he said. “We must have the intelligence and imagination to devise agricultural development policies together with rules and mechanisms that will ensure not only free but also fair international trade.”

more thoughts on the future US secretary of agriculture

2008-11-19T20:13:00.003-05:00

An interesting blog post on possible, probable, and wish list candidates for the US secretary of agriculture. My favorite from the list -- Mark Ritchie, currently Secretary of State in Minnesota. Mark has a long, amazing history in progressive agriculture politics. That coupled with his current experience in a top government administration position make him a realistic candidate as well. I do greatly admire Michael Pollan but would rather see him continue writing those provocative tomes.

why vilsack is a bad choice for secretary of agriculture

2008-11-12T11:07:00.004-05:00

So I knew the Obama honeymoon wouldn't last that long. He's going to appoint centrists like himself. And you don't win the presidency without incurring a few debts. Iowa is a pretty important place for Obama, not least of all because it was where his presidential journey began. But that doesn't mean that the former governor of Iowa is a good choice for the secretary of agriculture. Far from it.

I want an agriculture secretary that's a visionary, or at least capable of some vision -- towards a different agricultural production system for the 21st century. Obama's shown extraordinary vision to reshape presidential politics. Can we have that sort of vision for our agriculture as well? A recognition of how broken agricultural production is: that farmers don't receive cost of production for the crops they produce; that synthetic fertilizers destroy our soil, are creating a massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, and are the principal contribution our agriculture makes toward climate change; the list goes on.

Why not Vilsack? In one example: pharmaceutical-producing corn. He's a huge proponent of producing drugs in Iowa cornfields. Never mind the high possibilities of cross-contamination. Never mind that this is a technology that benefits only a handful of farmers and a handful of drug companies. Never mind that the costs of the inevitable contamination will be socialized to all farmers who grown corn in the U.S., when export markets reject our crops.

Maybe he doesn't care, maybe he thinks we can just turn that corn into ethanol and forget the rest of the world. That's not the approach of a 21st century visionary. It's just more of the same American imperialism, shove it down their throats agricultural policy of the last decades. I want change.

Monsanto's missing mice

2008-11-11T10:49:00.002-05:00

The Austrian government today released results showing reduced fertility in mice that have been fed a variety of Monsanto's genetically engineered maize: NK603 x MON 810. The variety contains two different genes: one that makes the maize resistant to Monsanto's proprietary weedkilling chemical, Roundup, and the other that makes the maize produce its own pesticide within the plant.

It should come as no surprise that health effects are found long after the variety has been cleared for placing on the market and in the human food supply. Testing of genetically engineered crops is notoriously superficial and long-term studies are done rarely, if ever. A recent review by Jose Domingo presents a strong critique of what passes for safety evaluations.

There is little funding for such studies and little interest on the part of governments to really dig deep into the possible health effects of GMOs. We will see more announcements like these in the future, but unfortunately far fewer than the necessary scientific inquiry to protect public health and the food supply would dictate.

who is profiting from the high price of commodities? Monsanto.

2008-08-21T21:22:00.006-05:00

Global commodity prices hit record highs this year. You might think rural America would get some benefit from higher prices for their crops, a respite from years of commodity prices far below a farmer's cost of production, but think again. Agribusiness companies know how to grab their share and more of that extra revenue -- raise prices. Monsanto is bragging to its shareholders that it's going to raise prices of its corn seed 35%. As they control a huge amount of the corn seed market, here and around the world, they can do what they want with corn seed prices.

Read this story from the Organization for Competitive Markets to see how the 35% price increase -- or about $100 a bag -- will fatten Monsanto's bottom line. Clearly genetic engineering isn't about feeding people, it's about feeding your stock price.

why are dead zones so popular these days?

2008-08-21T20:53:00.003-05:00

It seems every summer there is more and more media coverage of ocean dead zones, those regions of our seas that become so polluted with algae that grow on fertilizer run-off that there's no oxygen left for other species. This summer the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was predicted to be the largest one yet, although it didn't quite break the record.

This blog post from the Huffington Post gives a little deeper analysis of why dead zones and why the story won't go away, at least until we put serious effort into changing agricultural production practices.

A new era for agriculture?

2008-08-17T19:37:00.005-05:00

The latest backgrounder of Food First! has some excellent analysis of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge for Science, Technology and Development (UN IAASTD). Read it here.

biofuels and the food crisis

2008-04-18T19:34:00.003-05:00

Stories about the rising world prices of food grains are filling the pages of newspapers around the world. Paul Krugman, economist and New York Times opinion page columnist, contributed to the conversation with an insightful op-ed last week, "Grains gone wild."

One of his principal conclusions?

"We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake."

UN gives strong backing to sustainable agriculture systems

2008-04-18T19:26:00.002-05:00

Agriculture: Overhaul of agriculture systems needed, says new report

Kuala Lumpur, 15 Apr (Lim Li Ching) -- An independent and multi-stakeholder international assessment of agriculture has concluded that a radical change is needed in agriculture policy and practice, in order to address hunger and poverty, social inequities and environmental sustainability questions.

The final report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology (IAASTD) was launched simultaneously on 15 April 2008 in Washington, London, Nairobi, Delhi, Paris and a number of other cities worldwide.

The report (the product of work of over 400 authors) was finalised at a meeting of over 50 governments held in Johannesburg last week.

“Business as usual is not an option”, said Professor Robert Watson, Director of the IAASTD and chief scientist of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Watson was formerly the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The methodology of the IAASTD’s work and process is similar to that of the IPCC.

The report’s message is that the business-as-usual scenario of industrial farming, input and energy intensiveness, and marginalization of small-scale farmers, is no longer tenable. While past emphasis on production and yields had brought some benefits, this was at the expense of the environment and social equity. Moreover, there is a recognition that excessive and rapid trade liberalization can have negative consequences for food security, poverty alleviation and the environment.

The IAASTD report calls for a systematic redirection of investment, funding, research and policy focus towards the needs of small-farmers. This involves creating space for diverse voices and perspectives, particularly those who have been marginalized in the past, including poor farmers and women.

The IAASTD report says that greater emphasis is needed on safeguarding natural resources and agro-ecological practices, as well as on tapping the wide range of traditional knowledge held by local communities and farmers, which can work in partnership with formal science and technology. Sustainable agriculture that is biodiversity based, including agro-ecology and organic farming, is beneficial to poor farmers, and needs to be supported by the appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks.

Over three years, from 2005-2007, the IAASTD had conducted an evidence-based assessment on the potential of agricultural knowledge, science and technology (AKST) for reducing hunger and poverty, improving rural livelihoods, and working towards environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development. It aims to drive the agenda for agriculture for the next fifty years.

The IAASTD was launched as an intergovernmental process, with a multi-stakeholder Bureau, under the co-sponsorship of the FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, the World Bank and WHO. In a comprehensive and rigorous process, more than 400 authors were involved in drafting the report, drawing on the evidence and assessments of thousands of experts worldwide.

The drafts were subjected to two independent peer reviews. The experts for the assessment included persons from the research community, international agencies, NGOs and industry, though representatives from industry decided not to stay with the process.

The process itself was a path-breaking one, in which governments, research institutions, industry and civil society shared equal responsibility in its governance and implementation. The success of this experiment supports the value of civil society participation as full partners in intergovernmental processes and future international assessments.

The IAASTD held its intergovernmental plenary meeting from 7-12 April in Johannesburg, South Africa to discuss and finalise the global and five sub-global assessments, and the Synthesis Report that integrates their findings.

The Synthesis Report also focuses on eight cross-cutting issues – bioenergy, biotechnology, climate change, human health, natural resource management, traditional knowledge and community based innovation, trade and markets and women in agriculture.

Fifty-four governments accepted and approved the various components of the report at the meeting. However, by the end of the meeting, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States had yet to sign on to the final report.

While there are indications that some of these governments may eventually formally accept and approve the documents, the United States remains the key government that is unlikely to do so, claiming that the report is “unbalanced”, particularly with regard to its analysis and proposals for trade and biotechnology issues.

The agrochemicals and biotechnology industry, which had earlier been a full participant in the IAASTD process, withdrew from the process before the final plenary meeting with similar claims. It claimed that industry perspectives, particularly its view that genetically modified (GM) crops are key to reducing poverty and hunger, were not adequately reflected in the report.
The report’s lack of specific support for GM crops was based on a rigorous and peer-reviewed analysis of the empirical evidence. After consideration of the evidence on both sides of the debate, the report is notably muted in relation to the claimed benefits of GM crops, highlighting instead the lingering doubts and uncertainties surrounding them.

For poor farmers, the report concludes, GM crops are unlikely to play a substantial role in addressing their needs. In any case, longer-term assessments of the environmental and health risks, and regulatory frameworks, are needed.

Another key concern highlighted in relation to GM crops is the dominance of the biotechnology industry in agricultural R&D, at the expense of other agricultural sciences. Furthermore, the report notes that farmers face new liabilities from GM crops, particularly as a result of the detection of GM crops in conventional and organic crops that leads to patent infringement suits and loss of certification, respectively.

During the Johannesburg meeting, there were heated and protracted discussions on GM crops. However, the United States pre-empted debate on the biotechnology section of the Synthesis Report, by asking that its reservation against the whole section be noted. It said it did so because the section was “unbalanced”. China then asked to be included in the reservation. No other country objected to this section.

Other key findings of the IAASTD report acknowledge that market forces alone cannot deliver food security to the poor. It particularly reiterates that developing countries are accorded special and differential treatment in agricultural trade, especially on the grounds of food security, farmers’ livelihoods and rural development.

While hinting that trade rules unfairly favouring rich countries and multinational corporations must be reformed in order to benefit poor farmers, the report however falls short of providing specific guidance that speaks to the current WTO negotiations on agriculture.

Even though the trade policy options could have been stronger, the United States and Canada still placed their reservations on the section of the Synthesis Report dealing with trade and markets, essentially objecting to language that spelt out the negative effects of agricultural liberalization.

The report also recognises that there are weaknesses and inequities in the current intellectual property rights regime, in relation to genetic resources. Strong intellectual property protection on genetic resources has affected public research and farmers’ rights to seeds. However, the report did not call for a reform of the intellectual property rights regime, following objections from the United States. Nonetheless, some policy options to address the issue are retained in the report.

While recognizing the urgent need to address climate change, for which agriculture is a significant contributor of greenhouse gases, the IAASTD report also cautions governments on biofuels. This is because the diversion of agricultural crops to fuel can raise food prices and reduce the ability to alleviate hunger throughout the world.

At the end of the plenary meeting, following the acceptance and adoption of the various components that made up the IAASTD report, co-chair Judi Wakhungu reminded all participants that “now we are walking in the same direction”.

Nonetheless, while the report provides the policy options that could really make a difference, the challenges ahead are formidable and need the concerted effort of governments, civil society and the co-sponsoring agencies of the IAASTD, in particular the FAO, the World Bank, UNDP and UNEP.

Civil society organizations attending the meeting called on all governments, civil society and international institutions to support the findings of the report, implement its progressive conclusions, and thereby jumpstart the revolution in agricultural policies and practices that is urgently needed to attain more equitable and sustainable food and farming systems in the future.

food revolutionaries

2007-09-20T21:42:00.000-05:00

the new york times carried a sweet story about alice waters yesterday: " lunch with alice waters, food revolutionary." a worthwhile read, if only to drool over the descriptions of delicious local, fresh food cooked by a culinary genius. fascinating, isn't it, that someone who is on a crusade to get Americans to relearn how to enjoy food is considered a revolutionary.

South Korea-US free trade agreement (KORUS FTA): a high price for food security

2007-04-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

The US-Korea free trade agreement finalized last week caught the US rice industry by surprise. Well, at least that’s what they say. “US-Korea FTA rice exclusion dismays industry” was the title of the press release issued by the USA Rice Federation. Given the significance of this exclusion of a major export commodity from the biggest trade deal in the last decade, it’s gotten little to no coverage. The US wants it that way.

Both the Korean and Malaysian FTA negotiations with the US have been bogged down over the last half year, and one of the key sticking points has been rice – that is, whether these countries would reduce trade barriers currently in place to US rice exports. There are at least several reasons why a country where rice is a staple crop and where a large amount of rice is still produced would cringe at the thought of rice market liberalization. You might not want to put your farmers out of business from cheap, subsidized exports of US rice. You might want to keep up the quality of rice in your domestic markets – many Asian palates find US rice not very tasty. You might want to maintain some control over rice markets to ensure food security for a population highly dependent on rice for food.

This is an argument made by campesinos, Zapatistas, and others in Mexico against the complete opening of their agricultural markets under NAFTA. There, the final barriers are to come down in 2008. Most campesino groups have called for maize and beans to be taken out of NAFTA – these crops are essential to the food security of the country, and viable domestic markets in these food crops are essential to the continued ability of campesinos to make a living producing them. The final NAFTA opening will finish off the slow demise of the Mexican peasant, sending them to the metropolises of Mexico and/or north of the border to work in the fields and the slaughterhouses of the United States.

So the exclusion of rice from the South Korea-US FTA is actually a big deal to those who pay attention to agricultural trade negotiations. It will certainly be paid attention to by the Malaysians, who travel to Washington next month to continue their negotiations with the US government.

Unfortunately, the exclusion of rice from the agreement cost a great deal. The US knows how to twist arms and they know how to pry open markets. To protect its rice farmers, Korea made heavy concessions to open its auto market, including eliminating the “non-tariff barrier” of requirements for the sale of ultra low emissions vehicles – lowering(!) their standards to that of California. To protect their rice industry, Korea eliminated tariffs on HALF of current US farm exports to Korea ($1.6 billion worth), including wheat, corn for feed, and soybeans for crushing, as well as expanded market access for US beef (once we can prove there’s no BSE in our beef) and pork. And according to the US Trade Representative’s fact sheet, “The KORUS FTA contains provisions on pharmaceutical market access that go far beyond what has ever been obtained in other US FTAs.” The US did good for its corporate class.

The final feather in the cap of the US negotiators was the agreement from South Korea to not require US GMOs to undergo safety evaluations in Korea. They’ll just take the US’s word for it that a GMO is safe. This agreement is in clear violation of international law on GMOs under the UN Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. According to newspaper accounts this is the price the Koreans had to pay for concessions from the US on opening their textile market. A high price indeed.

biofuels: what's not to love?

2007-04-01T13:40:00.000-05:00

Everyone seems to be dissing corn-based biofuels these days. Fidel Castro, Business Week, and the US Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell. An odd cast of characters, eh?

What’s not to love about biofuels? That will take more than just a single blog post to unravel. For those who’ve been asleep during the recent media explosion of comment, hype, hyperbole, and hysteria, we might start by answering the question: what exactly is a biofuel?

Biofuels currently come in two basic types: bioethanol and biodiesel. Made using different types of plants as feedstocks, with different chemical reactions, these both serve to power things – burn them and they make heat that can be converted to useful energy. Biodiesel gets made out of oils – soy, canola, used McDonald’s fry oil, etc. Bioethanol gets made these days primarily from converting corn sugars to ethanol, or in Brazil (and Guatemala – see my 13 March blog entry), from sugar cane. In the future we might also get ethanol through conversion of the much tougher cellulose that makes up plants – called cellulosic ethanol – from Bush’s beloved switchgrass, wood chips, crop waste...

The bête noire of biofuels these days is bioethanol made from corn (or maize to most of the world). Last week Fidel Castro emerged from his sick bed with a long commentary on the folly of corn-based biofuels. http://www.counterpunch.org/castro03302007.html

But it doesn’t take an aging Cuban revolutionary to come to the conclusion that we should not feed corn to cars. Even the US Deputy Energy Secretary figured it out: if you turn corn into fuel, neither cows nor people will be able to eat it. “Corn is not the future of US ethanol: DOE.”

Look, there are a lot of cars on the planet. We could turn all our corn into ethanol to feed the cars and still not have enough fuel to power all of them. And then we’d have no corn at all to feed cows and people. And then the price of corn would go way up (it has already doubled in price over the past year with the current demand for corn-based ethanol, and at over $4 a bushel is higher than it has been in decades). The cost of raising chickens and pigs and cows is already rising precipitously, and before you know it, the powerful livestock lobby will be stampeding on Washington, not to mention low and middle-income consumers.

It's a no-brainer, or as Paul Hitch, president-elect of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says: "This ethanol binge is insane."

keep your genes to yourself please, says the rice industry

2007-03-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

The LL601 rice contamination scandal has been a costly wake-up call for the US rice industry. If you need any further proof for that claim read the comments sent today to the US Department of Agriculture by the USA Rice Federation on Ventria’s proposed field trials of pharma rice. (see my previous comments on cannibal rice for more background.) http://www.usarice.com/industry/communication/Final_Ventria_Kansas_comments.pdf
The USA Rice Federation asks “in the strongest possible terms that the permit for Ventria’s pharmaceutical rice be denied.”

The rice industry has gotten the message. In their comments to USDA they write that:

If Ventria’s pharmaceutical rice were to escape into the commercial rice supply, the financial devastation to the U.S. rice industry would likely be absolute. There is no tolerance, either regulatory or in public perception, for a human gene-based pharmaceutical to end up in the world’s food supply.

One further piece of evidence of the serious economic impact the contamination has had on the industry is this table showing the top ten export markets for US rice and the trade restrictions placed by those countries on US rice imports. http://www.usarice.com/industry/communication/exportimpact.pdf

The fallout from the LL601/604/60? contamination scandal must be considered a serious set-back for the genetic engineering industry globally. While ISAAA in its yearly report touts the ongoing expansion of global acreage planted to GMOs, the fact is that the industry has been limited to a few crops that are not primarily grown for direct human consumption: soy, corn, cotton, canola. The bulk of genetically engineered corn (maize) goes to feed animals in industrialized countries.

Rice was to be the next genetically engineered (GE) crop to be introduced worldwide (after Monsanto’s wheat was roundly nixed by the wheat growers of North America). The industry was salivating over the almost certain introduction of genetically engineered rice in China, which would have opened the door to the rest of Asia. Chinese authorities dealt a hard blow to these hopes when they announced at the end of 2006 that commercialization of GE rice was another 2-3 years away, at least. Even the Chinese, with their huge internal market, were put off by the international repercussions of their own rice contamination scandal over the last two years.

cannibal rice?

2007-03-27T08:49:00.000-05:00

Ventria Biosciences, formerly Applied Phytologics, is proposing to grow up to 3200 acres of genetically engineered rice in Kansas this year. The rice is engineered with human genes to produce two different human proteins: lactoferrin and lysozyme. The US Department of Agriculture is accepting comments on the application until the end of this week. It's the largest ever proposed field trial of a food crop engineered to produce drugs -- otherwise known as a pharma crop.

Below the Federal Register notice from the USDA, as well as a link to the Union of Concerned Scientists web alert about the whole thing.

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-3484.pdf

http://ucsaction.org/campaign/3_07_07pharma_rice

Ventria claims that the proteins will be used in the developing world to treat children with diarrhea. On paper, a noble cause. They also have tried to obtain "Generally Recognized as Safe" or GRAS status for their proteins from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Apparently they were pondering putting the proteins into "medical food" products. The FDA denied their GRAS petition. This is a significant conclusion by an agency that has a reputation for cursory, shoddy reviews of company GMO test data. So the proteins aren't safe enough for the FDA, but the company is going to feed the products to kids in the developing world. Sounds fair to me. (I am leaving out for now the story of how they tested the drugs on young children in Peru before doing animal testing in the US.)

The history of the company is an interesting one. Unfortunate that it is so little chronicled in the usual techno-utopian reporting about the pharma rice. When Ventria first started scaling up their field trials and got noticed by the rice growing industry, they were driven out of California by the reaction of farmers who thought that the threat of contamination of California rice by human genes was too great. So Ventria moved to Missouri. Anheuser-Busch got wind that Ventria was going to produce cannibal rice in regions where they sourced rice for their world-famous brews and used their political muscle to get that idea nixed. Rice producer opinion probably contributed to their expulsion from Missouri: "We just want them to go away," said Bob Papanos of the US Rice Producers Assocation...

Then Ventria moved to North Carolina, where little rice is grown and so contamination was not too big of an issue. Unfortunately the fields they found were close to a USDA facility involved in breeding and maintenance of heritage rice varieties. Unfortunate for the scientists at the USDA facility actually. You see the USDA plays the role of promoter of genetic engineering. They are supposed to facilitate the development of the technology. So they shut down the rice breeding operations at the agricultural field station to make their decision to allow the field trial in North Carolina less overtly problematic. Really.

Also interesting is the evolution over time of what exactly these proteins would be used for. Initially, when Ventria was known as Applied Phytologics, the rice was going to be used in infant formula, or in other baby food products. The proteins would be added to make the products more like mother’s milk – lactoferrin and lysozyme are actually two antibacterial proteins found in breast milk, as well as human tears. That didn’t fly – probably either with the FDA or with consumers.

So then Ventria tried the "treating diarrhea in the third world" idea as the raison-d'etre for the engineered rice. But clearly investors know that there’s not much money to be made from people who earn less than $1 a day. So Ventria also floated the product idea of "medical foods" with the FDA and with the venture capitalists that have been keeping this company afloat for the last decade. Ventria proposed to market its proteins in performance (sports) drinks, granola bars, yoghurt, and similar products for consumers who actually have money to spend. FDA just popped that balloon when they denied GRAS status for the proteins. So at least in terms of the global public and media message, "saving kids in the developing world" is the one they are sticking with for now.

techno-utopian rice

2007-03-26T16:50:00.000-05:00

Continuing on the rice theme for the moment...

Last Friday the Boston Globe carried a story about anti-hay fever GMO rice. "Anti-hay fever rice may win over Japanese doubts." Apparently researchers are engineering genes into rice that code for a few of cedar pollen's allergenic proteins. The idea is that people would eat the rice and sensitize their immune system to the proteins, moderating their immune response -- sort of the same reaction as the body would have to allergy shots. Apparently engineered mice that were fed the rice sneezed less often than non-engineered mice when cedar pollen was dumped on them. (I kid you not -- they really said that in the article -- scientists now evaluate the effectiveness of their inventions by counting how many times mice sneeze.)

Ok, there are lots of red flags that should go up about engineering rice that might be used as an allergy treatment, like what happens to people who aren't now allergic to cedar pollen but might have some reaction to eating pollen proteins everyday in their rice. By now it should be clear to everyone that genes don't stay put. Non-allergic people are going to end up eating the cedar pollen rice.

But more striking to me than the bonehead idea to put proteins that are known to cause allergic reactions into one of the world's most important food crops... was the overt propagandistic nature of the news reporting. This rice, if it works at all beyond the mouse cage, is a decade or more away from reality. The organization that was promoting the story is named ISAAA -- International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. It's a non-profit organization that gets the bulk of its funding from the genetic engineering industry. They spend much of their time feeding "biotech will save the world" propaganda pieces to media outlets around the world.

This piece, more than most, reeked of gee-whiz techno-utopian gobbledygook. One wishes science and business reporters and editors would look at these stories just a little more critically. The rice industry is reeling from contamination event after contamination event, as genetic engineering firms can't keep track of their genes. The grocery industry is adamantly opposed to the use of food crops for production of human drugs, including cedar pollen rice, and reasonably so. Why waste newspaper space to carry yet another cheap propaganda piece developed by the industry to try to convince dubious consumers that someday, sometime in the future, they might see some benefit from eating genetically engineered foods?

Bayer can't control its genes

2007-03-25T15:58:00.000-05:00

Late last Thursday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the identity of the latest mystery gene found contaminating US rice stocks: LL604. The gene is yet another experimental, unapproved variety that somehow made its way into commercial rice varieties. The USDA had no option but to ban the planting this growing season of Clearfield 131, a popular rice variety sold by BASF. Bet the folks at BASF aren't very happy...

Rice farmers are even more angry at the economic losses caused by careless genetic engineers. The solidly conservative California Rice Commission took a reasonable conservative action last week -- they voted in favor of a ban on all field trials of genetically engineered rice in California. While the Commission has no regulatory power to prevent field trials, they are an advisory body to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). It is unlikely that CDFA would approve field trials contrary to the wishes of the Rice Commission.

The USA Rice Federation, the industry-wide advocacy body, minced few words in its condemnation of both the USDA and the genetic engineering companies that can't keep track of their genes. From Al Montna, Chairman of the federation: "...we are increasingly frustrated with the apparent lack of ability on the part of private companies and federal regulators to control research and maintain accountability of the resulting products. The current approach to research, development and management in the biotechnology industry must be replaced with more conservative methodologies."

Surely the contamination scandal couldn't have had that serious of an impact on the industry, you might be thinking. Just check out the USA Rice Daily newsletter from 12 March at http://www.usarice.com/industry/communication/daily.html.

At least 47% of US rice exports have been affected, including exports to Iraq (!), which is requiring the testing and certification of GE-free status of US rice imports. Last week, when Mexico announced it was stopping US rice shipments at the border until GE-free certificates could be produced, rice futures prices dropped almost 50 cents.

At last count there have been close to 60 lawsuits filed against Bayer by US rice farmers.

until independence do us part?

2007-03-13T09:09:00.000-05:00

Protests greet Bush... again.

Greenpeace activists met Bush yesterday in Mérida, Mexico to let him know what they thought of the contaminated US rice that is filling their supermarket shelves. They celebrated a mock wedding between Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderón, pelleting the pair with the tainted rice the Mexicans don't want to eat.

See the photo currently at www.greenpeace.org/usa

bush offers to help carry lettuce

2007-03-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Bush appeared in Guatemala, wearing a jacket made from traditional Guatemalan textiles. His photo op was at an agricultural export facility, where cameras recorded the US president loading boxes of lettuce. Perhaps the destination of the lettuce would be the US.

Agricultural export crops such as lettuce pose significant threats to human health and the environment due to the heavy amount of pesticides and fertilizers used to create those perfect veggies. Still, in one of the poorest Central American countries, the agricultural export industry has helped to keep some peasants involved in agriculture in the beautiful Guatemalan highlands. But many more peasants are migrating to textile maquiladoras in the cities, fruit and vegetable processing plants, or they are migrating to the United States, through Mexico.

The Guatemalan president petitioned the US president to stop deporting illegal immigrants. Something like 10% of the Guatemalan population migrates to the US, most illegally. 80% of the population, half of which is indigenous, lives below the poverty line. Remittances to Guatemala from relatives in the US keep many Guatemalans alive, and help build houses, churches, schools. Meanwhile, Bush keeps building that wall and carrying out extensive raids against those immigrants who are really just trying to keep their families alive.

One of Bush’s messages to Guatemala was to grow more sugar cane to make ethanol so we can keep driving our cars. Funny thing is, the sugar cane industry in Guatemala collapsed a decade or so ago due to US protectionism and subsequent loss of the US market. It probably goes without saying that many of those displaced laborers migrated north to the US to look for work.

The US has just negotiated a free trade agreement with Central American countries, including Guatemala. I’d be surprised if the agreement contained much about sugar sector liberalization, as there is still significant protection of the US sugar industry. No matter, we’ll buy the ethanol made from sugar cane – once those defunct plantations can be brought on line again – at least for now.

bush in latin america

2007-03-11T20:19:00.000-05:00

US President George Bush is on a whirlwind tour of Latin America this week and next, desperately trying to win back hearts and minds. It's a thinly disguised attempt to counter the growing influence of left-wing leaders in the region, prominent among them Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. But Chavez is not alone; his group of colleagues in the region seems to increase with every election and now includes Nestor Kirschner in Argentina, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the returned Sandinista Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Good luck George.

Bush has been greeted throughout his journey by expected protests, as well as the unexpected. Tomorrow Bush visits the ancient Kaqchiquel Mayan city of Iximche in Guatemala. The Mayans have planned a cleansing ceremony to purify the site after the US head of state departs.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," explained a representative of a Mayan NGO.

From Guatemala, Bush travels to Merida, Mexico, a country where US agricultural policies have had a particularly devasting effect on domestic agricultural production and prices. The opening of the country under NAFTA has led to massive imports of subsidized, dumped maize, beans, rice, you name it. Campesinos in Mexico are demanding that corn and beans are taken out of NAFTA, as the dumped commodities destroy their livelihoods. In a surprise announcement last week, the Minister of Agriculture told US Secretary of Agriculture Johanns that Mexico would be joining Canada in a WTO complaint against illegal US corn subsidies. Things must be pretty bad.

more contaminated rice...

2007-03-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

Late last night, the US Department of Agriculture admitted they had found yet another unapproved genetically engineered contaminant in US rice.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/content/2007/03/CL13update3-9-07.shtml.

The US rice industry is still reeling from the August 2006 announcement that Bayer's unapproved variety LLRICE601 was widely contaminating rice stocks and rice fields. European and Japanese buyers of US rice immediately sought other sources; prices for US rice dropped dramatically on world markets. Tens of lawsuits were filed by US rice farmers against Bayer CropScience for economic losses caused by the widespread contamination.

Now US rice producers are faced with another contamination scandal. The USDA has yet to reveal the identity of the contaminating gene. Regardless, it is not approved for cultivation and human consumption anywhere in the world, so the agency has no choice but to order sales of the contaminated variety banned and to order destruction of those rice fields that have already been planted.

All further evidence that the genetic engineering industry is incapable of keeping track of their genes and that the US regulatory system is incapable of preventing contamination and its serious economic consequences for US agriculture.

digging deeper

African maize yields will fall under increasing temperatures

Climate change in your coffee cup

Pepsi and IDB

Reframing the question: Bolivia's challenge to the Copenhagen Accord methodology

Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008 | Mother Jones

Town Green - In Connecticut, Turning Cow Manure Into a Growth Industry - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - Yellow Is the New Green - NYTimes.com

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research - NYTimes.com

Newly Poor Swell Lines at Food Banks Nationwide - NYTimes.com

New Yorkers Try Composting With Worms - NYTimes.com

In eat local movement, Cuba is years ahead | Environment | Reuters

Texas Ranchers and Farmers Struggle in Drought - NYTimes.com

Food for the next administration

How Meat Contributes to Global Warming: Scientific American

Home Work - Perusing the Seed Catalogs, Feeling Dizzy With Possibility - NYTimes.com

Blog: Living on Food Stamps - CNN.com

IBM and food miles?

Obamas Hire Chef From Chicago - NYTimes.com

Guest Column: A Low-Tech Treatment for Bee Plague - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com

the other side of the food crisis coin.

Chuck Hassebrook as Deputy Secretary of USDA? A great idea!

Food needs 'fundamental rethink'

Our Good Earth

food crisis? what food crisis?

Finding a solution to soil's carbon problem

Soil is a natural carbon sink but its ability to store it is being compromised. Could a return to organic farming be the answer?

General Assembly President calls for ‘food democracy’ in face of global crisis

Diouf appeals for a new world agricultural order

Proposes 2009 Summit to reform present system, find $30 billion

more thoughts on the future US secretary of agriculture

why vilsack is a bad choice for secretary of agriculture

Monsanto's missing mice

who is profiting from the high price of commodities? Monsanto.

why are dead zones so popular these days?

A new era for agriculture?

biofuels and the food crisis

UN gives strong backing to sustainable agriculture systems

food revolutionaries

South Korea-US free trade agreement (KORUS FTA): a high price for food security

biofuels: what's not to love?

keep your genes to yourself please, says the rice industry

further reading on cannibal rice

cannibal rice?

techno-utopian rice

Bayer can't control its genes

until independence do us part?

bush offers to help carry lettuce

bush in latin america

more contaminated rice...