biofuels and the food crisis

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

further reading on cannibal rice

"Does Africa Need a Genetically Modified Solution to Diarrhea" is available at: http://www.eraction.org/publications/medicinerice.pdf

Union of Concerned Scientists Uncovers Lax USDA Oversight of Pharma Crops
New Evidence Points to Need for Ban on Pharma Food Crops
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/usda-ventria-oversight.html