LEISA's Farm / AgriCultures Network blog

Price on rise

by Mireille Vermeulen

Food prices are on the rise again and the global market for commodities like wheat responds very nervously to every negative price tweet from Russia. One of the reasons that the wheat market is so unstable is the fact that the countries around the Black Sea -Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan- now produce 30 percent of the wheat supply traded internationally, instead of the 4 percent share it contributed before.

The export ban on wheat in Russia and prospects of poor harvests in the rest of the world (i.e., in Canada and Germany due to too much rain, and in Argentina and Australia because of drought), directly influences prices on the market.

Already in September of this year, Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, warned against rising food prices within the coming crucial months in an article in the New York Times. An increase in the price of wheat has a spill-over effect onto other grains, such as maize and soyabean. The prices of in the so-called breakfast commodities, coffee, tea, cocoa and sugar, have also risen in the past year and a half. After inflation and deflation, the new concept of ''agflation'' has become popular among economists.

Last week The Economist recently presented a more relativist view of the situation in their daily chart contribution. According to them, food is still cheaper in real terms than it was 30 years ago - so what are we complaining about? This is simply playing with numbers, however. Fifty years ago there were a billion people undernourished and today this figure remains the same. This can be presented as progress, as one billion represented a third of the population at that time while now it is only one-sixth. Imagine, however, being one of that billion...

The first warnings of rising bread prices caused social unrest in Mozambique in September at which time ten people died. The problem is perhaps that this billion hungry people have to share food with so many more people. Besides this,the way people consume these days and the kind of products they want, places a demand on even more food, more transport and more processing.

According to a review in the New York Times of the book by Julian Cribb, ''The coming famine'', this pattern of overconsumption is characteristic for people in North America and Europe - and is becoming more so in India and China. The world has what Cribb calls ''two elephants in its kitchen'': a projected 33 percent growth in population in the next 20 years, and an increased consumption of meat among the growing global middle class. This means that food production must grow by at least 50 percent.

However, there is a third elephant knocking on the kitchen door: climate change, increased temperatures, overexploitation of the sea and natural resources, overuse of chemical fertiliser, reliance on fossil fuels, protectionism and subsidies, increase in production for biofuels and rising waste are among the factors that hamper an increase in food production. These issues might be the problem.

Not a problem without possible solutions, though. Small-scale farmers produce most of the food we eat, and says Cribb: it is the small-scale farmers who should be supported by fair prices and compensation for their stewardship services to the Earth; finances should not to to the biggest agricultural corporations - but to research for new green technologies; and agricultural products should not be wasted.

I fully agree with these propositions. Policy-makers should focus on small-scale sustainable agriculture. Small-scale farmers already produce almost 80% of food on regional markets in Africa and Asia. Family farming is more productive and is better for the Earth and its people. Seventy percent out of the mentioned one billion hungry people are poor farmers in rural areas. They need fair prices for their agricultural products. Cheap food is no longer a global right. Fair food is.

Feeding the world 5: Watch your rights!

By Mireille Vermeulen

The world seems to be jumping from one crisis to the other: food, energy, finance… And yet how are they being solved? Is it not remarkable that member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have spent so many billions to prevent the collapse of the financial system and only a few to foster food security and nutrition in the world? Did we not agree to have a universal right to food? Or has this ideal been reformulated into the right to bank?

In 2009, the number of undernourished people around the world surpassed the one billion mark. Well, the OECD countries did think about how to feed their own populations, massively shifting their agricultural investments abroad. But what about the populations of the countries receiving these investments? Do they not also have a part in the universal right to food?

On World Food Day (16 October), the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch presented the 2010 Watch: Land-grabbing and Nutrition – global challenges for global governance in twenty countries. This annual review of state actions and failures provides good insights into what is really going in the field of food and agriculture in Asia, Africa and Latin America.The 2010 Watch focuses on the impact of European land-grabbing practices on the food security situation of developing countries. The country reports of Burkina Faso, Colombia, Kenya, Guatemala, Indonesia, Zambia, Cambodia, Mozambique and Spain show an alarming situation.

Even the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, is worried. He states that the world is moving too slowly, yet also too quickly. In his eyes, the international community is too slow in finding a co-ordinated way to guide the increasing commercial pressures and speculation on land. But at the same time, it has moved too quickly in deciding that responsible foreign investment is the way forward, where in fact it is only a small part of a much broader strategy. 

In the 2010 Watch, de Schutter talks about the relationship of poverty alleviation at the micro level while seeking the broader development strategy at the macro level. He makes clear that there is a range of actors and interventions, each carrying the responsibility to ensure the right to food for everyone. For De Schutter, seven themes should be central to agricultural investment strategies:

1. Public policies guiding agricultural investments should aim for rural development and increasing incomes, and not focus on boosting production only.
2. Agricultural investments should fit into a broader poverty reduction strategy.
3. A human rights framework is crucial to guiding agricultural investments.
4. Governments should prevent fierce land competition that may result from foreign investments.
5. Land "titling" schemes are insufficient and potentially damaging.
6. Governance structures and the policy environment in the invested country should be adequate before investments are sent in.
7. Both the investment-receiving and -sending countries carry responsibility for the investments proceeding responsibly.

The reality, it seems however, does not match with these ideals. And yet the heated discussions on land-grabbing show that we no longer have time to lose. We do not have much time to discuss guidelines and codes of conduct to develop and guide responsible agricultural investments. Investments have to be responsible tomorrow! If not, many more small-scale farmers being driven off their land, greater inequality in rural areas and more forest destruction will be the reality the day after tomorrow.

(This is the last blog post in our series Feeding the world, on food security and small-scale farming)

Feeding the world 4: Land

by Mireille Vermeulen

Small-scale family farming is about food: producing food to nourish the family and to feed the world. UN reporter on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, said in an interview with CTA last Monday, that access to land is crucial for food security (or food sovereignty, which might be a more proper word if you know what de Schutter stands for).

But these days, land has become a strategic, geopolitical and commercial issue, due to many foreign investors who have become more and more interested in land for food and fuel in the last decade. Investment in land could be positive, for family farmers as well, but increased commercialisation gives reason to fear that large-scale investments in land will deprive the farming population of their land.

Small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fishermen and women have little power and are not consulted in the negotiations leading to these kinds of deals.

In 2009, more than 45 million hectares of land have been traded in large-scale land deals. For Friends of the Earth, this is reason to ring all the alarm bells; their report, Africa: up for grabs, states that one-third of the purchased land in Africa (some 5 million hectares) is intended for the production of fuel crops. These are competing with food crops for farm land and the international agribusinesses are competing with family farmers for land. The European mandate for increasing biofuels is an important driver to this trend in Africa.

Friends of the Earth makes an urgent call to stop this driver (notably by focusing on the EU target to produce 10% of all transport fuels from biofuels by 2020) and to suspend further land deals for biofuels immediately. The publication points at the protests raised in Tanzania, Madagascar and Ghana, where companies have been accused of fraud and giving misleading information. The rest of the publication presents some ideas on alternative directions and ways to support small-scale farmers.

On the other hand, the World Bank and other big institutions state that if we want the best support for farmers, it may be that large-scale investment in land can actually bring them more security and welfare. Sure, it is much easier and more appealing to be against all big land deals, but there may be more results if we think strategically.

De Schutter is pragmatic about this issue, coming out with a discussion paper last January, called Some principles for responsible agricultural investment that respects rights, livelihoods and resources. This paper states that land deals should only be made if they are good for food security, if their programmes are economically viable and socially and environmentally sustainable, and if negotiations include all stakeholders. Lastly, land rights must be respected and land must not be transferred via local elites towards foreign investors in cases where the land rights situation is not clear.

But the question is therefore: can large institutions really be trusted to take these precautions? Anuradha Mittal from the Oakland Institute thinks not. This international think tank published a paper The great land grab in 2009 about how the rush for the world´s farmland is threatening the food security of the poor.

This year, the institute analysed the role of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group in large-scale land deals, in the publication (Mis)investment in Agriculture. IFC promotes profitable deals by creating special agencies for it and rewriting national laws. In the latest issue of Farming Matters, Anuradha Mittal disapproves of the practice of foreign land acquisition in our interview, Cheap deal for rich countries. States Mittal: "This is not investment; it’s exploitation, depleting the resources of the third world."

On 7 September 2010, the World Bank finally published its long awaited report on global farmland grab: Rising global interest in farmland. Many organisations and institutions that had anticipated the report and were a bit disappointed. The study reveals very little new information and does not respond to serious criticism on the role of the IFC. GRAIN has established a land grab website, publishing all relevant and up-to-date reports and events on this important issue.

Keep yourself posted!

Feeding or nourishing?

By Mireille Vermeulen and Edith van Walsum

Talking about food is always nice - it gives you a good appetite and sometimes you can already feel the food in your mouth from the words. Well, it works especially well when you discuss tasty food products and delicious recipes. Discussing the problems of small farmers somewhere in Rwanda or Costa Rica is a lot less tasty, although it is as much about food as your plans for evening dinner. What is it with words and connotations? Why is choosing the right words so important? Sometimes the choice of a slightly different word can really turn the world upside down and give room to new perspectives…

Hans Herren, chair of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) came up with simple yet interesting question the other day. Why do we keep on talking about "feeding" the world, he asked the participants of the IFOAM conference in Germany. People do not feed other people, they feed animals and they nourish themselves.

This gives us some food for thought: Let us re-think the terms and phrases that we so easily use and that shape our thinking in one way or another. What is it that makes the difference between feeding the world and nourishing the planet? Is it just words, or is there more to it? We would like to hear your views!

Sustainable diet dilemmas

By Mundie Salm

In a recent issue of Time Magazine, a question was posed about whether organic food really is "better" than conventional food. In Health checkup: who needs organic food?, a number of vegetables, fruit and meat products are compared in terms of taste, texture and price of organic versus conventional and small farm versus supermarket foods. In most cases, organic and small farm won. However, this is not always the case. So although more expensive organic is usually associated with better quality food, better taste cannot necessarily be the deciding factor for consumers to choose organic. Health for instance is another concern - people may buy organic food because they are concerned about the health effects of antibiotics in animals or pesticide residues on their food.

A number of other questions that concern consumers are touched upon but not really pursued in this article. For example, simply because food is certified "organic", it does not mean that it comes from a small farm, and it definitely does not mean it is local. How sustainable is the food if it is transported over long distances? Also, non-certified food does not necessarily mean it is non-organic as many small farmers choose not to certify their farms because of the costs involved. And what about the health effects of pesticides on the farmers themselves?

Whether consumers should buy organic or local products is discussed well in an older article from Time Magazine. Eating better than organic considers consumers' connections to the origins of our food and the situation of small-scale farmers in America.

But if you would like to delve more deeply into whether local foods are in fact so sustainable, read Fair miles: Recharting the food miles map, published by IIED and OXFAM last December. Focusing on UK food chains, the authors compare transport, energy, environmental and social costs and benefits of local and imported produce from sub-Saharan Africa. The conclusions are not as simple as would be thought! For example, transportation is only responsible for 10 percent of emissions in the UK food chains, and local products in a temperate climate such as in the UK require more energy to grow than in Africa. By focusing on fair miles, the book also looks at the social costs/benefits associated with buying local or from African farmers.

An excellent recent publication that looks at food systems at a global level is Diet for a hot planet by Anna Lappé. This book looks at the effects of our food systems on climate change and analyses how people can change their diets to become more climate-friendly. She confronts several “myths”, devoting two chapters to the “hunger” and “technology” myths that see industrial agriculture and biotech crops as the only solution for feeding ourselves and saving the planet. Lappé argues against these myths, bringing together evidence that leads her to conclude that organic methods are our best option.

Feeding the world 2

By Mundie Salm

As the world's population is expected to rise from 7 to 9 billion by the year 2050, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that grain output will have to rise by around half while meat output will have to double by 2050. How will this be possible?

The cover article in the Guardian Weekly of 20-26 August describes a set of 21 papers published by the UK's Royal Society, pondering this question. Concerns include the limits of water and land availability to grow the extra food, as well as control of technologies by a small group of agribusinesses. Different low- and high-tech solutions are suggested. One high-tech option is to produce artificial meat in giant vats. One can only wonder what kind of impacts such a development would have on (small-scale) livestock keeping!

In the August 26 issue of the Economist, Brazil was featured as the way forward for agriculture in order to be able to meet the needs of 9 billion by 2050. The argument here is that Brazil's large-scale, chemical input- and technology-driven monoculture agriculture producing for global markets offers an "alternative" way forward. Brazil is seen as a miracle as it has managed to transform itself from being a food importer into one of the world's biggest food producers within the last three decades. For example, in 2009, Brazil led in world exports of beef, poultry, coffee, orange juice and sugarcane. The country also accounted for about a third of world soybean exports, which it grows on 6 percent of Brazil’s arable land.

This article promotes the notion that "big is beautiful"; however, there are some issues that are skewed in the discussion. For one thing, small-scale family farming in Brazil is not presented correctly at all. The article states that whatever is not a giant operation is an unproductive and "inefficient hobby farm". It states that only 7 percent of farm output comes from family farming, and distinguishes only small-scale poultry farming as productive.

The official statistics of the Brazilian agricultural research census of 2006 show a very different picture, family farming! While making up 84 percent of farm operations on 24 percent of the farmland, family farming generated 89 percent more gross production than large-scale operations (valued at 577 reals/ha/year compared to 358 reals/ha/year). The same census also showed the importance of small-scale family farming for employment as it provides three times as many jobs than the large-scale high-tech alternative (12.3 million compared to 4.2 million people). And finally, family farmers provide an important contribution of food to Brazil's own population - up to 65 percent according to AS-PTA, Brazil's family farming and agroecology organisation. Figures from the census: 87 percent of cassava, 70 percent of beans, 46 percent of maize, 58 percent of milk, 50 percent of poultry, 59 percent of pork and 30 percent of beef production produced by family farming.

Don't these figures show that small can in fact be very beautiful - and important, especially when it comes to regional food systems and for creating local employment opportunities? 
 

Read also: Feeding the world 1

This is the second in a series of blogs as we draw up to World Food Day, reflecting on different discussions about food security and how they relate to small-scale farming.

Feeding the world 1

By Mireille Vermeulen

I travel for two hours by train from my home in the north of Holland to reach my work in Amersfoort. Plenty of opportunity to look around and see landscapes passing by. We have had quite some rain in the last weeks here in the Netherlands (last Thursday alone saw as much rainfall as would normally fall in the whole month of August). And I can still see signs of it: some pastures are completely oversaturated with water. But only some parts of the land is full of water - because most of the pastures in the Netherlands are well drained by canals, covered drains and pumps. Imagine what it costs to invest in these kinds of infrastructures! Looking back down at my newspaper (sorry, it is in Dutch), I read an article on food in 2050: Cooking for 9 billion people. What will this growing number of people eat? Europe’s population will not grow, but Africa and India will outgrow China. Where will the food for all these people be grown?

More kilograms of milk and meat require more than six times more kilograms of wheat and grains to feed the animals. Imagine all the land, fertiliser and water that needs! Shall we all become vegetarians? Good solution, but not very likely. Most people think we need to waste less food: 30-40 percent of our food gets lost between harvest and eating. And we can gain more by using GM technology in improving plants and animal breeds, as well as artificial meat. Imagine a trendy designer fish in your dish in 2050!

It's very likely that more grain will be locally produced (hurray for all the well-drained pastures in the Netherlands). The resulting increase in prices will at least change the currently unbalanced global food pricing system. But this will not lead to more food for Africa and Asia. Temperatures, water and weather will cause new problems there. And here the article in my paper shows the one-sided, western view on the world’s food problem: it says that small-scale and "green" farming will not provide any answers.

Hmmm, well maybe not for providing enough grain and food to maintain the incredibly low meat prices in the North ... but it does provide answers for local and regional food production in the South. Small-scale family farming is more flexible and can adapt to climatic changes. Ongoing local knowledge, experience and examples from the past show this. These fields do not need expensive covered drains - but they can do with some hand-made canals and low-cost improvements in the land. Family farming in Africa, South America and Asia can offer food sovereignty to very many people, offer work and income opportunities, and make rural livelihoods strong and vibrant. But prices for their food products need to be fair - and people in the rest of the world need to know that cheap and ever-available food is an illusion.

This is the first in a series of blogs as we draw up to World Food Day, reflecting on different discussions about food security and how they relate to small-scale farming.

Sustainability through the consumption of things conserved

by Dan Grifen - guest blogger

"In other environmental issues we tell people to stop something, reduce their impact, reduce their damage," - US ecologist Gary Nabhan

Since the beginning of the green movement, there has been a rise in the number of organisations and businesses that are doing their part in the promotion of sustainability through conservation. As human beings, we're told to reduce our carbon footprint, consume less unhealthy foods, and spend less time in the shower! But let's take a minute to step back and look at this from a different perspective; one that Gary Nabhan strongly suggests. Gary Paul Nabhan, Ph.D., is an Arab-American writer/conservationist whose extensive farming work in the U.S./Mexico borderlands region has made him world renowned. Specifically speaking, Nabhan is known for his work in biodiversity as an ethnobotanist. His uplifting messages and attitude towards life and culture has granted us access to multiple beneficial theories including his latest of "eat what you conserve".

According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, about three quarters of the genetic diversity of crops been vanishing over the last century and that a dozen species now gives 90% of the animal protein eaten globally. In accordance, just 4 crop species supply half of plant based calories in the human diet. Nabhan claims that by eating the fruits and vegetables that we are attempting to conserve/save, we're promoting the granular dissemination of various plant species. But this goes beyond what we typically buy in supermarkets, particularly because of price and abundance. We must remember to try new things and immerse ourselves in the very concept of diversity. Keep in mind- the benefits of splurging for that costly fruit/vegetable supremely outweigh the cons. Not only are you promoting biodiversity and further eliminating the needs of farmers to remove rare, less purchased crops off their agenda, but you're also effectively encouraging healthier lifestyles.

Agriculturist Marco Contiero mentioned, "Biodiversity is an essential characteristic of any sustainable agricultural system, especially in the context of climate change."[**] With sustainable crop efforts being lead by the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) and the IRRI (International Rice Research Institute), the duo plans to provide a more sustainable crop that can withstand natural disasters, avoiding food shortages like Haiti is experiencing. Contiero goes on to state "We need to ensure this is the basis for the future..." - This is exactly what Doug Band, the CGI, and the IRRI are doing by engaging in sustainability efforts. So remember, next time you're in the supermarket picking out a common varietal of navel oranges or strawberries, turn your attention to something that's a bit more exotic in nature. The same goes for salads/salad ingredients; shop outside the norm, picking spices and vegetables that you wouldn't normally incorporate into your everyday diet. During such economic downtime it isn't always easy to maintain the same level of grocery shopping intrigue, but we must also not forget that in this sundry of foods we can find fun!

Dan Grifen – Supporter of all things green and progressive.

Excellent news from Brazil: Brazilian court suspends release of Bayer’s GM maize

Posted by: U. Merc

The Paraná Federal Court prohibited German chemicals giant Bayer from marketing and commercial release of Liberty Link maize, one of its' genetically-modified crops anywhere in Brazil due to the absence of a plan for post-release monitoring.

The federal judge Pepita Durski Tramontini, standing on the Environmental Circuit Court in Curitiba also specifically revoked authorisation of the Bayer’s Liberty Link corn in Brazil because of lack of any studies relating to the potential impacts of this technology on the regional biomes.

Her ruling came in response to a class-action suit filed by several Brazilian NGOs, including AS-PTA, the Brazilian partner of the AgriCultures Network (and publisher of Agriculturas).

In the last issue of Farming Matters magazine Gabriel Bianconi Fernandes, a researcher with AS-PTA, was saying that they are still waiting for the court decision. Now the fight against GMOs will hopefully take another route.

More information:

• read the whole report
• about GM crops in Brazil and on the court case: www.aspta.org.br

Background papers (Documents prepared for the International Seminar on GMOs - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 9 to 12th 2010):

• A brief survey of Brazil’s biosafety legislation, by Andrea Salazar and Karina Grou
• Brief history of the GM¬Free Brazil Campaign, by Gabriel B. Fernandes
• Safety Considerations on Genetically Modified Food Crops, by Arpad Pusztai and Susan Bardocz
• Transgenics crops ecological impacts, by Gilles Ferment
• Transgenic soya in Brazil: the polemics surrounding an agribusiness "success", by Jean Marc von der Weid
• A study of the economic and agronomic efficiency of transgenic soya in Brazil, by Alberto Bracagioli and Daniela de Oliveira

Dutch debates

By Jorge Chavez-Tafur (with information from the NRC Handelsblad)

A very interesting debate is taking place in the Dutch media these days, after more than one hundred university professors signed a 12-page essay which concluded that there should be less livestock in Dutch farms, and that we should eat less meat and dairy products. Among the reasons for this, the essay states that the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of meat and dairy, and that there are more pigs than people. But the country is far too small to be able to effectively deal with the consequences of the large scale livestock industry behind this, and cannot cope with, for example, the manure surplus. An independent committee recommended several measures back in 2001, but few have been carried out. With new elections due to take place in two weeks, this makes for some very interesting campaign material.

  According to the NRC Handelsblad, Professor Roos Vonk, the campaign initiator, was disappointed when the current agriculture minister mentioned she could not listen to every protest group. But the minister, Gerda Verburg, has also come up with facts and figures. She mentions that the number of pigs and chicken in Dutch farms has not increased since 2000, that there are new (and strict) rules and regulations which combine animal welfare, health, the economy and the environment, but also that a large pig farm, because of the way it is managed, can have a smaller CO2 footprint than "the romantic small scale farm". According to the Minister, there is a lot to do, but this cannot only be taken by the government. The signing professors have "underestimated the strength of the market in pushing for a more sustainable sector".

More than 12,000 persons and organisations (among them ILEIA) have signed the professors initiative. Interested to join? Read the whole essay (in English) here: http://www.duurzameveetelt.nl/site/docs/sustainable-livestock-farming.pdf