A Preliminary Response to Obama's Speech Tomorrow

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 10, 2009 at 19:48:43 PM PDT

Effective food security actions must be coupled with adaptation and mitigation measures in relation to climate change, sustainable management of water, land, soil and other natural resources, including the protection of biodiversity.

That much is good, but sadly, they also call for more free trade, even after the ample amount of proof we already have that free trade policies (particularly coupled with the government subsidies in developed countries) harm food security rather than helping it. Their failure - and Obama's failure - to recognize the problems caused by free trade is nothing short of tragic.

So where's the good part I spoke of? Well, the U.S. is shifting from a "give a man a fish" strategy to a "teach a man to fish" strategy. Instead of shipping American-grown food to the developed world, we will focus on helping needy countries produce enough to feed themselves. And that much is fantastic - almost.

The problem is - and this is a big problem - the U.S. has no interest in taking the scientific, peer-reviewed, global consensus approach to global agriculture. We'd prefer to go a different route, one which has been dismissed by experts but embraced by multinational corporations.

More below...

Follow the Money

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 17:07:33 PM PDT

Who doesn't want us to believe that organics can feed the world? All the people who would lose money if we went organic: oil companies, biotech companies, pesticide companies, and fertilizer companies. And who funds The Chicago Council on Global Affairs? Archer Daniels Midland, Kraft Foods, Monsanto, Caterpillar, BP, McDonalds... you get it.

The Chicago Council released a report funded by the Gates Foundation that outlined a plan to feed the world. They then presented that report in testimony at a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing earlier this year. In a Washington Times op ed (where I always get my news), they summarize the findings of the report, calling for a Second Green Revolution. On their side is Dick Lugar, who co-authored another Washington Times op-ed with Norman Borlaug (father of the first Green Revolution) who say we need higher yields and GMOs in the developing world if we are to fight hunger. Lugar has co-sponsored a bill that the Chicago Council sees as a vehicle to enact their plan, but now it seems that a new effort is afoot and Hillary Clinton is leading it (as her department will be the ones carrying out the bill).

To gain more support for their plan, the Chicago Council is hosting a breakfast with Secretary Tom Vilsack as a guest. They've also held a past event with Senator Dick Durbin.

Meanwhile, our government is entirely ignoring an alternative viewpoint to feeding the world, one presented by the IAASTD report (from the World Bank and UN), which specifically rejects GMOs as tools to help the developing world, saying they are poorly suited to meet the needs of poor and subsistence farmers. They call for agroecological approaches to farming as the best tool to feed the world. And, because the crop inputs used in the developed world are so expensive and thus often unavailable to poor farmers - the very people we are trying to help - those farmers achieve higher yields using organic (agroecological) methods.

GMOs: Not the Silver Bullet to Feed the World

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 12:47:19 PM PDT

Below, I've shared some quotes from each of them.

The Future of Global Food and Agriculture

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT

Here's what happened. The countries of the world came together and accidentally did something REALLY good. Well, not quite so accidentally. For some it was on purpose. But I think those who are usually in power actually let it happen by accident (those are my words, not Molly's). After all, the result was what Al Gore might call "An Inconvenient Truth." So inconvenient that the U.S. (under Bush), Canada, and Australia did not approve the report. Every other country involved did.

As it turned out, Molly was doing a presentation on the report at the conference I was at. The report is a look back over the past 50 years in agriculture and at the next 10 years. In looking at agriculture, the goal of the report was to improve poverty, hunger, nutrition, health, and environmental and social sustainability. It covers the entire world in one section, and then breaks up the world into 5 separate regional reports. And - here's the real surprise - it calls for sustainability! REAL sustainability, not greenwashing. That might be common sense to us but it's a MAJOR shift from current U.S. agricultural policy or from the policy of most of the powerful entities that set the course for agriculture around the world.

So here's what Molly had to say...

What Do 400 Scientists and 30 Governments Say About World Hunger?

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 13:34:17 PM PDT

"We tried to assess the implications of agricultural knowledge, science and technology both past, present and future on a series of very critical issues," explained IAASTD director Robert Watson.

"These issues are hunger and poverty; rural livelihoods; nutrition and human health.

"The key point is how do we address these issues in a way that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable?"

Environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable? What, did they forget to make their findings also "profitable to large multinational corporations"?

Here's a link to the IAASTD website (which includes the reports). More below.