Category Archives: GM

“We need to shift away from GM”

Posted on by
Reply

 Malawian woman with local seeds

“The world continues to demand and rely on non-GM crops, with more than 97% of farmland producing non-GM food.

The ISAAA report reveals that in many countries the appeal of GM crops is waning, and the growth they claim is heavily dependent on a handful of countries. Claims that GM crops are benefitting poor farmers do not stand up to close scrutiny.

What the world needs is a rethink about how we apply our money and brain power. We need to shift away from expensive GM models geared to intensive, high carbon production systems towards agroecological methods that use local natural resources and harness the combined knowledge of farmers and scientists to produce crops without wrecking the planet.” Pete Riley, GM Freeze. Read more.

Reflection on Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution

Posted on by
Reply

Fascinating debate at Times Online about the merits and drawbacks of the Green Revolution.

“For someone of my generation, growing up under postwar food rationing, the idea that food would always be plentiful and cheap seemed about as likely as a portable phone that you could carry around with you.

For many of us the dire predictions of Thomas Malthus were all too credible. Malthus had advanced the dismal theory that human populations would always grow faster than their food supply. It meant you could forget all your grand ideas about progress. Every social advance was destined to be brought to nothing by famine.

The singular achievement of the agronomist Norman Borlaug, who died at the weekend, was to take away this age-old fear, at least for those of us in the rich West”…..

Read more

‘Feeding Africa’ – Find Your Feet in The Guardian

Posted on by
Reply

FYF Director Dan Taylor was asked to write a comment on an article in The Guardian ‘Feeding Africa.‘ Visit the comment for a fascinating debate on the future of agriculture in Africa.

In the Guardian’s editorial (Feeding Africa, 29 July) the suggestion is made that, without improved seed varieties and fertiliser, African agriculture is a lost cause. This cannot go unchallenged. Farming in the UK elicits a peaceful picture of sheep grazing on green pastures, large fields of crops, and tractors. This image is far from the reality of the farms that produce the majority of Africa’s food. The average African farm is less than a hectare, the farmer is normally a woman and her main implement of cultivation is the hand hoe – this situates African agriculture in a very different context.

The editorial cites “subsidised seed and fertiliser” as the reason for Malawi’s farming transformation, “more than doubling productivity in a single year”. More than 25 years of working in rural Africa has taught me that this is an oversimplification of a very complex set of structural constraints and one that lulls us into a false sense of security. The suggestion is that if you get modern seeds and fertiliser to farmers then Africa’s food insecurity is solved. This modernist assumption that the industrial model of agriculture can solve Africa’s problems simply returns us to the failed policies of the 1960s and ignores the deleterious environmental impact of high input agriculture.

This puts Malawi’s “success” story in a different light. Malawi’s over-dependence on maize for national food security is short-sighted. Input subsidies do not target the poorest and the strategy depends on continued donor support, thereby raising questions of affordability in the face of growing fertiliser prices. Since the scheme is subject to state patronage, it breeds farmers’ dependence on the state.

In attributing the success of the Malawian scheme to farming inputs alone, your leader pays insufficient attention to the optimal rainfall that Malawi experienced over the past agricultural seasons. Droughts and floods in Africa have put paid to best intentions; at some time in the future crops will fail again, at great cost to Malawi’s farmers.

The conclusion that “growing more food … is the part that matters most” is unhelpful since it overlooks the question of longer-term sustainability. Hunger is an abomination, but alleviation in the short term is merely food aid in a different form. A permanent solution is required. We need alternatives to monocultures and fossil fuels. My organisation, Find Your Feet, promotes agroecology – agricultural systems that more closely mimic the natural ecosystems that have served African farmers for millennia. These resource-conserving approaches reorient attention from single crops to diversified risk-reducing strategies that mitigate the effects of climatic unpredictability, and return control to Africa’s farmers.

Business as usual is not an option: new solutions to new problems are needed and science and technology must play a role. Agroecology challenges us to acknowledge the perspicacity of Africa’s farmers and resist the inclination to transfer to Africa more of the same old package – the technologies, market freedoms and mindsets – that created the food crisis in the first place.

Sowing Autonomy: Gender and Seed Politics in semi-arid India

Posted on by
Reply

“Over the last five decades, seeds have slipped out of farmers’ control by gradually becoming the prerogative of breeders, genetic engineers, commercial seed growers, registered seed dealers and bureaucrats in charge of seed market regulations. Commercial seeds are developed against a background of technological control, economic efficiency and rational management. The commercialisation and adoption of new crop varieties is undermining women’s roles in the realms of seed and crop management, and has serious implications for the maintenance of agro-biodiversity.”

Carine Pionetti, Sowing Autonomy. Published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

“The time has come to regenerate ecosystems”

Posted on by
Reply

Mount Kenya Declaration on the Global Crisis and Africa’s Responsibility – Statement from the African Biodiversity Network

“The time has come for national governments to prioritise the regeneration of ecosystems, self-reliant communities and diversified local economies over export oriented policies, free trade agreements and the current wave of expansion of the food system.”

From 23 – 31 May 2009, the African Biodiversity Network (ABN) have gathered together near Mount Kenya, 25 organisations from 10 countries that work with farmers and local communities on the issues of biodiversity, food sovereignty, livelihoods, climate change, traditional knowledge, culture and community rights in Africa.

We are deeply aware that the planet is facing multiple interconnected crises which will have an even bigger impact on Africa, even though Africa is not responsible for these crises. On the one hand, there is the stark and devastating impact of the food and financial crises, which will be compounded by the impact of climate change.

We are very concerned about the devastating impact that the food and financial crises and climate change is having on the people of Africa and their environment. People are losing their livelihoods, houses, jobs at an alarming rate and at the same time, farmers, pastoralists and local communities have to cope with unpredictable changes in their environment. We concur with the Indigenous Peoples , that the Earth is no longer in a period of climate change but in a climate crisis.

We are outraged at the financial crisis which was caused by global financial institutions accumulating unimaginable wealth while speculating with ordinary people’s hard-earned savings. This economic meltdown is now pushing many countries over the brink and is adding another estimated 104 million people to the 1 billion permanently hungry people in the world.

We are also aware that the food crisis and recurring famines in Africa are not something new but is caused by basic structural injustices entrenched over decades, now reaching new levels of deprivation because of the speculative trading of food on international markets.

We find the current scale of ”crisis capitalism” intolerable and strongly reject the cynical attempts of corporates that target Africa for further exploitation of the food and climate crises by turning it into economic opportunities rather than trying to solve it.

We see the underlying cause of the crises as the globalisation of the industrial system which inevitably results in the concentration of capital and power in the hands of a few, generating ever growing poverty and ecological destruction resulting in global climate change. Now the same thinking that created these numerous toxic debts is promoting many “False Solutions” that are exacerbating the crises. There is an intensified scramble for Africa’s land and ecological wealth facilitated by governments who continue to be dominated by corporate interests.

We reject these False Solutions which include:

? Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which, we are told will solve hunger and climate change, but have instead caused widespread contamination of farmers’ crops and our food while increasing the use of pesticides which destroy biodiversity and health. The ultimate aim of GMO companies is control over our seed and thus food system through the patenting of all forms of life. These crops require highly industrialised farming conditions, which release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, thus a major contributing factor to climate change. In spite of this, GMO proponents are now claiming that they can find GMO fixes for both the climate change and the food crisis.

? AGRA – A New Green Revolution is imposed on Africa by a collaborative effort between amongst others, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, the World Bank, and agro-industries to replace Africa’s seeds, crops and knowledge with hybrids, GMOs, fertilisers and pesticides. Because this industrial system needs large tracts of land, AGRA is also funding the push to change land tenure systems, privatise land and so facilitating the rapid change of land from community custodianship to just another commodity in the pockets of investors. The sheer amount of money and political influence the Green Revolution push has behind it, is now dominating the debate on agriculture, pushing for stricter intellectual property rights on seeds, weak biosafety legislation, in the process narrowing Africa’s options for food sovereignty both on country and local level.

? Agrofuels (or biofuels) are promoted in Northern countries as the solution to climate change, as providing an alternative to fossil fuels. But they are driving an unprecedented land grab across Africa, and leading to forced evictions, deforestation, and rising food prices. We challenge the myth spread by corporations and corrupt governments that there is plenty of free land, going spare in Africa. We in Africa know of the challenges and conflicts we already face from the competition for land and water. A number of other solutions to climate change are also turning out to be little more than business opportunities, including biochar, carbon trading, geo-engineering.

It is clear that these proposed solutions by corporate interests are based on acquiring large tracts of land and cheap labour for industrial scale production, serving to maintain the lifestyle of societies of over-consumption thereby exacerbating the crises both in the North and the South. All of these developments claim that they bring progress to Africa. But not only will they fail to address hunger and climate change, they will make them worse. These false solutions are cynical attempts by the corporations to reach new markets, and to make a business out of a crisis

ABN’s Position

ABN believes that the solutions to climate change and hunger are the same: healthy resilient communities depend on healthy resilient ecosystems and biodiversity.

We are certain that the role of healthy, biodiverse ecosystems in maintaining a stable climate is critical, and that it is completely underestimated in most predictions and discussions about climate change. When dealing with climate change, we must both reduce carbon emissions and enhance biodiversity as equally important. Healthy soils built up by ecological agriculture and livelihood systems sink carbon as well as having more capacity to hold water in times of drought or flood.

Food sovereignty at local and national level requires locally adapted crop and livestock diversity and land tenure systems that will enable communities to produce and market food in a way that really feeds people, promote equity and at the same time deal with climate instability.

We also believe that local and indigenous ecological knowledge and governance systems must be urgently revived and enhanced to maximise Africa’s capacity to read, anticipate and adapt to climate change.

The time has come for national governments to prioritise the regeneration of ecosystems, self-reliant communities and diversified local economies over export oriented policies, free trade agreements and the current wave of expansion of the food system.

Africa needs to have the courage to free itself from its colonial legacy and build on its rich heritage through reviving the wisdom of its people as a responsibility to past and future generations. Based on this wealth, it has the capacity to take a lead in finding true solutions by disengaging from the very thinking that has created the crises in the first place.

Here, as the birthplace of the human species, African communities have adapted and evolved over 1000’s of years, without destroying their life support system. Africa needs to reclaim its responsibility and legacy as a basis from which to build a viable future for all.

*************************************

World Water Crisis

Posted on by
Reply

“Mixed cropping is the best method. Every crop does something to the soil and helps others to grow, either by providing safety against insects or enriching the soil with leaf fall. Further, we feel secure in the thought that if one crop fails there others to sustain us.

The best thing about this method is that our traditional crops are very hardy and can survive under hostile conditions.” Gangwar, a 70 year old woman supported by DDS, India

Professor John Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Advisor , was on the BBC’s Today programme this morning.

He warned that a “perfect storm” of food shortages, scare water and insufficient energy resources mean that the world is facing imminent major upheavals, with things coming to a head in 2030. He placed a particular emphasis on the problem of water scarcity but remained relatively non committal on certain possible solutions to the crisis, even when John Humphrys pushed him to comment on the fact that GM had not yet delivered on its’ promises and on the need for a revision of our consumption patterns.

Water is, according to UNESCO’s Koichiro Matsuura the “principal medium through which climate change will affect economic, social and environmental conditions. There is an urgent need to strengthen capacity – especially in the poorest countries – to cope with more frequent and intense water-related disasters caused by climate change.”

So, if GM is failing to deliver on its promises, what are the alternatives?

I was pleased to come across an Inter Press Service article today, posted on the Agricultural Biodiversity weblog, about the Deccan Development Society, a partner we worked with for seven years. The article states that in Zaheerabad, dalit (the broken) women forming the lowest rung of India’s stratified society, now demonstrate adaptation to climate change by following a system of interspersing crops that do not need extra water, chemical inputs or pesticides for production.

GM Crops – Should we believe in them?

Posted on by
2

Tales of intimidation

My colleague Olivia recently came back from a rather disturbing GM Freeze talk by Percy Schmeiser.

Percy, is a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan in Canada, whose Canola (rape seed) fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready Canola. He became involved in a high-profile legal battle with Monsanto, lasting many years, during which time he claims he was subjected to 24-hour surveillance of his house and threatening phonecalls. He also claims that Monsanto bribed his neighbours, tried to enforce gagging orders making him agree never to take Monsanto to court again and employed gene police to encourage neighbours to report on each other.

His story is not, it seems, an isolated case. As a GM Watch ‘quiz’ posted on Food Democracy asks “What is the annual budget that Monsanto devotes to harassing, intimidating, suing – and in some cases bankrupting – American farmers over alleged improper use of its patented seeds? ANSWER: 10 million dollars.”

What is going on?

GM crops are patented crops which means that ownership accrues to the holder of the patent or Intellectual Property Right or ‘breeder’. Seeds used therefore have to be purchased year on year or a royalty payment must be made if seed is recycled. Since most crops entering the market are bred by private companies, ownership accrues to the company holding the patent – normally a small number of large corporations.
As a result “Patents and genetic modification mutually reinforce each other. Patents provide the commercial monopoly that enables companies to control markets and maximise profits.” (GM Freeze)

Since GM crops can never co-exist with non-GM crops of the same species without the risk of contaminating them, the indigenous seeds that farmers have developed over centuries are at risk. Meanwhile farmers with contaminated fields could end up being forced to pay royalties to companies that own the patents on the GM crops that contaminated their fields.

Food crisis – opportunity or challenge?

As Daniel Howden , the Africa Correspondent for the Independent, writes in his article Hope for Africa lies in political reforms “the climate crisis was used to boost biofuels, helping to create the food crisis; and now the food crisis is being used to revive the fortunes of the GM industry.”

However the food crisis also presents us with an opportunity to highlight alternatives to the proposed GM ‘solutions,’ especially given the fact that climate change is one of the major factors contributing to the food crisis.

For years African farmers, in the face of inherently unreliable climatic patterns, have made use of different agrecological niches by choosing wetlands and drylands, different soil types and planting cereals, grain legumes and root crops often in the same fields on the understanding that not all crops were likely to fail simultaneously. This diversification of agricultural production minimizes their risk in the face of challenges such as climate change.

FYF empowers Malawian farmers to make sure that these farming skills aren’t lost. By taking control of their farming operation (including by seed-saving from one year to the next) and making sure that their voices are heard at a national level the farmers we work with being empowered to act as ‘Citizens’ in their society. Read more about how we are empowering Farmers as Citizens

Over the coming years this could prove particularly important. As John Vidal writes in the New Statesman “Monsanto espies huge profits in places such as Malawi, where the whole country depends on maize. It’s not legal to sell GM there but even if it were, the chances of…small farmers, 90 per cent of the population, benefiting from it are utterly remote. Malawi is a land of conservative, uneducated and vulnerable farmers. They could not possibly afford the seeds or the herbicide, let alone take the risk. It would be criminal to ask them to.”

Seed Conservation

Posted on by
Reply



Seed Conservation

Originally uploaded by Find Your Feet

After a ride across London in the wind and rain to work yesterday morning, it was good to arrive to a colourful story from one of our partners in India. Being a new member of the FYF team, I love these little sources of inspiration.

Our partner Sabla works in Rae Bareli, (Uttar Pradesh) one of the poorest districts in India. Sabla is empowering 1,500 women in Rae Bareli to bring about lasting changes to their lives by supporting women to organize themselves into self-help groups and to engage in environmentally sustainable horticultural activities which boost their income and increase the food available to their families.

Recently Sabla organized a procession to raise awareness around the importance of organic fertilizer and the conservation of seeds. It sounds like the women had a really great couple of days!

What can be a better way other than a procession on brightly painted bullock carts for creating awareness among the people?

The participants started gathering early for the activity and there was enthusiasm and excitement among us all. We then set off on a two day procession to nine villages in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, talking about the importance of organic fertilizers and the conservation of seeds. Over 600 women joined the procession along the way and over 1500 people came to see the video shows and plays we were putting on.

Articles on the procession were published in national newspapers like Hindustan, Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala and Aaj.”

I have learnt a lot about sustainable agriculture since I started working at Find Your Feet. Dan, our Director, is an agronomist (as well as an anthropologist.) He recently completed a number of position papers for FYF and I think it might be useful to quote his paper on ‘sustainable agriculture and agricultural biodiversity’ to give a bit of context to the Sabla story:

“Whereas once husbandry methods such as time of planting, crop rotation, field rotation, intercropping or polycultures based on natural biological process were the predominant means of maintaining soil fertility and reducing pest infestation and the spread of diseases, this has been largely replaced by quick response external inputs in the form of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides together with higher yielding crop varieties bred for yield potential.

We have clearly prioritized production potential over systemic resilience with all its concomitant risks.”

In a nutshell biodiversity and the conservation of seeds is vital in ensuring the production of food now and in the future. For smallholder farmers living in developing countries, the loss of local crops represents a loss of choice that further heightens their vulnerability to food shortages.

The Sabla procession does not stand alone. I read an interesting article recently in Pambazuka by Astrid von Kotze: ‘The world food crisis: a ‘silent tsumami?’
“There has has been nothing silent,” she writes, “about environmentalists’ and farmers’ vigorous protests against the ‘green revolution’ with its dwindling of crop-biodiversity, against corporate agriculture based on GM technologies that prevent farmers from saving seeds for future years, against the partnership of Monsanto and Cargill as they began to control seed, fertiliser, pesticides, farm finance, grain collection, grain processing and livestock production.”

Clearly there are voices that need to be heard in the debate about responses to the world food crisis. Which is why it is maybe apt that I have kicked off this blog with an awareness raising procession involving 600 marginalised Indian women…!