New from GRAIN
07 October 2009
Small farmers can cool the world
The October issue of Seedling, now available online, is
devoted to the climate crisis. It looks at the role of
industrial agriculture in creating the climate crisis and
examines how this contribution has been seriously
underestimated. The global food system is, in fact, the most
important single factor behind global warming, responsible
for almost half of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet, as this issue of Seedling also documents, agriculture
can in the future become a powerful tool for mitigating the
crisis.
Soils contain enormous amounts of carbon,
mostly in the form of organic matter. Evidence provided in
this issue of Seedling shows that industrial agriculture
over the last half century has led to the leaching out into
the atmosphere of large amounts of this carbon. A
coordinated global programme, based on simple farming
principles, could gradually put back into the soil the
organic matter lost over past decades. Available data shows
that within 50 years we could capture at least 450 billion
tonnes of carbon dioxide, more than two thirds of the
current excess CO2 in the atmosphere.
To transform
the world’s food system so that it cools the planet rather
than heats it up would require fundamental changes in how we
produce food. The current trends towards increased land
concentration and the expansion of industrial farming would
have to be reversed. Only if millions of small farmers and
farming communities have access to land and can count on
policies to support their livelihoods can we restore the
billions of tonnes of organic matter that the world's soils
have lost.
Such a programme is also the only way to
resolve another equally urgent crisis - global hunger. At
present, over one billion people suffer from hunger and,
with falling yields, widespread drought and more forest
fires, the climate crisis is going to make the situation a
lot worse.
The report states:
"We are
moving into an era of severe disruption of food production.
There has never been a more pressing need for a system that
can ensure that food is distributed to everyone, according
to need. Yet never has the world’s food supply been more
tightly controlled by a small group, whose decisions are
based solely on how much money they can extract for their
shareholders."
It is high time to turn this
situation around. In this issue of Seedling we show that it
can be done. And the result would be a healthier planet,
improved soils, more and better food, and vigorous rural
communities.
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SEEDLING
OCTOBER 2009 ISSUE
DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE ISSUE FROM
HERE:
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=78&l=1
High
resolution PDF (6.7 MB):
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=657&pdf
Low
resolution PDF (2.6 MB):
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=657&pdf2
EARTH MATTERS - TACKLING THE CLIMATE CRISIS FROM THE
GROUND up by GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=643
The way
that industrial agriculture has treated soils has been a key
factor in provoking the current climate crisis. But soils
can also be a part of the solution, to a much greater extent
than is commonly acknowledged. If we could manage to put
back into the world’s agricultural soils the organic matter
that we have been losing because of industrial agriculture,
we would capture at least one third of the current excessive
CO2 in the atmosphere.
THE INTERNATIONAL FOOD
SYSTEM AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS by GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=642
Today’s
global food system, with all its high-tech seeds and fancy
packaging, cannot fulfil its most basic function of feeding
people. Despite this monumental failure, there is no talk in
the corridors of power of changing direction. Large and
growing movements of people clamour for change, but the
world’s governments and international agencies keep pushing
more of the same: more agribusiness, more industrial
agriculture, more globalisation. As the planet moves into an
accelerating period of climate change, driven, in large
part, by this very model of agriculture, such failure to
take meaningful action will rapidly worsen an already
intolerable situation. But in the worldwide movement for
food sovereignty, there is a promising way out.
THE AGRIBUSINESS LOBBY ARRIVES IN COPENHAGEN by Grupo de
Reflexión Rural, Biofuelwatch, EcoNexus, NOAH-FoE Denmark
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=648
Until
now, agriculture has been largely excluded from global
carbon markets, but this is set to change in December 2009
at the Copenhagen conference. Agribusiness companies are
lobbying hard to make a range of farming activities eligible
for future funding under the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM). As a result, billions of dollars will almost
certainly be invested in agriculture, mainly livestock
production and plantations. What makes this prospect so
alarming is that this huge investment, carried out in the
name of mitigating the climate crisis, will be channelled
largely to big agribusiness. And it is precisely their
approach to farming and food production that has created so
many of the problems we face today.
REAL PROBLEMS,
FALSE SOLUTIONS by Grupo de Reflexión Rural, Biofuelwatch,
EcoNexus, NOAH-FoE Denmark Date: October 2009
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=649
Three
activities - no-till agriculture, biochar and more
intensified livestock farming with reduced methane emissions
- are likely to benefit from increased funding because of
their alleged role in combating global warming. What is the
evidence that these activities can reduce greenhouse gas
emissions? What will happen to the world’s biodiversity and
the global climate if these sectors are hugely expanded? And
who is likely to benefit?
CLIMATE CHANGE IN WEST
AFRICA - THE RISK TO FOOD SECURITY AND BIODIVERSITY by OFEDI
and GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=650
West
Africa is extremely vulnerable to climate change, in part
because its agriculture is essentially rain-fed. Deeply
disturbing alterations in the climate are already being
noticed, and worse can be expected. If cataclysmic upheavals
are to be avoided, the region needs urgently to find ways of
conserving precious ecosystems and of supporting peasant
farmers and other groups to use their traditional knowledge
to adapt to far-reaching changes.
DAVI KOPENAWA
YANOMAMI
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=651
In June
2009 Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, a shaman from one of the
communities of the 16,000 Yanomami Indians who live in the
north of Brazil, near the frontier with Venezuela, travelled
to Europe to talk to politicians and the press. He wanted to
ensure that an indigenous voice was heard in the run-up to
the Copenhagen conference in December 2009. The following
are extracts from some of the interviews he gave.
PACIFIC COMMUNITIES FACE CULTURAL GENOCIDE interview with
Sandy Gauntlett
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=652
Sandy
Gauntlett is an environmental activist of Maori descent. He
lectures in indigenous resource management at the indigenous
university of Te Wananga O Aotearoa in New Zealand. He also
chairs the Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition
and the Pacific Regional Focal Point for the Global Forest
Coalition.
FARMERS’ RIGHTS OR FOOLS’ BARGAIN? by
Guy Kastler
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=653
The
Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture held its third session on
1-5 June 2009 in Tunis. Guy Kastler, the European delegate
to La Via Campesina’s Biodiversity Commission, and
representative of the Réseau Semences Paysannes of France,
explains what he sees as the failures of the Treaty and the
opportunities and spaces for action emerging from Tunis. A
longer version of this article is also available from here:
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=637
RESOURCES
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=654
GRAIN
reviews three books
SEEDS
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=655
GRAIN'S BOARD
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=656
GRAIN is
governed by a Board composed of dedicated individuals acting
in their personal capacities. We do not tend to put them
much in the spotlight, but they do play a crucial role in
giving direction to GRAIN’s work and organisation. There is
regular rotation and renewal of Board members. Recently we
uploaded on to our website brief interviews with each of our
current Board members, to give an idea of where they come
from and what motivates them. Here we present each of them
one by one. View the videos at:
http://www.grain.org/about/?board
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