A broad coalition including Bill Gates, Tim Geithner, the US State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Bank, and others have a plan to help the world's hungry by working in opposition to the recommendations of scientists worldwide, including the findings of a report commissioned by the World Bank and the UN. Ironically, they chose Earth Day to deliver this flaming bag of poop on Africa's doorstep.
Back in 2008, the World Bank and the UN commissioned IAASTD report issued its findings: Go organic. The report - which stands for the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development - examined how we can best use the most current science to feed our world. The over 400 scientists involved agreed that an agroecological approach (i.e. using ecology to grow food) is the best way to feed the world, provide employment in the agricultural sector, and care for the earth. They specifically rejected biotechnology (i.e. genetically modified organisms) as the solution to global hunger, noting that it was highly incompatible with the needs of smallholder farmers in the developing world and the promises made by the biotech sector for the past three decades are still largely unrealized despite billions in investment in biotech.
The U.S. was one of three countries (along with Canada and Australia) that did not approve the IAASTD report. The U.S. rejection, which occurred under the Bush administration, came as a result to the report's stances against biotechnology and free trade. Following the inauguration of Obama, the U.S. was back to a multilateralism - so we were told. But not on this issue. Hillary Clinton's science advisor, Nina Federoff, is a holdover from the Bush days who believes wholeheartedly that biotech and industrial ag are the way of the future. Obama selected several pro-biotech, pro-industrial ag appointees for key positions in his administration, including Rajiv Shah (formerly of the Gates Foundation) as head of USAID, Roger Beachy (formerly of Monsanto's non-profit arm) as head of the USDA's agency that funds agricultural research, and Islam "Isi" Siddiqui as the Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the U.S. Trade Representative's office. Say what you want about industrial ag and GMOs, world - we're gonna go this one alone.
The U.S. government (along with the Gates Foundation) is calling for a second Green Revolution. The first Green Revolution relied on toxic chemicals like DDT and traditionally bred hybrid seeds to increase crop yields in the developing world, notably in Mexico and India. In the decades since, we've seen a simultaneous rise in per capita food production and a rise in hunger. If you read the plethora of speeches, op eds, and articles these new Green Revolutionaries churn out, you know that they are calling for a doubling of food production by 2050. (Obviously since massive increases in per capita food production didn't work the first time, we should keep trying.) Here's what you should know about that: Their numbers assume that the rest of the world will transition to a diet more dependent on grain-fed meat.
Simply put, the world cannot shift to diets based on grain-fed meat, and Americans need to reduce our consumption of grain-fed meat too. Mother Nature does not work like a market, operating on supply and demand. When economic markets support producing and consuming more industrially-produced cheap meat, Mother Nature does not take action to account for the increased carbon emissions, water usage, manure pollution, or even human health consequences. For example, a recent study found that people who eat 4 oz of red meat (including pork) daily are 25%-33% more likely to die within the next decade. Our very ability to continue to exist as a species on this planet relies on a decrease in grain-fed meat consumption. Americans, in fact, must shift to a primarily plant-based diets, supplemented by pasture-raised meats in order to address the climate crisis and a host of other issues. Therefore, the goal of doubling food production by 2050 is a false one.
Yet, today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing, discussing plans to deliver biotechnology, fertilizer, and other hallmarks of industrial ag to Africa. USAID head Rajiv Shah went so far as to refer to USAID efforts to expand biotechnology around the world as "sustainable." (This is far from true, as shown by the Union of Concerned Scientists' report Failure to Yield. To date, biotechnology has not increased agricultural yields but it has increased overall pesticide use. Industrial agriculture results in carbon emissions, pollution, and soil degradation, whereas agroecological farming methods ameliorate all of the above.) Simultaneously, Bill Gates and Tim Geithner published an op ed in the Wall Street Journal, announcing $30 million from the Gates Foundation to a fund to boost food production in the developing world. The fund will be supervised by the World Bank, which, despite sponsoring the IAASTD report, seems to be on board with the pro-industrial ag, pro-biotech approach of the United States. It is highly ironic and disturbing that they chose Earth Day to announce these crimes against the earth.
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I am a small blue planet.
I live in the suburbs of the Milky Way galaxy.
Recently I became infected with what are called “humans†and they treat me very badly.
I’m getting a high fever.
Thankfully they are very nasty to each other as well.
They are also very clever and have discovered lots of ways of exterminating each other and, eventually, will get rid of themselves.
I can’t wait.
As far food goes, the masses have got to wake up and start demanding that we have more real, organic food. I'm so glad that dcumentaries like FOOD, INC. are getting a lot of attention. It sounds like a great idea in theory to give people all of this industrialized AG but here's the problem...GMO (genetically modified food) is DANGEROUS! It causes harm to the body's organs and actually increases the likeliness of infertility (why do you think more and more women today have to get hormones and in vitro treament to get pregnant now?) Why do you think that despite BILLIONS given to charities, people are more likely today to get cancer, heart disease, etc. than ever before?!?!
The food most people eat, the oh-so-wonderful GMO foods and processed crap that's filled with high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and other poisons, is why Americans are the fattest, sickest people in the world! THIS is the food supply they want to bestow upon Africa. Gee, how thoughtful of them!
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to use all this money to supply people with the tools, knowledge, and resources they need to grow their own food? It would be much healthier and much better for the environment. That would be the smart choice so naturally they're not going to do it.
You run the risk of attack when you suggest all is not rosy with that promoted as "the answer", by "the experts"...when you suggest that science may in fact have dark and damaging residual effect.
I wondered about this issue where it concerns Haiti. I cannot understand why a system of self-empowerment (versus external dependency on a wolf-like mentality of "we will help you -- but we will own you") would not naturally lead to a surge in local agriculture, such that eating mud is not a viable option.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin.html
Important story, I hope it gains traction and visibility. People love to talk about self-responsibility...all while they foster crushing manipulated dependency (see welfare of U.S. in sixties), only to later express incredulity at less than favorable results stemming from flawed plans and cynical vision. Africa needs to be about Africa and kick out the charlatans (no matter their hue) once and for all. The extended hand often shields the other hand with poison at the ready.
I expect this to result in either a) a new patch which will enable Mother Nature to support as many grain-fed beef as Bill thinks we will need , or b) the world will suddenly end--not with a bang or a whimper, but with a Blue Screen of Death.
Biotech and corporate farming are this century's New Colonialism. It is disappointing that we don't learn from history and break the cycle of dysfunction. I guess there is just too much profit at stake - a sad commentary on the morality of Man.
Organic milk cost more than double the regular milk. I will buy organic, Will you pay the difference Ms Jill Richardson?
1. A rise in hunger???
Year 1970 1980 1990 2005 2007
Share of malnourished people in the developing world[4][5] 37 % 28 % 20 % 16 % 17 %
(Wikipedia: hunger)
2. You imply some sort of vague, wooly correlation between food production and hunger. But...?
>traditionally bred hybrid seeds
You mean the process of irradiation to produce random mutations, followed by selective ("artificial") breeding of those random mutations? You're right: that seems so ... *natural*.
Have you even heard of the naturalistic fallacy?
I'm not saying all your objections are dumb. I'm saying that your dumb arguments -- frantically avoiding (or downright misrepresenting) all those hard, cold, inhuman numbers -- only empower those you object to.
I am so sick and tired of innumerate lefties making all of us look like idiots. You're giving aid and comfort to your enemy. Spouting homilies and twirling your finger in your cheek does nothing to improve the world. Arguably QTC.
In comparison, our organic gardens on 1/4 acre around our home supply all our herbs and greens for 12+ people from mostly one person's efforts.
We use manure from small herds of Brahma that clear weeds off roadsides like mowers...Other points of fact: 1) many store seed varieties fail here. 2) mixed plantings avoids inflating pest populations, 3) In our third year, we now have many small birds and lizards that help also keep down pest populations, 4) We completely avoid the costs of the Ag Industry chemicals... and 5) this is a model that is sustainable in the local economy.
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howardAT/AT1.html links to a book by Sir Albert Howard from colonial India yet ring quite true today.
Don't you want to be Obese and get Cancer like the U.S.?
There is a force behind our food problems.
Feeding cattle corn is a disaster, having a few mega-giant slaughter houses is a disaster, and this is why lobbyists connected with this must be regulated, looked into, probed for fraud shown the publics anger.