- There’s an FAO Global Conference on Green Development of Seed Industries this Thursday and Friday. Includes sessions on genebanks.
- I hope it will cover the breeding of weird — and not-so-weird — vegetables as well as this Food Programme episode did.
- And debate the issues as effectively as was done by Pat Mooney and Charles Godfray at this TABLE event.
- Meanwhile, in Malawi and the Philippines…
- All we are saying…
No. 3:
At the TABLE event, the bio of Pat Mooney includes his authorship of the “Long Food Movement” report, funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation [Google LLC money]. This report of March 2021 was produced by IPES and ETC – this rings big alarm bells for me.
It is a rather overboard continuation of Mooney’s past attempts to merge the CGIAR with the Rome Based Agencies (RBAs). [These are FAO, WFP, and IFAD] There are 35 mentions of the CGIAR with an obsessive emphasis on placing the CGIAR under the control of the UN CFS (Committee on World Food Security).
There is a need to: “…realign the CGIAR with the other agencies (making it effectively the fourth RBA).” and “… to realign CGIAR programming with the agroecological agenda…” [bold in original] (Surely to say `realign’ implies the CGIAR was once in alignment with these agencies: it never was).
“…integration of the three RBAs and CGIAR into one organization in which the CFS (or its strengthened successor) becomes the single governing body of the new ‘Roman Forum.”
Under a merger of Rome Based Agencies (RBAs): “… CGIAR centres could be assigned to the oversight of the most relevant of the existing committees or commissions [of FAO]”.
And the inevitable puff for CSOs: “Some regions are already very open to civil society participation, but this initiative would strengthen CSO [Civil Society Organizations] positions considerably.”
This intrusion of CSOs and UN agencies into CGIAR governance is not needed. The Advisory Group to the CFS already includes representatives of “International agricultural research institutions”.
And why should the CGIAR get anywhere near the agroecology miasma – see the latest report from the CFS High Level Panel of Experts?