Category: Commodity

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Cheese and olives

A column in the current issue of The Economist uses the example of Gruyère and Emmental cheeses in Switzerland to make the case that, if Europe wants to protect its traditional farmers and producers — and the agrobiodiversity which underpins their livelihoods — in the face of globalization, moving upmarket and selling expensive niche products to rich foreigners may be a better bet than “to deploy subsidies and tariffs to compete artificially on price.” Which is mostly what’s happening now.

[EU farm Commissioner] Mariann Fischer Boel … has urged food producers to focus on quality, heritage and new markets. This summer, she told exporters that import tariffs will move in only one direction in the coming years: “downwards”.

Of course, that will require marketing savvy. It will also require a robust quality-monitoring and labelling systems. Because, as a New Yorker piece on the “slippery business” of trading in fake Italian extra virgin olive oil entertainingly demonstrates this week, there are plenty of wise guys around ready to exploit loopholes and weaknesses.

Later: Cheese, olives, and wine!

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Feet of clay

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That’s another one to tick off the life list. Above you see Zhu Youyong, who describes himself as a farmer. He happens also to be Distinguished Professor Zhu, President of Yunnan Agricultural College and a hero of mine.

Zhu’s name is associated with a method of growing rice that delivers higher, more stable yields with lower inputs of fungicides and a more stable harvest from year to year. Not bad for an amazingly simple idea. The problem is that traditional landraces of sticky rice, which farmers like to grow and to eat, are susceptible to fungal disease. They also have a nasty tendency to fall over, or lodge, especially when they are carrying a bountiful load of seed. Modern hybrids are disease resistant, and high-yielding, but the taste is not much to write home about. Yields are high, but prices are low. To grow the tasty traditional landraces, farmers need to be able to afford fungicides and they need to be able to overcome their tendency to lodge.

Continue reading “Feet of clay”

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Coffee in Rwanda

A recent paper from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University of looks at the specialty coffee industry in Rwanda. Among its conclusions:

  • the specialty coffee industry in Rwanda aids in local poverty alleviation and job creation;
  • the specialty coffee industry provides opportunities for developing business and management skills;
  • the actions of specific coffee entrepreneurs have affected the lives of ordinary Rwandans; and
  • entrepreneurial activities within the Rwandan specialty coffee industry provide Rwandans with opportunities to interact in ways that may promote post-conflict reconciliation.

It is a long read, but with a good cup of Joe by your side the time will fly by.

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Promotion of new crops and its effects

Following on from yesterday’s post, which looked at the UNEP-WCMC report on the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, including agricultural biodiversity, I wanted today to signal the publication by the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) of a new position paper which is somewhat related, and of which I am a one of the authors. ((Dawson, I.K., Guarino, L. and Jaenicke, H. (2007) Underutilised Plant Species: Impacts of Promotion on Biodiversity. Position Paper No. 2. International Centre for Underutilised Crops, Colombo, Sri Lanka.)) This looks at the impact of promoting underutilised plant species (UPS) on overall levels of biodiversity in farming systems.

ICUC’s position on biodiversity is that its promotion should not be viewed as an “end in itself.” Rather, diversity needs to be “conserved through use,” or the livelihood opportunities it presents and the other services that it provides to the poor, both primary producers and local product processors, now and for the future. The significant nutritional and other health benefits received by consumers further afield in, e.g., urban areas and in other countries, through being able to access a more diverse range of foods, medicines and other products, should, however, also not be neglected.

Clearly, there are significant benefits that can accrue to poor families and communities, as well as others, through the promotion of one or more UPS — better nutrition, health, income etc. However, such promotion can result in the erosion of diversity in other crops, and in the agricultural landscape as a whole. If that happens, any benefits which UPS promotion delivers in the short term could be outweighed by long-term negative effects on the provision of the sorts of ecosystem services the WCMC paper discussed. ((We also discuss in our paper the complexity of the linkages between diversity, productivity and stability.))

In the ICUC paper, we look at the possible methods that can be used to promote UPS and suggest a number of conditions that should be met if such interventions are not to have undesired effects on biodiversity and the services it provides:

  • Possible consequences of promotion for agricultural and natural biodiversity should be described in advance, in order to assess potential livelihood and conservation risks.
  • Specific incentives that support diversification should be included when promotion of a UPS carries significant risks for biodiversity.
  • Particular actions that are known to support biodiversity should be used during promotion, e.g. improving germplasm access and supporting “intelligent markets” for products.
  • The consequences of promotion activities for biodiversity, and the linked impacts on livelihoods, should be monitored.

“Intelligent markets” are ones that improve both incomes and environmental management. Developing such markets “will involve educating producers and microprocessors in how to diversify their activities, encouraging value chain development, and supporting DO [denomination of origin] and related initiatives.” I particularly wanted to highlight this point because, coincidentally, FAO has just published a report on “Approaches to linking producers to markets” which looks at how best to help farmers organize themselves to supply identified markets. ((Andrew W. Shepherd (2007) Approaches to linking producers to markets: A review of experiences to date. Agricultural Management, Marketing and Finance Occasional Paper 13. FAO, Rome.))

We’ve had a few examples of this on the blog lately, haven’t we? They have ranged from the Ojibwa and their wild rice to the “under the sun” cheeses of Italy just in the past few days. Is it a zeitgeist thing?