Policy

September 17, 2009September 17, 2009

NGO deconstructs World Seed Conference

This is interesting. Robin Willoughby, Research Officer at Share the World’s Resources (STWR), “an NGO advocating for sustainable economics to end global poverty,” starts his piece in Counterpunch in pretty conventional NGO mode. I don’t know anything about STWR, but the rhetoric is familiar. Taking the recently-ended World Seed Conference and its perceived endorsement of “techno-fixes and monopoly control” as his starting point, Willoughby goes on to say that:

In order to protect biodiversity, adapt to climate change and promote food security, policy-makers must allow farmers to freely save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds in developing countries.

Right. However, he does then go off in an unusual direction.

On the ground, examples such as the Navdanya project in India illustrate the benefits of both storing and sharing seeds as well as the benefits in food security and genetic diversity by allowing open-access to plant genetic resources. Organisations in the global farmers’ movement La Via Campesina also point the way to an alternative agricultural paradigm based on cooperation and reciprocity. In the UK, the Millennium Seed Bank Project at Kew Gardens further illustrates the importance and possibility of the collection, research and development of seeds for the public good. Countries such as Venezuela are also establishing cross-border collaboration and sharing of knowledge on the breeding of plants based on cooperation and for mutual benefit.

What? So, not just sharing of farm-saved seeds to adapt to climate change, then, but “development of seeds” and “breeding of plants.” And genebanks involved in the whole thing. As I say, interesting. Or am I seeing things?

September 14, 2009September 14, 2009

Nibbles: Goats in Europe, Horse domestication, Food map, IITA training, Asian collaboration, Tom Wagner, Tomatoes

First Law of Geography valid after all.
Multiple domestication of the horse in China.
The Atlantic has a weird food map. What does it mean? Answers on a postcard, please.
IITA tells farmers about its core collections, among other things.
Bhutan and Thailand collaborate on agrobiodiversity conservation.
Details of Tom Wagner’s European Tour. He’s the amateur breeders’ breeder.
Tomatoes thrive on urine diet. Not a piss-take.

September 14, 2009September 14, 2009

Malawi on the front line

Criticism of the Gates Foundation’s attempt to re-create the Green Revolution in Africa is not uncommon in some circles, and it will be interesting — if probably not particularly edifying — to see how those circles will parse Norman Borlaug’s legacy now that he’s gone. But the recent article in The Nation, although mostly predictable, is actually more balanced than most. After a description of some of the unintended consequences of the first Green Revolution, the authors admit that these are acknowledged by the Gates Foundation, and also that “[s]ome of the changes made possible by Gates’s funding are welcome.”

The architects of Africa’s new Green Revolution at the Gates Foundation are sensitive to these flaws. In an interview, Roy Steiner, deputy director of agricultural development, was well versed in the history, emphasizing that the Gates Foundation’s agricultural priorities are directed at small farmers (known as “smallholders”) and women. The past offered some salutary lessons, he said, because “if you look at the depletion of water tables and the overuse of fertilizer, a lot of that has to do with very poor policy choices. It pushed a certain mode of agriculture that we know now was an overuse.”

My main comment about all this is one I’ve already made, and that is that it does nobody any good to present the (bio)technology vs “ecological agriculture” debate as a zero-sum, winner-take-all game. Both paradigms have a role to play, they are not mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as “the African farmer,” or even “the African smallholder” for that matter. There are millions of African smallholders, all different, and what they need are options, and lots of them.

But what I specifically wanted to flag about the article in The Nation is its section on Malawi. We talked about the Malawi fertilizer subsidy before, and it has become a sort of “poster child.” Its apparent success is of course mentioned in the article, but so are various critical reactions to it. The point is that Malawi seems to be emerging as a fertile testing ground for the blending — or at least the co-existence — of different kinds of approaches to agricultural development. There was another article recently which brought this home for me. It includes an interesting quote from Amos Tizora, executive director of a Malawian NGO called Circle for Integrated Community Development (CICOD):

“As much as farmers are encouraged to grow hybrid crop varieties due to environmental challenges, they are also encouraged to complement these with indigenous varieties which have high nutrition value, long storage period and can easily be managed by low income farmers.”

Why don’t we get more such public recognition, by everyone involved, of the complementary nature of what are all too often seen as competing visions of the future of African agriculture(s)?

September 7, 2009September 7, 2009

Nibbles: Chickens, Peppers, Treaty, Breadfruit, Preservation, Food systems, Adaptation, Yam multiplication

Naked necked chicken in music video shock.
Piment d’Espalette. Jeremy asks “What’s the big deal, really?”
The ITPGRFA on CNN.
Fiji to set up breadfruit genebank.
Lacto-fermenting your eggplant and chrysanthemum petals.
More on FAO’s Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems book.
“Where farming communities have been able to maintain their traditional varieties, they are already using them to cope with the impacts of climate change.”
Yam Minisett Technology pushed.

September 4, 2009September 4, 2009

Nibbles: Svalbard, Consumers, Seed law, Fragrant rice, Five Farms on radio, Invasive plant used, Genetic diversity and latitude, Coffee and tea in history, Coconut disease

“Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity.” Words of wisdom from the frozen lips of Ban Ki Moon.
Organic vs local. A survey.
Civil Society opposes seed laws in Chile.
Jeremy gets stuck into a bowl of basmati and Five Farms.
“Pest to pesto.”
Tropical fruit flies have less genetic diversity than temperate fruit flies, may have trouble adapting to climate change.
“It is difficult to imagine what the first taste of sugar or coffee must have been like to those accustomed to weak beer and bread.”
Lethal yellowing spreads in Ghana?