- The Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture re-launches its website. And also the Global Livestock Production and Health Atlas (GLiPHA). Must be an FAO thing.
- “We are grateful to the governments who have made voluntary contributions to make this possible,” said Dr Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the Treaty’s Governing Body.
- Bighorn sheep at risk from climate change, computer says.
- The changing face of Japanese agriculture.
- “We are blurring natural boundaries: forests are no longer forests, meadows are no longer meadows. We have lost sight of eternity and infinity and are destroying nature for future generations.”
- Pope name-checks Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
A tale of two conferences
A seminar organized by the International Food and Trade Policy Council somehow escaped our attention.
A group of renowned international policymakers, agribusiness executives, farm and NGO leaders and scholars met in Salzburg to examine the key global challenges facing the agricultural sector in the 21st century and analyze the role of food and agricultural trade in the midst of these challenges.
Talking about Food & Environmental Security: the role of food and agricultural trade policy, I’m sure some interesting things must have been said, but it is awfully hard to tell. None of the press coverage makes for easy reading.
The question that interests us, of course, is whether any of the assembled luminaries gave air to the possibility, as Luigi put it, that “to solve the complex problem faced by agriculture we need a diversity of solutions, and that nothing need be off the table in our efforts to put food on the table”?
Then comes notice of the 1st International IFOAM Conference on Organic Animal and Plant Breeding. This shindig takes place in New Mexico ((Yes, Seeds of Change is deeply involved; draw your own conclusions.)) in late August 2009, and
provides for the opportunity to revive traditional knowledge from the global North and South and connect it with the current international organic research. Through the fusion of traditional breeding knowledge and newly developed organic breeding methods, there is a great opportunity of intercultural learning and also valuing knowledge which was kept through generations for the well-being of communities.
Again, I’ve got to ask: will other approaches be given a fair hearing? We’d welcome a report from anyone who attends.
Nibbles: Aphids, Chef wanted, Spanish ham, Obama, Neem
- “The most closely related aphids were those feeding on the same host species, rather than those from the same geographic area.”
- “I’m looking for a restaurant chef who would like to spend some time with me, learn something about my garden and the plants I’m growing, and experiment with cooking some dishes and possibly serving them to a small number of customers. ”
- “It isn’t sustainable, it isn’t very natural, but it tastes great.”
- Filipinos set up seaweed genebank and nursery.
- Eat the View: the Story of the White House Garden Campaign.
- “Foreign varieties of cotton and date palms have become a threat to local species here in Upper Sindh. …these varieties are affecting agriculture, forest and environment of Sindh, this threat can be overcome with the plantation of the Neem Tree.”
The Bourne ultimatum
You’ve got to hand it to National Geographic: they do get some good writers. I don’t know who Joel K. Bourne Jr is, but his piece on The Global Food Crisis: The End of Plenty, which is just out, is a tour de force. Every hot-button issue in agriculture for the past few years gets a name-check. Last year’s food riots, the likely effects of climate change, the last Green Revolution and the next one AGRA is working towards in Africa, farmer suicides in India, the Millennium Villages and Malawi’s subsidies programme, the IAASTD, biotech and ecoagriculture. They’re all there. ((Only the Svalbard Global Seed Vault seems to be missing.)) And they’re woven into a coherent narrative that includes pithy quotes from the DGs of CGIAR Centres and African extension workers, Malthus and Norman Borlaug. Plus you can read the whole thing in no more than twenty minutes.
So why am I depressed? Because after a balanced discussion — rooted in concrete examples — of the pros and cons of the contrasting approaches advocated by the Millennium Villages on the one hand and the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities project on the other, this is the conclusion Bourne reaches:
Regardless of which model prevails — agriculture as a diverse ecological art, as a high-tech industry, or some combination of the two — the challenge of putting enough food in nine billion mouths by 2050 is daunting. Two billion people already live in the driest parts of the globe, and climate change is projected to slash yields in these regions even further. No matter how great their yield potential, plants still need water to grow. And in the not too distant future, every year could be a drought year for much of the globe.
Why, oh why reduce the discussion to the question of which model will prevail? Why does either have to prevail? Why not instead build on that lonely throwaway phrase — “a combination of the two.” What an opportunity missed to say that to solve the complex problem faced by agriculture we need a diversity of solutions, and that nothing need be off the table in our efforts to put food on the table.
Nibbles: Prickly pear, Corridors, Nutrition, Backyard chickens, SW agriculture, Non-wood forest products, Mexican ungulates, Chinese sheep
- How to make a cordial from tuna. No, not the fish.
- Looking beyond the borders of protected areas.
- NY Times op-ed on “hidden hunger.”
- Google reveals backyard chicken coop bubble in US.
- 3000-year-old irrigation system found in Arizona.
- New NWFP-Digest out.
- An overview of ungulate conservation in Mexico.
- Protected wolves threaten sheep flocks in China.