No, not Obama tending arugula and other assorted agrobiodiversity on the White House lawn.
Hot air on climate change?
Over before it began, in the sense that nothing actually happens until we report it here, the first meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Biodiversity and Climate Change of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) took place in London from 17-21 November 2008. Did AHTEG consider either the impact of climate change of the diversity of crops and their wild relatives, or the need to crops and their wild relatives to mitigate the impacts of climate change?
Our source does not say, and I simply don’t know, and a quick glance at the list of meeting documents is no help. Someone, enlighten us, please.
Nothing succeeds like success
So if you know “policies, programs, and investments in pro-poor agricultural development that have had a proven impact on hunger and food security,” the International Food Policy Research Institute would like to hear from you. To submit a nomination or nominations for “Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development,” please visit the IFPRI website
Slow Food on the move
The Slow Food movement is evolving, its founder says: “People who sniff a cheese and talk about how it has the most wonderful aroma of horse sweat. Think how incredibly boring we would be if we were still just a gastronomic society.”
Neocolonial land grab?
Sue Branford writes in The Guardian that:
China, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other nations have been buying and leasing huge quantities of foreign land for the production of food or biofuels.
A couple of days ago, Luigi mentioned in a footnote of a post on Malagasy coffee, that Daewoo is to lease 1.3 million ha in Madagascar. Apparently to produce maize. The Financial Times reported:
“It is totally undeveloped land which has been left untouched. And we will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar,” said Mr Hong [of Dawoo]. The 1.3m hectares of leased land is almost half the African country’s current arable land of 2.5m hectares.
There might be some scope for agricultural expansion on the Malagasy high plateau, but 1.3 million ha of good arable land that is untouched? Except by the local population, of course.
Not quite, and not so fast, responded the government:
The contract (…) concerns only the facilitation of a land search. We are talking about a search for 100,000 hectares … It is only after this stage that the rest of the process will continue.
Grain has a report, and a Google notebook with clippings.
FAO’s Jacques Diouf talks about neo-colonialism. There is also this Guardian article on resentment in Laos. Expect more of that to come.