Category: Policy

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Fishy business

I missed this when it came out a couple of days ago, but a study by Daniel Pauly at the University of British Columbia shows how small-scale fishers 1 are short changed by “well-intentioned eco-labelling initiatives and ill-conceived fuel subsidies”. I’d expect no less from Pauly, who has always been a champion of artisanal fisheries. Industrial fishermen 2 receive 200 times higher fuel subsidies than artisanal fishers, who also discard far less fish as waste. Campaigns to persuade shoppers to buy eco-friendly fish have not paid off either, according to Pauly.

“For the amount of resources invested, we haven’t seen significant decrease in demand for species for which the global stocks are on the edge of collapse,” says Pauly. “Market-based initiatives, while well-intentioned, unduly discriminate against small scale fishers for their lack of resources to provide data for certification.”

Fish really does represent the ethical frontier of food. Farmed pollutes and wild destroys the stocks. What’s a piscivorous person to do? Get rid of the subsidies, say Pauly and his colleagues. Without subsidies, large-scale fisheries would not survive, small fishers would thrive supplying local markets, and global fish stocks would have an opportunity to rebound.

So we can overfish them again?

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Ugandan fair offers farmers and politicians a chance to talk

There’s a fascinating article in yesterday’s Uganda Monitor about a trade show for the agricultural sector at Jinja. Fascinating for all sorts of reasons, one being the disconnect between what farmers want and what politicians think they want.

President Yoweri Museveni opened the show on July 22 and although his speech dwelt more on politics and complaints against FM stations, he was there to inspire farmers, and acknowledge that they contribute more to the GDP.

However, farmers wanted to hear that the President would reduce the interest rate on Bonna Bagagagawale (sic) funds to 1 percent. That rural roads would be fixed so that produce gets to the markets easily and that taxes on farm implements can be waived and that the government will set up tractor hire services in villages for farmers who cannot buy tractors to hire them.

Animal farmers wanted to hear that the government has banned export of unprocessed food so that by-products used to make animal feeds can be available.

I’m not saying that the farmers should get everything they want, but their demands certainly deserve consideration. Then there’s the question of why farmers want those things.

From Mbarara, Mr Moses Turyamanya learnt that matooke cost between Shs5,000 and Shs20,000 in urban areas. “We brought a lorry full of matooke and it sold out,” he said. “At our farms, we earn between Shs500 and Shs2,000, per bunch of matooke. Now we know that we have to market our produce to get better money.”

But the biggest discovery for Mr Turyamanya is when he learnt that matooke can be processed into food products.

He says a few years ago, Farm Africa exhibited solar driers which can dry matooke and other types of bananas.

“I secured a drier and now we are able to dry matooke and process it into powder, juice, chips and other products,” Mr Turyamanya said. “The government is planning to build a factory so that we can process food and sell to the World Food Programme.”

And there’s a lot more of interest, like a plea from Kabaka Ronald Mutebi for better demonstration farms (and, by extension, better extension services), a joint Uganda-Iran tractor company, and local seed companies. We know farmer field schools are a good thing; this kind of fair sounds like a giant farmer field school and may contain the seed of a politician field school too. If they listen.

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An agricultural economist answers

You may remember that I pointed to Freakonomics Blog a few days ago because they had a nice little feature where people could ask an illustrious agricultural economist pointed questions. Well the answers are now up. Here’s my favourite one:

Q: Are there any good arguments that support farm subsidies?

A: No.

Actually that’s a bit unfair, there is more to the answer than that. Check it out. And let us know if you want something similar here on agrobiodiversity.

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Goji lovers threaten devastation

The UK government is warning that illegal imports of goji (Lycium barbarum) plants threatens commercial potato and tomato crops with destruction. Goji, tomato and potato are all members of the family Solanaceae, and apparently “bugs” could come in on the clandestine gojis. According to one advisor, “the retail value of British tomato production is £150m, and potatoes are worth more than that, so the size of the industry that is under threat is pretty massive. If some bugs were to arrive here, they would be devastating.”

The Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate destroyed my entire stock of pepino (Solanum muricatum) in a former life because of some viral threat, even though the plants they confiscated initially tested negative. It’s easy to think that these “invading pests and diseases” threats are just crying wolf, but all the evidence suggests that intensive plantings are indeed very vulnerable. Of course, why that should be so is another matter …

I’m not sure how the UK government plans to sniff out every goji plant, but Sir Mick Jagger and Kate Moss, goji enthusiasts, presumably have plans to cope. Let’s hope proposed imports get up to speed soon, and don’t carry the bugs.