Category: Policy

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“Sensually mapping the world”

An article by Andrew Jefford over at the Financial Times’ Food and Drink section dissects the concept of “appellations d’origine controlée.” This refers to a system which provides legal protection for a name of an agricultural product made in a particular way in a particular place. Thus, champagne is not just any old sparkling wine, but, “wine produced by a special method, from pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay grapes grown in a circumscribed region of France lying east of Paris.”

The article is a great read. Here’s a longer sample, to give you the — as it were — flavour:

Thanks to the efforts of some 250 local growers with 9,000 ha of meadows irrigated by the river Durance via an intricate series of canals in place since the late 17th century, even hay from the stony Crau plain achieved certification, in 1997, to protect and expand the reputation of this uniquely sweet, nutritious animal feed; only these growers have the right to tie their bales with a distinctive red and white twine. The hay is cut three times every summer, the first cut being ideal for horses and beef cattle, the second cut for dairy cattle and milking ewes, and the third for sheep and goats… Appellations are a way of sensually mapping the world.

Continue reading ““Sensually mapping the world””

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No GMOs in AGRA

Kofi Annan has said, very firmly, that A Green Revolution for Africa will not use genetically modified organisms. In his inaugural speech in Capetown, Annan said:

We in the alliance will not incorporate GMOs in our programmes. We shall work with farmers using traditional seeds known to them.

There are some interesting nuances there in just what will comprise “traditional seeds known to them”. It’s perfectly possible to promote destructive monoculture without resorting to genetic engineering. I’m happy to wait and see.

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Kofi’s time

In 2002, while UN secretary general, Kofi Annan asked, “How can a green revolution be achieved in Africa?” After more than a year of study, the appointed expert panel of scientists (from Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa and elsewhere) replied that a green revolution would not provide food security because of the diverse types of farming systems across the continent. There is “no single magic technological bullet…for radically improving African agriculture,” the expert panel reported in its strategic recommendations. “African agriculture is more likely to experience numerous ‘rainbow evolutions’ that differ in nature and extent among the many systems, rather than one Green Revolution as in Asia.” Now Annan has agreed to head the kind of project his advisors told him would not work.

That extract is from a long and thoughtful piece on the web site of Foreign Policy in Focus, an American “think tank without walls”. It is a response, as you might have guessed, to the appointment of Kofi Annan as head of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

If you have any interest in the problems of poverty and agriculture in Africa, I urge you to read it. This is not shrill propaganda. This is carefully considered commentary. Carol B. Thompson, the author, makes several trenchant points that, to me, skewer the rationale behind the Gates/Rockefeller strategy. (Not that I was in favour before, as regular readers will know.)

They say that generals are always fighting the previous war. Alas, the same seems true of the war on poverty.

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A policy for pastoralism in Africa?

The African Union apparently launched a Pan-African Pastoral Policy Initiative at a conference at Isiolo in northern Kenya last week. There’s a little bit about the event on the website of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ Pastoralist Communication Initiative (one of the organizers), but not much. An article summarizing some of the results was released a few days ago by the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks and got picked up by various agencies. But that’s all I’ve been able to find. Which is a pity, because listen to what the IRIN article says:

The key issues that emerged from the discussions included: governance; land; education; markets and financial services; conflicts; and poverty risk and vulnerability. Another point was the ‘biological dimension’ – feed resources and animal genetic resources.

There’s nothing about biodiversity in the African Union pamphlet introducing the policy initiative, but it sounds as though that may have been rectified during the meeting itself.

The IRIN article is very good, full of pithy quotes and interesting information, like this:

A concept note prepared by the AU and OCHA-PCI on the continental policy framework quotes UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2005 figures, which indicate that the continent has 235 million cattle, 472 million goats, 21 million pigs and 1.3 billion poultry, all valued at US$65 billion.

I did look for this concept note but sadly couldn’t find it online.

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Seed Regulation: How much is enough?

Earlier this year we posted about how EU Regulations destroy agricultural biodiversity and proposed rules to allow the marketing of European traditional varieties. Eliseu Bettencourt, a colleague with a close interest, said then that he didn’t have enough time to intervene in the discussion. Now, he says, he has a chance. Which would be kind of dull except that he’s seen the very latest drafts of the documents …

The post of 19th February 2007 refers to the “Draft Commission Directive establishing the specific conditions under which seed and propagating material of agricultural and vegetable species may be marketed in relation to the conservation in situ and the sustainable use of plant genetic resources through growing and marketing”, supposedly due to come into force on 1st April 2007. The Directive did indeed materialize as the writer of the post so rightly guessed then, though he even refrained from the obvious joke.

I guess the writer was referring to the draft document of May 2006, which bore that title. According to the drafts I have had access to later, in February 2007, that document was sub-divided intro three different documents, respectively: Continue reading “Seed Regulation: How much is enough?”