We Don’t Need Industrial Agriculture to Feed the World, U.N. Report Says
In January, the Worldwatch Institute released its report, State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. The report showed through several case studies in Africa that the world can feed itself through agro-ecology, the application of ecological principles to agricultural systems (read: the antithesis of industrial farming). In fact, the report demonstrates that agro-ecological innovations are crucial to addressing hunger worldwide.
This past Tuesday, the United Nations released a report with the same findings. Olivier de Schutter, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, presented his new report “Agro-ecology and the right to food” before the U.N. Human Rights Council. For those who love to defend conventional farming through the much-touted “scientific evidence,” this is a resounding rejoinder. The report sifts through recent scientific literature, including the research not funded by large corporate interests (e.g., most of our GMO research) and concluded that “small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods.”
This is not about nostalgia, and it’s not about romanticized notions of farming days of yore. The U.N. report up-ends what has been conventional wisdom for the past century and challenges us with a new paradigm. As De Schutter says, “To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available. Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agro-ecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live — especially in unfavorable environments.”
This report shows that chemical-free farming methods are actually more efficient than their pesticide-loaded, GMO counterparts. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers that demonstrate the success of agro-ecological projects:
- average crop yield increase of 80 percent in 57 developing countries
- average crop yield increase of 116 percent for all African projects
- doubling of crop yields over a period of 3-10 years in 20 African countries
- up to 92 percent reduction in insecticide use for rice in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh
What the report boils down to is this: We need to invest in public goods like knowledge, biodiversity, infrastructure, and labor and invest less in private goods like fertilizers and pesticides. This is good news for developing nations, who stand to gain the most from this approach, but it’s bad news for industrialized nations like the U.S., where the order of the day is to address world hunger only insofar as it benefits big business. “States and donors have a key role to play here,” Schutter warns. “Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don’t open markets for chemical products or improved seeds.”
And that brings us to genetic modification. Advocates of agro-ecology are somewhat divided on the question of genetically modified (GM) seeds. But even the few who think GM seeds have a place in agro-ecology see that role as extremely limited, certainly not as a widespread panacea. But the use of GM crops under limited circumstances would be utterly unprofitable for the biotech industry, which is why Monsanto is pushing the White House for a much more aggressive, worldwide GM seed blizzard.
If we want to see agro-ecology get a fair chance, we’re going to have to shove corporate interests aside. The so-called green revolution failed, and it’s still failing us right now. Take a look at what’s happening in Argentina, or all the U.S. crops that have been crippled by superweeds, or organic farmers whose goods have been contaminated by GM plants. When we tell the Obama administration that we want to invest more in agro-ecology, we also need to tell officials that it’s time to cut their ties with Monsanto. We need to stop letting Monsanto call the shots, and put the power to feed into the hands of the people.
You can help support the growth of agro-ecology by signing our petition asking the Obama Administration to deny approval of Monsanto’s GE alfalfa and sugar beets.
http://news.change.org/stories/we-dont-need-industrial-agriculture-to-feed-the-world-un-report-says
