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ISIS Press Release 18/04/08
“GM-Free Organic Agriculture to Feed the World”
International Panel of 400 Agricultural Scientists Call for Fundamental Change
in Farming Practice. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
International panel dispels aggressive corporate propaganda
A fundamental change in
farming practice is needed to counteract soaring food prices, hunger, social
inequities and environmental disasters. Genetically modified (GM) crops are
highly controversial and will not play a substantial role in addressing the
challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity, hunger and poverty. Instead,
small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods are the way forward; with
indigenous and local knowledge playing as important a role as formal science.
Furthermore, the rush to grow crops for biofuels could exacerbate food shortages
and price rises.
These are the conclusions
to the most thorough examination of global agriculture, on a scale comparable
to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. Its final report, The
International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development
(IAASTD), was formally launched at a plenary in Johannesburg,
South Africa on 15 April 2008 [1-3] and simultaneously released in London,
Washington, Delhi, Paris, Nairobi and a number of other cities around the
world.
The IAASTD is a unique
collaboration initiated by the World Bank in partnership with a multi-stakeholder
group of organisations, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environmental
Programme, the World Health Organisation and representatives of governments,
civil society, private sector and scientific institutions from around the
world [2]. The actual report runs to 2 500 pages, and has taken more than
400 scientists 4 years to complete.
In one mighty stroke,
it has swept aside years of corporate propaganda that served as a major diversion
from urgent task of implementing sustainable food production for the world.
As UK’s Daily Mail
editorial commented [4]: “For years, biotech companies have answered critics
by insisting genetically modified crops are essential to bringing down food
prices and feeding the world's hungry. Well, now we know they’re not.”
The overarching question is how to reduce hunger and poverty
The overarching question
addressed was [5]: “How can we reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods,
and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable
development through the generation, access to and use of agricultural knowledge,
science and technology?”
The question was
prompted by “the unintended social and environmental consequences” of past
successes in increasing agricultural productivity through science and technology,
and the enormous challenges ahead in providing food and livelihood security
[6].
Apart from the depletion of fossil fuels and water, the pressure of population
growth, and not least, climate change and a food crisis that has led to food
riots and outbreaks of violence in an increasing number of developing countries
[7] (see Food Without Fossil
Fuels Now, SiS 38).
Both scientific knowledge and traditional skills were evaluated under the
IAASTD, which marked the first mainstream attempt at so doing. (Coincidentally,
that is just what our ISIS/TWN report, Food
Futures Now *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free [8] has also accomplished,
which may be why we have come to very similar conclusions.) Contributors produced
five regional assessments, and a 126-page synthesis report [6].
“Given the future
challenges it was very clear to everyone that business as usual was not an
option,” IAASTD Co-chair Hans Herren said [1]. He was speaking at an intergovernmental
plenary in South Africa’s commercial hub, Johannesburg, where
the assessment findings were reviewed ahead of the presentation of the report.
An estimated 850 million
people are hungry and malnourished today because they can’t get access to,
or afford the supplies they need, Herren added. “We need better quality food
in the right places.”
Later he told
the BBC [9] that “contentious political and economic stances” were affecting
attempts to address some of the imbalances. Specifically, many OECD member
countries are deeply opposed to any changes in trade regimes or subsidy systems.
He said. “Without reforms, many poorer countries will have a very hard time.”
The report said
that efforts should focus on the needs of small-scale farmers in diverse ecosystems,
and areas with the greatest needs. Measures would include giving farmers better
access to knowledge, technology and credit. It would also require investment
to bring the necessary information and infrastructure to rural areas.
Biotech industry and US out in the cold
The plenary was marked by
some perennial disagreement over biotechnology and trade. During a long debate
over biotechnology, the meeting very nearly collapsed [1]. The United
States and Australian government delegates objected to the wording in the
synthesis report that highlighted concerns over whether the use of GM in food
is healthy and safe.
Syngenta and the
other biotech and pesticide companies had already abandoned the assessment
process late last year. The impasse
at the plenary was broken when the two countries agreed to a footnote in the
report indicating their reservations about the wording, and to accept the
report as a whole, along with Canada and Swaziland, but without
adopting the report.
GM biotechnology
and trade had been thoroughly debated over the four-year IAASTD process, and
the final wording reflected scientific evidence. The report says biotechnology
has a role to play in future though it remains a contentious matter. It further
notes that patenting of genes causes problems for farmers and researchers.
The other 60 countries
represented at the plenary adopted the report.
UK scientist a leading light
IAASTD director of the Secretariat
Robert Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank (also independently chief
scientist of UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Agriculture),
spoke at the launch of the Report in London [9].
“We tried to assess the implications of agricultural knowledge,
science and technology both past, present and future on a series of very critical
issues,” Watson explained “These issues are hunger and poverty; rural livelihoods;
nutrition and human health…The key point is how do we address these issues
in a way that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable?”
Agriculture could
no longer be approached as a single issue, he warned. We need to consider
the environmental issues of biodiversity and water; the economic issues of
marketing and trade, and the social concerns of gender and culture.
Watson outlined some
of the challenges facing the sector over the coming 50 years: “We need to
enhance rural livelihoods where most of the poor live on one or two dollars
a day. We also need to stimulate economic growth because half of the countries
in Africa have a significant percentage of their GDP in the
agricultural sector. At the same time, we need to meet food safety standards
and make sure that we do not have pesticide residues, unacceptable levels
of hormones or heavy metals. All of this must be done in an environmentally
and socially sustainable manner.”
He later told John
Vidal of The Guardian [10] that governments and industry focused too narrowly
on increasing food production, with little regard for natural resources or
food security. “Continuing with current trends would mean the earth’s haves
and have-nots splitting further apart,” he said. “ It would leave us facing
a world nobody would want to inhabit. We have to make food more affordable
and nutritious without degrading the land.”
The UK Government
has not among the 60 countries that have signed up to the report, but Watson
indicated that it has the full support of the Prime Minister [3].
GM crops not the answer
Biotech companies, trade
bodies and associated scientists have exploited the food crisis to step up
their propaganda for GM crops. And the UK government’s Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) has been exposed for misusing substantial public funds
to support marketing GM crops to UK farmers and issuing a misleading press
release on how UK farmers are “upbeat” about GM crops [11, 12] (Marketing Masquerading as Scientific
Survey and "UK Farmers
Upbeat about GM Crops" Debunked, SiS
38)
Professor Watson
told the Daily Mail [3]: “Are
transgenics the simple answer to hunger and poverty? I would argue, no.”
He said much more
research was needed to establish whether they offer benefits and do not harm
the environment. The industrialisation of agriculture, of which GM is a part,
has led to the heavy use of artificial fertilisers and other chemicals, and
these have harmed the soil structure and polluted waterways. The leeching
of the soil of essential minerals means food is less healthy than 60 years
ago.
The IAASTD states
[10]: “Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information
is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and
damage is unavoidable.”
The authors also
warned that the global rush to biofuels was not sustainable. “The diversion
of crops to fuel can raise food prices and reduce our ability to alleviate
hunger. The negative social effects risk being exacerbated in cases where
small-scale farmers are marginalised or displaced from their land.”
Professor Janice
Jiggins of Wageningen University, one of the scientists co-authoring
the IAASTD, questioned whether GM crops have been proven as safe [3]: “There
are many legitimate concerns about the presence of transgenics in food, as
well as the safety standards that might be appropriate as these enter into
animal and human food,” she said.
Report widely welcomed by NGOs
The report was widely welcomed [10]. A group of eight international environmental
and consumer groups, including Third World Network, Practical Action, Greenpeace
and Friends of the Earth said in a statement: “This is a sobering account of
the failure of industrial farming. Small-scale farmers and ecological methods
provide the way forward to avert the current food crisis and meet the needs
of communities.”
Lim Li Ching of Third World Network said: “It clearly shows that small-scale
farmers and the environment lose under trade liberalisation. Developing countries
must exercise their right to stop the flood of cheap subsidized products from
the north.”
Guilhem Calvo, an adviser with the ecological and earth sciences division of
UNESCO, one of the report’s sponsors, said at a news conference in Paris: “We
must develop agriculture that is less dependent on fossil fuels, favours the
use of locally available resources and explores the use of natural processes
such as crop rotation and use of organic fertilisers.”
Greenpeace welcomed the
publication as [2] “an historic opportunity to replace destructive chemical-intensive
agriculture with methods that work with nature not against it.”
Pete Riley of GM Freeze
in the UK said: “We are delighted that the hyped claims about
the current development in GM crops feeding the world are rejected. We call
upon the Government, industry and science to respond positively to the challenge
the report lays down and change their approach to scientific research so it
is led by and reflects the needs of those who it should benefit - not the
needs of corporations.”
For a full range of practical
solutions to follow on from the IAASDT see our ISIS TWN Report, Food Futures Now *Organic *Sustainable
*Fossil Fuel Free [8], to be launched in UK Parliament 22 April 2008
www.i-sis.org.uk
References
- “Africa:
Reinventing Agriculture”, Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service, (Johannesburg),
15 April 2008, http://allafrica.com/stories/200804150171.html
- “Urgent changes needed
in global farming practices to avoid environmental destruction” Greenpeace
International Press Release, 15 April 2008.
- “GM foods ‘not the
answer’ to world’s food shortage crisis, report says”, Sean Poulter, The Daily Mail, 16 April
2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559965&in_page_id=1770
- GM food, biofuels and
a hungry world, Editorial,
The Daily Mail, 16
April 2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_page_id=1787&in_article_id=559945
- What is the International
Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science & Technology, IAASD? A
compilation from its plenary decisions and official documents, http://www.agassessment-watch.org/docs/IAASTD_on_three_pages.pdf
- International Assessment
of Agricultural Knowledge, Science & Technology (IAASTD) Synthesis Report
25 November 2007, http://www.agassessment.org/docs/Synthesis_Report_261107_text.pdf
- Ho MW. Food without
fossil fuels now. Invited Keynote Lecture, 2nd Mediterranean Conference
on Organic Agriculture in Croatia, Organic Agriculture – Contribution
to Sustainable Ecosystem, 2-6 April 2008, Dubrovnik University. Dubrovnik,
Croatia, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/foodWithoutFossilFuels.php
- Ho MW, Burcher S, Lim
LC et al. Food Futures Now, Organic,
Sustainable, Fossil Fuel Free, ISIS TWN Report,
London & Penang, 2008.
- “Global food system
‘must change’” BBC News, 15 April 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7347239.stm
- “Change in farming
can feed world – report”, John Vidal, The Guardian, 16 April
2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/16/food.biofuels
- Saunders PT. Marketing masquerading as scientific survey. Science
in Society 38 (to appear).
- Ho MW and Saunders PT. “UK faremers upbeat about GM crops” debunked.
Science in Society 38
(to appear).
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