Sustainable World Coming

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8 Aug 2005 15:52:30 -0000

Sustainable World Coming

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ISIS Press Release 08/08/05

 

 

 

Sustainable World Coming

 

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Independent scientists, economists, politicians, and

activists met to share knowledge and ideas for sustainable

food systems as the industrial model is close to collapse.

Rhea Gala reports on the Sustainable World First

International Conference

 

Independent scientists join forces with global civil society

 

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Independent scientists from four continents joined national

politicians and many interested individuals and groups to

discuss strategies for changing agriculture worldwide to a

diversity of locally-based sustainable systems that can

provide food sovereignty and security to all and protect the

earth from the ravages of global warming. This was the

occasion of the Sustainable World Global Initiative's first

International Conference, organised by ISIS, which took

place 14-15 July, starting in the UK Parliament in

Westminster, London, to a near-capacity audience that

includes people who have come from Scotland, Wales and

Ireland, Belgium, Australia and South Africa.

 

The need to move away from large-scale high input industrial

monocultures has long been accepted by many people as being

essential for providing livelihoods to the many millions of

small farmers in the South and the relatively few farmers

remaining in the North, who are also responsible for

conserving our plant and animal genetic diversity that have

been decimated by decades of industrial monocultures. There

is now an added sense of urgency as the industrial model is

showing all the signs of failing under global warming, and

water and oil, on which industrial monocultures are heavily

dependent are both rapidly depleting.

 

Policies that promote food export and contravene human

rights in the South also exacerbate global warming by adding

food miles, or worse, encouraging " food swaps " – shipment of

the same food commodities such as milk and meat - across the

globe. World cereal yields from conventional industrial

agriculture have been decreasing for four years in a row; so

it was highly significant that speakers shared their

experience of sustainable agriculture systems from around

the world, which outperform the industrial model in

productivity while restoring autonomy and responsibility to

farmers, and result in greater social participation within

the local community.

 

But what policy and structural changes are needed to

implement truly sustainable food systems?

 

The big picture

 

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Dr Mae-Wan Ho, director of ISIS and member of the

Independent Science Panel opened the proceedings by

introducing the Sustainable World Global Initiative. She

berated governments and political leaders for their

overwhelming commitment to the prevailing neo-liberal

economic model that underlies social inequity, environmental

destruction and global warming and emphasised that there is

a wealth of existing knowledge that can both provide

sufficient food for everyone and ameliorate climate change.

 

Chairperson Peter Ainsworth MP introduced Alan Simpson MP

who declared that irreverence, heresy, and the breaking of

rules were necessary to raise awareness in the face of

deepening water, energy and food insecurity. He warned that

by 2025, 6bn people will suffer water stress, causing `water

wars'; yet decades of overproduction by agribusiness is a

major cause of water depletion.

 

He advocated the removal of patenting and intellectual

property rights and, instead, to reinstate the public

ownership of useful technologies that save resources.

Woking, an English town with a population of around 100 000,

for example, currently controls and produces 135% of its

energy from renewable sources. Alan warned strongly against

the nuclear option. He said that there are dissenters in all

parties who believe in the return and development of diverse

and sustainable food production and the right of all

countries to meet their own food security needs without

external interference. He spoke in favour of localised

sustainable systems that are connected and informed

internationally.

 

Sue Edwards apologised for Dr Tewolde Berhan Gebre

Egziabher's absence and presented his paper that posed the

question `What does the word `sustainable' mean in the

context of food for everyone?' It means that food must be

available to the very poorest person now, and into the

indefinite future. There is currently both plenty of food

that is overeaten by some, and plenty of hunger, even where

food is present.

 

If people were to become the sole inheritors of the Earth,

which is threatened by mass extinctions caused by

capitalization/commercialization of all our resources, then

we shall all be dead, he said. Therefore a more equitable

system is urgently needed that is committed to reducing or

at least maintaining populations at a sustainable level; and

at the same time, the devolution of power back to local

communities from which it was usurped. All people need to

have the land to grow the food of their choice . Tewolde

warned against GM crops that represent a further decrease in

diversity and an increase in the privatisation of nature.

 

Dr Mae-Wan Ho stressed the enormous scope for mitigating

global warming by making our food system sustainable, by

halting deforestation, replanting forests for agroforestry,

and harvesting biogas from agricultural and food wastes that

at the same time conserve nutrients for crops and livestock.

She presented a model of sustainable development –

illustrated by a " dream farm " - that depends on maximizing

internal inputs to increase productivity and hence carbon

stocks and sinks, which, she believes, should replace the

dominant model of infinite, unsustainable growth

 

She showed how the carrying capacity of a piece of land is

far from constant, but depends on the way the land is used.

Thus, by maximising internal input to support diverse

productive activities, it increases the wealth of the local

economy and hence the number of people that can actually be

supported .

 

Michael Meacher MP spoke of the five factors that would

force government to change their policies sooner or

probably, much later, unless we put informed and relentless

pressure on them. The factors are: the dependence of current

systems on oil for which demand is exploding; population

movement due to water stress because we have squandered and

polluted our water; the intensity of climate change that

will affect us in many ways, the decrease in biodiversity

that undermines our future, and escalating food miles that

will cause gridlock.

 

Meacher advised the promotion of low input mixed organic

agriculture that saves ten times the energy of industrial

holdings, while factoring in all the external costs of

industrially produced food, thus exposing the lie in the UK

government's `cheap food' policy. The development of a

sustainable food policy would inform governments while

reminding them of better policies that they pay lip service

to but neglect. A new approach to environmental and social

accounting would highlight problems of overexploitation of

people and nature and offer alternatives that would bring

the public on board.

 

The Common Agricultural Policy

 

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A lively conference dinner was followed by a stimulating

discussion about the Common Agricultural Policy led by

Caroline Lucas MEP and Martin Khor, Director of the Third

World Network. It was generally agreed that the Common

Agricultural Policy and the Agreement on Agriculture at the

World Trade Organisation have similar effects on family

farmers in both North and South, but Martin stressed that in

the South, farmers are likely to actually die from losing

farming livelihoods, there being no social welfare payments

to fall back on .

 

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho raised the question of why trade when

people's livelihoods are not assured? Why produce for export

before a country is self-sufficient in food as many Third

World countries could be? Isn't this concentration on trade

a case of the tail wagging the dog?

 

There was general agreement to make policies as fair as

possible for small farmers in the South while working to

curb the powers of transnational agribusiness.

 

Knowledge-based actions for sustainable food systems

 

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Friday brought a crowded agenda: a host of speakers with

interesting experiences to relate.

 

Peter Bunyard of the Ecologist magazine gave a telling

account of how the destruction of the Amazon rainforest

affects global weather. The Amazon plays a crucial role in

regulating and stabilizing world climate, which is thrown of

balance when vast areas of rainforest are cleared to produce

soya for animal feed, from which Brazil earns $8bn annually.

 

The Sahara and Amazon Basins are connected by weather

systems that are the inverse of each other and the

circulation is recharged by the Amazon, which is now

failing, turning it into a carbon source instead of a sink.

The oceans are losing the ability to regulate terrestrial

temperature, and that too, will affect climate irreversibly.

Sustainable forest use, which clears only small areas of

forest that can renew themselves over 40 years, also avoids

throwing the forest ecosystem out of balance. Can we return

to these ways, perhaps by compensating Brazil and other

countries such as Argentina for lost revenue, or cancelling

their national debt to begin with?

 

Sue Edwards spoke about sustainable agriculture in Tigray

Ethiopia. She and Tewolde have been working with local

communities to build their knowledge, confidence and

independence, in creating local infrastructures that support

food security. They found that compost applied on crops such

as faba bean, finger millet, maize, teff, wheat and barley,

resulted in an increase in yield over chemically fertilized

crops. This occurred from the first season, and also in

subsequent seasons when no compost was added, through soil

improvements by previous composting. Ponds and gullies were

made to conserve water, and grass crops for animal food and

thatching proved very successful. This ecological

agriculture adds to local sustainability through decreasing

or eliminating external inputs particularly fertiliser, and

increasing animal, crop and soil biodiversity, water

resources, and social and economic equity.

 

Erkki Lähde, professor of silviculture from Finland showed

how an industrial forestry model has proved to be

counterproductive for over a century. In this model a forest

is clear-cut and a monoculture replanted, with all economic

gain coming at the point of clearance. But his research

shows that natural forest, with many species in a special

" all sizes " distribution, are the most valuable both in

biodiversity and economic terms. Sustainable systems all

contain many species of many young plants with fewer and

fewer older individuals. In the case of trees, standing and

fallen dead trees also add to local biodiversity while the

living forest continues to evolve. Individual trees are

selected for cutting in line with a social model that

supports multiple use, more jobs, and which accords with

public opinion and mitigates global warming. This model is

diametrically opposed to the current dominant model that

offers low diversity and the easy technical option of the

clear-cut.

 

Caroline Lucas is concerned that past gains of the EU on

environmental issues could easily be lost due to the

pressures of an enlarged EU. This includes the sliding away

of the EU's sustainable development strategy, and failure to

resurrect this strategy at the centre of a new EU agenda.

Industry is pushing for less environmental regulation and

for voluntary agreements only in the new joining countries .

 

While the EU was set up to help keep peace in Europe, now it

is simply about trade and being the most competitive economy

in the world. In the recent referenda on the EU

Constitution, people voted against it because they are not

served by the EU in meaningful ways, they feel the EU is

remote and self-serving. The EU could have seized the moment

to put sustainable development as the new big idea, with

economic models that protect the environment, regulating

multinationals and advocating protective tariffs for poor

countries. Europeans would have loved it and other countries

would have followed suit.

 

Hywel Davies MD of Weston A Price Foundation from

Switzerland gave an account of the relationship between

early coronary artery disease and the lack of nutrient dense

food in the western diet. Autopsies on children who died of

accidents showed thickening of tissue inside arterial muscle

laminae due to multiplication of cells and large deposits of

calcium phosphate. These, he said, derived from an excess of

vitamin D and other additives present in large quantities in

babies' feeding formula and many common foods. They contain

supplements to compensate for nutrition removed by food

processing, but cause problems that can only be remedied by

understanding the importance of natural nutrients to our

health and well being. For this reason, we must grow the

food that meets these requirements.

 

David Woodward of the New Economics Foundation described a

starting point for addressing the economic inequalities of

our current agricultural or other neo-liberal trade systems.

It showed how people and the planet can be factored into

economics, taking a global view while narrowing the gap

between producer and consumer prices. The effects of the new

economics aim to increase the sustainability of production

while reducing environmental damage.

 

Jakob von Uexkull president of the World Future Council

initiative described how those in power have lost their way,

treating people as consumers but not as citizens. In the

face of corruption, inertia and cowardice we need an

alternative voice to get things changed and implemented in

the interests of a sustainable world.

 

The World Future Council will work closely with national

legislators from all over the world to develop step-by-step

reforms and legislation to overcome the current

" implementation gap " .

 

Pietro Perrino director of the former Gene Bank of Bari,

Italy, one of the worlds largest, described a forced merger

with much smaller institutions engaged in genetic

modification of crops plants. He told a disturbing tale of

how his large germplasm collection is endangered by the

merger. He suspects that with the rise of DNA libraries and

a research agenda that prioritises GM crops, plant genetic

resources that cannot be patented may be an impediment to

corporate control; but in any case they are not valued. He

asks whether this `problem' has ocurred at other genebanks

around the world, and who should look after these priceless

resources.

 

Joe Cummins, professor of genetics from Canada said that his

country would be the first where farmers legally lose

control of their seed. Terminator technology provides the

ultimate control of seeds production by multinational

corporations. Seed with terminator technology was developed

and owned by Monsanto, but that technology (which involved

preventing the embryo in the seed from growing) faced

worldwide criticism and it was withdrawn by Monsanto. .

 

Now a new generation of GM crops that are based on control

of morphogenesis have spawned a new crop of patents for

multinationals, those GM constructions employ toxins

including diptheria toxin or even ricin to prevent viable

seeds from being formed. The genetic modifications are very

likely to persist and spread to crops in the wider

environment. Whereas sterile seed guarantees sales to

companies; sterile crops have no utility to the farmer, the

consumer or the environment.

 

Dr. Lilian Joensen from Argentina described how corporations

in Latin America have coopted `sustainable agriculture'

using a façade of involvement in social programmes. NGOs

have collaborated with them, and propaganda extolling the

benefits of free trade have enabled massive destruction of

virgin ecosystems and their conversion to soya production.

Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya is grown on this land, as well

as conventional and certfied organic soya, mainly to feed

livestock in Europe and China.

 

Soya is the main agricultural source of greenhouse gas. In

Paraguay, peasants are being killed to clear their land for

more soya. Latin American Indgenous and peasant movements

are seen as a threat to US corporate interests. Brazilian

Amaggi, the world's main soya producer, says that small

holdings don't have economic viability and industrial

holdings are needed for competition on world markets.

 

Dr. Julia Wright of the Henry Doubleday Research Association

spoke about Cuba's experience when support from the Soviet

Bloc collapsed in the 1990s and most of its fossil fuel

resources were lost. The resulting non-industrial production

promoted self sufficiency, human scale plantations,

ecological techniques, and urban rural migration. By 2000

yield had doubled, wages trebled and calories increased by

25%!

 

A policy of non-foreign land ownership and a non-wasteful

culture helped the transition from fossil fuel dependency.

Julia explained that if the government had been committed to

organic agriculture, the gains especially in food quality

would have been much greater.

 

Ingrid Hartman from Humboldt University, Germany, spoke

about the status of soils and their temporal, spatial and

social dimensions. She described how little we know about

soil because their cycles of development can last from

millions of years to only a few months. And that what we

destroy in them through pesticide and fertiliser use causes

a deficit of services in the present, but especially in the

future.

 

Soils have a cultural and historical significance that

contribute to human rights and are vital for our survival,

therefore we should protect them and at least do them the

service of making compost to aid renewal.

 

Hannu Hyvönen, a freelance journalist from northern Finland

showed a fascinating video illustrating how increasing the

fruit species grown in his locality has countered the

genetic erosion caused by fifty years of industrial

agriculture and promoted a resurgence of zeal and community

spirit.

 

First the old fruit varieties, mostly apple, had to be

sought from near and far before they died out, and grafted

to a modern variety. Local people then participated in

selecting the tastiest ones as they have for centuries, and

these were planted from seed in their thousands for future

selection. Old varieties of plum and cherry that thrive near

the Arctic Circle are also being rediscovered and saved.

 

Lim Li Ching, researcher for the Third World Network,

previously with ISIS, spoke for Elenita Neth Dano who was

unable to attend. Lim described a project for conserving

agricultural biodiversity through participatory plant

breeding in the Philippines. In this scheme schools are

conducted within a community near areas of industrial

production to reclaim plant varieties with traits suited to

local needs and conditions.

 

This farmer-led initiative has trained over 1 148 farmers,

given them control over their crops, restored traditional

varieties to the farm, and increased local awareness of

environmental issues. Lim also described a very successful

biodynamic system in Mindanao that treats the farm as a

living organism.

 

Martin Khor of the Third World Network then congratulated

ISIS for bringing the conference to reality against a tide

of mainstream thought that gives credence only to more

competition. As it is obvious that independent farmers can

create and develop as many viable and interesting farming

practices as there are independent farms, we must at all

times stress the services that these farmers offer to the

environment as well as the good food that they produce.

 

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho closed the conference by thanking everyone

and quoting Schwartzenegger, governor of California: " We

know the science, we see the threat, and we know that the

time for action is now. " Schwartzenegger set tough targets

for reducing California's emissions of greenhouse gases to

2000 levels by 2010, to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80%

below 1990 levels by 2050. More than 100 mayors in the

United States have also pledged to decrease greenhouse gas

emissions, despite President George W. Bush's continued

refusal to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.

 

All in all, an extremely lively conference with plenty of

audience participation. The breaks were invariably buzzing

with activity and energy.

 

 

 

Thanks to conference sponsors: Fondation pour une Terre

Humaine, Third World Network, Green People, Ecological

Society of the Philippines, International Institute for

Sustainable Development, Alara Organic, Josephine Sikabonyi,

Alan Simpson MP, Michael Meacher MP, Caroline Lucas MEP,

Weston A Price Foundation, HDRA organics and the New

Economics Foundation. See list of sponsors of the

Sustainable World Global Initiative here:

http://www.indsp.org/reg/ISPRegWhoHasSigned.php

 

Available conference papers and power points can be viewed

at: http://www.indsp.org/ISPSustainableWorld.php

 

 

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