In article
,
Billy wrote:
Another take on Eco-Farming
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/08/us-food-idUKTRE7272FN20110308
Eco-farming can double food output by poor: U.N.
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO | Tue Mar 8, 2011 1:09pm GMT
(Reuters) - Many farmers in developing nations can double food
production within a decade by shifting to ecological agriculture from
use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, a U.N. report showed on
Tuesday.
Insect-trapping plants in Kenya and Bangladesh's use of ducks to eat
weeds in rice paddies are among examples of steps taken to increase food
for a world population that the United Nations says will be 7 billion
this year and 9 billion by 2050.
"Agriculture is at a crossroads," according to the study by Olivier de
Schutter, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, in a drive
to depress record food prices and avoid the costly oil-dependent model
of industrial farming.
"Agroecology" could also make farms more resilient to the projected
impact of climate change including floods, droughts and a rise in sea
levels that the report said was already making fresh water near some
coasts too salty for use in irrigation.
So far, eco-farming projects in 57 nations had shown average crop yield
gains of 80 percent by tapping natural methods for enhancing soil and
protecting against pests, it said.
Recent projects in 20 African countries had resulted in a doubling of
crop yields within three to 10 years. Those lessons could be widely
mimicked elsewhere, it said.
"Sound ecological farming can significantly boost production and in the
long term be more effective than conventional farming," De Schutter told
Reuters of steps such as more use of natural compost or high-canopy
trees to shade coffee groves.
AFRICA
Benefits would be greatest in "regions where too few efforts have been
put in to agriculture, particularly sub-Saharan Africa," he said. "There
are also a number of very promising experiences in parts of Latin
America and parts of Asia."
"The cost of food production has been very closely following the cost of
oil," he said. Upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia have been partly linked to
discontent at soaring food prices. Oil prices were around $115 a barrel
on Wednesday.
"If food prices are not kept under control and populations are unable to
feed themselves...we will have increasingly states being disrupted and
failed states developing," De Schutter said.
Among examples, thousands of Kenyan farmers were planting
insect-repelling desmodium or tick clover, used as animal fodder, within
corn fields to keep damaging insects away and sowed small plots of
napier grass nearby that excretes a sticky gum to trap pests.
Better research, training and use of local knowledge were also needed.
"Farmer field schools" by rice growers in Indonesia, Vietnam and
Bangladesh had led to cuts in insecticide use of between 35 and 92
percent, the study said.
De Schutter also called for a push to diversify global farm output from
reliance on rice, wheat and maize in diets.
Developed nations, however, would be unable to make a quick shift to
agroecology because of what he called an "addiction" to an industrial,
oil-based model of farming. Still, a global long-term effort to shift to
agroecology was needed.
Cuba had shown that such a change was possible after the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991 cut off supplies of cheap pesticides and
fertilizers. Yields had risen after a downturn in the 1990s as farmers
adopted more eco-friendly methods.
The following is similar in approach to Farm for the Future,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShCEKL-mQ8
but in print format.
http://gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-n...limate-and-dou
ble-food-production-without-gm
Save Climate and Double Food Production With Eco-Farming
IPS, March 8 2011
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54775
UXBRIDGE - Eco-farming could double food production in entire regions
within 10 years while mitigating climate change, according to a new
U.N. report released Tuesday in Geneva.
An urgent transformation to 'eco-farming' is the only way to end
hunger and face the challenges of climate change and rural poverty,
said Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to
food, following the presentation of his annual report focusing on agro-
ecology and the right to food to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
"Agro-ecology mimics nature not industrial processes. It replaces the
external inputs like fertiliser with knowledge of how a combination of
plants, trees and animals can enhance productivity of the land," De
Schutter told IPS, stressing that, "Yields went up 214 percent in 44
projects in 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa using agro-ecological
farming techniques over a period of 3 to 10 years far more than any
GM [genetically modified] crop has ever done."
Other recent scientific assessments have shown that small farmers in
57 countries using agro-ecological techniques obtained average yield
increases of 80 percent. Africansı average increases were 116 percent.
"Todayıs scientific evidence demonstrates that agro- ecological
methods outperform the use of chemical fertilisers in boosting food
production in regions where the hungry live," De Schutter said.
Agro-ecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural
systems. It enhances soil productivity and protects crops against
pests by relying on the natural elements.
Eco-farming doesnıt require expensive inputs of fossil-fuel- based
pesticides, fertilisers, machinery or hybrid seeds. It is ideally
suited for poor smallholder farmers and herders who are the bulk of
the one billion hungry people in the world. Efforts by governments and
major donors such as the 400-million- dollar Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to subsidise fertilizer and hybrid seeds
will produce quick boosts in yields but are not sustainable in the
long term, De Schutter said.
Malawi is touted as an AGRA success story by funders such as the Gates
Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation who have massively
subsidised fertilizer and created a corresponding improvement in food
production. However the country simply cannot afford to continue those
subsidies and is shifting its strategy to agro-ecology. "The [Malawi]
government now subsidises farmers to plant nitrogen-fixing trees in
their fields to ensure sustained growth in maize production," he said.
De Shutter says AGRA is looking for quick results and is getting them.
He has found it difficult to overcome AGRA proponentsı suspicions
about the effectiveness of agro-ecology, despite the mounting
evidence. "I expect countries to express scepticism towards these
solutions because they are not in accord with the dominant paradigm,"
De Schutter said.
The dominant view of agriculture is the industrial approach - of
maximising efficiency and yield. However that system is utterly
dependent on cheap fossil fuels and never having to be held
accountable for environmental degradation and other impacts. (END)
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw