Notes from Copenhagen: Panel with Secretary Vilsack Emphasizes Agrofuels, GM

by Annie Shattuck

At an event today at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, along with the Danish Minister of Agriculture, the head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, a representative from the Brazilian government and the president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, an industry group made up of mostly larger scale farmers, discussed food security in the context of climate change.

Agrofuels and mitigation technologies were central in the rhetoric of all five panelists. All the panelists spoke of the potential for agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the need for hunger to figure into any future climate deal.

The Brazilian delegate touted his nation’s “technology leadership in biofuels, basically sugarcane” and promised to increase production. The FAO chief, Jaques Diouf, proposed incorporating agriculture into current or similar proposals for carbon offsetting, like REDD and the Clean Development Mechanism, while the Danish Minister of Agriculture touted free trade as a way to end hunger.

Some of the most interesting commentary however came from US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “We must be committed to technology,” he declared. Vilsack repeatedly referred to GMO technology, 2nd and even 3rd generation agrofuels, and incorporating agriculture into offset markets. (As it stands, the proposed Waxman Markey US Cap and Trade Bill would assign carbon credits to farmers for “chemical no-till” RoundUp Ready GM practices.)

In a bout of institutional schizophrenia Secretary Vilsack emphasized both the U.S. desire to further open the agricultural markets of developing countries and USAID’s commitment to transitioning away from food aid so countries can “produce as much of their own food as possible.” He recognized the pressures on crop production sure to come from even mild climate changes and cited the need to consider food security, even while advocating for a massive expansion of agrofuels which helped spark the global food crisis.

Highlighting the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program, the Secretary also said that linking local production to local consumption can play a role in climate adaptation. For those of us in the U.S., this is the best nugget to come out of the panel. Let’s hold him to it.

The panel was interesting more as an indicator of the tone of future negotiations. The key issues for agriculture in Copenhagen are whether or not food security (much less food sovereignty) will get official consideration in addressing the role of agriculture in mitigation, and what governments are framing as the need or potential for increasing production as a tool to address farming’s role in cooling the planet. From the tone of the official panel today, the push to include agriculture will unfortunately be centered around proprietary technologies, rather than unlocking the creativity and resilience of the world’s small farmers.