Good Reporting? The Economist Attacks Ethical Consumption
Good Reporting?
The Economist Attacks Ethical Consumption
A Dec. 7th article in The Economist entitled "Good food?" attacks organic food, fair trade and buying local with the sub-title, "If you think you can make the planet better by clever shopping, think again. You might make it worse." The arguments presented are provocative, but largely gratuitous.
First, the claim that Fair Trade contributes to "overproduction" by raising the price paid to farmers is not only unsubstantiated; it confuses fair trade niche markets with the commodity market. This is a bit like saying that premiums paid for fine wine will destroy the grape market. Fair Trade is a certification system in which qualifying farmers sell a fraction of their harvest at fair trade prices. According to recent field studies, these premiums result in crop diversification, not increased production.
Similarly, The Economist argues that organic farming will "destroy the rainforest" because more land will have to be cleared to compensate for low productivity. This ignores conventional agriculture's extensive ongoing environmental destruction—conventional soybeans are currently devouring the Brazilian Amazon—it also ignores the well documented displacement of millions of smallholders in the Global South due to the Green Revolution. Despite adopting Green Revolution "packages," these farmers were pushed to the drought-ridden hillsides and remote rainforest frontiers by rapidly-expanding, large-scale producers. In these fragile environments conventional methods led to widespread production "crashes" and more deforestation. Organic—not conventional farming—is successfully reclaiming many failed systems. Recent research at the University of Michigan on Organic Agriculture and the Global Food Supply indicates that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base.
And in a slight of hand to argue against buying local, The Economist invites us to compare a mile traveled by a large supermarket supply truck with a mile traveled by a sport-utility vehicle carrying home a bag of salad (apparently from a farmers market). There is no reason to believe that consumers aren't presently traveling home from supermarkets in their SUV's with a bag of salad, or that local farmers could not supply local supermarkets… More to the point, the Leopold Center at Iowa State University, U.S. calculates food miles by combining distances from production to point of sale and the amount of food product transported with a "Weighted Average Source Distance" (WASD). Using this weighted index, they found that pound-for-pound, internationally-sourced food was 27 times less efficient than locally-produced food, traveling an average difference of 1,494 versus 56 miles.
Lastly, the article claims that, "Real change will require action by governments." True, but that is no reason not to consume conscientiously. To imply that ethical consumption somehow correlates with political apathy is groundless. Does the local purchase of organic, ethical foods keep us from lobbying, voting, advocating, or engaging in direct action? Think again.
Africa: Pitfalls of the New Green Revolution
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are rapidly moving forward with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa—AGRA (see Food First Policy Brief No. 12). It is widely claimed that the Green Revolution made food security possible in Asia and Latin America, while Africa, because of its poor soils and limited water resources, missed out. AGRA proposes working with African plant breeders to perfect drought-resistant, low fertilizer technology seeds. Local merchants, trained by AGRA, will sell these seeds (and the fertilizer) to African farmers and advise them on their use.
What's wrong with this plan?
First, it ignores the way the last improved-seed-and-fertilizer-based Green Revolution exacerbated unequal access to food, land and inputs, and provoked a vicious cycle of debt and environmental degradation in the areas it was deemed "successful" (including parts of Africa). Large farmers with access to capital pushed smallholders off fertile, irrigable land onto the fragile hillsides, the drought-ridden dry topics, and the inhospitable edges of the rainforest. There, Green Revolution "packages" failed miserably, leading to widespread soil erosion, pest outbreaks and production failures. Farmers became indebted and often abandoned their land for newer plots even deeper in the forests and higher on the hillsides, making the economic and environmental problems of the Green Revolution even worse.
The AGRA approach also ignores the widespread successes of the agroecological alternatives that then reclaimed the damaged farms on the drought-ridden, nitrogen-poor fragile lands destroyed by first Green Revolution. Frequently farmer-led, these methods have been steadily spreading among farmers and non-governmental organizations for over thirty years. They also emphasize seed improvement, and have worked successfully with scientists and farmers to develop and share drought and pest-resistant local seeds. The difference is that they base improved crop production on farmer's sustainable management of the farm agro-ecosystem—not on technology contained in commercial seeds. Seed improvement without agro-ecosystem reclamation is not sustainable. Depending on improved seeds to increase yields in soil and water-limited conditions is like putting the cart before the horse—then forgetting to feed the horse.
Rather than promoting successful agroecological practices, AGRA will prop up the continent's ailing crop breeding programs, capitalize local seed companies, and turn seed and fertilizer merchants into "agro-dealers." AGRA's four Nairobi-based staff members will first concentrate their work in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Malawi. The initiative's aim is to form a broad alliance of funders and grantees to eventually cover 12-15 countries and 70% of the population of Africa.
There are appealing aspects of AGRA drawn from already widespread, but less financially endowed, farmer-led agricultural programs—such as participatory plant breeding, in which farmers work with scientists to select crosses that meet their local needs and "cereal banks" to help farmers save their grain until the price is right for sale. The problem is that AGRA primarily supports agro-dealers and plant breeders. This old Green Revolution formula squeezes smallholders financially and does not ensure food security. A $10 million rotating investment fund has been created to start seed companies in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. AGRA wants small business people to sell these seeds, and the accompanying fertilizers and farm inputs. The fertilizer and seed companies will teach these "agrodealers" to teach farmers how to use the new seed and fertilizer packages. But the seed companies and the local agro-dealers have no interest or training in building soil fertility or managing agroecosystems for water conservation… they are primarily interested in selling inputs—not producing sustainably.
AGRA will also train African scientists in Africa by creating a U.S.-style, 5-year PhD program at KwaZulu-Natal University in South Africa. Each class cohort will have ten students from East and Southern Africa who will go back to their home country after two years of course work to do their dissertation research. After graduation, AGRA will provide grants for them to get started in research. It is also based on the assumption that Africans who study in the U.S. usually don't return to Africa. While the program may be well-intentioned, it unfortunately misses the point: educated Africans stay in the U.S. because there is no employment in their home countries. Unless Gates and Rockefeller are prepared to hire their trainees (or convince the IMF and World Bank to rebuild the agricultural research centers and agricultural ministries gutted under two decades of structural adjustment), there is no reason to believe they will find jobs once the grant support ends.
The AGRA Program for Africa's Seed Systems (PASS) will cost $150 million over five years. From mid 2007 through mid 2008 four more programs in soil fertility/fertilizer access; water resources management; added value/output markets; and genomics/advanced science will come on line at about the same grant level. This last program refers to genetic engineering, the AGRA capstone.
AGRA pushes on without consulting African farmer organizations or the NGOs that have pioneered the agroecological solutions for the continent's low-fertility, drought-ridden conditions. If and when Gates and Rockefeller's new seeds finally reach African markets—several years from now—the question will not be whether or not the Green Revolution "missed" Africa, but whether or not there will be any farmers left for AGRA to miss.
USDA Eliminates "Hunger?"
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently stopped counting Americans who don't get enough to eat as hungry. This in spite of the fact that today there are more hungry people in the U.S. than there were five years ago.
These people are now classified as experiencing "food insecurity" with a startling one of every 25 Americans classified by the USDA as having "very low food security." They experienced "multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake." Whatever you call it, hunger (very low food security) affects 4.4 million American households compared to 3.3 million five years ago.
In an Orwellian twist, this is a convenient way to deny that Americans in the wealthiest nation on earth do not always have money to feed themselves and their families. One in nine Americans (11 percent) could not meet their food needs for at least part of last year.
A recent study by the Western Regional Advocacy Project identified that cuts in federal housing over the past 25 years run exactly parallel to the sharp increase in homelessness over that same time. Until the Reagan administration began slashing social programs, the number of Americans forced to live on the streets was relatively small. With the rise in hunger and homelessness in the 1980's nonprofits and churches all across the nation set up "emergency shelters" and "emergency food bag" programs with the idea that these would be short-term measures. Instead, it was the beginning of a downward spiral of hunger and homelessness. In 2005 Second Harvest, America's largest network of emergency food service providers, distributed 2 billion pounds of food to over 25 million hungry Americans—many of whom are working poor. They recently reported that 65% of the Second Harvest food banks have experienced increasing demand for food since 2001.
The $352 billion we have spent on the Iraq war could have gone a long way in addressing the urgent needs of 38 million hungry fellow Americans for food, shelter, and health care.
