agriculture

Food Crisis Eclipsing Climate Change

2008-04-29T13:56:00.000+07:00

Food Crisis Eclipsing Climate Change
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 25, 2008

The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis, as foreign populations turn against measures to use foodstuffs as substitutes for fossil fuels.

With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down.

One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America's corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.

"I don't think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial," a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.

Last year, Mr. Runge and a colleague, Benjamin Senauer, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor."

"We were criticized for being alarmist at the time," Mr. Runge said. "I think our views, looking back a year, were probably too conservative."

http://www2.nysun.com/article/75292

Food price rises threaten global security - UN

2008-04-29T13:50:00.000+07:00

Food price rises threaten global security - UN
Hunger riots will destabilise weak governments, says senior official
David Adam, environment correspondent The Guardian, Wednesday April 9 2008 Article history

A farmer sprays pesticide at a rice field in the Karawang regency, Indonesia. Photograph: Beawiharta/Reuters

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN's top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.

Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations. He said food scarcity and soaring fuel prices would compound the damaging effects of global warming. Prices have risen 40% on average globally since last summer.

"The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe," Holmes said. "Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."

He added that the biggest challenge to humanitarian work is climate change, which has doubled the number of disasters from an average of 200 a year to 400 a year in the past two decades.

As well as this week's violence in Egypt, the rising cost and scarcity of food has been blamed for:

· Riots in Haiti last week that killed four people

· Violent protests in Ivory Coast

· Price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people dead

· Heated demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal

· Protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia

UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay rise in the face of a 50% hike in prices, while Asian countries such as Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India and Pakistan have curbed rice exports to ensure supplies for their own residents.

Officials in the Philippines have warned that people hoarding rice could face economic sabotage charges. A moratorium is being considered on converting agricultural land for housing or golf courses, while fast-food outlets are being pressed to offer half-portions of rice.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says rice production should rise by 12m tonnes, or 1.8%, this year, which would help ease the pressure. It expects "sizable" increases in all the major Asian rice producing countries, especially Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines and Thailand.

Holmes is the latest senior figure to warn the world is facing a worsening food crisis. Josette Sheeran, director of the UN World Food Programme, said last month: "We are seeing a new face of hunger. We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."

The programme has launched an appeal to boost its aid budget from $2.9bn to $3.4bn (£1.5bn to £1.7bn) to meet higher prices, which officials say are jeopardising the programme's ability to continue feeding 73 million people worldwide.

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said "many more people will suffer and starve" unless the US, Europe, Japan and other rich countries provide funds. He said prices of all staple food had risen 80% in three years, and that 33 countries faced unrest because of the price rises.

In the UK, Professor John Beddington, the new chief scientific adviser to the government, used his first speech last month to warn the effects of the food crisis would bite more quickly than climate change. He said the agriculture industry needed to double its food production, using less water than today.

He said the prospect of food shortages over the next 20 years was so acute it had to be tackled immediately: "Climate change is a real issue and is rightly being dealt with by major global investment. However, I am concerned there
is another major issue along a similar time-scale - that of food and energy security."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/09/food.unitednations

Amid mounting food crisis, governments fear revolution of the hungry

2008-04-29T13:44:00.000+07:00

Amid mounting food crisis, governments fear revolution of the hungry
By Bill Van Auken
15 April 2008

Last week’s meetings in Washington of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Group of Seven were convened in the shadow of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While Wall Street’s turmoil and the deepening credit crunch dominated discussions, leaders of the global financial institutions were forced to take note of the growing global food emergency, warning of the threat of widespread hunger and already emerging political instability.

The seven major capitalist powers in the G-7—the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada—made virtually no mention of the global food crisis, referring in only one brief reference to the risk of “high oil and commodity prices.” Instead, they focused on the stability of the financial markets, promising measures to shore up investor confidence.

The IMF and World Bank, however, felt compelled to acknowledge the emerging worldwide catastrophe, in part because while these agencies are instruments of the main imperialist powers, they must posture as responsive to the needs of all countries. It would be too revealing for them to focus exclusively on the fate of major finance houses, while ignoring the fact that hundreds of millions across the planet are being threatened with starvation.

More decisive, however, is the realization that this crisis confronting the most impoverished countries and poorest sections of the world’s population is threatening to unleash a revolution of the hungry that could topple governments across large parts of the world.

Even as the IMF and World Bank were meeting, the government of Haiti was forced out in a no-confidence vote passed in response to several days of demonstrations and protests against rising food prices and hunger that swept all the country’s major cities. Clashes between protesters and United Nations occupation troops left at least five people dead and scores wounded and saw crowds attempt to storm the presidential palace.

Food prices in Haiti had risen on average by 40 percent in less than a year, with the cost of staples such as rice doubling.

The same essential story has been repeated in country after country, from Africa to the Middle East, south Asia and Latin America.

* In Bangladesh, on Saturday, some 20,000 textile workers took to the streets to denounce soaring food prices and demand higher wages. The price of rice in the country has doubled over the past year, threatening the workers, who earn a monthly salary of just $25, with hunger. Scores were injured in clashes with police, who used gunfire in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

* In Egypt, protests by workers over food prices rocked the textile center of Mahalla al-Kobra, north of Cairo, for two days last week, with two people shot dead by security forces. Hundreds were arrested, and the government sent plainclothes police into the factories to force workers to work. Food prices in Egypt have risen by 40 percent in the past year.

* Unions and shopkeepers staged a two-day general strike in the West African nation of Burkina Faso last week to protest high prices. The strikers demanded a “significant and effective” cut in the price of rice and other staples.

* Several hundred demonstrators marched on parliament in Phnom Penh, Cambodia April 6 to protest food price hikes. The cost of a kilogram of rice has risen to $1 in a country where the average income is barely 50 cents a day. Police armed with cattle prods broke up the protest.

* Earlier this month, in the Ivory Coast, thousands marched on the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, chanting “we are hungry” and “life is too expensive, you are going to kill us.” The country has seen food prices soar by between 30 percent and 60 percent from one week to the next. Police broke up the protest with tear gas and batons, injuring over a dozen people.

Similar demonstrations, strikes and clashes have taken place in Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Yemen, Ethiopia, and throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa.

With terrifying rapidity, hundreds of millions of people all over the planet have been confronted with the inability to obtain the basic necessities of life. The global capitalist market is dictating intolerable conditions for masses of people on every continent, provoking a worldwide eruption of class struggle.

It is the concern that this struggle will spin out of control that found expression in the statements of concern issued by the IMF and World Bank leaders together with finance ministers and central bank chiefs gathered in Washington.

“If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries, including Africa, but not only Africa, will be terrible. Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will suffer from malnutrition, with consequences all of their lives,” Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund managing director, told an April 12 press conference in Washington.

He warned that governments “will see what they have done totally destroyed and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also.” Strauss-Kahn added: “So it’s not only a humanitarian question. It is not only an economic question. It is also a democratic question. Those kind of questions sometimes end into war.”

“In just two months,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in an opening speech to the meeting of finance ministers, “rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come.

“In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice,” he said, holding up such a bag, “now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family.”

He added that wheat prices had increased by 120 percent, more than doubling the cost of a loaf of bread.

“If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries ... will be terrible,” said Zoellick.

The “international community will also need to take urgent and concerted action in order to avoid the larger political and security implications of this growing crisis,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told international finance and trade officials at a UN meeting following the weekend talks in Washington.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler offered among the bleakest prognoses for the continuing crisis. “We are heading for a very long period of rioting, conflicts (and) waves of uncontrollable regional instability marked by the despair of the most vulnerable populations,” he told the French daily Liberation Monday.

He pointed out that, even before the present crisis, hunger claimed the life of a child under the age of 10 every 5 seconds, and 854 million people in the world were seriously undernourished. What was now posed, Ziegler warned, is “an imminent massacre.”

While finance ministers from the US and Europe indicated agreement that the crisis was severe, there was no indication that the major capitalist powers have any plan to mount the kind of effort needed to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe.

The White House announced Monday that it is releasing $200 million in emergency food aid in response to a World Bank appeal for funding to make up for the shortfall in food assistance caused by soaring prices. The amount—roughly what the US spends in half a day on its war to conquer Iraq—is less than a drop in the bucket in the face of the looming global catastrophe.

In the end, the crisis is a product of the capitalist market itself. It is not a matter of too many mouths to feed or too little food to supply human needs. Food is available, but the market has driven prices to a level out of reach for a growing portion of humanity in the most oppressed countries, and at the same effectively slashing the living standards of workers in the more advanced capitalist world.

This process is driven by a number of factors, including climatic ones, such as the impact of a drought in Australia on wheat production and a flood in Bangladesh on rice. There is also the rise in demand, particularly from growing middle class layers in India and China.

But more fundamental is the effect of speculation in food as a commodity—like oil and precious metals. It has become a haven for financial investors fleeing from paper assets tainted by subprime mortgages and other toxic credit products. The influx of buyers drives prices and makes food unaffordable for the world’s poor.

“Fund money flowing into agriculture has boosted prices,” Standard Chartered Bank food commodities analyst Abah Ofon told the media. “It’s fashionable. This is the year of agricultural commodities.”

Speculation in food as a commodity has been sharply accelerated by the decline in the value of the dollar, soaring oil prices and the promotion of biofuel production in the US and elsewhere. This attempt to generate a new investment “bubble,” based on the fraud that somehow turning corn into ethanol represents a “green” alternative to fossil fuels, has driven up the price not only of corn, but other grains, while diverting a major share of food production into a more profitable venture.

Subsidized by the US government, American farmers have diverted fully 30 percent of corn production into the ethanol scheme, driving up the cost of other, more expensive, grains that are being bought as substitutes for animal feed.

“When a biofuel policy is launched in the United States, thanks to subsidies of $6 billion, of bio-fuels that drains 138 million tons of corn from the market, the foundation is laid for a crime against humanity to satisfy one’s own thirst for fuel,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Liberation.

This assessment was repeated by India’s finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, who declared, “When millions of people are going hungry, it’s a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels.”

US officials dismissed the charges, insisting that biofuel production was only one factor among many and indicating that there is no plan to change Washington’s policy.

Country after country has been left vulnerable to the global commodity price surge by “free market” policies implemented at the demands of Washington and the international financial agencies such as the IMF and World Bank over the past quarter century.

The closer integration of the economies of the oppressed countries into the world market has been accompanied by their increasing concentration on specialized export crops, while tariff barriers have been demolished, opening the way to subsidized agricultural staples from the more advanced countries capturing local markets.

Now, attempts by individual national governments to remedy the problem within their own borders—often taking the form of commodity producers erecting barriers on exports—have served to exacerbate the crisis internationally, driving food prices even higher, while triggering protests by farmers in countries stretching from India to Argentina. According to a recent World Bank survey, at least 58 countries have implemented at least some form of food-trade protectionism.

What is emerging in the crisis over food prices is a tumultuous manifestation of a breakdown of the global capitalist order. The catastrophe facing billions of people around the globe cannot be resolved within the confines of a system based on private profit and the nation state.

The revolutionary implications of this crisis are beginning to dawn on elements within the ruling establishment itself. In an article published Monday, the influential US magazine Time noted: “The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War... And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/food-a15.shtml

Rice

2008-04-29T13:36:00.000+07:00

Rice was the staple food in the Indonesian diet, accounting for more than half of the calories in the average diet, and the source of livelihood for about 20 million households, or about 100 million people, in the late 1980s. Rice cultivation covered a total of around 10 million hectares throughout the archipelago, primarily on sawah. The supply and control of water is crucial to the productivity of rice land, especially when planted with high-yield seed varieties. In 1987 irrigated sawah covered 58 percent of the total cultivated area, rainfed sawah accounted for 20 percent, and ladang, or dryland cultivation, together with swamp or tidal cultivation covered the remaining 22 percent of rice cropland.

The government was intensely involved in the rice economy, both to stabilize prices for urban consumers and to expand domestic output to achieve national self-sufficiency in rice production. Various governmental policies included the dissemination of highyield seed varieties through government-sponsored extension programs, direct investment in irrigation facilities, and control of the domestic price of rice through the National Logistical Supply Organization (Bulog), the government rice-trading monopoly. In the 1970s, Indonesia was a major rice importer, but by 1985 self-sufficiency had been achieved after six years of annual growth rates in excess of 7 percent per year. From 1968 to 1989, annual rice production had increased from 12 million to 29 million tons, and yields had increased from 2.14 tons of padi (wet rice growing) per hectare to 4.23 tons per hectare.

The most significant factor in this impressive increase in output and productivity was the spread of high-yield rice varieties. By the mid-1980s, 85 percent of rice farmers used highyield variety seeds, compared with 50 percent in 1975. High-yield varieties were promoted together with subsidized fertilizer, pesticides, and credit through the "mass guidance" or Bimas rice intensification program. This extension program also offered technical assistance to farmers unfamiliar with the new cultivation techniques. The new technology was not without its own problems, however. Several major infestations of the brown planthopper, whose natural predators were eliminated by the heavy use of subsidized pesticides, led to a new strategy in 1988 to apply the techniques of integrated pest management, relying on a variety of methods aside from pesticide to control insects and rodents. To help reduce pesticide use, in 1989 the subsidy on pesticides was eliminated.

Government investments in irrigation had also made a significant contribution to increased rice production. From FY 1969 to FY 1989, 2.5 million hectares of existing irrigated land were rehabilitated, and irrigation was expanded to cover about 1.2 million hectares.

Because the government objective of price stability for urban consumers could potentially undermine efforts to increase production by reducing the profitability of the rice crop, Bulog's operations evolved to take into consideration producer incentives as well as consumer costs. Domestic rice prices were permitted to rise gradually during the 1970s, although they were generally held below world rice prices. However, domestic prices were kept above world prices in several periods during the 1980s. Bulog influenced the domestic rice price by operating a buffer stock on the order of 2 million tons during the 1980s. When domestic prices fell, Bulog purchased rice through village cooperatives, and when prices rose above the price ceiling, Bulog released buffer supplies. The margin between the producer floor price and urban ceiling price was sufficient to permit private traders to operate profitably, and Bulog's distribution of rice was limited to under 15 percent of total rice consumed domestically in a given year.

http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/66.htm

Concepts and Definitions

2008-04-29T13:22:00.000+07:00

Wet land

is agriculture land, compartmentalized and saparated by small dykes to resist water, where the main crops is usually wet land paddy without considering the status of the land. Wet rice field covers irrigated rice field, rainfield, valleys etc.

Area harvested

is area of crops which harvested after the crops come age.

Damaged Area
is area of crops which damaged due to pests and calamity (its production is 10 % or less of a normal production).

Area planted

is area of crops which planted(seeded).

Dry Land/Garden/for crop cultivation

is an unirrigated land planted with seasonal crops and separately situated from the yard around the house.

Temporary fallow land

is a land usually cultivated, but left idle for more than one year.

Arable Land

is a land which included wetland, dryland/garden/for crop cultivation and temporary fallow land.

Estates

is a land planted with commercial crops , such as rubber, palm oil, coconut, pepper, tobacco, sugar cane, cloves,etc.

Meadows

is a land usually used to raised the livestock.

Agriculture land

is a land which included arable land, estates and meadows

Pond and Dyke

is a land used to cultivate fish.

Wood land

is a land planted with wood tree/bamboo weather its growth by itself or cultivate, which main product is wood (not including country forestry land).

House compounds and surroundings

is a land for building together with land around it and usually being fenced, planted or not. If the land around the building has no clear distinction, then it is included into garden.

Food and Environmental Protection

2008-04-16T18:00:00.001+07:00

Food and Environmental Protection

Food and Environmental Protection The Food and Environmental Protection Section of the Joint Programme and its associated Agrochemicals Unit of the FAO/IAEA FAO/IAEA Agricultural and Biotechnology Laboratory in Seibersdorf provide assistance and support to countries in their efforts to ensure the safety and quality of food and agricultural commodities while at the same time facilitating international trade. Our activities primarily focus on strengthening Member State capacities for the application of international standards on irradiation as well as on the use of nuclear and related analytical technologies and capacity building in the management of food and environmental hazards. These efforts are based on a coordinated and comprehensive “farm to fork” approach to food production systems that ensure the application of good agricultural practices throughout the food chain.

Present activities focus on:

* The application of harmonized national regulations for sanitary and phytosanitary applications of irradiation on the basis of international standards.
* The revision and application of harmonized regulations related to radionuclide levels in foods.
* The application of harmonized national regulations related to good laboratory practices and analytical procedures for food contaminants and residues, including pesticides and veterinary drugs.
* The application of harmonized international guidance related to nuclear preparedness and response to nuclear or radiological events, including the application of appropriate agricultural countermeasures.

These activities are undertaken in four main areas, namely, coordination and support in research, providing technical and advisory services, providing laboratory support and training and collecting, analyzing and disseminating information. Our activities are implemented through Coordinated Research Projects, Technical Cooperation Projects, Meetings and Training Courses, eLearning courses, and Publications.

http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/fep/index.html

Global Warming Is a Serious Public Health Concern

2008-04-16T17:57:00.000+07:00

Global Warming Is a Serious Public Health Concern
This week's climate fact

Posted: 11-Apr-2008; Updated: 11-Apr-2008
"Over the next few decades in the United States, climate change is likely to have a significant impact on health."i

- Howard Frumkin, Director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Climate change is already affecting public health across the globe. The World Health Organization estimates that climatic changes are already causing more than 150,000 deaths annually and substantial losses in quality of life due to diarrheal disease, malaria, malnutrition, and flooding. And the health impacts from climate change will likely increase over time. Some of these anticipated health impacts include:

* Asthma and allergic diseases are likely to worsen. Warmer temperatures favor the formation of ozone, which aggravates asthma; higher CO2 and other climate changes may increase allergenic pollen formation.ii,iii,iv
* Food and water-borne disease could increase. Climate-related increases in natural disasters and warmer ambient temperatures could increase the burden of food- and water-borne diarrheal diseases.
* Increased extreme weather events will directly impact health. More frequent and severe heat waves,v,vi hurricanes, wildfires, and floods will cause deaths and injury.vii Contact with contaminated floodwater,viii and displacement contribute to additional morbidity and mortality.

Climate change will magnify health disparities.ix Our experience with natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. and Hurricane Mitch in Central America suggests that minorities and disadvantaged populations will suffer the most when extreme weather events increase.x Poorer populations may lack adequate shelter or access to protective resources such as air conditioning,xi transportation, healthcare, and emergency assistance.

But if we act soon - and we can - some of the harshest consequences of climate change can be avoided. The solutions exist to significantly and cheaply cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today, but Congress needs to enact an economy-wide cap-and-trade policy to really reach the reductions we need.

McKinsey & Company, the well-respected consulting firm, released an analysis in December 2007 that shows that there are over 250 technologies available today to start reducing U.S. emissionsxii. Many of these emission reduction measures also provide ancillary health benefits, such as reduced exposure to toxic air pollution.

And, nearly 40 percent of these opportunities would not only pay for themselves, but also earn enough savings to largely offset the cost of more expensive options. And the report does not even consider the costs to society of not taking action on climate change, or the benefits of doing so.

We have the solutions available today to slow, stop, and reverse climate change, but Congress must mobilize our economy if we are to achieve the reductions we need. It's time to cap emissions now.

i Frumkin testimony to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, April 9, 2008

ii Bernard et al. "The potential impacts of climate variability and change on air pollution-related health effects in the United States." Environmental Health Perspectives. 2001 May; 109(Suppl 2): 199?209.

iii Patz J, Campbell-Lendrum D, Holloway T, Foley J. "Impact of Regional Climate Change on Human Health" [PDF]. Nature. 17 November 2005; 438.

iv Bell M et al. Climate change, ambient ozone, and health in 50 US cities. Climatic Change. 2007;82:61-76.

v Field, C.B., L.D. Mortsch,, M. Brklacich, D.L. Forbes, P. Kovacs, J.A. Patz, S.W. Running and M.J. Scott, 2007: North America. ClimateChange 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 617-652.

vi Curriero, F. C., Heiner, K., Zeger, S., Samet, J. M. & Patz, J. A. Temperature and mortality in 11 cities of the eastern United States. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2002;155:80?87.

vii Confalonieri, U., B. Menne, R. Akhtar, K.L. Ebi, M. Hauengue, R.S. Kovats, B. Revich and A. Woodward, 2007: Human health. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 391-431.

viii Wade et al. Did a severe flood in the Midwest cause an increase in the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms? American Journal of Epidemiology. 2004;159(4):398-405.

ix Patz JA, McGheehin MA, Bernard, SM, Ebi KL, Epstein PR, Grambsch A. et al 2000. Potential consequences of climate variability and change for human health in the United States. in: Climate Change Impacts on the United States: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (National Assessment Synthesis Team, eds). U.S. Global Change Research Program. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 437?458.

x U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared. Washington DC, 2006: 109th Congress, 2nd Session, S. Rept. 109-322.

xi Klinenberg E. Heat wave: A social autopsy of disaster in Chicago. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago: 2002.

xii Reducing US Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost?, conducted by McKinsey & Company and published jointly with the Conference Board in November 2007.

http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=7474

New â€œSeafood Selector To-Goâ€ Helps Consumers Choose Healthy, Ocean-Friendly Fish

2008-04-16T17:53:00.000+07:00

New â€œSeafood Selector To-Goâ€ Helps Consumers Choose Healthy, Ocean-Friendly Fish
Lent Increases Seafood Demand, Need For Good Choices

Posted: 19-Mar-2008; Updated: 19-Mar-2008
For Immediate Release

Contact:
Katharine Burnham (202) 415-5742

(Washington, DC-March 18, 2008) Americans are eating more fish than ever, and seafood sales increase dramatically during the Lenten season. The fish counter can be a confusing place though, even for the most educated fish lover. Many ask, how many times a week can I safely eat tuna? Is it ok to eat swordfish again?

To help consumers make the most informed seafood choices while shopping or eating out, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) introduces a new way for consumers to access health and environmental information electronically about their favorite kinds of seafood.

The â€œSeafood Selector To-Go,â€ http://m.edf.org/seafood, provides consumers with mobile access to recommendations for more than 200 popular seafood choices thus eliminating guess work and having to rely on fishmongers or waiters. Shoppers can easily access the best substitutes for their favorite but overfished choices as well as exactly how many times they can eat choices like tuna and swordfish.

â€œMany eco- and health-conscious consumers are confused about issues such as overfishing and mercury,â€ said Tim Fitzgerald, marine scientist for EDF. â€œThis new tool provides easy access to best and worst choices, as well as more detailed health and environmental information and recipes.â€

To provide consumers with clear, consistent information, Environmental Defense Fund and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program recently harmonized their seafood eco-guides. Choosing ocean-friendly fish is of growing importance as our oceans are in decline from overfishing, habitat destruction and pollution. Along with helping consumers choose the most environmentally-friendly choices, EDF is working with local fishermen and fisheries managers to promote policies that will ensure a greater abundance of healthy, local and ocean-friendly seafood.

â€œWe want to give busy consumers a variety of ways to access our unique compilation of environmental and health research, be it on wallet cards, our Seafood Selector website, or their mobile device,â€ continued Fitzgerald.

Seafood sales traditionally increase 30 percent during the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. The rest of the year, most American seafood dollars are spent in restaurants.

â€œUntil restaurants and supermarkets offer this kind of information at point-of-purchase, consumers will need assistance in making the best seafood choices for them and their families,â€ offered Fitzgerald.

###

About Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Defense Fund is at the forefront of an innovation revolution, developing new solutions that protect the natural world while growing the economy. Founded in 1967 and representing more than 500,000 members, the group creates powerful economic incentives by working with market leaders and relying on rigorous science. For more information, visit edf.org.

Argentina: Truce in three-week agricultural strike

2008-04-12T16:18:00.000+07:00

Argentina: Truce in three-week agricultural strike
By Jadir Antunes
3 April 2008

Leaders of Argentina’s four major agricultural producers’ organizations announced a 30-day truce in the three-week-old strike and road blockades that have shaken the country for the past three weeks, leading to widespread food shortages and a growing atmosphere of political crisis. At the same time, however, they threatened to resume their actions if the government fails to meet their demands.

The announcement came a day after Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner took the stage before a rally of some 20,000 people outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires to denounce the country’s farmers and media and compare the rural protest to the economic convulsions that were unleashed in the run-up to the country’s 1976 military coup.

The strike was launched in response to an increase in the so-called retenciones, or export taxes imposed upon the extraordinary profits being made by big producers from the country’s agricultural exports.

Martin Lousteau, the minister of the economy, justified the imposition of a sliding scale of taxes on agricultural products exported from the country as a means of avoiding a return of hyperinflation and of guaranteeing the availability of basic food supplies within the country. Lousteau indicated that the export tax hikes also served to avoid what has been referred to in Argentina as the “soyization” of the country.

Roots of the strike

By soyization what is meant is the exclusive domination of all agricultural land by the monoculture of soy production for export. According to the government, this could lead to a collapse in food supplies and an explosion in food prices in the country. Lousteau argues that the objective of the export tax increase is to decouple the internal prices on food from international prices. “What would happen with industry, what would happen with people if food in Argentina costs what it would have to cost according to international prices?” the minister asked, expressing his anger over the rural strike.

For their part, the landowners say that if Argentina wants the countryside to continue to guarantee the country’s current economic growth and the jobs that it generates (it is estimated that one third of all jobs in the country are tied to agriculture), the population must begin to pay for food according to market prices, that is in accordance with prices set by the world market.

At the root of this conflict between the agricultural sector and the government are various problems that the Peronist government of Nestor Kirchner (who was succeeded as president by his wife three months ago) was unable to resolve in its four years in office and which are now exploding under President Cristina Fernandez. One of these problems is the growing reinsertion of the Argentine economy into the world market as a major source of agricultural goods. Argentine agriculture has increasingly concentrated production on commodities for export, such as soy, corn, wheat, meat and oils.

Soy, for example, became the rage in the Argentine countryside in the 1990s, when a large part of cultivated land was dedicated to the growing of transgenic soybeans. Argentina today ranks as the world’s third largest soybean producer, trailing only the US and Brazil.

The crop offered extraordinary profits to the country’s big agricultural concerns due to the fall in the cost of production during the first years of cultivation.

A decade later, however, the costs of production began undergoing an alarming increase. Throughout the chain of production of soy, from seeds to fertilizers and pesticides, supplies are controlled by the agricultural sector’s big monopolies, and prices have been rising continuously affecting profitability. Those principally suffering from these price increases have been the small and medium producers, who are unable to maintain a stable profit rate because of their inability to control increased costs of production.

Similar problems have arisen in the cattle industry. With the dollar worth close to 3.15 pesos, the country’s principal meatpacking houses have decided to direct the bulk of meat to the external market. As a result, the internal market has suffered from permanent shortages and a sharp increase in meat prices within the country.

Another problem resulting from these economic forces is the tendency for the growth of transgenic soy production to squeeze out production of foodstuffs for the country itself. Land has increasingly been concentrated in the hands of big landowners who use it to grow soy for export. Large sections of land that previously were used for the cultivation of wheat, for example, have been given over to transgenic soy, affecting wheat supplies on the domestic market.

To protect domestic supplies, the government has imposed export quotas. In January of this year, however, the government decided to raise the quota, allowing greater export of wheat. The result was a sharp rise in the price of wheat paid by the export houses. From close to 500 pesos a ton, the price of wheat jumped to 700 pesos in a few weeks. The same thing has happened whenever the government has reopened export rights on any exportable agricultural product. The price rises rapidly in the grain exchanges, and internal supplies fall, resulting in rising prices for consumers and extraordinary profits for the agro-export sector.

Another problem linked to those already cited is the fact that, with the national currency strongly undervalued, all of the country’s big seed warehouses and meatpacking houses have sought to sell their products on the external market. With this operation, profits in these sectors have tripled in some cases.

If the market in food was to remain at the mercy of this agribusiness sector, all of the food production in the country could be bound for the export market, with Argentine consumers left with no alternative other than paying international market prices if they wanted to buy these products.

Lousteau, who had already imposed export quotas and taxes, decided to raise the taxes based on a number of factors. One was an attempt to avoid internal shortages of the principal foods consumed by the population, like meat, wheat and vegetable oil. He was also seeking to prevent the soyization of the country, that is, to prevent Argentina as a whole from being subordinated to the big agricultural export monopolies, and to avoid hyperinflation in domestic food prices.

The extraordinary profits being made from agricultural production have three different sources. In the first place, there is the high international demand for agricultural commodities, which has raised their prices in dollars. Secondly, they have their source in the extremely rich fertility of the Argentine soil, which is one of the best in the world for the cultivation of wheat, soy, corn and sunflowers as well as for grazing cattle. Finally, they have their origin in the super-exploitation of agricultural wage labor.

Agricultural workers in Argentina receive average monthly salaries that are far below those paid to workers in the cities, which are already insufficient to meet basic social necessities. The worker in the Argentine countryside, like his counterparts throughout Latin America, generally receives from the landowners no more than the minimum needed to survive.

The difference between national and international prices, the difference between the fertility of Argentine soil and average soil fertility in the rest of the world, and the difference between the subsistence wages of the Argentine agricultural workers and the average wages paid to the working class in general form the basis of what economists call the profit differential of agriculture.

It was the government’s attempt to partially redistribute this differential profit that provoked the outrage of latifundist capital in Argentina, bringing it into direct confrontation with the administration of Cristina Fernandez.

By keeping part of these profits in the treasury’s vaults, Lousteau believed that it would be possible to avoid all of the problems mentioned earlier. What the minister failed to take into account was the intense and radical reaction of the agricultural sectors, joined by some middle class sectors in the cities, against his fiscal policy. The protest—which has seen road blockades and growing shortages in the markets—has now lasted three weeks without any proposal announced by the government appearing likely to resolve it.

The crisis confronting Cristina Fernandez

In the rally Tuesday, the Argentine president spoke to a crowd that included large numbers of union members organized by the Peronist CGT, students as well as delegations from the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. She addressed herself to the landowners, declaring, “I want to ask you, to earnestly beseech you, those who still believe that it is good to block the roads to food, to stop materials for the factories, that you please realize the evil that you are doing.”

Earlier, Cristina Fernandez had gone to the press to condemn the protests as “egotistical,” as the landowners did not want to share with the government a part of their extraordinary profits.

There had been speculation that the government could decree a state of siege. Before Tuesday’s rally, Argentina’s Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo commented, “There’s no reason for the countryside to still be on strike. We are not going to allow the shortages to continue.”

One of the major problems confronting the government is that in its attempt to negotiate a settlement with the countryside it is not dealing with a homogeneous group that can be satisfied with a general proposal. The great majority of the rural producers involved in the protest is made up of small and medium landowners who belong to the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA). For this sector, what is involved is not just the question of the export taxes, but rather the government’s entire agricultural policy over the past five years, which has been turned toward the agro-export market.

The problem with the retenciones rests in the fact that they are not applied to this or that sector of the countryside, but rather to all agro-export production. The battle against soyization that Lousteau claims to be fighting has its most serious effects on the small landowners, not on those enjoying the benefits from the increasing concentration of land ownership in recent years.

To resolve the conflict, Lousteau reached the point of considering a further devaluation of the peso, to 3.50 to the dollar. Such a devaluation could, in theory, maintain the present fiscal charge on exports without affecting the amount of resources flowing into the state treasury and the profits that remain with the farmers, measured in pesos. With this measure, however, the government would be shooting itself in the foot, as it would touch off a rise in inflation, which Lousteau is supposedly trying to prevent.

On the other hand, a revaluation of the peso (the dollar could be exchanged for only 3 pesos, for example) could avoid an avalanche of exports and internal shortages. However, a revaluation would come into conflict with the interests of the UIA (Industrial Union of Argentina—the country’s main manufacturers’ association), allied with the government in the struggle against the countryside and the soyization as it would open up the national market for foreign-made products which would compete more favorably with nationally manufactured goods.

The situation poses no easy solution for Cristina Fernandez. The farmers’ strike represents much more than merely a protest by one part of the country’s bourgeoisie against the state’s redistribution of part of its profits. The strike expresses the entire set of contradictions in which Argentine society is mired.

If Argentina’s economy was not affected by the world crisis of capitalism, the government could continue fighting with one faction of a ruling class of which it itself is merely a representative.

But it precisely this world crisis that dominates and disorganizes the country’s fragile system of prices and exchange rates. When the extraordinary profits being reaped in the countryside fall, when inflation tears apart the conditions of life for the working class and makes the support of the CGT bureaucracy inadequate to hold back workers’ struggles and when all of the current contradictions of Argentine society explode under the impact of the global crisis, the present economic policies being contemplated by the government of Cristina Fernandez will prove useless in holding back a new period of immense class struggles.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/arg-a03.shtml

World food prices soar as Asia consumes more

2008-04-12T16:00:00.001+07:00

World food prices soar as Asia consumes more
By Russell Blinch and Brian Love Reuters
Published: March 31, 2008

WASHINGTON: Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers cannot keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it is already boiling over.

Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports - a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century.

Damaged by severe weather in producing countries and plundered by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, global wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of inexpensive food.

Drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow biofuel crops have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors.

World population is set to hit 9 billion by 2050, and most of the extra 2.5 billion people will live in the developing world. It is in these countries that the population is demanding dairy and meat, which require more land to produce.
This is an additional setback for the world economy, at a time when we are already going through major turbulence, but the biggest drama is the impact of higher food prices on the poor," Angel Gurría, head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said.

In Gurría's native Mexico, tens of thousands took to the streets last year over the cost of tortillas, a national staple whose price rocketed in tandem with the price of corn.

Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 percent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 percent.

In 2007 alone, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's world food index, dairy prices rose nearly 80 percent and grain 42 percent.

"The recent rise in global food commodity prices is more than just a short-term blip," the British research group Chatham House said in January.

"Society will have to decide the value to be placed on food," it added, and how "market forces can be reconciled with domestic policy objectives."

Many countries are already facing these choices.

After long opposition, Mexico's government is considering lifting a ban on genetically modified crops to allow its farmers to compete with the United States, where high-yield, genetically modified corn is the norm.

The European Union and parts of Africa have similar bans that could also be reconsidered.

A number of governments, including Egypt, Argentina, Kazakhstan and China, have imposed restrictions to limit grain exports and keep more of their food at home.

This knee-jerk response to food emergencies can result in farmers producing less food, and it threatens to undermine years of effort to open up international trade.

"If one country after the other adopts a 'starve-your-neighbor' policy, then eventually you trade smaller shares of total world production of agricultural products, and that in turn makes the prices more volatile," said Joachim von Braun, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

In Argentina, a government tax on grain led to a strike by farmers that disrupted grain exports.

Vietnam and India, both major rice exporters, announced further curbs on overseas sales Friday, sending rice higher on U.S. futures markets.

Other food commodities retreated from record highs in recent days, but analysts attributed that less to fundamentals and more to profit-taking by investors.

In the next decade, the price of corn could rise 27 percent, oilseeds like soybeans by 23 percent and rice by 9 percent, according to tentative UN and OECD forecasts in February.

Waves of discontent are already starting to be felt. Violent protests hit Cameroon and Burkina Faso in February. Protesters rallied in Indonesia recently and media reported deaths by starvation. In the Philippines, fast-food chains were urged to cut rice portions to counter a surge in prices.

Trade Minister Kamal Nath of India said Monday that the government was looking to cut duties on food items to rein in rising prices.

"We are looking to cutting our duties on many products on the food front," he said, ahead of a cabinet committee meeting to consider ways to contain prices. Earlier this month, the government cut the import duty on crude palm oil to 20 percent from 45 percent, and on refined palm oil to 27.5 percent from 52.5 percent.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/31/business/food.php

Secretary Kawamura Comments on Oehha/Dpr/Dph Study of Pheromone Usage in Light Brown Apple Moth Eradication Project

2008-04-12T15:53:00.000+07:00

Secretary Kawamura Comments on Oehha/Dpr/Dph Study of Pheromone Usage in Light Brown Apple Moth Eradication Project
CDFA
Release #08-029
Print This Release
SACRAMENTO, April 10, 2008-Today, Secretary of California Department of Food & Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura released the following statement regarding the release of the joint study of pheromone usage in the Light Brown Apple Moth eradication project:

“I commend the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Department of Pesticide Regulation and California Department of Public Health for their hard work and thorough look at every report of health symptoms following the use of the pheromone Checkmate in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

“It’s my hope today’s report will help ease the minds of those concerned about the Light Brown Apple Moth eradication program and open a positive dialogue. I understand the concern and assure Californians that the USDA and CDFA will continue to pursue the safest, most effective and environmentally friendly eradication program in our state’s history. California must lead in solving the Light Brown Apple Moth threat before it crosses borders into other states, agricultural regions and environments.

“I am committed to continuing an open, transparent process and will continue to encourage public dialogue and the dissemination of factual information about the eradication program. This study serves as a reminder for us to always look to credible sources for information. Unfortunately, we have all heard a significant amount of incorrect information that fills Californians with unwarranted fear, so today, I hope for a renewed openness between CDFA and our communities that will end the spreading of disinformation.

“I took an oath to protect California's best assets - our people, our environment and our commodities. In that spirit, I know we are obligated to rid our state and country of this destructive pest and I hope the report by California's trusted leaders in public health and pesticide regulation will help ease minds that we are going to do so in the safest way possible for each and every treasured asset I am obligated to protect.

"I encourage each and every Californian to learn more about our program. Our Web site is a good place to start."

Over the last year, Secretary Kawamura has been devoted to traveling the state and talking with local leaders and attending public workshops to educate Californians on the LBAM eradication project and address concerns.

Link to the OEHHA, DPR, and DPH report can be found here http://www.oehha.ca.gov/.

For more information on the LBAM project please visit: www.cdfa.ca.gov.

The World Water Report – Supplies Falling, Tensions Rising

2008-04-12T15:48:00.000+07:00

The World Water Report – Supplies Falling, Tensions Rising

GLOBE-Net, 2 April 2008 - As the world continues to urbanize the impact on water resources and the available supply of water for drinking, agriculture, hygiene and industry is dwindling. Nations around the world, even those rich in water resources, are facing potential conflicts over the planet's most important commodity.

"Water is the ultimate fugitive resource, traversing borders through rivers, lakes, and aquifers - a fact that points to the potential for cross-border tensions in water-stressed regions."

Global economic growth, population pressures and the rise of mega-cities have all driven water use to record levels. Today, around 3,800 cubic kilometres of fresh water is withdrawn annually from the world's lakes, rivers and aquifers. This is twice the volume extracted 50 years ago.

In most European cities with more than 100,000 people, ground water is being used at a faster rate than it can be replenished and according to a 2007 European Union report, up to 40% of that water is being wasted.

Available water is beginning to cost more and more to capture or draw from aquifers. Large cities like Mexico City, Bangkok, Manila, Beijing and Shanghai have experienced aquifer drops of 10 to 50 meters.

Climate change is expected to exacerbate the problem as it alters rainfall patterns. Rising sea levels are also forcing salt water into aquifers beneath megadeltas that are home to tens of millions, and changing weather patterns are set to intensify droughts in large swathes of Africa, southern Europe and Asia, according to UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).

According to the IPCC, as temperatures have warmed, the world's glaciers have begun retreating at accelerating rates and may disappear entirely within a few decades. China, India, and the West Coast of the United States are among populous places that rely on glacial meltwater for their water supply. Glaciers feed some of the world's great rivers, such as the Ganges, Yellow, and Mekong, which serve 1.5 billion people.

"In the coming decades, water scarcity may be a watchword that prompts action ranging from wholesale population migration to war, unless new ways to supply clean water are found," comment a team of researchers in a review of water purification technology published tomorrow in the British journal Nature. The lack of water not only increasing cross border political tension, but it also undermines food security.

In the past few years, agricultural centres in the United States, Australia, Asia and even Canada have faced some of the worst drought conditions ever recorded. Australia, now in its 10th year of a record drought, its worst in a millennium, is resulting in the smallest wheat yields in nearly 15 years.

The United States interior is facing some of the worst drought conditions in over 50 years and has forced some of the region's largest cities to declare water emergencies. "We have actually classified it as an exceptional drought," said David Stooksbury, a climatologist at Georgia State. "Basically [it is] the type of drought that we expect to see about once in 100 years."

Water Scarcity in Canada

Canada possesses one of the world's largest supplies of fresh water - up to one-fifth of the global supply. Canadians consume 350 litres of water a day per capita, second only to Americans, considered by many as the most profligate wasters of water in the world. By comparison, the average global citizen uses between 20 and 40 litres of water a day for drinking and sanitation.

Each year some Canadian municipalities must cope with water shortages, demonstrating that even in a nation with relatively large water resources, scarcity can be a problem. During the period from September 2001 to August 2002, over 65% of prairie cropland in Canada was affected by moderate, severe or record drought conditions. The incident cost $5.8 billion dollars and according to the recent Natural Resource Canada report From impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate the prairie provinces and British Columbia should expect an increase in droughts and water shortages in the coming years.

The Great Lakes are a cross border resource which supports 9 million Canadians and 34 million Americans. They form the backbone for billions of dollars in shipping, trade, and fishing, and provide food and recreational opportunities for millions. Yet various schemes are being considered that would divert Great Lakes water to other parts of the North American heartland.

In 2004 the United States began exploring the idea of diverting significant levels of water out of the Great Lakes to help meet growing water demands. Some fear that neither Canada nor the provinces would be able to veto such diversions, regardless of their duration, scale, or impact on the waters of the shared Great Lakes ecosystem.

According to Ohio's director of natural resources, the states are simply trying to exercise their sovereign rights. "There are no standards for diversions now," Sam Speck says. "Canada doesn't have any voice in diversions states want to make."

According to experts such diversions could drop water levels in Lake Michigan by up to 10 feet. Diverting water from the Great Lakes to assist with drought conditions has been an on-again, off-again battle between the US and Canada, but as the frequency of water shortages and droughts increase in North America, the idea may soon become a reality.

In total, forty percent of Canada's boundary with the United States is composed of fresh water. As the most precious commodity on the planet becomes scarcer, border relations between both nations may also become increasingly strained and hostile without proper management (see GLOBE-Net article Environment Could Shape Border of the Future).

Can the tides be turned?

Earth's water supplies are fixed - what we had yesterday is the same as what we'll have tomorrow. Though many of the resources needed for economic development are being depleted, the quantity of water is constant. The problem with water availability is the location, timing and distribution of rainfall. The challenge is to help communities ensure that water is always where it is needed, when it is needed, which is not necessarily where it falls as rain.

What is required is proper water management and the dissemination of best practices and technologies from water rich nations to nations that are lacking in fresh water resources. For example, on World Water Day the United Kingdom pledged $16 million to the linkNile Basin Initiative to help the 10 countries that share the biggest river in the world make better use of this resource.

A 2005 UNESCO report ranked Canada second in the world in terms of the quality and management of its water systems. With its experience Canada could play a significant role as a leader in helping solve the emerging global water issues.

"Through water sharing and co-ordination we can provide long term solutions to the world's water shortages," said United Kingdom International Development Minister Gareth Thomas "Climate change and rising food and energy costs make the need for an open dialogue all the more urgent. If we do not act the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead. We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."

Fiji Water Discloses Supply Chain Carbon Footprint, Plans to Reduce Environmental Impact

2008-04-12T15:43:00.000+07:00

Fiji Water Discloses Supply Chain Carbon Footprint, Plans to Reduce Environmental Impact

GreenBiz.com, 11 April 2008 - Fiji Water has calculated the carbon footprint of its entire supply chain, from raw materials and packaging to distribution and recycling. Along with changing its operations to lessen its impact, the company is helping a reforestation project in Fiji.

By working with the Carbon Disclosure Project's (CDP) Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration, Fiji Water calculated the carbon footprint of its products for July 2006-June 2007 was 85,396 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (a figure that includes other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide).

The company's carbon footprint comes from four main areas: emissions from producing raw materials for packaging (29 percent), ocean freight (23 percent), bottling (20 percent) and distribution (17 percent). The rest comes from transporting raw materials and equipment, trucking to port, refrigeration, disposal or recycling of waste, and sales and administration. Fiji Water estimates 75-80 percent of its emissions come from supply chain operations, and it plans to cut down the impact from various stages and encourage suppliers to join the CDP.

By 2010, Fiji Water aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by reducing packaging by 20 percent and have renewable sources provide half the energy of bottling facility and company vehicles. So far it has reduced trucking miles by an average of 26 percent, cut fuel use by its trucks in Fiji in half and will be testing bottles made from 100 recycled materials.

Along with cutting down on emissions, Fiji Water plans to become carbon neutral by offsetting 120 percent of its emissions starting in 2008, although the company is using a forward crediting project that won't offset all of the emissions for a few decades. The company is partnering with Conservation International on a reforestation project in the Yaqara Valley in Fiji. "We're going to be reforesting degraded grasslands with native forests and using native species," said Sonal Pandya, senior manager of climate change at Conservation International. It will take two to five years to complete planting, and then the group will maintain the land.

The offsets realized after 30 years would be enough to make Fiji Water carbon negative in 2008. Thomas Mooney, senior vice president of sustainable growth for Fiji Water, said the company plans to expand the reforestation project as well as invest in renewable energy to address its carbon footprint beyond 2008. "There really is a lot of land that had historically been rainforest and can be taken back to that form," he said. Fiji Water has set up a new website, FijiGreen.com, for information on its carbon footprint and rainforest efforts.

This article is reproduced with kind permission of GreenBiz.com.
For daily news and articles visit www.greenbiz.com.
Visit GreenBuzz to subscribe to GreenBiz.com's free newsletter.

Please note:
This article is for information purposes only. The WBCSD does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any information provided.

Author GreenBiz.com

Publication Date 11 Apr 2008

Document Type News articles

Issue/Topic Business Role/CSR
Energy & Climate
Water

Region Oceania

Country Fiji

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Biological diversity is fundamental to agriculture, food production and sustainable development

2008-04-12T15:30:00.000+07:00

"Biological diversity is fundamental to agriculture, food production and sustainable development"

Business.2010, 17 March 2008 - In this interview, Martin Taylor, Chairman of Syngenta, discusses how appropriate market mechanisms and technology can help address the challenges of population growth, climate change, the preservation of biodiversity and sustainable fresh water supplies.

What does biodiversity mean to Syngenta?

Biological diversity is fundamental to agriculture, food production and sustainable development. We at Syngenta understand this well. Our understanding is not externally imposed, and it does not rely on our Corporate Responsibility Committee - this understanding is in our bones. For our seeds business, biodiversity is the crucial raw material. To increase the productivity of our crops, their reliability and their nutritional value, we must make full use of genetic diversity. Syngenta was the first company in our industry to support the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Our business in the UK is working in entirely unprecedented ways with growers and a major supermarket chain to help preserve bee populations. I really believe that we have begun to acknowledge this issue internally.

Do you really think that business goals can support environmental goals?

Syngenta’s principal contribution to biodiversity protection arises from the heart of our business, which is concerned with using technology to increase agricultural yields. At a time when population growth is starting to put huge pressure on food supplies, more efficient use of farmland is indispensable. Low yields are a recipe for deforestation and the destruction of fragile habitats. The fact that bien-pensant people in Europe recoil in horror at any mention of crop chemicals or GM crops does not alter what I understand is now called an inconvenient truth.

There are solutions, and we believe that the deployment of appropriate market mechanisms should be a large part of the response to the challenge. It is widely recognised that such mechanisms can achieve some environmental objectives at a lower economic cost and more easily than approaches such as uniform pollution standards or technology mandates. The market can advance the tipping point for success, after which market-supported progress gathers its own momentum. It is crucial to identify the most effective market mechanisms, in terms of environmental outcomes and financial leverage. A very powerful approach to ecosystem management involves creating new rights or liabilities for the use of natural resources, and then allowing these to be traded.

Market solutions for the environment is an interesting concept, can you explain this using a real example?

According to the IPCC, our current carbon flow adds 3.4 gigatons of carbon to the atmosphere every year. The same report concludes that the potential for increasing carbon sinks in croplands could be of the order of 40 to 80 gigatons — between 12 and 25 years’ worth of emissions. Reducing tillage to a minimum, maintaining crop cover throughout the year and rotating crops all help to prevent soil erosion and conserve biodiversity. This conservation agriculture can dramatically reduce carbon emissions from mechanised tilling and allows organic matter to build up in soil, absorbing carbon dioxide. Soil sequestration was — most unfortunately — not incorporated in the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period. The opportunity to include agriculture in the carbon market was therefore missed and farmers had no incentive to take on the transition costs. It is noteworthy that no-tillage is well developed in both North and South America, whereas it remains a marginal practice in Europe. Syngenta and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture are both active in supporting the mitigation and sequestration of greenhouse gases in agriculture through our membership of the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund.

What are some of the most pressing challenges your company faces?

The world population will rise by some 30%, to 8 billion or so, by 2030 — and it won’t stop there. Increased consumption of meat as a result of rising prosperity in the developing world, especially in Asia, means that demand for grain is likely to outstrip population growth very considerably. Overall grain demand will probably grow by almost 50% between now and 2030. Where will it all come from? Some from new farmland — Brazil can probably add a few tens of millions of hectares without encroaching on the Amazon or Atlantic rainforests. But most of the increase must come from higher yields. And, anyone involved in agriculture has to worry about water, since agriculture uses some 70% of the world’s fresh-water supplies — much of it rather badly. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have what is considered an adequate nutrition need a million litres each year to provide our food. The world as a whole needs quadrillions of litres. Freshwater resources are already being used unsustainably, and freshwater biodiversity is among the most threatened on Earth. This issue, too, is crying out for market solutions.

And what are some of the solutions?

Meeting the world’s increasing food, feed, fibre and fuel needs can be achieved. Thanks to the investments of Syngenta and its major competitors — between us we spend more than USD 3bn a year on R&D in this area — the technology will be there to meet the challenge. The interests of biodiversity and — not least — the avoidance of famine require that we make full use of all technological possibilities, including, of course, gene technology, with all its potential environmental benefits. Unfortunately, inexcusable trade distortions remain in place. In addition, we see a retreat from scientific reason that moves away from the risk-based evaluation systems that have allowed the safe and beneficial use of technology for decades. In its place are creeping in hazard-based systems based on little more than fear and ignorance. With hazard as the measure of safety, we should have no cars or aircraft in the world.

Technology, deforestation, hunger — a world with 8 billion people has to choose.

http://www.wbcsd.org/Plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?DocTypeId=251&ObjectId=MjkwNTE

Climate change warning over food production

2008-04-12T15:20:00.001+07:00

Climate change warning over food production

* 18:17 26 April 2005
* NewScientist.com news service
* Fred Pearce

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Climate change is set to do far worse damage to global food production than even the gloomiest of previous forecasts, according to studies presented at the Royal Society in London, UK, on Tuesday.

“We need to seriously re-examine our predictions of future global food production,” said Steve Long, a crop scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US. Output is “likely to be far lower than previously estimated”.

Most researchers believe that higher temperatures and droughts caused by climate change will depress crop yields in many places in the coming decades. But a recent consensus has emerged that rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide could come to the rescue. The gas thought to be behind global warming could also speed up photosynthesis, counteracting the negative effects of warming and even ushering in an era of bumper crops.

But Long told the two-day meeting on crops and future climate that this conclusion was a dangerous illusion. It was, he said, based on results from tests in gas chambers and small greenhouses known to be unreliable.

Long reported instead on the findings of four studies in the US, China and Japan that all test crops in open fields. In these Free-Air Concentration Enrichment experiments, gases such as CO2 were piped into the air around plants - a world first.
Ozone-unfriendly

The FACE experiments showed that for all four of the world’s main food crops - maize, rice, soybean and wheat - the real-world fertilization effect was only half as great as predicted by the contained experiments.

Meanwhile, in some FACE experiments, Long added a new variable not factored into previous studies. He puffed doses of ozone into the fields to simulate the expected rise in ozone smogs due to higher temperatures - and yields crashed. A 20% increase in ozone levels cut yields by 20%, he said.

Increases in ozone levels of this level are predicted for Europe, the US, China, India and much of the middle east by 2050. If Long’s findings prove correct, even CO2 fertilisation will not prevent the world’s crop yields from declining by 10% to 15%.
Profound implications

The implications for some of the world’s most populous countries could be profound. Xiong Wei of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science in Beijing presented data at the meeting suggesting that the country of 1.3 billion people could expect “more positive than negative impacts on China’s food production”.

He said CO2 fertilisation would more than counteract crop losses from rising temperatures. But Long said his new findings suggest China’s food production might fall rather than rise.

Long’s research is partly sponsored by the US government’s department of agriculture, which has previously been confident in its predictions of farmers’ ability to withstand climate change.

The Royal Society conference also heard about dangerous temperature thresholds that could destroy crops overnight and give rise to famine.

According to Andrew Challinor of the University of Reading, UK, climate change will mean tropical countries like India will face short periods of super-high temperatures - into the high 40s Celsius. These temperatures could completely destroy crops if they coincide with the flowering period.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7310

FAO expects rice production to rise by 1.8 percent in 2008

2008-04-05T15:43:00.000+07:00

FAO expects rice production to rise by 1.8 percent in 2008
Market situation remains difficult in the short-term – lower rice trade
2 April 2008, Rome – World rice production is expected to increase in 2008 by 12 million tonnes or 1.8 percent, assuming normal weather conditions, FAO said today. Production increases would ease the current very tight supply situation in key rice producing countries, according to the first FAO forecast for this year. International rice trade is expected to decrease, mainly due to restrictions in main exporting countries.

Sizable production increases are expected in all the major Asian rice producing countries, especially Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand, where supply and demand are currently rather stretched. Governments in these countries have already announced a series of incentives to raise production.

Production outlook is also positive in Africa, where high world prices may sustain a two percent growth, particularly in Egypt, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Concerns about food import dependency in the region have led to a mobilization of resources towards the rice sector. Production is expected to recover strongly in Latin America. Rice production in the European Union is also expected to rise while it may contract in Japan, one of the few countries where producer prices fell last year.

In the rest of the world, a dismal production is forecast in Australia, reflecting extremely low water availability. A reduced crop is also expected in the United States, mainly as a result of a cut in area caused by mounting competition from more profitable crops.

Short-term volatility

“The international rice market is currently facing a particularly difficult situation with demand outstripping supply and substantial price increases,” said FAO Senior Economist Concepcion Calpe. “Higher rice production in 2008 could reduce the pressure, but short-term volatility will probably continue, given the very limited supplies available from stocks. This implies that the market may react very strongly to any good or bad news about crops or policies,” she added.

According to the latest FAO estimates, paddy production rose by one percent in 2007 to 650 million tonnes, which implies that it would be the second consecutive year where production growth would fall short of population growth, resulting in a drop of rice production on a per caput basis.

Trade

International trade in rice in 2008 is currently foreseen to reach 29.9 million tonnes, 1.1 million tonnes lower than the revised 2007 trade estimate. The very tight supply situations that most exporting countries may face until the last quarter of the year and the associated restrictions on exports lay much behind the anticipated drop of rice trade in 2008. Currently, China, India, Egypt, Viet Nam, four among the traditional rice exporting countries, as well as Cambodia, have either imposed minimum export prices, export taxes or export quotas/bans. Such moves are expected to reduce rice exported from these countries. As for imports, the drop reflects prospects of lower shipments to Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, as supply and demand situation in those countries may ease somewhat compared with last year.

Prices

Since January 2008 international rice prices have seen a steep increase of about 20 percent, according to the FAO All Rice Price Index. For instance, in March 2008 the high quality Thai 100% B was quoted US$ 546 per tonne, up 13 percent compared to February and 68 percent higher than in March 2007.

Recent sudden price rises reflect the very limited supplies available for sale, especially given the wide range of restrictions imposed by key major exporting countries. The tendency for further price rises, however, may diminish somewhat in the next few months, with the arrival of new rice harvests in Brazil or Uruguay but also in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam. “So far, prospects regarding these crops are positive,” Calpe said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact:
Erwin Northoff
Media Relations, FAO
erwin.northoff@fao.org
(+39) 06 570 53105
(+39) 348 252 3616

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000820/index.html

Shared water, shared vision

2008-04-05T15:35:00.001+07:00

Shared water, shared vision
Promoting equitable use of, and benefits from, water resources along the Nile
For the ten countries sharing the world’s longest river, water scarcity concerns are rising faster than the tide. That’s because, while the Nile stretches over 6 800 km and the river basin covers an area of approximately 3.1 million square kilometres – around 10 percent of the African continent – its water discharge is relatively small.

With a total population of around 370 million people, these countries – Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda – are attempting to make the most of their scarce water resources by negotiating a new water sharing agreement through the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), a regional partnership created by the Nile states to facilitate the common pursuit of sustainable development and management of the Nile's waters.

Source of life, livelihoods

Agriculture is the dominant economic sector in most of the Nile Basin countries, five of which are among the world’s poorest, and reliable access to water remains key to increasing agricultural productivity, providing employment, and raising the standards of living of the people residing there.

“A regional appreciation of the baseline conditions - agricultural productivity, regional food security and the depth of the rural economy - can be difficult to grasp,” says Bart Hilhorst, FAO’s Chief Technical Adviser in Entebbe, Uganda. “Against a background of rapid population growth and rising commercial food import bills, the patterns of agricultural productivity are highly volatile, and below the Sudd, the only stability is offered by irrigated agriculture.”

Collaborative and sustainable development of shared water resources can attract investment and assist in alleviating poverty, Hilhorst says, but high population growth rates and accelerating environmental degradation narrow the window of opportunity to reverse negative trends in the region.

FAO has been working with participating country governments and the NBI to improve water resource management in the region by increasing access to information on the availability, use and development potential of the Nile’s water, and on the linkage between agriculture and water in the basin.

Armed with the latest water resource data, coupled with demographic, socio-economic and environmental information, decision makers can examine how specific policies and projected water-use patterns will affect their shared water resources.

Common knowledge

The project draws on FAO’s experience and knowledge in agricultural water use, water productivity and rural livelihoods, as well as regional expertise. Issues and trends are presented in cartographic products using geographical information system (GIS) technology already established in the region.

“The hope is that this strengthened common knowledge base will translate into an enhanced ability to achieve water allocation that is effective, perceived as equitable and fair, and that fosters rural development, poverty alleviation and regional cooperation,” says Hilhorst.

The activities are being carried out under the umbrella of the Nile Basin Initiative, with funding of US$5 million from the Government of Italy. FAO’s current work builds on two previous projects funded by the Italian Cooperation Programme, which since 1996 has directed US$16 million towards improving water management in the Nile basin.

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/article_1000526en.html

Coping with water scarcity in Andhra Pradesh

2008-04-05T15:33:00.001+07:00

Coping with water scarcity in Andhra Pradesh
Farmer management of water resources helps turn the tide
In the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, farmers plagued by recurrent drought are fighting back, tapping newly acquired knowledge of their groundwater resources to cope with water scarcity.

In recent years, poor farmers in this arid region have been drilling deeper and deeper in search of water to support cultivation of thirsty, high-value crops promising greater returns but involving greater risks. Agriculture, which drives the region’s economy, has become increasingly water intensive and expensive.

Moreover, indiscriminate drilling for water -- the number of wells in Andhra Pradesh increased from 800 000 in 1975 to 2.2 million in 2002 -- and increasing use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are a potential threat to groundwater resources and reduce land fertility.

Insurmountable debts due to lost investments in failed bore wells have driven thousands of farmers to the brink of desperation, many to suicide.

But an innovative project, funded by the Government of the Netherlands and implemented by a network of local non-governmental organizations with technical assistance from FAO, is beginning to turn things around. The key: enabling rural communities understand the groundwater system so they can deliberate among themselves and make appropriate decisions leading to better investments and efficient management of their water resources.

Demystifying science

To date, over 28 000 men and women farmers from about 650 villages in seven drought-prone districts of Andhra Pradesh have been trained to monitor groundwater levels, water discharge from local aquifers and rainfall and to compute water balances to analyse changes in water resource availability.

Organized in groups, known as Groundwater Management Committees (GMCs), these farmers then share this knowledge with others in their communities, a total of around 500 000 farmers, so that they can make informed decisions on how to maximize available water resources in their area.

The project pioneered in using the farmer field school approach for water resource management to promote hands-on group learning. Farmers meet every 15 days to discuss topics such as hydrological measurements, water recharge, water availability and appropriate cropping systems, water use efficiency, organic farming methods, institutional linkages, gender issues in water management, and HIV/AIDS’ impact on the farming sector.

Over 2 000 lead facilitators trained through the project will conduct more than 1 000 farmer field schools of 15 to 17 sessions each in 2007-2008, reaching an additional 800 000 farmers.

Equal participation of women in the management committees and in training activities is an important project component, and women are increasingly playing key roles in decision-making on water allocation and crop planning.

“The project’s success has been in demystifying scientific technology and integrating it with social transformation, women’s economic empowerment and institutional change,” says P.S. Rao, FAO’s National Land and Water Programme Coordinator in India.

Crop-water budgeting

Crop-water budget exercises are carried out every year by farmers themselves to reduce risks of crop failure and identify opportunities for sustainable production. GMCs within a hydrological unit come together and work out an appropriate cropping system given their estimate of the total groundwater resources available.

When crop-water balance estimates in September-October 2006 continued to show groundwater deficits in most areas, for example, the farmers took action.

“In critical areas not only did they decide to ban any further drilling of wells and stop cultivating crops requiring intensive irrigation, like paddy and sugarcane, but they also took it upon themselves to improve the irrigation efficiency of less water-intensive crops,” says Rao.

The result: water savings of as much as 33 percent in some areas.

“Putting water management in the hands of well-trained people who stand to benefit from the decisions being made can lead to impressive results,” says Rao.

In the past, efforts have tended to focus on improving the groundwater situation through programmes that target the supply side of water management -- watershed treatment, artificial recharge, afforestation -- essentially trying to put more water into the ground.

“Before, very little attention was paid to demand side management -- the judicious use of available water,” Rao says. “This project represents a new approach to governance – moving from a culture of top-down service provision to empowering people to understand, manage and develop their own resources. We’re seeing a paradigm shift in development projects from subsidies and input provision to developing knowledge banks at the grassroot level.”

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/article_1000525en.html

A drop in the sand

2008-04-05T15:32:00.000+07:00

A drop in the sand
FAO’s successful experiment with drip irrigation in Niger
22 March 2007, Winditan, Niger – The sand of the savannah around Winditan, some 80 kilometers from Niger’s capital Niamey, is copper-coloured and seemingly endless. Against this dusty backdrop, patches of greenery that shoot up in a vegetable garden strike the eye.

What is harder to see, though, is how green happens to be on the rise in Winditan.

To explain, Maria Helena Semedo, FAO’s Representative to Niger, carefully lifts a black rubber pipe next to a potato plant. “Water, mixed with fertiliser, is pumped through the pipes and comes out here, drop by drop, right by the plant’s root,” she says. “With the same amount of water, this system allows us to double or triple the surface cultivated,” Ms Semedo says.

Drip irrigation is one of the low-cost, easy-to-use, low-maintenance solutions recommended by FAO to allow poor people to lift themselves out of poverty by improving water security and encouraging sustainability.

In Niger, FAO launched the system at an experimental centre in Winditan in 2005, with financial support from Libya and Monaco, which donated US$99 500 and US$9 000 respectively. The centre offers 1.5 hectare parcels of land to each of the eight families living on the site. Men grow potatoes, cabbage, squash, tomato, onions and pepper, while women do stock breeding with animals provided by FAO. The centre also hosts a training facility, where farmers from the area receive training in a variety of agricultural practices.

“Now, I can support my family,” says Amadou Larabou, 34, holding up a bundle of freshly harvested potatoes. He adds that, on the potatoes alone, he has earned 100 000 Francs CFA (€ 150) off his land at the centre over the last four months.

That is a dramatic change, considering that Amadou, like thousands of Nigerien men, typically migrate to Niamey or abroad every year in search of income during the long dry season from October to May. “Sometimes, after three or four months without work in Niamey, I would be obliged to ask for money,” he says.

“Working together with our development partners, FAO can provide its technical expertise,” Ms Semedo says. “But what counts most are the farmers. They have the will to change their lives.”

Following its successful introduction in Winditan, FAO now plans to spread drip irrigation throughout the country. “Even with less rain, it allows you to irrigate,” Ms Semedo says. She smiles: “It means that we can be a lot less dependant on the heavens!”

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/article_1000524en.html

Coping with water scarcity

2008-04-05T15:31:00.000+07:00

Coping with water scarcity
Q&A with FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf
The theme for this year’s World Water Day is Coping with Water Scarcity. In this interview, Dr Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO, the coordinating agency within the UN system for World Water Day this year, addresses the issue.

How serious is the problem of water scarcity?

Global water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population growth in the last century.

Water scarcity already affects every continent and more than 40 percent of the people on our planet. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions.

In order to really understand how serious the problem is we first must take stock of the immense impact water has on our daily lives and our ability to provide for a better future.

Lack of access to adequate, safe water limits our ability to produce enough food to eat or earn enough income. It limits our ability to operate industries and provide energy. Without access to water for drinking and proper hygiene it is more difficult to reduce the spread and impact of life-threatening diseases like HIV/AIDS. Every day, 3 800 children die from diseases associated with a lack of safe drinking water and proper sanitation.

Is water scarcity being caused by climate change?

The water scarcity situation is being exacerbated by climate change, especially in the driest areas of the world, which are home to more than 2 billion people and to half of all poor people. The human impact on the earth’s environment and climate must be addressed in order to protect the world’s water resources. But there are other factors involved, such as increases in the amount of water needed to grow the food for a growing population. Agriculture is the number-one user of freshwater worldwide. Also, the trend towards urbanization and increases in domestic and industrial water use by people who live in more developed areas are factors that lead to growing water use.

Ultimately, though, the problem is one of the way in which we manage existing water resources and whether we as a global community truly have the political will to support policies and invest in programmes that protect our natural environment, conserve water and use less water to do more.

Political will and investment aren’t going to make the Sahara desert disappear?

Certainly not. But political will, international cooperation and investment can help to stem the loss of water from huge river basins like those of the Nile and Lake Chad. That is something that FAO and other United Nations agencies are involved in doing as we speak. Political will and investment can help to bring available water to the millions of small farmers around the world who are struggling to grow enough food to eat, by supporting locally-based programmes that directly involve those farmers and their neighbours in conserving rainfall, using water more efficiently and protecting water resources. Political, and moral, will can help us to bring water to the 1.1 billion people who do not have access to the minimum of 20-50 liters of freshwater required to meet their most basic needs and the 2.6 billion people who don’t have enough water to provide proper sanitation.

You say that agriculture is the world’s number-one user of freshwater. Shouldn’t the solution to water scarcity lie in agriculture?

First of all, there is no magic wand, no flip of the switch that is going to suddenly eliminate water scarcity. But there are concrete ways to turn the tide against water shortages. We at FAO recognize that the agriculture sector must take the lead in coping with water scarcity by finding more effective ways to conserve rain-fed moisture and irrigate farmlands.

There is no question that growing enough food is fundamental to fighting hunger and improving lives on every continent. But agriculture consumes about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn and up to 95 percent in several developing countries. To tackle water scarcity even as the demand for food increases, we must support initiatives to produce more food with proportionally less water. Again, this means protecting our waterways, keeping our forests healthy and improving the way in which we irrigate crops and manage livestock.

Can you give an example of how you would do that?

By thinking both big and small. First FAO advocates short-term, small-scale irrigation projects at the village level, including the development of low-cost and relatively simple, cost-effective methods which can be used by small farmers to irrigate crops. We have organized and supported pilot programmes in places like South Africa, Turkey and Mexico that focus on small scale irrigation or community-based systems for harvesting rainfall.

Often, one must help people to recover from severe water and food shortages by providing new crops and livestock while setting up irrigation projects, as we are doing right now with the support of the government and international donors in Niger. But the secret to long-term success is to break out of the cycle of responding to one water emergency after another and to put into place workable, sustainable long-term programmes.

This requires policy changes and cooperation on a larger scale. It means upgrading and improving the management of the facilities and then working across national borders to develop and protect water basins.

Last fall, you stated that the world was off-target for meeting the Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by the year 2015. How can we be sure that it will be any different with the goal of improving access to water?

The two go hand-in-hand. Access to water is intricately linked to the achievement of most of the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and ensuring primary education for all children in the same time period. This is why we cannot make real progress in worldwide development without addressing the water scarcity issue.

Coping with water scarcity requires addressing a range of issues, not all of them directly linked to agriculture. They range from protection of the environment and global warming to fair pricing of water services and equitable distribution of water for irrigation, industry and household use. This is why not only the agriculture sector, but everyone – international organizations, governments, local communities – must share the responsibility.

As a global community, we have the capacity to greatly improve the management of our water resources and provide access to water for more people. But again, we cannot do it without placing greater political priority on ensuring that everyone has access to water and without investing in programmes which improve water conservation and delivery systems, protect the earth’s ecosystems, conserve rain-fed moisture and use water for food production more efficiently.

22 March 2007

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/index.html

When the rain fails

2008-04-05T15:26:00.000+07:00

When the rain fails
EU-funded FAO gardens help women through Niger’s dry season
22 March 2007, Keita, Niger - “Water? Water is life,” says Halima Mala, 56, as she gets ready to work her vegetable garden. "It is the most important thing in life -- together with our health, and having enough to eat.”

But in Keita, a village in the heart of dust-ridden Niger, one of the driest countries on earth, having enough water isn’t all that easy. Especially now, during the long dry season stretching from October until May.

Still, Halima’s bucket is full, as are those of some 75 women working in this garden. They are able to draw from one of its three water wells to irrigate their patches of cabbage, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes and squash.

Facing water scarcity

Throughout the country, women can be seen working on small parcels of irrigated land, growing off-season crops. In Tahoua, the region that includes Keita, as well as in the regions of Maradi and Zinder, over 32 000 families benefit from gardens laid out under an FAO programme funded with €1 million donated by the European Union (EU). The programme was developped in support of the Government of Niger’s response to the country’s most recent food crisis in 2005.

“The gardens help vulnerable households during the lean season,” says Mamane Tinao, Departmental Director for Agricultural Development in Keita. “These crops allow them to feed themselves and, if they produce enough, to sell.”

One of the aims of the gardens is to support mothers of malnourished children. In Niger, where water scarcity is chronic, so is malnutrition. “Every two or three years, we have a serious problem,” says Mr Tinao.

In 2005, severe drought compounded by a locust invasion led to one of the worst food crises in Niger’s recent history. According to UN estimates, 3.6 million out of an entire population of 12 million were affected, including 800 000 children under five.

But, as extreme as Niger’s case seems to be, its population is not unique. According to the UN, more than one-third of the world's population today lives in countries affected by water scarcity and the proportion is expected to double by 2025. And, as agriculture is by far the largest consumer of the earth’s freshwater, a major global challenge is to produce more food, using less water.

Mr Tinao bets on irrigation: “If we manage water well enough, our farmers can produce, for sure.”

In addition to small-scale irrigation, the gardens in Niger also use another means to grow more with less: improved seeds. Moustapha Niasse, FAO Emergency Coordinator in Niger, says: “You cannot improve food security and increase agricultural production if you do not improve seeds.” Mr Niasse points out the spectacular potato seeds the women are using, which yield almost ten times more than local seeds.

Doing the job

And so, in a garden in Kirari, not far from Keita, 28-year-old Rabi has high hopes for her own upcoming potato harvest – and for her lettuces and cabbages, too. She expects that her three children will no longer have to go to a nutritional centre, as they did in 2005.

This is the first time Rabi has grown vegetables. When asked what she thinks about women working the land, she laughs. Men, standing around, chuckle and make comments. Finally, Rabi says: “I think it is fine. We can do this job.”

Last year’s good rains helped, producing record harvests.

According to Olivier Lefay, Programme Manager for Food Security and Rural Development at the EU’s representation in Niger, severe malnutrition rates have dropped by one-third since 2005.

The gardens are an example of how the EU works in partnership with FAO to reinforce the livelihoods of vulnerable households, allowing them to engage in long-term rural development. “We think that FAO is a good partner,” says Mr. Lefay. “Its expertise in agriculture is becoming increasingly rare.”

Back in Keita, Hamila has finished her morning duties. She too is hoping for a good harvest. But times have changed, she notes, remembering the days when “rains would fall abundantly.” Hamila does not think those days will come back. “Now, we will have to work hard to conserve the water.”

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Helping FAO help Niger’s most vulnerable

Following the crisis of 2005, donors generously financed FAO’s relief and rehabilitation activities in Niger.

In 2005, Sweden donated €500 000 (US$650 000) towards FAO’s emergency programmes.

Currently, several donors sponsor FAO’s activities to improve the food security of rural households most affect by the food crisis.

In 2006, in addition to the European Union’s €1 million, Luxembourg and Belgium made major contributions, sponsoring programmes worth €2 million and €655 000 respectively.

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/article_1000523en.html

Making every drop count

2008-04-05T15:19:00.000+07:00

Making every drop count
Simple, sustainable solutions in agricultural water management
A variety of simple, affordable techniques can increase food production for small-scale farmers without excessive water withdrawals or damage to the environment.

“Some practices that require no investment can be very effective, but farmers need to know about them,” says Pasquale Steduto, Chief of FAO’s Water Development and Management Unit. “Well-functioning extension services can help promote water-saving techniques and improve efficiency.”

Water harvesting -- irrigating crops with on-farm rainwater runoff -- can significantly improve both yields and the reliability of agricultural production.

Drip irrigation, which directs water only where and when it is needed, is more efficient than flooding fields and using sprinklers. Results from a number of countries show that farmers who switched from sprinkler irrigation to drip systems have cut their water use by 30 to 60 percent. “Spoon-feeding” the optimal amount of water, and sometimes fertilizer, to crops when and where they need it often increases yields at the same time.

Avoiding excessive application of pesticides and fertilizers has a direct impact on water quality and people's health.

Inexpensive, human-powered treadle pumps, which extract irrigation water from shallow aquifers, have increased poor farmers’ productivity in many Asian and African countries. The farmer has full control over the timing and the amount of water pumped which, given the effort involved, is used sparingly. Small motor pumps have also revolutionized small-scale horticulture around cities.

Recycling of treated wastewater for use in irrigation is another option with enormous potential benefits, especially in light of rapid urbanization. A city with a population of 500 000 and water consumption of 120 litres per person a day produces about 48 000 cubic metres of wastewater a day. When treated, this wastewater could be used to irrigate around 500 hectares. The nutrients in effluent are almost as valuable as the water itself. Typical concentrations in treated wastewater effluent from conventional sewage could provide all the nitrogen and much of the phosphorus and potassium normally required for agricultural crop production.

Changes in crops and dietary choices can also have an impact on water usage. Policies that encourage people to eat less water-intensive foods - wheat rather than rice, poultry rather than beef, for example - can increase water efficiency markedly. Countries with limited water resources might prioritize production of agricultural commodities requiring relatively little water and import those requiring more water.

“The knowledge exists to improve water use,” says Steduto. “And the potential gains are wide-ranging – employment, environmental sustainability, socioeconomic benefits. The limiting factor is implementation. People need incentives to use water more efficiently.”

http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/article_1000522en.html