A few days before the new year, the President Michel Martelly announced that agriculture and the environment will be the main priorities for 2013 and affirmed, that the launch of the agricultural recovery plan of Government, will enable the country to achieve 70% of food self sufficiency by 2016.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) and the Agency for the Development of the Artibonite Valley (ODVA), anticipate producing in 2013, in the Artibonite Valley, 100,000 metric tons of rice, an objective that would meet 25% of local needs.
According to Jacques Thomas, Minister of Agriculture, the Government has allocated several million Gourdes, which allowed in less than 3 months, to clean out 45 km of drains, to rehabilitate 18 km of irrigation canals and build 13 kilometers of road to make reachable certain regions. In addition, significant efforts have been made for the conversion of 6,000 hectares of uncultivated land, into productive land.
With its 32 000 hectares, the land of the Artibonite valley, once enhanced, would be able to produce nearly 80% of the rice consumed in Haiti. Kénel Francique, Director of ODVA, pointed out that this is by multiplying the irrigation works, that it will be possible to increase the area of rice fields and achieve food self-sufficiency.
CORNER BROOK Their areas of expertise may be a little different, but Dave Jennings and Antony Card both see collaboration as a necessity for the agriculture industry.
Jennings, a director with the Department of Natural Resources, said agriculture is a growing industry that is essential to the future of the province.
“It’s one of the basic strategic things that we need to do in this province is to have a healthy agriculture sector.”
Jennings made those comments following the conclusion of the “Our Food, Our Future, Growing the Agriculture Industry in Newfoundland and Labrador” conference Friday.
He said the event was aimed at creating collaborative efforts and formalizing a relationship between the Department of Natural Resources, agrifoods, Memorial University, Agriculture Canada, and the Research and Development Corporation.
Jennings said research and development will be a major component of growing the industry.
“We know we have a lot of questions to answer to help this industry grow,” he said.
Questions around new crops, diversification of the industry, land base management and climate change.
Helping answer those questions is where Grenfell will play a role.
Card, associate vice-president (research) at Grenfell said the university is investing $8 million in its environmental science labs and will be hiring five research professors who will work across the forestry and agriculture disciplines.
“We will be at the high end of research and development,” said Card.
“That’s how we will lead.”
Card said the conference was all about bringing the various parties and stakeholders together.
“We know what we’re doing but we needed to engage the others and to start that conversation. Today is the start of the conversation.
“It’s the watershed event that actually brings everybody together.”
In a world that is becoming increasingly
food-insecure, due to population growth, climate change, volatile food prices,
unequal food access, and inefficient supply chains, what solutions exist to
feed 9 billion people by the year 2050?
The problem we face is by its nature very
complex, so it stands to reason that solutions will need to address a range of
issues, often several at once. Where do we begin?
As agricultural researchers, it’s easy to
start by looking at the biophysical world. Hundreds of existing agricultural
technologies and practices have the potential to boost agricultural yields in
the developing world, and the International Food Policy Research Institute
(IFPRI) of the CGIAR has undertaken a massive effort to evaluate
which of these technologies and practices are most appropriate for different
places facing different conditions. The project seeks to compile evidence-based
information on risks and benefits of these technologies and practices and the
policies necessary to implement them. Claudia Ringler, who is part of the IFPRI
team implementing the work, shared early findings with participants on 16 June
at the Rio+20 sustainable development conference as part of a session called Feeding
the World: Sustainable Agriculture and Innovation.
"Agricultural technologies are really at
the heart of food productivity growth,” said Ringler. By surveying a wide range
of agricultural experts, and combining the results with crop models, her team
assessed common practices such as zero tillage, conventional breeding, genetic
modification, integrated soil fertility management, irrigation technologies,
water harvesting and organic agriculture, to better understand the impact of
each technology in different contexts. The results are enlightening: integrated
soil fertility management, for example, can significantly boost maize in
rainfed and irrigated environments, and has positive impacts on rice and wheat
yields grown under the same conditions. Drought-tolerant rice breeds are also
likely to help increase yields. These results are pertinent to policy
makers at Rio+20 seeking guidance for their investments in agricultural
technologies.
But technology isn’t everything. Ringer
concludes: “While biophysical potential often exists to significantly increase
yields, institutions, governance systems, political will and poor rural
infrastructure remain obstacles to achieving full technological potential.”
These challenges are particularly striking in African countries, which could
most benefit from new technologies and practices.
Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of the Food,
Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) shared her
perspectives from working in African agriculture. She highlighted the need for
technology investments in both global and local research. Unless global
technologies are tailored to local conditions, then these interventions will
fail achieve the desired transformations. She also stressed that rural women,
who are already bear a disproportionally heavy work burden, must not be put at
further disadvantage by practices that are labour-intensive.
Dr. Sibanda also noted that in Africa the
private sector is not sufficiently robust, or engaged in, agricultural
development activities:
“For markets to be functional,” she said,
“you need buyer, seller, and the thread to tie it together. In Africa you see
middle-men who work as extractors; they are not part of the system. The system
is not in place to ensure your investment pays back over time. If the
technology breaks down you need to wait for the next middle-man to sell you
something new.”
The public sector also has an important role
to play in supporting the implementation of new technologies. Currently, she
said, insufficient money is going into research because African researchers are
often not working on local issues and that findings are not made public goods.
“Research is about empowering with knowledge,” she said “but research needs to
feed the development agenda.”
Dr. Sibanda lauded Brazil for leading the way
to ensure that research knowledge generated at local level indeed feeds the
development agenda. Elisio Contini from Embrapa, the Brazilian national
research agency, discussed the current state of Brazilian agriculture,
including the successes in implementing low-tillage approaches, and also
supporting multifunctional landscapes that combine crops, livestock and grasslands.
Farmers are “essential” to Brazil’s economy,
said Dr. Contini. He cited that in the year 2000, Brazil exported $20 billion
of agricultural products; in 2012 exports are expected to be worth $100
billion. Despite these successes, he noted that Brazil needs to increase yields
through more sustainable land use.
After we identify appropriate technologies,
and build the research and development support systems that ensure close links
with local knowledge and communities, what else is needed to achieve food
security? Adrian Fernandez, who sits on the Commission on Sustainable
Agriculture and Climate Change, helped link technologies to the wider picture
of the food system. We can only tackle these major food security issues and
challenges by approaching them in an integrated way, said Dr. Fernandez, who is
an Advisor on Sustainability, Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico.
He shared the Commission’s seven key
actions for achieving food security in the face of climate change, specifically
highlighting the need for countries tosustainably intensify agricultural
production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other negative
environmental impacts of agriculture and how the Rio+20 process must
catalyse significant global investments in sustainable agriculture and
food systems in the next decade
[Watch: How to transition the global food
system into a "safe operating space" by balancing how much food we
produce, how we adapt to a changing climate, and how much agriculture
contributes to further climate change.
Representatives from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture on Friday buried a time capsule containing documents, photos and
maps from various agencies to celebrate the organization’s 150th anniversary.
“We basically asked everyone to contribute
something that reflects their agency,” said Brenda Ling, spokeswoman for the
Natural Resources Conservation Service.
She said the plan is to open the capsule in
25 years. Items include aerial maps of Wheatland from 1956 to 2009, submitted
by the Farm Service Agency, and the 150th report of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, submitted by the Agency for Rural Development.
Other representatives from the Farm Service
Agency, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Natural Resources
Conservation Service and Rural Development submitted their own items and signed
the white capsule before lowering it into the ground at Nancy English Park.
Chuck Schmitt, state conservation engineer
with the National Resources Conservation Service, said Nancy English Park was
chosen because of the USDA’s involvement in a project to prevent erosion in
2004.
“We were involved of the restoration of Nancy
English Park,” Schmitt said. “We did the design and the construction.”
The National Resources Conservation Service
also celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2010.
The USDA was established by President Abraham
Lincoln in May of 1862. Lincoln referred to it as the “People’s Department” and
tasked the organization with acquiring and distributing information about
agriculture.
The biggest environmental summit for a decade
must make meaningful progress on global food security and sustainable
agriculture, say researchers.
CGIAR, the world's largest publicly funded
research body, has published a seven-point "call to action" plan.
Ahead of the Rio gathering, scientists are
calling for an improved commitment to deliver nutrition security and lessen the
need to aid.
Agriculture is estimated to provide jobs for
40% of the world's population.
In its statement, CGIAR said: "Faced
with environmental degradation, climate change... and a world population that
is continuing to climb, it is critical for farm and natural resources
management and policies to play a more central role in shaping the broader
development and environmental agendas."
The organisations listed a seven-point
"call to action" list, which they will present at the gathering
in the Brazilian city, including:
Improved partnerships to maximise the
management of agriculture, aquaculture, forest and water resources;
need to address unequal sharing of natural
resources via better governance and dissemination of technology;
support for a knowledge sharing system to
improve production and minimise adverse impacts;
adopting measures to restore degraded
environments and ecosystems.
"One reason why it is necessary to push
attention on to agriculture in Rio is because negotiations are going really
slowly," explained CGIAR spokesman Bruce Campbell.
"We thought it was really important to
put the focus on agriculture in Rio, and the 15 research organisations have
come together in order to form a consortium and speak with one voice for the
first time."
Dr Campbell added that the agencies were calling
on the negotiators to reaffirm the role of science and technology.
"We are also looking for an improvement
between the links between policy and science so then scientists are so much
more linked into the processes that matter," he said.
The Rio+20 Conference,
formally known as the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), will
take place in Brazil on 20-22 June 2012.
The summit marks the 20th anniversary of the
1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which
was also held in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Organisers say that the conference will focus
on two themes: a green economy in the context of sustainable development
poverty eradication; and the institutional framework for sustainable
development.
Seven priority areas have also been
identified, including: decent jobs, energy, sustainable cities, food security
and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans and disaster readiness.
Heads of states from more than 100 nations
are expected to attend the summit.
