Mexican Farmers Affected By Agricultural Subsidies From NAFTA, Other International Agreements

By Susana G. Baumann

Who pays for agricultural subsidies? Agricultural dumping between the United States and Latin American countries have swept agricultural production and prices in nearby countries while increasing displaced rural workers’ migration.

Leticia and her family came from Mexico in 2004 because their small dairy farm operation went downhill. Her father used to lease a piece of land and raise dairy cows, selling the production to Nestle Waters of North America.

“My father and other dairy farmers belonged to a small cooperative renting a bulk milk cooler. Once a week, Nestle trucks came and picked up the milk and cream to be transported to the factories,” Leticia told VOXXI in an interview. However, in 2003 Nestle dropped the price of milk they were paying to small producers and started being inconsistent with weekly pickups. Several times, the milk got spoiled because of lack of transportation.

Leticia’s family headed north the following year.

This Mexican family might never know that their story is just one of a million similar stories taking place every year due to the powerlessness of Mexican farmers to compete with the United States’ agricultural dumping.

“… NAFTA liberalized agricultural trade dramatically over a short period of time, Mexico imports most basic grains and meats almost exclusively from the United States, and Mexican farmers grow many of the crops that compete with the imports,” wrote Timothy A. Wise, Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, in a column for Triple Crisis. Wise chairs the Institute’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program (GDAE).

The dairy industry, an example of a subsidized industry

In the dairy industry, for instance, U.S. dairy farmers have been price-protected since the Agricultural Act of 1949, which sustained butter, cheddar cheese or nonfat dry milk at current support prices. The Act also included other multiple crops and meats.

Scheduled to end in 1999, the program was extended until 2001. The new 2002 Farm Act extended agricultural subsidies for the third time until 2007. The Act provided approximately $16.5 billion of funding for agricultural subsidies each year.

A continuation of the 2007 Act, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008extended and increased the programs for five additional years, now at a provision of $288 billion over the five year period. This bill incorporated provisions in energy—including biofuels, a conservation reserve, nutrition and nutrition education and rural development.

In the dairy industry, for instance, the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) provides direct payments to producers on certain products when the actual price falls below the target level of the Boston Class I milk price—the national base price. Despite the fact that the subsidy has not been used due to higher prices in the market, the provision was included in the Farm Bill extension—with changes recently passed by the U.S. Congress in the “fiscal cliff” agreement.

Yet, the United States had carried out another provision, the Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) that pays cash bonuses to dairy product exporters when U.S. prices are higher than international prices. This allows them to sell at lower prices abroad instead of forcing conditions of competitiveness, the real concept behind the idea of free markets.

Through these policies, the dairy export industry has increased commercially so much in the past decade that the subsidy is hardly used, and has been recommended to end by the International Dairy Foods Association.

The 1994 NAFTA agreement, the most important bilateral trade agreement that included dairy products, removed all dairy tariffs for trade with Mexico. However, Canada excluded dairy products in their portion of the NAFTA agreement.

These are the real reasons behind Leticia’s family loss of their livelihood.

Impact of NAFTA in combination with US agricultural subsidies

Click here for "U.S. Dumping on Mexican Producers" table

The impact of NAFTA and other international agreements in combination with U.S. agricultural subsidies expel millions of Mexicans and other rural workers from their countries of origin into the United States territory every year.

According to Wise, who carried out a comparison of farm product prices in the U.S.-Mexico trade between 1997 and 2005, Mexico was flooded with agricultural imports exported at prices below production costs.

In his research, the eight products studied included corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, beef, pork and poultry. All products showed significant increase in exports—from the lowest 159 percent in soybean to the largest in pork exports at 707 percent.

For all products, Mexican producers’ prices fell from 44 to 67 percent from early 1990’s levels, declining local production and increasing import dependency. Mexican crop production also fell except for corn and meats, which at lower prices, was rapidly adopted for consumption in the Mexican families’ diet.

“An estimated 2.3 million people have left agriculture in a country desperate for livelihoods,” said Wise. The study estimated that the cost to Mexican producers was around $12.8 billion in the nine-year period, more than 10 percent of the U.S.-Mexico agricultural trade value annually.

The other cost, the one that we, north of the border pay, is the constant migration of these displaced rural workers into the United States.

Original Atricle Here

CEO compares PM to an old cow

Richard Willingham

Attorney General Nicola Roxon has hit back at comments by the head of one of Australia's largest agriculture companies comparing the Prime Minister to a ''non-productive old cow'', saying they are silly and stupid.

Australian Agricultural Company chief executive, David Farley, triggered the controversy after he made the remarks against Julia Gillard during a 30-minute lecture at an agriculture conference in Adelaide on Thursday.

Mr Farley yesterday told The Saturday Age the comments were ''tongue in cheek'' and taken out of context.

The company has plans to build an abattoir near Darwin.

The slaughterhouse would specialise in killing older cows for cheap meat.

''This plant is designed to process old cows,'' Mr Farley told the conference.

''So the old cows that become non-productive, instead of making a decision to either let her die in the paddock or put her in the truck … this gives us a chance to take non-productive animals off and put them through the processing system.

''So it's designed for non-productive old cows - Julia Gillard's got to watch out.''

News site InDaily reported the remark was met with sustained laughter by the crowd.

Ms Roxon, who was speaking outside a NSW Bar Association conference in Sydney today, said it was time people got over this sort of personal abuse.

"I think these comments are silly and they are stupid. Ultimately it is an outrageous thing to say about the Prime Minister," she said. "It would actually be an outrageous thing to say about your wife, or your daughter, or your neighbour.

"There is no need to make these sort of sexist and silly remarks ... I am concerned that people think there is permission to make these sorts of comments about the Prime Minister; ... in the footy parlance, play the ball, not the man."

It is not the first the time PM has been publicly abused. Shock jock Alan Jones infamously said Ms Gillard should be put in a ''chaff bag'' and thrown out to sea.

Minister for the Status of Women Julie Collins said Mr Farley's comments were ''appalling and totally unacceptable''. They amounted to ''destructive prejudices long past their use-by date''.

''Mr Farley and those who laughed along with him should take a good, long, hard look at themselves.''

Original Article Here

Modern agriculture answer to youth demands – Museveni

By Vision reporter

President Yoweri Museveni has called on the youth from Acholi sub-region to fight land fragmentation and instead use it more productively through modern agriculture to create jobs and improve incomes.

“I have been decampaigning breaking up of land. Land is not just for sleeping, land should be for work. We divide what comes from the land but not divide the land itself,” he said.

Museveni was addressing over 250 youth leaders from Acholi sub-region’s districts of Kitgum, Lamwo, Amuru, Pader, Agago, Gulu and Nwoya who had just concluded a study tour of models farms in Masaka and Mbarara districts.

The youth visited St. Jude family projects and rural training for intensive integrated organic farming for sustainable agriculture facility in Masaka owned by model farmer Kiiza.

They also were at another modern integrated farm owned by Rev. James Katamunanwire of Mbarara that specializes in brick-making, dairy cow production and banana production on small pieces of land.

“Modern agriculture is the key to everything else. That is want I want to see. The more sustainable way to solve some of the youth demands is to teach them modern agriculture so that they can earn incomes and solve some of the problems themselves,” he said.

The youth who had come with a list of demands for motorcycles, scholarships, money for SACCOs, jobs, oxen and ox-ploughs, among others however changed their minds after the tours and urged the president to empower them with start-up capital.

 Led by their coordinator Alema Joyce, the youth spoke one after the other, and collectively saying they want to use the knowledge they have acquired to exploit their land back home.

Some of the issues that they identified as important included enterprise section and mix on small land pieces, water collection methods to mitigate drought seasons, value addition using solar methods and milk production using heifers.

Museveni said that government will restock the Aswa ranch and Waligo centre to use them as multiplication centres for cattle that can also be given in turns to other youth for agriculture.

“If we solve the question of household incomes, the rest will be easy.”

“The model farmers who have engaged in modern agriculture and built permanent houses have solved the problem of water themselves without waiting for government,” he said.

“Even when government builds a borehole, it will be in the centre of the whole community and people still have to walk from their homes to get it.”

 The President said initially his office had facilitated a few youth leaders with iron sheets and cement because of the problems of the war that had affected the region.

Government will find a more sustainable way of supporting the youth including training them in various modern production projects, he promised.

The meeting which was held at the President’s country home in Rwakitura was attended by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi.

Original article here

World food prices likely to remain high over the next decade

Global food commodity prices are expected to remain high over the next decade on account of rising consumption and declining agricultural production, the latest OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook has said.

"The Outlook anticipates that agricultural output growth will slow to an average of 1.7 per cent annually over the next 10 years, down from a trend rate of over 2 per cent per year in recent decades," it said.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and United Nation's body Food and Agriculture Organisation, in its OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2012-2021, said population growth is also increasing demand pressures.

"While international agricultural commodity markets appear to have entered calmer conditions after record highs (in prices) last year, food commodity prices are anticipated to remain on a higher plateau over the next decade...", the FAO said on its website.

This, it said, is underpinned by firm demand but a slowing growth in global production.

The report points out that in addition to population growth, higher per capita incomes, urban migration and changing diets in developing countries, as well as rising requirements for biofuel feedstocks are underpinning demand pressures, it added.

Higher input costs, increasing resource constraints, growing environmental pressures and the impacts of climate change will all serve to dampen supply response, it added.

The report stresses on sustainable agricultural practices for increasing production.

Speaking about the outlook, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said: "Governments should renounce trade-distorting practices and create an enabling environment for a thriving and sustainable agriculture underpinned by improved productivity."

Increased productivity, green-growth and more open markets will be essential if the food and nutrition requirements of future generations are to be met, he added.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said the focus should be on increasing sustainable productivity growth, especially in developing countries and for small producers.

"For consumers, especially for the millions of people living in extreme poverty, high food prices have caused considerable hardship. We need to redouble our efforts to bring down the number of hungry people," he added.

The report also drew attention on climate change and its impact on agriculture.

It said 25 per cent of all farm land is highly degraded and water scarcity in agriculture is a fact for many countries. There is a growing consensus that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and climatic patterns are changing in many parts of the world.

Original article here

Appropriate land with compensation: Zuma

The state must be allowed to appropriate land with compensation, as set out in Constitution, President Jacob Zuma said.

"Land reform must represent a radical... break from the past without significantly disrupting agriculture production and food security," Zuma told ANC delegates at the close of the party's policy conference.

"[The] conference also affirmed the proposal to replace willing buyer, willing seller with the just and equitable principles in the constitution immediately – where the state is requiring land for land reform purposes."

Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said expropriation without compensation will only happen with land that is acquired illegally.

"The expropriation that we have now is unconstitutional and that act needs to be brought in line with the Constitution," she told reporters at the ANC policy conference in Midrand.

"We do not need to change the Constitution for this. Expropriation without compensation will only happen when land was acquired illegally. Only the court will determine whether land was acquired illegally, so there will be no indiscriminate expropriation."

She said the conference had decided that the "willing buyer, willing seller" approach to land restitution would be dropped.

Instead land expropriation would be done in terms of the “just and equitable” requirement of Section 25 of the Constitution.

Joemat-Pettersson said the section was a property clause that "allows us to do exactly we wanted to do [with land]".

She said the conference had not set any goals for expropriation, but would rather wait for the land audit to be completed at the end of the year.

Zuma also said the ANC proposed that land ownership by women be accelerated. "This is aimed at correcting the land question to address poverty," said Zuma.

He said women were the largest group affected by poverty and inequality. Zuma said the policy conference also proposed that land reform needed to be done in a way that would not disrupt agriculture and food security.

Original Article Here

Sustainable agriculture and the role of local food production groups

                                       Farmers near Karwe village, Makengi (Kenya)

Source: Content Partner // CGIAR Consortium

In our RIO+20 Call-to-action, CGIAR called for a strengthening and support of local food production groups, livestock herders and smallholder farmers by investing in agricultural research, strengthening land and water rights, increasing access to markets, finance and insurance, and enhancing local capacity, especially with regard to the use of local agricultural biodiversity.

We talked to three people about their work with smallholder farmers and herders: Ruben Echeverria (Director General, International Center for Tropical Agriculture – CIAT), Steve Staal (acting Deputy Director General Research, International Livestock Research Institute – ILRI) and Roberto Quiroz (Project Leader, International Potato Center- CIP).

“Local food production groups”, that is quite a mouthful...

Ruben Echeverria: These groups consist in large part of smallholder producers. Three out of every four of the world’s approximately 1.2 billion poor people live in rural areas, and either form part of such groups or depend on their food production for sustenance and a livelihood.

Steve Staal: Local food production groups are very diverse. Just in the dairy sub-sector, for example, you find village milk collectives, dairy cooperatives, milk hawker groups and certification schemes, fresh cheese and butter manufacturers, contract farmers and women’s groups. The kind of production group can vary by region and production system. In Africa for example, they span from village sheep fattening groups in the Nigeria and Ethiopia, to transhumant livestock herders in the West African Sahel, to dairy producers and sellers and semi-nomadic milk pastoralists in East Africa, to goat and beef producers in southern Africa. 

In Asia, where poultry and pig producers have their own specialized groups, livestock fodder growers, transporters and sellers as well as manure sellers are becoming increasingly common and important as land resources get scarcer. And then there are all the specialized agents supplying inputs needed for livestock farming...

Local production groups often combine livestock and farming...

Steve Staal: The vast majority of the world’s small-scale food producers mix crop growing with livestock raising. That’s because the integration of these two systems is beneficial to both in many ways, with livestock manure fertilizing croplands, for example, and crops residues after harvest feeding ruminant livestock. The CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Program was instituted to work at the interface of crop and livestock production, further refining their integration for increased efficiencies.

Ruben Echeverria: One of the CGIAR’s most important contributions to improving mixed crop-livestock systems has consisted of introducing a wide array of tropical forages (grass and leguminous species). In addition to helping intensify meat and milk production, these species offer multiple environmental benefits -such as recuperation of degraded lands and improved soil fertility- which enhance the productivity of crops and the system as a whole. In addition, tropical forages show tremendous potential for mitigating climate change through carbon sequestration and reduced nitrous oxide emissions.

How do you connect your agriculture research with these local food production groups?

Steve Staal: Largely through NGOs, private companies, government agencies, local networks and other intermediaries. And by paying close attention to the self-forming groups of food producers and sellers themselves... Are we responsible for bridging that gap? Yes, although we do this more often indirectly rather than directly. In the past, scientists and scientific institutions working for agricultural development have typically not been held accountable for bridging this gap. All too often they have managed to build their reputations within their scientific communities, largely through scientific publications, rather than through the demonstrable applicability of their research, or the benefits it has provided to their main clients, the world’s poor. But that is changing now.

Ruben Echeverria: The CGIAR is most definitely responsible for finding more effective ways to link research with development, and this in itself is a suitable subject for social science research. Ensuring that research is applied requires stronger partnerships. Public-private partnerships show promise for faster development and wider diffusion of novel products, such as drought-tolerant transgenic maize, hybrid Brachiaria grasses, and golden -high vitamin A- rice. Another exciting prospect is that of strengthening and expanding our “learning alliances” with major international NGOs, which have immense reach in rural communities across the developing world.

Someone once said: “No farmer will grow food he can’t sell”. Giving farmers market access must be crucial?

Steve Staal: Oh yes, a good example is a ten-year Smallholder Dairy Project conducted by ILRI, the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. Working with NGOs and government policymakers from the start, this project managed to change mindsets about what was perceived to be unsafe about the ‘raw’ –unpasteurized- milk being sold informally everywhere. Due to this project, national -and now regional- dairy policies that were hurting the region’s millions of small-scale dairy producers and milk hawkers were removed, with new with certification schemes set up for them, which have greatly increased their market access and their incomes without endangering public health.

Ruben Echeverria: In Central America, CGIAR researchers, working in partnership with several international development NGOs, jointly applied through local partners a participatory methodology for strengthening farmers’ market links. As a result, 33,000 rural families developed sustainable agro-enterprises that bring a wide variety of tropical products to market. Now, Catholic Relief Services is applying the same methodology with local partners in various African and Asian countries.

What are some of the key target areas, or key points of interventions to strengthen local food production groups?

Steve Staal: Well, I would stress supporting small-scale dairy men and women, pastoral herders, backyard pig and poultry keepers, and mixed crop-and-livestock farmers of all kinds in the developing world. 

Livestock markets are booming in developing countries: we have a tremendous opportunity to help hundreds of millions of poor people move out of poverty by meeting the rising demand for milk, eggs and meat. And we also have an opportunity right now, which we must seize for the good of people and the planet, to help these people increase the efficiency and safety of their livestock systems, so that those systems are increasingly green and healthy as well as profitable.

Ruben Echeverria: While the CGIAR is perhaps best known for its work on crops, we have to keep in mind that soil fertility is a key factor on which the productivity of all crops and cropping systems depends. In sub-Saharan Africa, an approach we refer to as integrated soil fertility management has demonstrated the ability to boost maize, sorghum, and cassava yields by more than 100 percent.

Roberto Quiroz: Indeed, soil is most important, and not just to grow crops. Soil contains more carbon than the Earth’s plants and atmosphere combined. When undisturbed, carbon retained in the soil enhances soil quality and productivity, but when land is cultivated carbon is released into the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases. 

Not many people realize that agriculture contributes close to 15 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. CIP and Embrapa’s research into soil carbon levels in Peru has shown that wet grasslands and peat lands in the highlands have the highest concentration of carbon stocks – between 200 and 300 tonnes per hectare. These stocks are also at highest risk of being released into the atmosphere as farmers are increasingly moving their crops into these higher areas to avoid issues related to climate change found at lower altitude, such as drought, pests, and diseases. 

To combat this problem, CIP is working with farmers in the Andes region to develop a number of potato varieties with drought-, pest-, and heat-resistant characteristics that can be grown in the existing lower-lying areas, leaving the vulnerable highland areas unaffected.  

In developing countries, smallholder farms provide up to 80 per cent of the food, with women making up about 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force and accounting for an estimated two-thirds of the world's 600 million poor livestock keepers. 

Faced with environmental degradation, climate change, scarcity of land and water, loss of agricultural biodiversity and ecosystem services, and a world population that is continuing to climb, CGIAR believes that agriculture and natural resource management should be central to development and environmental agendas.

CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future. CGIAR research is dedicated to reducing rural poverty, improving human health and nutrition, and ensuring more sustainable management of natural resources. It is carried out by the 15 centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, academia and the private sector.

With thanks to Susan McMillan, Valerie Gwinner and Nathan Russell

Picture courtesy Peter Casier

Local feedback on national agriculture blueprint

Landholders in the Mid-Western Region have been given a chance to have their say on how Australia's agriculture industry should be developed.

The National Farmers' Federation has held a meeting in Mudgee to get input on its blueprint for the industry.

Members of the New South Wales Farmers' Association have used the forum to call for priority to be given to fair rather than free trade rules and to ensure land is not fragmented by subdivisions, urban expansion and mining.

The Chairman of the Mudgee branch Mitchell Clapham says property rights must not be jeopardised, and there are other ways to protect farming.

"Well it absolutely is very controversial and probably one of the best ideas I've seen," he said.

"I was at a conference run by the Australian Farm Institute and there was the president of the US farm lobby group.

"What they have over there is a scheme where they would buy the right to subdivide which meant then he could then retain it and gave him capital and he could then retain it purely for prime production."

Mr Clapham says agriculture should be given priority over mining.

"Any blueprint for farming needs to preserve the right to farm.

"Where you're coming up against urban expansion or mining and that means it should have priority over mining.

"New South Wales Farmers' have been arguing that at a state level and I think that should be argued at a federal level too."

Original article Here

Climate Conversations - Business backs agricultural growth corridors in Africa

By Sean de Cleene

Zacharia Elises expects to harvest more than five tonnes of maize this season at his 1.5 hectare farm plot in Catandica in Mozambique. This yield level is more than three times the average for the area. Successful investments have been a key support to his accomplishment.

The innovative extension service and marketing company Empresa de Comercialização Agricola (ECA) has provided him with seeds, fertiliser and advice. ECA, one-third owned by local farmers, is one of an economic cluster of related agricultural businesses. These range from seed and feed production to brewing, milling, and pig and poultry farming.

These businesses’ common denominator is financing from the Catalytic Fund. Managed by AgDevCo, the fund was launched in 2010 as part of the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor. It is backed by international agribusinesses and the governments of Mozambique, Britain, Norway and the Netherlands.

Early-stage agribusinesses are rarely provided with commercial capital, but the Catalytic Fund provides ‘social venture capital’ on attractive terms to local entrepreneurs who have a solid business plan and the capacity to execute it.

CATALYTIC FINANCING

The concept of agricultural growth corridors was launched at the U.N. General Assembly in 2008 by Yara International ASA, a global firm specialising in agricultural products and environmental protection agents. Consequently taken on and adapted locally by Mozambique and Tanzania, the concept adopts a business development perspective to farming, using catalytic financing as a key mechanism to promote growth.

Locating areas suitable for productive farming, which also have backbone infrastructure available, is the starting point for undertaking cluster and value chain analysis within the corridors.

Public-private partnership, coordinated investments and government support aim to tackle bottlenecks and value chain risks, creating viable business opportunities while actively looking at the integration of smallholder farmers into those value chains.  

The two growth corridors - Beira in Mozambique and the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) - have launched investment blueprints to identify specific opportunities while setting out the model underpinning the corridor-based approach. The two corridors aim at catalysing combined investments of $5 billion over a 20-year period, with analysis showing a multi-billion dollar potential for annual farming revenues.

EXPANDING YIELDS AND INCOME

With a projected global population of 9 billion in 2050, and improved income levels fuelling dietary changes, agriculture businesses are set to expand. The increasing demand for food, feed and fuel must be met without compromising sustainability.

Yara is engaged in the multi-stakeholder Green Corridor initiative in Tanzania's SAGCOT. Yara, together with Syngenta, the universities of Sokoine in Tanzania and UMB in Norway, have launched a research project examining the effects of best practice in sustainable farming.

Preliminary field trials have demonstrated a high potential to double yields and farmer income levels without expanding farm acreages, while keeping greenhouse gas emissions at the same level.

GROW AFRICA INITIATIVE

While several African countries have seen impressive economic growth figures over the last decade, food insecurity remains at severe levels. The poor, many of whom themselves are smallholder farmers, are at risk.

Transforming smallholder farmers into emerging farmers, putting an emphasis on entrepreneurship, allowing them to profit from the growing agricultural markets - all this has the potential to bring about fundamental change.

But it requires long-term leadership and commitment from all sectors, working together to build the necessary capacity and appropriate market conditions to enable farmers to thrive as the driving force of sustainable food security.

Bringing the experiences from Mozambique, Tanzania and similar examples to scale is now the key objective of the recently established Grow Africa Initiative, formed as a partnership platform linking the African Union Commission, NEPAD and World Economic Forum, as well as the private sector, farmers’ organisations and development partners.

The objective of Grow Africa is to help expand private-sector investment and mobilise transformative partnerships that can accelerate sustainable agricultural growth in line with country-identified priorities.

Sean de Cleene is the senior vice president for global initiatives, strategy and business development for Yara, and a representative of Farming First, a multi-stakeholder coalition encouraging sustainable agricultural development worldwide. Farming First is co-organising Agriculture and Rural Development Day, on June 18, ahead of the Rio+20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Original Article Here

Greening India’s agricultural economy

Pro-farmer, eco-freindly: Natural manure
from vermi-compost avoiding use of chemical
 fertiliser adds to food safety initiatives.

G. CHANDRASHEKHAR

Pro-farmer, eco-freindly: Natural manure from vermi-compost avoiding use of chemical fertiliser adds to food safety initiatives.

hat India faces the daunting challenge of feeding its large and growing population with rising purchasing power amid current low level of per capita food availability has by now become a clichéd statement.

With a population of over 120 crores (1.2 billion) expanding at about 1.5 per cent a year and, thereby, adding roughly 1.8 crore (18 million) mouths to be fed year after year, the demand for food can only keep rising. Even as food and nutrition security remains under stress, it is imperative that the poor are lifted out of their poverty soon. The vantage position of agriculture to deliver ‘growth with equity’ is by now well recognised.

At the same time, demands on resources are set to propel higher, driven by demographic pressure and emerging constraints in the availability of natural resources such as water and land. So, can we have a ‘Green economy’ that pursues growth while also promoting sustainable development through more efficient use of resources?

In a recent policy brief titled ‘Ensuring Food and Nutrition Security in a Green Economy ’, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), has pointed out that the objective of a green economy is to simultaneously work toward economic development, environmental protection and greater social welfare.

In particular, it can be achieved by reducing reliance on fossil fuel and non-renewable resources. Like many emerging economies, India is already facing the serious challenge of satisfying the basic needs of people - provision of adequate and nutritious food, water, energy and housing at affordable prices.

FOOD PRICES RISE

While population growth and rising incomes drive demand for food higher, rapidly changing food habits especially among the burgeoning middleclass are set to transform the composition of the traditional food basket. Importantly, with supply growth trailing demand growth and production costs escalating, food prices will rise significantly. This is sure to have adverse consequences for the poor, whose food and nutrition intake already stands diluted. With higher incomes, the emerging middleclass can afford to consume more fruits and vegetables, and more meat which requires much more water and land to produce.

FOOD SAFETY RISKS

In addition, as people demand more perishable and processed foods, food safety risks along the supply chain increase. These risks may also increase with more intensive crop and livestock farming through contamination with chemicals or pathogens, the IFPRI report pointed out. Interestingly, while intensifying food production can boost the country’s food security and serve the poor, it can also cause land degradation, water pollution, depletion of water resources, and new pest problems.

MONO-CROPPING IMPACT

Under Indian conditions, the frontline States of Punjab and Haryana are classic examples of how grain mono-cropping over long years has resulted in soil degradation and alarming decline in water table. Indeed, experts assert, an ecological disaster is waiting to happen. The unintended consequences highlight the need for adequate agricultural extension, effective regulation, careful pricing policies, the correction of inappropriate incentives, and policy responses that make intensive agriculture compatible with sustainable management of natural resources and the environment, the policy brief has asserted.

This is significant for India in that our farm policies must discourage sustained mono-cropping of grains and encourage crop rotation, enforce water use efficiency by pricing it appropriately and more efficient nutrient use as also have a more rational, well-dispersed national procurement policy for fine cereals.

PRO-POOR, AGRICULTURE

Experts argue that agriculture in a green economy has immense potential to address the unsustainable use of natural resources for food production; and a strategy to develop a green economy can support poverty reduction as well as food and nutrition security, if it is both pro-poor and pro-agriculture because, in low-income countries, the agriculture sector employs almost two-thirds of the labour force and generates about a third of the gross domestic product. As for India, nearly 55 per cent of the population is said to be dependent directly or indirectly on agriculture and allied activities for a living and the contribution of this sector to GDP is about 16 per cent.

Smallholders represent the bulk of the poor and half of the world’s hungry; they also depend on natural resources and ecosystem service for their livelihoods; and so a sustainable management through a green economy is bound to directly benefit them, experts point out. According to IFPRI, an integrated approach to economic development, sustainable use of natural resources and food production will avoid solutions with adverse consequences for any one sector.

TRIPLE-WIN SITUATIONS

In agriculture, such ‘triple-win’ situations can be achieved through practices that reduce negative environmental effects while increasing productivity and smallholder income. Important technologies include plant breeding and slow-release fertilisers that increase nutrient-use efficiency, integrated soil fertility management, precision agriculture, integrated pest management, and further expansion of alternative wet and dry irrigation for rice production (particularly in Asia). For a green economy, there are additional factors to be considered. To fully reflect the value of natural resources and set appropriate incentives, the full cost of environmental degradation as well as all benefits of ecosystem services should be taken into account by decision makers. New indicators to evaluate cross-sectoral impacts - food and nutrition, agriculture and natural resources - are necessary. Multiple stakeholders, especially smallholders, consultations are critical. The transition to a green economy is an opportunity to reconcile economic needs with environmental concerns while promoting food and nutrition security for poor and vulnerable people in one coherent policy framework. By giving agriculture a central role in the green economy and managing this transition effectively, the nation can accelerate its efforts directed at hunger eradication and lifting people out of poverty.

Original Article Here

Uganda should treasure her youthful, growing population

Park Jong-Dae

Tomorrow, the conference for Korea-Uganda agriculture rural development partnership will be launched in Kampala and its implications for Uganda are profound and manifold in view of Korea’s experience and the significance of agriculture for Uganda. 

The fundamental of Uganda’s economy lies in agriculture and rural development. 

All indicators suggest that the real economic growth, income generation, wealth of the nation would depend, to a large degree, on enhanced productivity, value-addition, improved distribution and marketing of agricultural goods in Uganda. 

The transformation of Uganda’s economy would not be effectively attainable without the transformation in agriculture and rural sector especially given the vast majority of Ugandans living in rural areas and farming is their occupation. 

Infrastructure, as much as it is essential for the economy, should be regarded as a means to facilitating the economic activity rather than an end in itself. 

Building manufacturing industry is also crucial but considering Uganda’s economic structure and comparative advantage areas, manufacture industry in Uganda has to be closely, if not directly, linked to agricultural sector in many instances. In case of oil, expectation management is called for, as oil is finite.     

There is no way the Government or donors, can possibly have the capacity to sufficiently fund or bring about all the changes necessary for agricultural transformation. It could not be attained, let alone sustainable, without sense of goal, commitment and dedication of the local populace that can only be brought about by a considerable degree of mind-set change. Serious efforts to fight corruption and erect good governance must be made at the same time.   

South Korea is the first and only country in the world to have successfully transformed itself from aid-recipient to donor status in such a short span of time. Per capita income of Korea was less than that of many African nations, including Uganda, in early 60s. Now, it is a member of the G-20, at one point becoming the 11th largest economy in the recent years, and having reached a total trade volume of one trillion dollars, ranking seventh in the world. 

Like many countries in Africa, Korea had undergone foreign occupation and colonialism, mass poverty, civil war, heavy dependence on foreign aid. But it made the transformation and that transformation started in the agriculture and rural sector, with Saemaul Undong or the ‘new village movement’ as the driving force on a national scale. Its motto is ‘diligence, self-help and cooperation’.

Villagers, local and regional leaders and government all collaborated but in essence, it was a grass-roots, bottom-up community movement.

With all the natural endowment and agricultural potential of Uganda, the true comparative advantage of Uganda should come from this area. 

I disagree with the general characterisation that tends to view the reality of Uganda negatively. For instance, a very high population growth of about 3.5% and growing percentage of the youth in the population need not be seen as liabilities but rather as assets. 

The population surge may pose immediate challenges now but at least in the longer run, it means abundance of labour force and the size of population is an important factor that can have direct and positive impact on the economic size (GDP) of a nation. Rather, low birth-rate and aging population with dwindling labour force that can be witnessed in many countries, including Korea, are causes of much concern for the nation’s future.   

It is out of such context that we are keenly interested in the possibility of community based cooperative, self-help style approach taking root and expanding in Uganda. Agriculture and rural transformation surely is a daunting task, and it should involve the efforts of all the stake holders, including development partners.

But it is with positive expectations that we are inaugurating the conference on agriculture and rural development partnership. Our goals are: 

Mind-set change and capacity building 

Improvement of production through technical know-how 

Value addition and enhanced marketing. We hope that our efforts will also draw substantial private investments for the benefit of Ugandan locals and farmers. 

Like Korea, Uganda can do it, all the more with all its vast potential. It is time to take concrete actions, so let’s move on and do our best to achieve these goals.

Original Article Here

Nurturing better agriculture

BY DAN IMHOFF AND MICHAEL DIMOCK

In 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the very first farm bill, formally called the Agricultural Adjustment Act, he told the nation that “an unprecedented condition calls for the trial of new means to rescue agriculture.” That legislation, passed as the country struggled to emerge from the Depression, was visionary in the way it employed agricultural policy to address significant national issues, including rural poverty and hunger.

It may not seem obvious while standing in the aisles of a modern grocery store, but the country today faces another food and farming crisis. Forty-six million people – that is, one out of seven Americans – signed up for food stamps in 2012. Despite some of the highest commodity prices in history, the nation’s rural regions are falling deeper into poverty.

In 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 17.8 percent of those living in rural counties fell under the poverty line. Unemployment in Fresno County, the nation’s top agricultural producing county, stood at 17.4 percent in March of this year. Industrial agriculture has become a leading cause of soil and water pollution.

After 80 years, the time has come to rescue agriculture from the farm bill – and to improve the health of Americans in the bargain.

Numerous food access and health care advocates, family farm organizations, sustainable agriculture nonprofits, celebrity chefs and even local governments (including Seattle, New York and Los Angeles) have entered the fray and are calling for reform as Congress works to draft legislation to replace the 2008 farm bill, which expires at the end of September. But the U.S. Senate’s first draft of the omnibus legislation – which will be debated over the next few weeks – falls short.

The draft legislation makes it clear that the farm bill remains in the control of powerful agribusiness interests and anti-hunger advocates whose thinking is rooted in the last century.

Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, the farm bill provided incentives for farmers to “get big or get out,” ushering in our contemporary industrial system of food production. Resulting harm to the environment, human health and rural communities was largely ignored. Unfortunately, current farm bill proposals would continue to disproportionately favor huge operators who have blanketed the land with monocultures.

This year’s farm bill will allocate somewhere in the range of $100 billion a year, enough money to target such challenges as the obesity epidemic, water pollution, the loss of soil and biodiversity, and the need to usher in a new generation of farmers, ranchers and land stewards. But that would require at least four fundamental shifts.

Supporting food, not feed. Crop subsidies and federal insurance should be aimed at the foods humans should eat. Currently, the lion’s share of subsidies goes to commodity crops used to feed livestock or to produce ethanol or overly processed foods. A shift in what is subsidized should be accompanied by changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to include incentive programs for fruit and vegetable purchases that would help Americans avoid diet-related disease. Shifting federal dollars from commodities to nutritious foods could save the nation trillions of dollars in health costs in the decades ahead.

Focusing on safeguarding the land. As with the original farm bill, government investments in agriculture should promote conservation and good stewardship. The new legislation should shift billions of dollars from subsidies and insurance discounts to conservation programs.

Adding labor to the equation. The farm bill desperately needs a labor policy. Some 6 million farmworkers do the backbreaking work of putting food on America’s tables, yet there is no portion of the 1,000-page farm bill that explicitly addresses their need for protection from exploitation. Immigration policy has to be part of the discussion too, since an estimated half of the nation’s agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants.

Increasing research. The farm bill is the nation’s largest source of funding for agriculture and food research, and at present that is insufficient. This portion of the bill should be greatly expanded with an emphasis on helping food producers and businesses discover and implement solutions to climate change, water scarcity, species degradation, hunger and obesity. If the public won’t pay for research that serves us all, large corporations will pay for research that serves only them. At that point, we are in danger of losing control of our food system. Today’s concentrated ownership of seed patents justifies this concern.

Every five years or so, the farm bill’s renewal presents a tremendous opportunity. In the past, we have often squandered the chance to use it to prepare for a world with more people, less oil, an unpredictable climate and numerous resource challenges. This time, let’s get it right.

MCT Information Services

Dan Imhoff is the author of “Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill.” Michael Dimock is president of Roots of Change and chairman emeritus of Slow Food USA. They wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

Original Article Here

Uganda must improve agriculture to fuel growth: World Bank

REUTERS 

Uganda must move up the value chain in agricultural production, create more jobs outside farming and tame double-digit inflation to get its economy back on a vigorous growth path, a World Bank official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Official statistics show growth in east Africa's third-largest economy is expected to tumble in the fiscal year ending this month to 3.2 percent from 6.7 percent in the previous year.

Analysts tie the sharp contraction to last year's aggressive run of monetary policy tightening by the central bank to contain rampant inflation, which peaked at above 30 percent in October.

Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye, World Bank country manager in Uganda, said in an interview that the slide in growth was undermining the country's recovery from the 2008-09 global economic turmoil.

"Uganda must transform from low to higher productivity activities," he said. "On the production side, agriculture, which is the bedrock for Uganda's industrialisation ... must transform and become more productive."

Africa's largest coffee exporter relies on agriculture for over 75 percent of its working population although mechanisation is limited and much of the output is sold in semi-processed form, severely limiting earnings from the sector.

President Yoweri Museveni's government has long been criticised for underfunding the sector and the country's banking industry has been wary of boosting credit to agriculture, citing its risk profile.

Ndiaye said average farm yields in Uganda were below 40 percent of those achieved at Uganda's research stations and the country needed to step up industrialisation in agro-processing to "achieve convergence" with middle income countries.

Although the government says it's keen on expanding Uganda's manufacturing industry to add value to most commodity exports, those efforts remain largely stymied by insufficient power and poor infrastructure.
"Uganda also needs to create jobs outside of agriculture ...

job creation is particularly urgent because Uganda has the fastest growing workforce on the planet," he said.

OIL REVENUE TRANSPARENCY

The Bank of Uganda says the country's economy is likely to rebound in 2012/2013 and expand at between 5 to 6 percent as high inflation continues to ebb, which would allow a loosening of its tight policy stance and private sector credit growth.

Ndiaye, though, said this year's slump in growth, compounded by price pressures and exchange rate instability, was taking a toll on investor confidence.

"Investors like stable and predictable environments that allow for effective planning. To regain investor confidence, therefore, there should be stability, inflation at single digit level," he said.

Authorities attributed last year's spike in inflation to slowing food production combined with high regional demand, as well as global fuel price rises.

Somes analysts also blame increased public spending ahead of February 2011's presidential elections for the price surge.

Ndiaye said the government's "supplementary spending" was sidetracking budget planning from original priorities and that the bank was worried such spending was not producing better service delivery.
To guarantee transparency in the use of earnings from the country's oil reserves, he said Uganda should join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a coalition of governments, companies and civil society groups that aims to improve transparency and accountability.

"EITI membership helps bring about an improved investment climate by providing a clear signal to investors and international financial institutions that the government is committed to greater transparency," he said.

Uganda struck commercial hydrocarbon deposits in its Albertine rift basin along the border with Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 and the government estimates reserves at 2.5 billion barrels.

Original Article Here