Biofuels, Agro-fuels,-Myth and Rip-off.

Why are we using precious land
to feed our gas-guzzling cars?

Governments and corporate bodies present agro-fuels as the panacea for the problems of a post peak oil era.

Their bold assertions are myths.

(text in colour are quotes from an article of Eric Holt-Gimenez, Ph.D.Executive Director,Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy)

It is now acknowledged by the scientific community that biofuels are not the magic bullet to the problem of either carbon emmissions or the transition from peak oil to a renewable fuel economy. The industrialized countries are aggressively promoting an agro-fuels boom, through mandating renewable fuel targets. However, these targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the Industrial North. Consequently Northern countries expect the Global South to meet their fuel needs, and most Southern governments seem happy to oblige. Indonesia and Malaysia are rapidly cutting down forests to expand palm-oil plantations targeted to supply up to 20% of the EU bio-diesel market. In Brazil-where bio-fuel crops already occupy an area the size of Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Great Britain combined-the government is planning a five-fold increase in sugar cane acreage with a goal of replacing 10% of the worlds gasoline by 2025.

In Columbia, land-grabbing from local peasants as well as from indigenous and minority groups. Should anyone resist they or members of their family might be made to disappear, by paramilitaries.

For more information on Columbia -see September issue of 'Ecologist' September 2007.

MYTHS-
Myth 1- Agro fuels are clean and green.

Myth 2- Agro-fuels will not result in deforestation.

Myth 3- Agro-fuels will bring rural development.

Myth 4- Agro-fuels will not cause hunger.

Myth 5- Better "second-generation" agro-fuels are just around the corner.

(from foodfirst.org).

Pesticides in Farming, Driven by Supermarkets.

Agri-business, food processors and supermarkets have totally taken over control of our food, from the time it is planted, (or born) to its purchase at the retailers. They have degraded its nutritional value, and contaminated it with chemicals:pesticides and herbicides on crops, and antibiotics and growth hormones in animals. This is before it even reaches the processors where additives and more go into the mix.

This whole process is referred to by its protagonists as 'efficiency' but nothing could be further from the truth! It's simply convenient to the corporates, who centralise control.

Food manufacturers attempt to sqeeze more and more profit from food:..."the increasing 'fractionation' of foodstuffs into smaller and smaller biological components and ingredients and then the recombining of these fractions into 'value-added' retail food products. Such activity has spawned a massive food technology industry whose practitioners have been increasingly involved over the past ten years in 'adding' health 'benefits' to foods and beverages.
..........Corporations are often mainly concerned about sourcing a product with the least cost and then move the product where it can be sold at the highest price. In many poor countries workers in rural areas receive less than five dollars a day, with health and environment regulations unlikely to be enforced, again helping to drive down costs. It is remarkable how cheap labour characterises the supposed 'efficiencies' of the food supply chain. Behind low cost food can be even lower cost labour. Transnational corporations are experts at reaping the economic benefits of globalization while pushing the economic, social and environmental costs onto the public.
........some economists now openly argue that consumers in the developed world no longer need their own farmers because countries can import food from poorer countries more cheaply."*

The alternative to this crazy system is to cut these corporations out of the loop, and for us, the customer/consumer to deal direct with local farmers. This action would also benefit populations in the developing world who should be able to decide about their own food needs and the farming system they want to use.

*Quotes from 'Food Wars', Tim Lang and Michael Heasman.

Organic Farming-Small Farms versus Large Farms.

"Food, Trade And US Power Politics In Latin America." Toni Solo. 2004.

He quotes a statement by Columbian Senator Jorge Robledo Castillo:"A nation whose food supply was located somewhere else in the world stands to lose if for some reason it cannot be made available for domestic consumption......"

Toni Solo points out that "people at all levels across Latin America see this very clearly. A spokesperson for the Movement of Landless Workers in Brazil, states, "The principal base for forging a free, sovereign people is that it has the conditions to produce its own food. If a country becomes dependent on another in order to feed its people it becomes a dependent nation politically, economically, and ideologically."

Solo continues.........."Within the broader concern in Latin America about food sovereignty, anxiety about genetically manipulated foods is acute. Writers like Elizabeth Bravo of Equador's Accion Ecologica, have analized what the FTAA would mean in terms of the ability of the US multinationals like Monsanto and Dupont to penalise local agriculture by enforcing Intellectual Property Rights on plants and seeds through patents and related ownership rights. She argues this will introduce monopoly rights into the food production system, limit the free movement of seeds, increase erosion of genetic resources and force farmers to pay royalties on the seed they use, thus generally increasing food prices.

She goes on to point out that, "even without broaching the the ethical monstrosity of patenting life forms, these attempts to prioratise the agenda of the agribusiness multinationals will lead to monocultivation and eliminate small farmers. Latin America agriculture will become more insecure the more it comes to rely on foreign, especially United States, technology. Looking further afield, one has only to consider a country like Honduras to see where the "free trade" model leads: abject dependency, widespread poverty, massive unemployment"

Farming-Small Farms Produce More.

I provide some quotes below from a policy brief by Peter M Rosset, Ph.D. Executive Director Food First/The Institute for Food and Development. The policy brief was prepared for "Cultivating Our Futures" the FAO/Netherlands Conference on the Multifunctional Character of Agriculture and Land,12-17 September1999, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

.."In this policy brief I challenge the conventional wisdom that small farms are backward and unproductive. Using evidence from Southern and Northern countries I demonstrate that small farms are "multi-functional"-more productive, more efficient, andcontribute more to economic development than large farms. Small farmers can also make better stewards of natural resources, conserving biodiversity and safe-guarding the future sustainability of agricultural production.

....Small Farm Productivity

How many times have we heard that large farms are more productive than small farms? Or that they are more efficient? And that we need to consolidate land holdings to take advantage of that productivity and efficiency? The actual data shows exactly the reverse for productivity: that smaller farms produce far more per unit area than larger farms. Part of the problem lies in the confusing language used to compare the performance of different farm sizes. As long as we use crop yield as the measure of productivity, we will be giving an unfair advantage to larger farms.

Total Output versus Yield.

If we are to fairly evaluate the relative productivity of small and large farms, we must discard "yield" as our measurement tool.Yield means the production per unit area of a single crop, like "metric tons of corn per hectare." One can often obtain the highest yield of a single crop by planting it alone on a field--in a monoculture. But while a monoculture may allow for a high yield of one crop, it produces nothing else of use to the farmer. The bare ground between the crop rows..."empty niche space" in ecological terms...invites weed infestation. The presence of weeds makes the farmer invest labour in weeding or capital in herbicide.

Large farmers tend to plant monocultures because they are the simplest to manage with heavy machinary. Small farmers on the other hand, especially in the Third World are much more likely to plant crop mixtures--intercropping---where the empty niche space that would otherwise produce weeds instead is occupied by other crops. Thet also tend to combine or rotate crops and livestock, with manure serving to replenish soil fertility.

Such integrated farming systems produce far more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield per unit area of one crop-corn, for example- may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture, the total output per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far, far higher. Therefore if we are to compare large and small farms, we should use 'total output' rather than yield. Total output is the sum of everything a small farm produces: various grains, fruits, vegetables, fodder, animal products etc. While 'yield' almost always biases the results towards large farms, total output allows us to see the true productivity advantage of small farms.

Surveying the data we indeed find that small farms almost always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger farms. This holds true whether we are talking about an industrial country like the United States, or any country in the Third World.".......

Pesticide Pollution,Farming, the Environment, and Gordon Brown's plans.

This is really about the lack of Gordon Brown's plans for the future of agriculture and the agricultural environment. Given the urgency of the need to create strategies for energy, efficiency and production in all fields(excuse the pun), there is almost a deafening silence from government. There are the occasional suggestions for using low energy light bulbs, but that's about the extent of their creative thinking. Let's have some concerted planning and incentives for really moving away from our dependence on oil!
In relation to farming I wonder if Gordon is going to opt for the environmentally sustainable option, or whether he will cave in to the agri business ,or the GM biotechnology industry.
It's a sobering thought that 75% of the UK is agricultural land and 31,000 tons of pesticides are sprayed on UK land every year......" The toxicity of pesticides used in agriculture has increased by an estimated factor of 10-100-fold since 1975.Despite this, resistence is spreading; POPS (persistant organic pollutants)are becoming less effective: they accumulate in the food chain, persist in the environment and travel by being bioaccumulated (as animals eat each other, so the POP is stored in fat and thus consumed and stored).Pesticides are a key route for POPS,, notably through aldrin, chlordane,DDT, dieldrin, endrin and heptachlor. 1000 species of insects, plant diseases and weeds are now resistant, an environmental impact known as the 'treadmill effect'."
Rain water in parts of Europe contains such high levels of dissolved pesticides it would be illegal to supply it as drinking water.
So, Gordon, what's it to be? Give us a clue.

Text in blue is information taken from 'Food Wars' by Tim Lang and Michael Heasman.

No Synthetic Fertilizers, No Pesticides in Cuban Organic Agriculture.

There is an interesting article by Megan Quinn called 'The Power of Community:How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.' It features on the website of Global Public Media.
I'll just quote a little bit about farming in Cuba, but her article is well worth reading for other aspects of cuban life.

....."Havana, Cuba--At the Organiponico de Alamar, a neighborhood agriculture project, a workers collective runs a large urban farm, a produce market and a restuarant. Hand tools and human labour replace oil-driven machinary. Worm cultivation and composting create productive soil. Drip irrigation conserves water, and the diverse, multi-hued produce provides the community with a rainbow of healthy foods.
In other Havana neighborhoods, lacking enough land for such large projects, residents have installed raised garden beds on parking lots and planted vegetable gardens on their patios and roof tops.
Since the early 1990's an urban agriculture movement has swept through Cuba, putting this capital city of 2.2 million on a path toward sustainability.
A small group of Australians assisted in this grass-roots effort, coming to this Caribbean island nation in 1993 to teach permaculture, a system based on sustainable agriculture which uses far less energy.
This need to bring agriculture into the city began with the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of more than 50% of Cuba's oil imports, much of its food and a percent of its trade economy.Transportation halted, people went hungry and the average Cuban lost 30 pounds.....
....Cubans are also replacing petroleum-fed machinary with oxen, and their urban agriculture reduces food transportation distances. Today an estimated 50% of Havana's vegetables come from inside the city, while in other Cuban towns and cities urban gardens produce from 80% to more than 100% of what they need......"

Please read the rest of the article, it's interesting.

Pesticides versus Set-asides.

Setasides are being scrapped next year to make way for the crazy rush to grow biofuel crops. Biofuel crops are also displacing food crops. Truly crazy in a country as small as Britain.

Setasides are not an escape into bygone times-just the opposite. They have been recognized as vital green arteries for wildlife and biodiversity, which are buffers against the burgeoning pressures of intensive farming and pesticide use. They support a critical eco system for the maintainance of food crops and nature.

Georgina Downs, anti pesticide campaigner, points out that 'despite the increasing costs involved in this process and the decreasing number of active substances on the market, actual consumption and use of pesticides in the EU has not decreased within the last ten years. At the same time, the percentage of food and feed samples where residues of pesticides exceed maximum regulatory limits is not declining, but remains around 5%. In addition,certain pesticides are commonly found in the aquatic environment at concentrations well above the regulatory limit, and there is no sign of any decrease'.

So, I enclose some pictures of fields and wild plants/flowers which are due to disappear forever from Britain.

Farming and Food Supply, Who Owns It?

All the big players are jostling for control of the land and control over how it is farmed. The combined power of agri-business and government has taken away a fundamental human right of the international population to make choices about foods grown in our own nations, geographical regions, and local communities.

They deprive us of choice as to whether we have pesticide residues in our food, or whether our food is genetically modified. Remote corporations tell us that the 'free market' provides consumer choice-but giant corporations have deep pockets and their marketing practices manipulate consumer choice. Supermarkets demand strict 'cosmetic' specifications of colour size and shape of produce from the farmer, which forces the farmer to use even more unnecessary chemicals, harmful to human health and animals and the environment.....Agribusiness refers to this system as 'productive, highly efficient, market focused agriculture.'