Step Aside Agribusiness, It’s Time for Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis

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This week’s UN Climate Action Summit will be tricky for agribusiness CEOs. With forest fires raging in the Amazon, a damning new report about the food system by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and millions of young people out in streets clamouring to shut down fossil fuels and factory farming, it will be hard for the world’s largest food and agribusiness companies to get away with another round of voluntary pledges to reduce their gigantic emissions.

At the last UN summit on climate, held five years ago in New York, agribusiness dazzled everyone with two initiatives on deforestation and agriculture, both of which are now in shambles.

Their initiative on deforestation, a New York Declaration on Forests, championed by the world’s largest buyer of palm oil, Unilever, was supposed to put a major dent in tropical deforestation. Instead, rates of tree cover loss have soared, the Amazon is in flames, and those trying to defend forests from agribusiness companies are being killed in record numbers. Now we are learning that the Brazilian Cerrado, a biodiversity hot spot on par with the Amazon and one of the main frontiers for agribusiness expansion, is also burning at a record rate. Agribusiness is responsible, but so are the big global financial firms that having been buying up vast swaths of Cerrado lands and converting them to mega-farms, such as the Swedish national pension fund, Blackstone and the Harvard University endowment.

The other initiative at the last summit, a Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, was the handiwork of Yara, the world’s top nitrogen fertiliser producer and one of the planet’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases. It was the fertiliser industry’s PR response to the growing movement for a real climate solution based on fertiliser-free agroecological farming. The trick worked, for a while. Global production of nitrogen fertiliser rose steadily over the next few years. But the most recent IPCC report pointed to nitrogen fertilisers as one of the most dangerous and underestimated contributors to the climate crisis, and new research is showing that the industry has vastly underestimated its own emissions.

Right now, climate activists are mobilising in Germany for the first mass climate action against Yara and the fertiliser industry. They are targeting Yara because of its multi-million euro lobbying efforts to green-wash industrial agriculture, which they say is one of the main drivers of the climate breakdown.

The big meat and dairy companies are also in trouble. These companies, such as Tyson, Nestlé and Cargill, have emissions levels that approximate their counterparts in the fossil fuel industry. The top 20 meat and dairy companies emit more greenhouse gases than Germany, Europe’s biggest climate polluter. But none of these companies have credible action plans to reduce their emissions and only 4 of the top 35 companies are even reporting their emissions! Instead of taking meaningful action to cut back on production, several companies have been making a lot of noise about their minor investments in plant-based alternatives. People are not being fooled. On the eve of last week’s global climate strike, more than 200 representatives of Indigenous Peoples, workers, academia, environmental and human rights groups adopted a landmark declaration that singled out the “fossil fuel industry and large-scale agribusiness” for “being at the core of the destruction of our climate”.

Big food and agribusiness companies are desperate to portray themselves as part of the solution. But there is no way to reconcile what’s needed to heal our planet with their unflinching commitment to growth. We cannot address the climate crisis if these companies are allowed to keep on sourcing, processing and selling ever more agricultural commodities, be it meat, milk, palm oil or soybeans. Their massive supply chains are what drives the food system’s catastrophic emissions—which the IPCC now says stands at up to 37% of global human-made GHG emissions.

Yet, if we look beyond the public relations of Big Food and Ag we will see that there are plenty of real solutions that can feed the planet perfectly well. All kinds of alternatives are flourishing, especially in the global South, where small farmers and local food systems still supply up to 80% of the food people eat. The industrial food system only exists today because of the support it gets from governments which march in lockstep with corporate lobbyists. Public subsidies, trade deals, tax breaks and corporate-friendly regulations are all designed to prop up the big food and agribusiness companies—and facilitate the growing criminalisation of affected communities, land defenders and seed savers resisting these corporations on the ground. We urgently need to send agribusiness out of the room and demand that governments shift support to small food producers and local markets which would actually save us from planetary collapse.

 

Posted with permission from Common Dreams

A Young Farmer’s Plea for a Green New Deal

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We have come into farming at a terrible time. As I have written about before – very few people in farming make a living. But it is not just a bad year, or that sustainable farming is hard. It is that farming is not working in the US, as shown in the two graphs below.

And so, we are huge supporters of the “Green New Deal.” If you have not yet seen the “Letter from U.S. Farmers & Ranchers to Congress” about it, you should go check it out. And if you are a farmer or rancher – organic, conventional or somewhere in between – you should think about signing. I recorded my own two cents about it in a video (below). I think it is high time we made farming a viable career option in the US.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uDtkrNQXMw[/embedyt]

Listen to the Farmers

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“If you want to know what creativity and courage look like in America, talk to a farmer . . . it is time we listen to them when they tell us that now is the time for creativity and courage and action.” – Rep. Jim McGovern, speaking at the launch of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers for a Green New Deal press conference, September 18, 2019

Last month, a United Nations report prepared by more than 100 experts from 52 countries warned of a looming global food crisis if we don’t hurry up and address global warming by ending the exploitation of the world’s land and water resources.

The solution, according to the experts? Change the way we produce food and manage land.

But how do we do that? When the biggest exploiters of our resources—the agribusiness and chemical giants—have access to a bottomless pit of money they can use to influence the people who write our food and farming policies?

We do it by building a grassroots lobbying force too powerful to be ignored.

And we do it by putting the farmers and ranchers who are ready to produce food and manage land regeneratively in the driver’s seat.

Help us keep up the momentum. Your donation today will help power a national coalition of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers who will fight for a healthier food and farming system.

Last week, five members of Congress, along with several farmers, and members of Regeneration International, the Sunrise Movement, Organic Consumers Association and other farmer-rancher organizations stood in front of the U.S. Capitol to announce the formation of the national coalition of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers for a Green New Deal.

Earlier that day, we delivered a letter, signed by more than 525 individual farmers and ranchers, and about 50 organizations representing more than 10,000 farmers and ranchers, asking Congress to support a Green New Deal for farmers and ranchers. 

The press conference in Washington, D.C. was just the start. Now the hard work begins.

Help us keep up the momentum. Your donation today will help power a national coalition of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers who will fight for a healthier food and farming system.

Call these farmers regenerative, organic, biodynamic, agroecological . . . whatever specific practices they’re using to restore soil health, keep your water clean, build strong local food systems, and produce pesticide-free nutrient-rich food, these are the farmers who care about the land and water and animals they manage.

These farmers and ranchers aren’t looking for handouts.

They just want Congress to stop spending billions of dollars to subsidize corporate polluters who produce contaminated food.

They want a level playing field.

In the coming months and year, the farmers and ranchers in this coalition will form a speakers bureau. They will fan out into their local communities, where they’ll talk to consumers, to other farmers, to local and state lawmakers.

They will build powerful alliances with environmental and social and economic justice organizations.

They will invite members of Congress out to their farms and ranches, to see for themselves how regenerative farming and grazing restores wildlife habitats and builds healthy soils that store carbon and capture and hold precious rainfall.

And they will travel to Washington to hold hearings on Capitol Hill, to personally meet with members of Congress, to lobby for laws that will empower them to be good stewards of the land, while also allowing them to make a decent living.

And every law these farmers and ranchers will lobby for, will be a law that benefits you.

If you value clean air, clean water and healthy food, if you care about the environment, if you care about social and economic justice, these farmers and ranchers will be working for you.

But they’ll need your help.

Help us keep up the momentum. Your donation today will help power a national coalition of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers who will fight for a healthier food and farming system.

Don’t Go Vegan to Save the Planet. You Can Help by Being a Better Meat-Eater.

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There are millions of self-described vegans in the United States; recent estimates suggest they are up to 3% of the population and possibly more. They have a host of reasons for justifying their animal-free diets. For one, they argue, animal husbandry is brutal and cruel toward animals; two, they claim that animal farming is ruinous to the environment.

Vegans are not precisely wrong about all of this, but they’re only half-right. It is true that industrial animal farming is ecologically destructive, that it is cruel and barbarous, and that many if not most of the animals unlucky enough to be a part of it suffer in ways that are difficult to comprehend. All of this is well-documented and undeniable.

But it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have to go vegan. If you’re uncomfortable with animal farming, but are unwilling to adopt the vegan lifestyle, you don’t need to stop eating meat. You just need to eat better meat.

 

KEEP READING ON USA TODAY

Corporate Agribusiness Is Blocking Important Action on the Climate

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Climate change action plans often call for less fossil fuel usage, reduced carbon dioxide emissions and a shift toward renewable energy sources. But one area that hasn’t received the broader attention it deserves is industrial farming.

The latest report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determined that the turning over of more and more land to commercial agriculture has resulted in increasing net greenhouse gas emissions, the loss of natural ecosystems and declining biodiversity. And so, “sustainable land management can contribute to reducing the negative impacts of multiple stressors, including climate change,” the report finds.

This IPCC offering followed on the heels of the National Academies of Sciences study into negative emissions technologies and carbon sequestration, which also found that efforts to store more carbon in agricultural soils generally have “large positive side benefits,” including increased productivity, water holding capacity and yield stability.

KEEP READING ON TRUTHOUT

Coalition Representing 10,000 U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Urges Congress to Support a Green New Deal for Agriculture

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[Download/Print as PDF]

National coalition of independent farmers, anchored by Regeneration International and Sunrise Movement, calls for massive overhaul of food & farming policy to address climate and farm crises

Contact:

Katherine Paul, Regeneration International: katherine@regenerationinternational.org, (207) 653-3090
Isa Flores-Jones, Sunrise Movement: press@sunrisemovement.org, (916) 266-1464

***************

WASHINGTON, D.C. — September 18 — In the lead-up to the September 20 Climate Strike and New York City Climate Week, representatives of a national coalition representing almost 10,000 U.S. farmers and ranchers held a press conference today in Washington, D.C. to announce the delivery of a letter to Congress urging support for the Green New Deal and calling on lawmakers to make agriculture policy reform a priority for addressing the climate crisis and the economic crisis facing independent family farms.

The coalition, a joint organizing effort of Regeneration International (RI) and the Sunrise Movement, said it believes the Green New Deal’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2030 is achievable, but only if the resolution includes policies that spur two large-scale transitions: the transition to renewable energy alternatives, and the transition to regenerative agriculture and land-use practices.

“We stand ready to help achieve all of the goals outlined in the Green New Deal,” the coalition said in its letter. “But we need Congress to work with us to develop food and agriculture policies that support climate-friendly organic and regenerative farming, ranching and land-use practices.”

Ronnie Cummins, RI international director, said: “It’s time to empower farmers and ranchers to transform the country’s agricultural landscape by transitioning to production practices that are aligned with the Green New Deal’s goals for clean water and air for everyone, access to local and healthy food for all, a level playing field for small businesses and net-zero emissions by 2030.”

“Farmers and ranchers are essential to stop climate change, but current policies put them in shackles,” said Garrett Blad from Sunrise Movement. Blad’s family has farmed in northwest Indiana for three generations. “My grandmother lost her sense of purpose after my family sold the dairy cows because growing corporate industry consolidation made the farm unprofitable. I feel disheartened when I see my uncles stress about historic rains delaying planting season, or how Trump’s tariffs are throwing my family’s business into jeopardy. I’ll be damned if I’ll let global warming take the rest of what my grandparents built. It’s well past time our government fight for the farming families that have been left behind for far too long. A Green New Deal must break the stranglehold corporations have on farmers and empower them with the tools and financial support to be the good stewards they are. With a Green New Deal, we have a historic opportunity to break corporate control of farming, invest in rural America and stand behind the hard-working people who grow our food every day.”

“Farmers are our allies in the fight against climate change. For them, change is already at their door, and they’re feeling the effects,” said Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). “Farmers and ranchers have a critical role to play in mitigating the devastating effects of greenhouse gas emissions. As this Congress prioritizes bold solutions to the climate crisis change, we must remember to bring farmers to the table.”

Sherri Dugger, an Indiana farmer, coalition co-chair and executive director of both Women, Food and Agriculture Network and the Indiana Farmers Union, said: “We recently completed a climate-related survey with Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN) members, and the results showed that our members care deeply about stewardship of the land and climate mitigation,” “Their lives are regularly being impacted by climate change. How we react now determines the security and future of America’s food systems.”

Will Harris, a fourth-generation farmer from Bluffton, Ga. and coalition chair, said: “I am delighted to be part of this effort to rethink how food and energy are produced in this country.”

“Farmers across New England are already feeling the effects of the climate crisis. From extreme weather to invasive species, they are getting squeezed not only by a changing climate, but also by federal policies that too often prioritize unsustainable farming and industrial agriculture over the needs of local farmers,” said Congressman Jim McGovern. “Farmers and ranchers put food on the table every day for families across America – now, we need them at the table here in Washington to help guide us towards a more fair, equitable, and sustainable agricultural policy.”

“We must reset our agricultural policies through the prism of sustainability,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). “Decades of unsustainable food and farm policy has had an overall negative impact on the environment. But with the right support, farmers and ranchers across the country can play a key role in addressing environmental degradation and the climate emergency. It’s going to take bold, transformative ideas like the Green New Deal to save our planet. Equitably reforming our food and farm system must be part of the plan.”

David Levine, president of the American Sustainable Business Council, an organizational member of the coalition and the leading business organization representing the public policy interests of responsible businesses, said: “The American Sustainable Business Council is proud to stand with the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers for a Green New Deal. Our businesses across all sectors understand the value of farmers and ranchers as the backbone of our communities and our economy. Farms and ranches are businesses that not only provide healthy food for a strong and resilient workforce, but they also help combat climate change. Our Business for A Green New Deal campaign will work side by side with the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers for Green New Deal to advance the policies needed for a sustainable future for all businesses.”

The coalition supports policy reforms that expand economic opportunities for farmers and ranchers whose practices and businesses:

  • combat climate change by reducing emissions and drawing down and sequestering carbon
  • contribute to a clean environment and restore natural habitats
  • provide access to locally produced, contaminant-free, nutrient-dense food
  • help build and support resilient local and regional food systems and economies
  • provide safe working conditions and living wages for farm workers

The coalition’s Congressional Advisory Committee members are: Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

The coalition is committed to working with Congress to ensure that farmers and ranchers have a seat at the table when it comes to defining and finalizing the specific policies and programs that will form the basis for achieving the goals outlined in the Green New Deal Resolution.

The Organic Consumers Association, American Sustainable Business Council, American Grassfed Association, Institute for Ag & Trade Policy, Organic Farmers Association, Women, Food & Agriculture Association, Savory Institute, Indiana Farmers Union, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire and Commonwealth Urban Farm, and Community Farm Alliance are among the nearly 50 organizations that signed the letter to Congress.

Letter to Congress

U.S. Farmers & Ranchers for a Green New Deal policy goals

FAQ

Regeneration International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to promoting, facilitating and accelerating the global transition to regenerative food, farming and land management for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger and rebuilding deteriorated social, ecological and economic systems. Visit https://regenerationinternational.org/.

Sunrise is a movement of young people uniting to stop the climate crisis. We are building an army of young people to break the hold of oil and gas CEOs on our politics and elect leaders who will protect the health and wellbeing of all people, not just a wealthy few. Visit https://www.sunrisemovement.org/

Why I’m Paying Farmers to Convert to Biodynamic Cotton

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When you think about curbing pollution, taking aim at the clothes in your closet is probably not high up on the list. But the textiles industry is one of the most polluting on the planet. New trends and “ultrafast fashion” has clothing entering popular clothing stores on a weekly or even daily basis.

As a result, Americans have increased how much clothing they buy, with the average person bringing home more than 65 articles of clothing in 2016, according to the “Toxic Textiles” report by Green America.1 Where clothing was once valued for durability and practicality, we’re living in an age where people feel pressured to keep up with clothing trends, at the expense of quality and the environment. Green America noted:2

“[S]ocial media has led to a new trend of ultra-fast fashion — where companies are able to design, manufacture, and sell hundreds of products mere weeks after the initial conception of design, thanks to a large network of local and international factories.

KEEP READING ON MERCOLA

$1M a Minute: The Farming Subsidies Destroying the World – Report

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The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report.

Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser.

The security of humanity is at risk without reform to these subsidies, a big reduction in meat eating in rich nations and other damaging uses of land, the report says. But redirecting the subsidies to storing carbon in soil, producing healthier food, cutting waste and growing trees is a huge opportunity, it says.

The report rejects the idea that subsidies are needed to supply cheap food. It found that the cost of the damage currently caused by agriculture is greater than the value of the food produced. New assessments in the report found producing healthy, sustainable food would actually cut food prices, as the condition of the land improves.

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN

Land Restoration in Latin America Shows Big Potential for Climate Change Mitigation

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Land restoration in Latin America and the Caribbean is picking up pace and scaling up projects will help the region meet its pledges under the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land worldwide by 2030. A new study led by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and Wageningen University supplies a first map of restoration projects in Latin America and shows their potential to mitigate climate change through restoring forests.

Researchers took stock of the location, goals and activities of 154 projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, starting a database to guide practitioners in scaling up restoration. They mapped projects under five initiatives working towards the Bonn Challenge goals – the 20×20 Initiative, the Global Environment Facility, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Forest Investment Program (FIP) and independent local projects – in tandem with mapping the potential biomass increase that forest restoration could achieve across the region’s various ecosystems.

KEEP READING ON EUREKALERT

Inga Foundation: cambiando vidas de una manera revolucionaria

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Mike Hands, de Inga Foundation, un afiliado de Regeneration International (RI), trabaja en Honduras con campesinos de tala y quema con un promedio de 20 acres (ocho hectáreas) de tierras. Eso es considerablemente más grande que la mayoría de las granjas de tala y quema, que Mike estima que no sobrepasan los cinco acres (dos hectáreas).

Si usa esa cifra de dos hectáreas como punto de referencia y la multiplica por los 300 millones de granjas de tala y quema en todo el mundo, tiene 1.5 mil millones de acres. Esa es una gran cantidad de acres de tala y quema, acres que con mejores prácticas agrícolas, podrían convertirse en granjas que secuestran carbono.

Según Hands, la conversión de tala y quema al método de cultivo con el árbol Guama (en inglés, Inga) de Inga Foundation secuestra alrededor de 35 toneladas de carbono por acre por año durante un período de 12 años.

Multiplique eso por 1.5 mil millones de acres, y si cada granja de tala y quema en todo el mundo se convirtiera al modelo con la guama de Inga Foundation, podría secuestrar hasta 52.5 mil millones de toneladas (gigatoneladas) de CO2 en un período de 12 años.

Según la Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica de EE. UU., un gigatón de carbono secuestrado reduce los niveles de carbono atmosférico en casi 0,5 partes por millón.

Entonces, si todos los agricultores de tala y quema en todo el mundo cambiaran al modelo con la guama de Inga Foundation, sería suficiente para reducir el nivel tan peligrosamente alto de carbono del mundo de 400 partes por millón (ppm) en unos 25 ppm, a aproximadamente 375 ppm, acercándonos mucho más al nivel de 350 ppm que 350.org exige para estabilizar el clima mundial.

Claramente, Inga Foundation está en lo cierto.

El periódico The Guardian parece pensar que sí. Clasificó a Mike Hands en el número 44 en una lista de las 100 personas más importantes para salvar el mundo, por delante de luminarias como Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Charles Darwin y el Dalai Lama. Una compañía bastante estimulante.

Inga Foundation está activa en Costa Rica, el Congo, la República Democrática del Congo, Madagascar y el Reino Unido. Pero el proyecto más grande de la fundación está en Honduras, donde se está trabajando con 300 agricultores familiares. Eso está muy lejos de los 250 millones. Pero es un comienzo. Y está creciendo.

Cuando hablé con Mike desde su base en el Reino Unido, dijo que los agricultores hondureños que han visto el rendimiento de los cultivos de sus vecinos que emplean la guama se están alineando para aprender las técnicas con la guama y obtener ayuda de Inga Foundation para empezar, especialmente a raíz de una gran tormenta en 2016 que causó inundaciones generalizadas y literalmente arrasó con las granjas de muchos campesinos de tala y quema que no usan la guama.

Las granjas de tala y quema tienden a estar en laderas, a menudo laderas empinadas, donde el terreno accidentado, el difícil acceso y la vulnerabilidad a la erosión hacen que la tierra sea menos deseable y disminuye la competencia por la tierra. Todos estos factores se combinan para ofrecer al menos cierto grado de protección contra las grandes y crecientes plantaciones de aceite de palma como biocombustibles que a menudo usan la violencia e incluso el asesinato para desplazar a los agricultores en las llanuras costeras de Honduras.

Pero esas ventajas tienen un costo, y cuando los agricultores que usan la guama se recuperaron de la tormenta de 2016 y la devastadora sequía que siguió a la tormenta, sus vecinos se dieron cuenta y el interés en los métodos de Inga Foundation aumentó.

Los conceptos básicos de la guama no son muy complicados. Plantas hileras de árboles de guama, que tienen sistemas de raíces extensos, poco profundos y de rápido crecimiento, entre hileras de cultivos, en un método conocido como cultivo en callejones. Esto aumenta la retención del suelo, especialmente frente a desafíos como lluvia intensa, sequías y huracanes. Luego, complementa la nutrición del suelo con el follaje en descomposición de los árboles de guama y con suplementos minerales, lo que es más importante, fosfato de roca, no fosfato estándar que es arrastrado y se pierde mucho más rápidamente.

La tala y quema es difícil para los agricultores porque la tierra que se limpia pierde la nutrición del suelo tan rápido que los agricultores tienen que limpiar nuevas tierras cada 5-7 años. Eso es trabajo duro. Altera las familias y la vida familiar. Y la búsqueda interminable de nuevas tierras para limpiar y cultivar lleva a los agricultores a conflictos a veces violentos con otros agricultores, terratenientes y pueblos indígenas.

Además, cada vez que los agricultores cortan y queman una hectárea de tierra (2.5 acres), se liberan al menos 100 toneladas de carbono a la atmósfera, según Mike Hands. Y en este momento, el mundo observa con horror cómo se desarrolla este proceso, y se acelera, en las selvas tropicales amazónicas de Brasil y Bolivia, particularmente en Brasil, donde el nuevo gobierno de extrema derecha de Jair Bolsonaro está haciendo la vista gorda, o incluso alentando, lo que a menudo es robo de tierras y posterior quema ilegal.

Es un largo camino pasar de las 300 familias de Inga Foundation hasta la cifra global de 250 millones de agricultores de tala y quema. No es sorprendente, Hands dice, que el mayor desafío para el crecimiento de Inga Foundation es la financiación. Y las burocracias gubernamentales tampoco están ayudando. En Honduras, un envío de la fundación de 18.800 kilos de fosfato de roca se ha retrasado en la aduana desde 2017. Y las tarifas de aduana y almacenamiento siguen aumentando, lo que hace que la eventual liberación del fosfato de roca sea cada vez menos probable y esté cada vez más lejos de su alcance.

A pesar de todos los desafíos que enfrenta Inga Foundation, Mike Hands es optimista. “El modelo de la guama está cambiando vidas y medios de vida de una manera revolucionaria”, me dijo Mike. “Estimamos que las familias en nuestro programa Land for Life han plantado más de 3 millones de árboles desde 2012”.

Eso parece un muy buen comienzo.

Lawrence Reichard es periodista independiente. Para mantenerse al día con las noticias y los eventos, suscríbase aquí para recibir el boletín Regeneration International.