Tag Archive for: Food Production

What Regenerative Farming Can Do for the Climate

/by

Tropical Storm Isaias downed power lines and trees across the greater New York City area in early August, snapping limbs from the ancient oaks that ring Patty Gentry’s small Long Island farm.

Dead branches were still dangling a month later. But rows of mustard greens were unfurling nearby, and a thicket of green vines reached toward the sun, dotted with tangy orange bulbs.

“These sungold tomatoes were toast,” Gentry said, sounding almost astonished. “But now look at them. They’re coming back. It’s like spring again.”

Over the past four years, Gentry has transformed 2 acres of trash-strewn dirt on Long Island’s southeast coast into a profitable organic farm by betting big on soil. Instead of pumping her crops with pesticides and petrochemical fertilizer, Gentry grows vetch, a hardy pealike plant, and rye to cover the exposed soil between the rows of greens intended for harvest. She layers the soil with specially mined rock dust that replenishes minerals and pulls carbon from the air. And in the spring and summer, she uses a system of crop rotation—shifting around where different crops are planted—so that one plant’s nutrient needs don’t drain the soil. These practices are collectively known as regenerative farming.

Tests of the soil show the organic content is now seven times higher than when she began. The result is produce so flavorful that she can’t keep up with the number of restaurants and home cooks looking to buy shares.

Gentry’s farm is also resilient, one where healthy soil soaks up rainwater like a sponge and replenishes the crops. She barely missed a delivery after the storm.

At a moment when fires and storms are wreaking havoc from coast to coast, mounting research suggests that practicing the soil techniques Gentry uses on a much wider scale could remove climate-changing gases from the atmosphere and provide a vital bulwark in the fight to maintain a habitable planet. They’re part of a mix of solutions experts say are needed to keep global temperatures from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, beyond which projections show catastrophic threats to our coasts, ecosystems, and food and water supplies.

Regenerative practices range from growing trees and reverting croplands to wild prairies, to rotating crops and allowing remnants after harvest to decompose into the ground. The techniques, already popular with small-scale organic growers, are steadily gaining traction among big farms and ranches as the chaotic effects of climate change and financial pressure from agribusiness giants eat away at their businesses.

“This is about covering the soil, feeding the soil and not disrupting it,” said Betsy Taylor, the president at Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, a consultancy that focuses on regenerative agriculture. “Those are the basic principles.”

Countries such as France are promoting large-scale government programs to encourage farmers to increase the carbon stored in soil. Members of Congress have also proposed legislation to push regenerative farming in the U.S., and several states are designing their own policies. Progressive think tanks call for small shifts in existing U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and beefed-up research funding that could trigger the biggest changes to American farming in almost a century. Nearly every Democratic presidential candidate pitched paying farmers to trap carbon in soil as a key plank of their climate platform, including nominee Joe Biden.

“We should be making farmers the recipients of a climate change plan where they get paid to absorb carbon,” the former vice president said during a CNN town hall this past week.

While the benefits to soil and food nutrition are difficult to dispute, regenerative farming has its critics. They argue that its climate advantages are overhyped or unproven, the product of wishful thinking about a politically palatable solution, and that the focus on regenerative farming risks distracting policymakers from more effective, if less exciting, strategies.

Industrial Agriculture’s Bill Is Coming Due

At the end of World War II, federal farming policy started to transform the breadbasket of the Midwest into vast plains of corn, soybeans, and grains. The same principles of mechanized bulk production that turned the United States into a military powerhouse capable of fending off the Japanese and Nazi empires were applied to farming. Surplus chemicals from weapons manufacturing found new uses eradicating crop-eating insects, and nitrogen plants that once made components for bombs started producing ammonia to feed fields.

Geopolitics only hastened the trend, as widespread Soviet crop failures forced Russian officials to buy grain from overseas and the Nixon administration capitalized on the opportunity. Agriculture Secretary Earl “Rusty” Butz, who served under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, directed farmers to “plant fence row to fence row,” and quantity trumped all else. Farmers took out loans to expand operations, turning “get big or get out” into a mantra, as Butz promised that any surplus could be sold overseas.

The damage to farm soil kicked into overdrive as farmers planted the same monoculture crops year after year and added more chemical fertilizers to make up for the sapped minerals and dead microbes. The cumulative effect has been twofold. The U.S. loses top soil at a rate 10 times faster than it’s replenished. And carbon and other gases seep from the plowed, exposed soil into the air, contributing to the emissions rapidly warming the planet and increasing the frequency and severity of destructive droughts and storms.

Less than two weeks after Tropical Storm Isaias made landfall over Gentry’s farm, a powerful storm known as a derecho—or “inland hurricane”—formed in Iowa, some 1,100 miles west. The storm destroyed nearly half the state’s crop rows. “This will ruin us,” one farmer told a local newspaper. Another called it a “catastrophic scenario.”

Losses from extreme weather are only expected to grow in the years ahead. Even if warming is kept within a 2 degrees Celsius warming scenario, the less ambitious goal spelled out in the Paris climate accords, U.S. corn production will likely suffer an 18% hit, according to a 2018 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For many farmers, the federal crop insurance program has been a lifeline in tumultuous times. But it also encourages them to plant in harm’s way by providing incentives to cultivate every inch of land, including marginal acres prone to flooding, and it promotes monocultures by making it difficult for farmers to insure a variety of crops at once. In 2014, the federal Government Accountability Office found that, as a result of the insurance program’s policies, farmers “do not bear the true cost of their risk of loss due to weather-related events, such as drought—which could affect their farming decisions.”

“As farmers, we’re trying to make rational economic decisions in an irrational system,” said Matt Russell, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer who promotes regenerative soil practices. “We have externalized the pollution so the public pays for those costs and nobody in the supply chain pays for it, while at the same time, when I do something good, I can’t externalize the cost at all.”

‘You’ve Got A Win’

Plans to shift federal incentives to favor regenerative farming aim first to loosen big agribusiness’s grip on the industry.

The think tank Data for Progress has proposed overhauling the federal crop insurance program to limit the total acreage eligible for coverage, phase out incentives for single-crop planting and create new tax credits designed specifically for family-owned farms, restricting how much corporate giants could benefit from the subsidized insurance.

With that stick would come a carrot: Under Data for Progress’ plan, Congress would increase the budget for the USDA’s existing conservation programs.

The Conservation Stewardship Program already provides farmers with cash payments of up to $40,000 per year and technological assistance for steps such as assessing which plots of farming and grazing land should be allowed to go natural. With an expanded mandate to sequester carbon dioxide, the program might fund a national assessment to determine which areas are best suited for rewilding or carbon farming and compensate farmers directly to do that.

The program paid out $1.4 billion last year alone. Data for Progress proposed that the USDA significantly increase funding for both the program and research, and provide employees in all its conservation programs with training to understand and help regulate regenerative farming practices.

“There are so many wins in regenerative agriculture,” said Maggie Thomas, a former climate policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who serves as political director of the progressive climate group Evergreen Action. “You’ve got a win for farmers. You’ve got a win for soils and the environment. You’ve got a win for better food. There’s no reason not to do it.”

The hopes for such changes are dim under the Trump administration, which spent its first three years sidelining climate science and spurring an exodus of scientists from the USDA as frustration over political appointees’ meddling with research grew. (A five-year proposal the agency released in February did seem to show a growing acceptance of the need to address climate change, offering what InsideClimate News called “hopeful signs.”)

Maryland already pays farmers $45 per acre for fields maintained with cover crops. Montana state officials collaborated with a nonprofit consortium paying ranchers to adopt sustainable grazing practices that increase carbon storage in the soil.

In January, Vermont proposed a plan to incorporate carbon sequestration by farmers into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade scheme that includes most of the Northeast states. In March, Minnesota officials gathered for a summit on using soil to combat climate change. In June, Colorado solicited input for a state-level soil health program aimed at “advancing climate resilience.”

Investors see potential profit in the shift to regenerative agriculture. In January, the Seattle startup Nori was able to raise $1.3 million to fund its platform using blockchain technology to pay farmers to remove carbon from the atmosphere. And Boston-based Indigo Ag, a similar startup, announced in June that it had brought in another $300 million from investors, becoming the world’s highest-valued ag-tech firm at an estimated $3.5 billion.

But some fear these platforms offer dubious benefits, particularly because the credits generated by the farmers’ stored carbon could be bought by industrial giants that would rather offset their own pollution than eliminate it.

“It’s right to be skeptical of these companies,” said Mackenzie Feldman, a fellow at Data for Progress and lead author on its regenerative farming proposal. “It has to be the government doing this, and it can be through mechanisms that already exist, like the Conservation Stewardship Program.”

Are The Benefits Being Oversold?

But not everyone is jumping on the regenerative farming bandwagon. In May, a group of researchers at the World Resources Institute offered a skeptical take, arguing “that the practices grouped as regenerative agriculture can improve soil health and yield some valuable environmental benefits, but are unlikely to achieve large-scale emissions reductions.”

“No-till” farming—a seeding practice that requires growers to inject seeds into fields without disturbing the soil, which became popular with environmentalists several years ago—has had only limited carbon benefits because farmers inevitably plow their fields after a few years, WRI argued, pointing to a 2014 study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

And cover crops can be costly to plant and difficult to propagate in the weeks between a fall harvest and the winter months, WRI said, highlighting the findings of an Iowa State University study. The group also cast doubt over the methods used to account for carbon added to soil.

In June, seven of the world’s leading soil scientists published a response to WRI’s claims, which they said drew too narrow conclusions and failed to see the potential of combining multiple regenerative practices.

WRI researcher Tim Searchinger renewed the debate this past month with his own response to the response, accusing the critics of his critique of relying on misleading information from a 2007 United Nations report to inflate the potential for capturing carbon in soil at large scale.

“The realistic ability to sequester additional carbon in working agricultural soils is limited,” he wrote. “Because what causes carbon to remain in soils is not well understood, further research is needed, and our views may change as new science emerges.”

Rock You In A Hurricane

Some of the latest science sheds light on one aspect of regenerative farming that didn’t factor into the recent debate at all. In July, a major new study published in the journal Nature found that spreading rock dust on soil at maximum scale in the world’s three largest carbon emitters—China, the United States and India—could collectively remove up to 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air per year.

The process, known as “enhanced rock weathering,” occurs when minerals in the rock dust react with carbon in rainwater and turn into bicarbonate ions. Those ions are eventually washed into the oceans, where they’re stored indefinitely as rock minerals.

“The more we looked into it, the more it seemed like a no-brainer,” said David Beerling, a soil researcher at the U.K.’s University of Sheffield and the lead author of the study.

That’s a leap Thomas Vanacore took nearly four decades ago. The Vermont farmer and quarryman realized in the 1980s that mineral-rich dust from basalt and shale quarries could replenish nutrients in soil without using synthetic fertilizers, which would appeal to his state’s organic farmers. But as he studied climate change, he also concluded that his product could help pull carbon from the atmosphere.

“You can’t do what modern farming has done for years, where you kill everything and expect to grow life,” Vanacore said, standing before a pile of black shale at a quarry in Shoreham, Vermont. For farmers looking to make the shift to regenerative practices, “rock dust is the jumpstart,” he said.

This month, he delivered his largest shipment to date to an industrial farm supplier in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Vanacore said he expects to ship an added 245 rail cars full of rock dust over the northern border in the next 12 months.

His customers swear by the stuff—including Gentry, who started buying bags of his brix-blend basalt when she first started her farm. Without the rock dust, Gentry doubts that her soil would be as fertile as it is today. Her embrace of pioneering techniques is reflected in the name of her plot: Early Girl Farm.

 

Reposted with permission from YES Magazine

Africa at the Crossroads: Time to Abandon Failing Green Revolution

/by

As COVID-19 threatens farming communities across Africa already struggling with climate change, the continent is at a crossroads. Will its people and their governments continue trying to replicate industrial farming models promoted by developed countries? Or will they move boldly into the uncertain future, embracing ecological agriculture?

It is time to choose. Africa is projected to overtake South Asia by 2030 as the region with the greatest number of hungry people. An alarming 250 million people in Africa now suffer from “undernourishment,” the U.N. term for chronic hunger. If policies do not change, experts project that number to soar to 433 million in 2030.

The evidence is now convincing that the Green Revolution model of agriculture, with its commercial seeds and synthetic fertilizers, has failed to bring progress for Africa’s farmers. Since 2006, under the banner of the billion-dollar Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA), that strategy has had an unprecedented opportunity to generate improved productivity, incomes, and food security for small-scale farmers. African governments have spent billions of dollars subsidizing and promoting the adoption of these imported technologies

According to a recent report, “False Promises.” evidence from AGRA’s 13 countries indicates that it is taking Africa in the wrong direction. Productivity has improved marginally, and only for a few chosen crops such as maize. Others have withered in a drought of neglect from donor agencies and government leaders. In AGRA’s 13 focus countries, the production of millet, a hearty, nutritious and climate-resilient grain, fell 24% while yields declined 21%. This leaves poor farmers with less crop diversity in their fields and less nutritious food on their children’s plates.

Small-scale farming households, the intended beneficiaries of Green Revolution programs, seem scarcely better off. Poverty remains high, and severe food insecurity has increased 31% across AGRA’s 13 countries, as measured by the United Nations.

Rwanda, the home country of AGRA’s president, Agnes Kalibata, is held up as an example of AGRA’s success. After all, maize production increased fourfold since AGRA began in 2006 under Kalibata’s leadership as Agriculture Minister. The “False Promises” report refers to Rwanda as “AGRA’s hungry poster child.” All that maize apparently did not benefit the rural poor. Other crops went into decline and the number of undernourished Rwandans increased 41% since 2006, according to the most recent U.N. figures.

Green Revolution proponents have had 14 years to demonstrate they can lead Africa into a food-secure future. Billions of dollars later, they have failed. AGRA wrapped up its annual Green Revolution Forum September 11 without providing any substantive responses to the findings.

With a pandemic threatening to disrupt what climate change does not, Africa needs to take a different path, one that focuses on ecological farm management using low-cost, low-input methods that rely on a diversity of crops to improve soils and diets.

Many farmers are already blazing that trail, and some governments are following with bold steps to change course.

In fact, two of the three AGRA countries that have reduced both the number and share of undernourished people – Ethiopia and Mali – have done so in part due to policies that support ecological agriculture.

Ethiopia, which has reduced the incidence of undernourishment from 37% to 20% since 2006, has built on a 25-year effort in the northern Tigray Region to promote compost, not just chemical fertilizer, along with soil and water conservation practices, and biological control of pests. In field trials, such practices have proven more effective than Green Revolution approaches. The program was so successful it has become a national program and is currently being implemented in at least five regions.

Mali is the AGRA country that showed the greatest success in reducing the incidence of hunger (from 14% to 5% since 2006). According to a case study in the “False Promises” report, progress came not because of AGRA but because the government and farmers’ organizations actively resisted its implementation. Land and seed laws guarantee farmers’ rights to choose their crops and farming practices, and government programs promote not just maize but a wide variety of food crops.

Mali is part of a growing regional effort in West Africa to promote agroecology. According to a recent report by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has developed an Agroecology Transition Support Program to promote the shift away from Green Revolution practices. The work is supported by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of its “Scaling Up Agroecology” program.

In Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal, farmers’ organizations are working with their governments to promote agroecology, including the subsidization of biofertilizers and other natural inputs as alternatives to synthetic fertilizers.

In the drylands of West Africa, farmers in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana and Niger are leading “another kind of green revolution.” They are regenerating tree growth and diversifying production as part of agro-forestry initiatives increasingly supported by national governments. This restores soil fertility, increases water retention, and has been shown to increase yields 40%-100% within five years while increasing farmer incomes and food security. It runs counter to AGRA’s approach of agricultural intensification.

Senegal, which cut the incidence of severe hunger from 17% to 9% since 2006, is one of the regional leaders. Papa Abdoulaye Seck, Senegal’s Ambassador to the FAO, summarized the reasons the government is so committed to the agroecological transition in a foreword to the IPES report:

“We have seen agroecological practices improve the fertility of soils degraded by drought and chemical input use. We have seen producers’ incomes increase thanks to the diversification of their crop production and the establishment of new distribution channels. We have seen local knowledge enriched by modern science to develop techniques inspired by lived experience, with the capacity to reduce the impacts of climate change. And we have seen these results increase tenfold when they are supported by favorable policy frameworks, which place the protection of natural resources, customary land rights, and family farms at the heart of their action.”

Those “favorable policy frameworks” are exactly what African farmers need from their governments as climate change and COVID-19 threaten food security. It is time for African governments to step back from the failing Green Revolution and chart a new food system that respects local cultures and communities by promoting low-cost, low-input ecological agriculture.

Reposted with permission from Common Dreams

The Importance of a Regenerative Food System for Sustainable Agriculture

/by

A regenerative food system focuses on feeding humanity without depleting the Earth. It is a holistic systems approach, stressing the importance of finding solutions that address problems collectively.

There is no single definition of regenerative agriculture, but most people agree that regenerative farming includes things such as no-till farming, cover crops, perennial and native plants, integrated livestock and crop diversity. Building a regenerative food system is vital to feeding humanity while also repairing damaged ecosystems. In the face of climate change, a regenerative food system will create resiliency by localizing economies, sequestering carbon and building greater food security.

Carbon Sequestration

One of the main benefits of a regenerative food system is the ability to sequester carbon. Agriculture is a top contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and industrialized agriculture has a serious carbon footprint. Soil erosion and nutrient depletion are also two common side effects of conventional agriculture.

Utilizing techniques such as cover crops and no-till growing help sequester carbon, keeping carbon in the soil instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

KEEP READING ON RED GREEN AND BLUE

Revolución agroecológica: cómo cambiar desde la raíz el sistema en el que vivimos

/by

La agricultura ha sido el sustento de la vida y la base para la organización sedentaria que detonó nuestro modo de vida actual. El conocimiento sobre el acto de cultivar así como las técnicas que se han desarrollado a lo largo de la historia se han utilizado con el fin de satisfacer las necesidades de alimentación de una población en constante crecimiento. Sin embargo, esta búsqueda se ha dado en un contexto de separación entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza. En él, el paradigma de dominio sobre la vida transformó la agricultura en una industria más.

La agricultura se define de manera sistémica como el conjunto de procesos destinados a obtener alimentos utilizando los recursos naturales y sociales a los que se tiene acceso. Esta producción-distribución-consumo de alimentos se realiza a través de actividades económicas, culturales, políticas y ambientales de manera organizada. Por ello, entender que la agricultura juega un rol fundamental en estos ejes de la vida social nos sirve para entender los valores que la sustentan y los fines a los que atiende, para, así, poder plantear soluciones que vayan a la raíz del problema.

CONTINUE LEYENDO EN SOPITAS.COM

Fase Vandana: la filósofa india entrevistada por Soledad Barruti

/by

El 24 de marzo al atardecer, el primer ministro de India, Narendra Modi, le dio a la población de su país solo cuatro horas para establecer un lugar de residencia del que no podrían salir durante los próximos 21 días, salvo para satisfacer necesidades básicas. A las doce de la noche se suspendió el transporte público, se cerraron todos los negocios que no fueran alimentarios o de medicina, y las calles pasaron a ser vigiladas por la policía, que tenía la orden de garantizar el aislamiento de las mil trecientas millones de personas que conforman la séptima economía mundial del capitalismo salvaje.

El 25 de marzo ciudades como Mumbai y Delhi amanecieron así: con los mercados raleados por quienes podían asegurarse el abastecimiento de comestibles, productos de limpieza y farmacia; con los pequeños puestos de frutas, verduras y especias clausurados; y con millones de personas que viven en la calle y dependen del trabajo diario para vivir sin nada que hacer más que buscar cobijo en una ciudad superpoblada y sin habitaciones de más.

Los pobres aguantaron acomodados donde pudieron un día, dos, algunos ni siquiera eso. Tomaron lo que tenían, sus propios cuerpos, los de sus hijos, alguna tela para taparse la boca, y empezaron a caminar para volver a casa: ese destino rural del que habían salido unos 10, 15, 25 años atrás forzados por la idea de un futuro próspero en las capitales. En una semana las rutas y caminos de India se vieron colmadas por millones de personas que, hambreadas y asustadas, improvisaron la caravana migrante más grande de la actualidad, y de ese país desde 1947, cuando se retiró la colonia inglesa.

A la doctora en física, filósofa y ecofeminista Vandana Shiva el bloqueo en India la encontró en un lugar privilegiado: Derhadun, una ciudad al norte, sobre las laderas del Himalaya junto al Tibet, donde nació y vivió su infancia rodeada de bosques, y donde hoy funciona la Universidad de la Tierra y granja agroecológica que creó en 1987, su fundación: Navdanya.

Vandana no se ha movido de ahí desde entonces y, sin embargo, con un entusiasmo avivado como volcán por la contingencia, no ha dejado de desplegar ideas y proyectos para aprovechar el impulso. Porque así lo ve: “Lo que se está viviendo en este país, donde la cuarentena fue más brutal que en ningún otro, es un fenómeno masivo e inesperado de desurbanización. La vuelta a casa de millones de personas que se están reencontrando con sus familias, en lugares donde no falta comida porque hay tierras para producirla, donde la vida para ellos puede volver a tener sentido”, dice y sonríe y se enciende como pocos en esta época de miedo y parálisis. “Yo creo que estamos viviendo una gran oportunidad. Por eso lo que estoy pidiendo a quienes reciben a los migrantes, a quienes los ven retornar, es que lo hagan con los brazos abiertos, dispuestos a enseñarles a cultivar, a ser autosuficientes, a reconectarse con la comunidad”.

Para esta líder revolucionaria y pacifista nada es casual. La degradación física y moral del sistema económico, con el sistema alimentario como máximo exponente de nuestra capacidad de destrucción, nos ha dejado a merced de este virus que antes que como metáfora, funciona como Aleph. Ahí está todo: el resultado del absurdo espejismo antropocéntrico sobre el que hacemos andar la modernidad y la ineludible mutualidad de la vida en red que puede ser de contagios mortales o interconexiones virtuosas. “A mí me resulta inevitable pensar que este es un momento de volver a la raíz, y reorientar nuestro propósito, como individuos y como sociedad”, dice Vandana hablando primero de sí. “A mí el bloqueo me dejó encerrada en mis memorias de infancia y juventud. Cada día me despierto y agradezco a mis padres por estar acá, por haber plantado los árboles que me rodean estos días. Respiro, pienso, escribo, comunico consciente de todo lo que me hizo lo que soy, de cada uno de mis anhelos y luchas”.

¿Creés que algo de esa reconexión pueden estar experimentando las mujeres y hombres que volvieron a sus pueblos en estos días?

Creo que esa es la oportunidad, que experimenten eso. Porque los jóvenes que caminaron 500, 800 kilómetros para volver a sus hogares habían sido convencidos de que no había ninguna razón para producir alimentos, para vivir en el campo. Pero tras 25 años de libre mercado, globalización y desruralización, las ciudades les demostraron de la peor manera que no podían contenerlos ni a ellos ni a nadie. Que sobraban. Estamos hablando de personas que no tienen nada, que viven de lo que pueden hacer con sus cuerpos cada día. Y estamos hablando de la mitad de la población de India…

Sin embargo, los analistas hablan de la economía India como “floreciente”, “pujante”, “una demostración de lo mejor del capitalismo”, “la séptima economía del mundo”…

Es que las personas están por fuera de esos análisis. La naturaleza también. Cuando se habla de economía lo que se tiene en cuenta aquí y en todos lados es solo lo que ocurre en el mercado formal, las ganancias de las grandes compañías. En India somos una economía de mucha gente, que trabaja duro, en muy pequeños negocios. Los vegetales llegan a la puerta de cada casa. O al pequeño almacén, de los que hay muchísimos. Son los lugares que cuando cierran nadie cuenta. Por eso el primer ministro cerró el país sin analizar esas pérdidas. La economía de los pobres no se tiene en cuenta, de las mujeres no se tiene en cuenta, de los campesinos tampoco. A toda esa cantidad de personas caminando de vuelta a casa nadie las contó como pérdidas. A lo sumo les pusieron unos trenes cuando llevaban días de caminata y las imágenes eran una vergüenza nacional.

Esos mismos analistas dirían que esas personas van a volver a las ciudades no bien puedan hacerlo.

No. Yo creo que el coronavirus está revirtiendo lo que hicieron tantos años de colonización e invasión en nuestro país. Y exponiendo cómo funcionan en todo el mundo los modelos como el de Monsanto. Hace muchos años esa empresa publicó su plan: una agricultura sin agricultores, sin naturaleza, sin nada más que su combo de semillas modificadas y agrotóxicos diseminadas por el campo. Algunos le creyeron. Y lo que estamos padeciendo ahora son los resultados de esa invasión: un mundo con la naturaleza rota que permite la dispersión de virus, campos vacíos y hacinamiento en las ciudades.

Y una población cada vez más enferma.  

Eso es muy grave. No solo hay nuevas enfermedades sino que los riesgos de morir por una de ellas, como la Covid-19, aumentan con la diabetes tipo 2, la hipertensión o el cáncer que crea este modelo. Empresas como Bayer-Monsanto, y también Coca Cola, Nestlé, Kellogs son las responsables: compañías que crean productos que no son compatibles con nuestra biología.

¿Qué es lo que impide que la sociedad pueda despertar ante algo tan evidente?

Por un lado, el poder corporativo que nos atrapó en su modo de entender la vida. Este pequeño puñado de corporaciones que consolida su poder en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En la Alemania Nazi empresas como Bayer generaban gases para matar a las personas que estaban dentro de los campos de concentración. Esas mismas compañías, terminada la guerra, cambiaron el uso de sus productos: empezaron a usarlos como herbicidas, insecticidas, fungicidas, un arsenal químico que se instaló en la agricultura continuando su capacidad de daño y de dominación a través de la violencia y el miedo. Pero además hay otro: este sistema crea adicción. Se habla de Bayer como el productor de las aspirinas. Pero antes de eso fue el productor de la heroína. Una droga altamente adictiva que debe su nombre a que te hacía sentir como un héroe. Este sistema se sostiene con ese espíritu.

Cultura zombi

El 12 de mayo las cámaras de televisión de todo el planeta apuntaban a Francia. Tras semanas de aislamiento y casi 30 mil muertos por coronavirus ese país inauguraba la Fase 1 levantando la clausura de los lugares icónicos a los que pocos creían iba a ser tan fácil volver. Ni la torre Eiffel ni el Louvre, me refiero a tiendas como Zara. El momento en que la persiana de metal subió y las luces led se descubrieron como siempre están, prendidas, los miles de compradores que aguardaban el evento, caminaron encimados en veloz procesión pagana, olvidando al instante la distancia social y el alcohol en gel.

El momento quedó inmortalizado como un nuevo hito del poder magnánimo del consumismo que se lleva puesto, ni digamos la esperanza de un futuro mejor; antes que eso: el instinto mismo de supervivencia. Y lo mismo ocurrió en Brasil, y en Estados Unidos, y parece que ocurrirá en cada lugar que decida volver a la mentada normalidad.

¿Qué te provocan esos fenómenos? 

Creo que es la mejor evidencia de lo que te decía antes, de la adicción que provoca este sistema. Las personas creen que tienen libertad de elección porque les han contado que viven en un sistema regido por el libre mercado. Pero lo cierto es que están atrapadas en un esquema consumista creado por compañías expertas en generar adicción. Las personas son forzadas a desear y comprar lo que no necesitan. Y compran y tiran, y compran y tiran, y compran y tiran, y trabajan solo para eso: comprar y tirar. Esta forma urbana y destructiva de colonialidad es lo que trajo el mundo al estado en el que está hoy y eso encuentra en algunas ciudades una representación perfecta con todo el conjunto: la mentalidad antropocéntrica, mecanicista, monocultural y dominante.

Hace unas semanas entrevisté para este mismo medio al arquitecto y activista brasilero Paulo Tavares, que hablaba de la urgente necesidad de deconstruir la arquitectura y la vida urbana bajo la perspectiva decolonial. Él planteaba que la arquitectura sirvió hasta ahora para erigir una forma de vida urbana que concreta una idea civilizatoria en antagonismo con la naturaleza. Teniendo en cuenta que la vuelta al campo nunca va a ser tan masiva como para abandonar completamente las ciudades, ¿cómo creés vos que podríamos transformar eso en algo más razonable?

Yo crecí en una ciudad en India que aun muestra que eso es posible. En mi ciudad natal había una regla: solo se podía construir en un quinto de la tierra. El resto debía estar ocupado por la naturaleza. Por eso hoy mi casa es un bosque. Podemos ser una civilización que cree caminos bordeando bosques, en vez de avanzar en línea recta talando árboles. Si queremos ciudades en armonía con la naturaleza podríamos empezar por ahí: que los árboles nos den la dirección: permitamos eso. Otro buen ejemplo de una vida urbana posible está en Xochimilco, en plena Ciudad de México: un lugar de huertas que podría alimentar a toda esa población. Eso fue creado por las civilizaciones indígenas que vivían ahí antes de la conquista. Es un método productivo y un modo de vida al que se le opone el Real State que es el modo de construir en este paradigma: especulación inmobiliaria para montar vidas lineales y rápidas. Es lo que hacemos. Vivimos así. Bueno ¿a qué nos llevó? A este parate, a este encierro. Y acá estamos. Algunos repensándolo todo por primera vez, viendo esa locura por la velocidad.

Otra de las cuestiones que se están poniendo en debate en estos días en todo el mundo es el sistema de salud. 

Así como tenemos que conseguir un equilibrio entre la ciudad y el campo, tenemos que redefinir qué es salud y hacer resurgir una conexión con nuestra salud y con nuestro cuerpo. El paradigma de salud occidental asume al cuerpo como un contenedor de órganos y funciones. Cuando alguna de esas partes se descompone se le declara una guerra a esa parte, a esa enfermedad. Así, cada terapia diseñada por el sistema médico occidental es de algún modo un ataque defensivo. Por eso sale una y otra vez la misma metáfora: la guerra. Esa que se está librando ahora contra el coronavirus, y que se libró tantas otras veces contra otras enfermedades. Es una metáfora terrible, porque esa guerra nunca se va a ganar.

Claro, si se ve la enfermedad como un desequilibrio de la vida, un ataque solo va a agravar el problema teniéndonos a nosotros como campo de batalla.

Exacto. Pero la mentalidad bélica y militarista gobierna también la relación con los cuerpos. En India el paradigma de salud es muy complejo: una ciencia para la vida. No es un sistema creador de enfermedades ni bélico. El objetivo está puesto en comprender la organización  y preservar el equilibrio de un sistema complejo: el organismo humano. Si la enfermedad es un desequilibrio, la salud radica en traer ese equilibrio de vuelta. Y eso depende mucho de la alimentación. La comida es un gran estabilizador del sistema, es la cura de todas las enfermedades para nosotros. Y eso por supuesto no está reñido con la evidencia: si nuestra comida está intoxicada, si usamos venenos para producirla ¿cómo vamos a estar saludables? Hace unas semanas lanzamos un manifiesto llamado Food for Health al que invitamos a los mejores médicos de Europa a sumarse, reunimos estudios y comunicamos una vez más que necesitamos cambiar el sistema alimentario para que sane la humanidad y la tierra.

Una de las frases trilladas favoritas del agronegocio y de la agroindustria es que esta forma de reconexión que planteás es un viaje al pasado. 

La construcción científica contrahegemónica tiene una biblioteca muy abundante. Está nutrida de papers, avances y científicos muy calificados. Pero tampoco es una novedad que los poderes buscan deslegitimarla. Y, si no pueden, la prohíben. En India también somos un ejemplo de eso. Cuando los colonos ingleses llegaron y conocieron nuestro sistema médico, el ayurveda, lo prohibieron. Hasta que se empezó a enseñar y a estudiar bajo la forma de impartir el saber de los ingleses: con universidades, currículas, modos de estudio. Entonces en los 90 en Estados Unidos  entendieron cómo funcionaban algunas cosas. La cúrcuma, por ejemplo. Una raíz que en ayurveda se usa para elevar la inmunidad. ¿Y qué hicieron? La patentaron. Pasamos de la prohibición a la apropiación.  Y es algo que sigue al día de hoy cuando la Organización Mundial de la Salud imparte los lineamientos sobre el ayurveda escriben informes en donde sugieren no nombrar a la cúrcuma.

¿Bajo qué pretexto?

Ellos dicen que están buscando la evidencia que pruebe que tomar cúrcuma eleva el sistema inmune. Pero lo hacen midiendo el efecto según su modo de evaluación, que no reproduce las formas de uso que tenemos en India, porque partimos de esta base donde un cuerpo sano y enfermo no quiere decir lo mismo. Entonces nos enredan en una carrera engañosa.

¿Y cómo responden a eso?

Huyendo de ese reduccionismo lineal, mecanicista, cartesiano que fue creado como otro modo de colonización europeo, y que considera a nuestro conocimiento superstición, nos inferioriza, se lo apropia y se queda con nuestros recursos.

Carne de soja

Teniendo en cuenta que este virus, según la evidencia científica disponible más fuerte hasta ahora se origina del abuso que generamos sobre otros animales, me gustaría preguntarte qué pensás sobre el consumo de carnes, de las granjas industriales y del veganismo como una respuesta a eso.

Desde que escuché la idea de las granjas industriales siempre me parecieron mal. Las vi crecer. Y crecen porque crece la producción de soja y maíz transgénico. El agronegocio necesita vender todos estos granos que producen. Nadie se los va a comer si no están esos miles de millones de animales. Estas fábricas de carne son mayormente subsidiadas por eso: porque sirven para que funcione el sistema. Luego creemos que son buenos negocios, pero si no estuvieran apoyados por los gobiernos, ni siquiera como eso funcionarían.

Vos sos vegetariana.

Sí, lo soy. Pero no creo que todo el mundo deba serlo. Hace un tiempo estuve en Groenlandia y cuando pregunté por qué comían carne uno levantó la mano y me contrapreguntó: “¿Te parecería mejor que importáramos tomates de África?”. Creo que tenemos que entender que podemos tener una relación violenta con las plantas –y ahí los transgénicos son un buen ejemplo- y una relación violenta con los animales –las granjas industriales son eso. Pero podés tener una relación no violenta con las plantas –como la que logra la agroecología- y una relación no violenta con los animales –que es la que tienen los pastores de Groenlandia o los indígenas: hay muchas culturas indígenas que no comen animales, pero otras muchas que sí. Las que están en Amazonas por ejemplo, protegiendo y garantizando la biodiversidad como ninguna otra cultura, lo hacen.

Claro, se trata de entender la diversidad cultural y alimentaria, expresada en un contexto determinado, como una selva, el Ártico, un lugar costero, como parte garante de la biodiversidad de ese lugar.

Sí. Tenemos que respetar las formas de vida que hay en el mundo y no podemos pensar que comer animales es igual en todos los casos. Y tampoco podemos pensar que defender una alimentación basada en plantas sea sinónimo de defender un mundo mejor. Hay personas veganas que celebran que exista la Imposible Burger: una hamburguesa artificial creada en un laboratorio mediante plantas salidas de monocultivos tóxicos, o sea tratadas con violencia, que para su producción violentan campesinos, mariposas y abejas, y animales que por supuesto ya no viven en torno a esos cultivos. Esa hamburguesa de soja que parece carne sangrienta es una mentira. Y hay algo que se llama verdad: no se puede pregonar una idea de alimentación no violenta partiendo de esos alimentos, de esa relación mentirosa con la tierra y con el propio cuerpo. A quienes pregonan eso como la salvación les diría que despierten: la alimentación basada en plantas que crecen con toda esa violencia no produce nada mejor. Coman una zanahoria y reconozcan eso como alimento: conozcan de dónde viene, cómo se produje, denle la dignidad que merece a la planta. Dejen de hablar de una alimentación basada en plantas: esa zanahoria tiene un valor enorme en su subjetividad, una historia de interrelaciones maravillosas, que incluye animales, insectos, personas: no es simplemente una planta que da igual. Y hay algo más. En el instante en que alguien dice “basado en plantas” están dando a la industria permiso para usar esa parte de la naturaleza como material para sus experimentos, manipulación y control. Y tal vez esa persona crea que llegó a algo mejor, pero solo porque permanece ciega a todo el horror que decidió no ver. Y así será llevado como otro adicto a la heroína de este sistema hacia otro nivel, más oscuro y difícil del que salir, con un costo altísimo para la tierra en su totalidad y para sí mismo.

Antes que un problema alimentario, de salud, o de vivienda, pareciera ser un problema de información.

Y de conciencia. La conciencia nos invita a actuar, a tomar las decisiones que estén a nuestro nivel. Tenemos que decir más fuerte que no a todo ese modelo agroindustrial de salud, de vida, de alimentación. Y eso incluye hoy cuestiones incómodas como estar en crisis y decir que no a las donaciones que el agronegocio hace para alimentar a los pobres. Tenemos que elevar la vara: la comida de todos, también de los pobres, debe ser saludable, sin transgénicos y sin venenos y sin mentiras. Cuanto más alta la amenaza, más grande debe ser nuestra responsabilidad para enfrentarla.

¿Sos optimista?

Bueno, estoy entrenada en la teoría cuántica. En eso me doctoré cuando terminé la carrera de Física. Entonces cuando veo un problema trato de entenderlo desde sus causa, sus raíces, sus perspectivas. También me coloco a mí misma en algún lugar de ese panorama y pienso, qué puedo hacer yo para que ese asunto sea mejor. Y no importa cuán grande el problema, al final siempre llego a lo mismo: tenés que tener semillas, producir comida y liberar tu mente. Esa es mi responsabilidad. Luego, las soluciones empiezan a acomodarse solas.

¿Cómo creés que afectará a este movimiento todo el sistema represivo que está naciendo a medida que la pandemia avanza?

Yo estoy segura de que estamos llegando a un nuevo nivel dentro del capitalismo. Será un capitalismo de vigilancia y control. Los estados van a hacer dinero de vigilarnos y lo peor es que nosotros con nuestros impuestos vamos a pagar porque nos controlen. Pero en la historia humana cada vez que ha habido opresión, se ha podido recurrir a un arma popular que sigue vigente: la desobediencia. Y en mi país tenemos un ejemplo muy importante en ese sentido: Gandhi. Con su manifestaciones no violentas, sofisticadas al punto de impedir el control de la sal que quería obtener la colonia inglesa, y conducirnos a la independencia. Eso mismo me inspiró a mi para combatir a Monsanto cuando quería patentar todas las semillas: yo llamé a la desobediencia civil a los campesinos y 33 años más tarde seguimos entendiendo que la guarda, intercambio y siembra de semillas es nuestro derecho. Ese es el espíritu que tenemos que despertar en esta época para ir en contra de las corporaciones que ya no van por un país sino que buscan globalmente quedarse con los recursos y controlarlo todo. Nosotros, los que queremos un mundo libre y una tierra sana, somos una red muy grande, mucho más grande que esa.

Imaginemos que sucede, que el encierro sirve para sacar del encierro y la opresión a millones de personas… 

Es que es lo que va a ocurrir, porque el paradigma que celebra un futuro donde las personas viven masivamente en las ciudades, y solo un 2 por ciento se queda en el campo no funciona. No hay tal futuro. Ese plan no ha sido bueno para nadie. Ahora hay que trabajar para que esas personas que quieren volver al campo o que ya volvieron encuentren ahí un modo de vivir, con compasión y consistencia. Hay que regenerar la economía rural. Ese salvataje incluye el de las tierras: tiene que haber tierra para ellos, y medios de producción. Yo estoy haciendo lo que siempre he hecho y lo que creo que hay que hacer más que nunca: conservar semillas y promover la agricultura no tóxica. Salvemos a las comunidades, salvemos la tierra: regeneremos; ese es mi plan. Afortunadamente, como en India el fenómeno de urbanización no tiene tanto tiempo, cuando las personas vuelven encuentran que sus padres y abuelos aun les pueden enseñar a cultivar. Los agricultores que ya venían trabajando de ese modo hoy me dicen: “Porque producimos nuestra comida no tenemos hambre ni estamos en crisis”. Y con ellos estamos dándoles la bienvenida a quienes vuelven. Utilicemos esta crisis para construir un sistema que sea libre de venenos, de petróleo, de semillas modificadas. Comunidades donde cada persona sea valiosa.

Es un buen momento después de todo. 

Sí. Si tienes la conciencia más o menos clara, e incluyes en tus variables la capacidad creativa y regenerativa que tiene la tierra, es un buen momento. Tenemos que volver a trabajar con la naturaleza, eso es todo. Y tenemos que trabajar puliendo nuestros corazones y nuestras mentes para estar preparados para este cambio de paradigma, de vida, que es inevitable. Es un momento que exige lo mejor de todos nosotros. Por eso cada día al levantarse hay que luchar contra la inercia. Mirar hacia adentro y preguntarse: cuál es la injusticia que no estoy dispuesta a aceptar, cuál es la brutalidad que ya no estoy dispuesta a aceptar, cuál es la forma de violencia que ya no contará conmigo. Y después salir a encarnar esas respuestas.

Publicado con permiso de La Vaca

Carbon Cowboys Versus CAFOs

/by

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many fragile industries to the breaking point and highlighted systemic problems in others, including the industrialized, centralized food system in the U.S. Major meat processing plants have emerged as hotspots for transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Prior to the Defense Production Act, which compels meat plants to stay open in order to protect the functioning of the U.S. meat and poultry supply chain, being invoked in April 2020, many were forced to shut down. As threats of meat shortages emerged, farmers were faced with the grim prospect of killing thousands of food animals just because they had nowhere to send them to be processed.

The system created to serve concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has cracked during the pandemic, putting U.S. food supplies in jeopardy. Meanwhile, so-called “carbon cowboys” — those who have embraced an alternative method of food production that works with nature instead of against it — not only are surviving the upheaval but thriving, all while providing nutritious food to their communities.

‘Carbon Cowboys’ Persevere, Thrive During Pandemic

The dichotomy between CAFOs and carbon cowboys could not be more stark, with CAFOs that control the majority of U.S. meat and poultry largely reliant on a limited number of large processing plants. “The coronavirus is showing how food supply has become too centralized, especially for meat processing,” Peter Byck, an Arizona State University professor, told Fox News.

Byck directed a 10-part documentary titled “Carbon Cowboys,” following farmers who use regenerative grazing techniques, allowing them to largely avoid chemical pesticides, fertilizers and other pitfalls of industrial farming while building carbon-rich soil that increases crop health and livestock yields.

“We could use a lot more mid-level meat processing plants, all around the country. So, if one plant went down, there would be others to pick up the slack. It’s one of the reasons the farmers in the film are often making so much more money — because they’ve created their own supply chain and selling direct to customers,” Byck said.

Indeed, regenerative farmers who sell their products directly to consumers and rely on small processing plants are not facing the hardships that CAFOs are seeing. While meat from small, custom slaughterhouses is not permitted to be sold to grocery stores, schools or restaurants, it can be sold directly to customers who have purchased an entire animal prior to slaughter through a share program, as well as via local farmers markets.

Allen Williams, a sixth-generation farmer and chief ranching officer for Joyce Farms, is one of the carbon cowboys featured in the film. He cited a 400% to 1,200% increase in demand for regenerative producers, and though the film has been in the works for six years, the farmers it features stated they’re seeing a three- to 10fold increase in demand compared to last year, thanks to their ability to market directly to consumers.

Will Harris III, owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, also cited the need for smaller, decentralized processing facilities to free up the bottleneck that’s placing a hardship on so many farmers. By creating “at least one medium-sized plant in every state,” food that currently travels an average of 1,500 miles to get to consumers would only need to travel 100 or 200 miles. This, he says, is key to transforming the U.S. food system:

“We have to build out additional capacity. We need processing of the middle. We don’t need a lot more mom-and-pop processors. We need processing facilities with 100-500 per day capacity to start …

With more processors, more farms can transform and thus grow small businesses and the rural economy. These communities that are dead and boarded up will come to life and rural economies will surge. The country’s economy surges when small businesses and communities thrive.”

Meat Prices May Rise as Plants’ Poor Conditions Spread Virus

Tyson, JBS USA, Smithfield Foods and Cargill Inc. control the majority of U.S. meat and poultry, processing it in a handful of centralized mega-processing plants. The plants are notorious for their poor working conditions even under ordinary circumstances, but in the midst of a pandemic, the elbow-to-elbow spacing and fast line speeds have made the low-paying job even more hazardous.

It’s unknown just how many COVID-19 infections have occurred among the more than 500,000 workers employed by the approximately 7,600 slaughter and processing facilities in North America, but internationally it’s suggested that more than 10,000 meat workers have been infected while at least 30 have died as a result. The cases aren’t confined to inside the processing plants but, rather, are spreading to the community.

An analysis by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that counties with meatpacking plants, or within a 15-mile radius, reported 373 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, which is close to double the U.S. average of 199 cases per 100,000.

To slow the spread of infection, some plants have slowed production to adhere to social distancing measures, while others have installed barriers between workers and in common areas. Other processing plants are ramping up efforts to automate the process, accelerating plans that have been in the works since long before the pandemic.

“You are going to see a bifurcation where the larger, more profitable facilities are going to move toward a vastly more automated meat processing facility,” Decker Walker, an agribusiness expert at Boston Consulting Group, told the Longview News-Journal. “Incentives for automation have never been higher.” Ultimately, consumers will pay for the changes being implemented throughout the industry.

Sanchoy Das, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, predicted that reduced capacity at processing plants, along with the distribution of protective equipment, could drive up conventional chicken prices by 25% to 30%, adding, “The 99-cents per pound chicken could be in short supply very quickly.”

Is Big Meat Really Cheap?

The increase in meat prices, as well as the increased demand for higher priced niche meats like heritage pork and grass fed beef, is also highlighting a socioeconomic divide in the U.S. While some grocery outlets are running out of supplies of low-priced CAFO meat, demand has ramped up for specialty meat products, for those who have the income to support it.

However, as the processing facilities spread disease and necessitate shutdowns, we’re now seeing the high price that is ultimately paid for the convenience of cheap meat, whereas regenerative farming, while often producing a higher-priced product, remains able to supply food to local communities, without the environmental destruction and disease outbreaks caused by industrial agriculture. As Bloomberg reported:

“The virus has had limited impact on the output of specialty meats for some of the same reasons those products are more expensive. The plants aren’t run on huge economies-of-scale, where hundreds of workers are jammed into elbow-to-elbow working conditions processing thousands of animals each day.

Instead, livestock are raised on organic feed and pastures and then processed in relatively tiny plants or local butcher shops. It’s small-scale production, which means social distancing is easier and companies can more readily enforce sanitary precautions. Even if one plant goes down, it only accounts for a small fraction of supply, and the larger chain isn’t broken.”

Meanwhile, prices for specialty meat are holding steady while conventional meat prices have risen sharply in recent months. The price for conventional ground chuck, for instance, increased by 57% compared to a year ago, according to USDA data.

Ultimately, if demand for grass fed meat increases, and processing facilities are available to distribute it, it can become more accessible for all. And, it’s important to remember that real costs come with Big Ag’s “cheap meat.” The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), in fact, has sued pork giant Smithfield Foods for claiming its products are the safest U.S. pork products.

“Consumers are unlikely to know that the USDA has notified Smithfield slaughter plants on multiple occasions that their pork was more likely to be contaminated with salmonella than similar products in slaughter plants of the same size,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA co-founder and director.

“Failure to report these notifications to consumers is one thing. But claiming that its products are the ‘safest’ possible pork products in the U.S. is a blatant misrepresentation of the brand’s actual safety record,” Cummins said. “The current heightened consumer concern about safety in the meat industry is all the more reason to hold Smithfield accountable for false safety claims.”

The conditions in which cheap meat is raised and processed are the same that have been found to contribute to antibiotic-resistant disease as well as the emergence of diseases that may be transmitted from animals to humans, a high cost for all of humanity.

Food System Is Changing, Is Reform Coming?

The pandemic started with Americans hoarding food and has triggered a newfound, or perhaps old-fashioned, trend to cook more meals at home. The return to home-cooked meals has been a boon to meal kit companies, which have cashed in on Americans’ desire to eat at home and have their groceries delivered while they’re at it.

Meal-kit delivery service Blue Apron noted a 27% increase in demand in late March and early April 2020, while online food retailer Thrive Market cited two distinct waves of increased demand — the first for certain products like toilet paper and hand sanitizer and the second from those seeking to replicate their normal grocery shopping online. Many of these changes are likely to remain even post-pandemic.

“People are more confident in the kitchen than they used to be before, and more than half of them intend to cook at home more than they did before Covid-19, even as things start to settle down,” Blue Apron’s chief executive Linda Findley Kozlowski told The New York Times. Still, as Americans’ desire for fresh, safe and readily accessible food has peaked, many small farmers are struggling.

With restaurants and farmers markets closed, small farmers have lost steady customers. Many have pivoted and have begun supplying produce boxes directly to consumers, but such changes are labor intensive and farmers may not be able to keep up with the demand. In a survey of small farmers, between 30% and 40% predicted they could be bankrupt by the end of 2020.

Representative Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, is among those calling for reform and suggesting that the pandemic is providing a unique opportunity for change:

“As the owner of a small farm, I’m frequently amazed at how little Washington understands the work that goes into putting food on our plates, but coronavirus has made it impossible to ignore the labor of grocery store employees, farmers, processors and food producers. Our nation is collectively acknowledging what’s always been true: Those who grow, sell and serve our food are essential workers, and we should treat them as such.”

In addition to calling for an essential workers’ bill of rights that would provide benefits to essential workers in the food system, and expanding access to locally produced food for food banks and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries, a key part of the change should be making locally raised livestock processing more widely available.

Under current government regulations, the USDA, not individual states, has control over how meat is processed, and small farmers must send animals to be processed at a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse, which may be hundreds of miles away. The state of Maine, for instance, has only one USDA poultry plant in the state.

The PRIME Act Is More Important Than Ever

The Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act would allow farmers to sell meat processed at smaller slaughtering facilities and allow states to set their own meat processing standards. Because small slaughterhouses do not have an inspector on staff — a requirement that only large facilities can easily fulfill — they’re banned from selling their meat. The PRIME Act would lift this regulation without sacrificing safety.

“The PRIME Act would change federal regulations to make it easier to process meat locally, helping small farmers stay afloat during this economic crisis while simultaneously keeping food on our plates,” Pingree said. “This bill would shift more safety oversight to states, some of which already have equally rigorous inspection practices, and break down barriers for small farms looking to sell their product.”

The solution to food reform is not, as some lab-grown meat companies would like you to believe, to create a fake meat industry without animals — that is big technology’s ultraprocessed dream.

Replacing farms and livestock with chemistry labs is not the “environmentally friendly” alternative envisioned by biotech startups and its chemists. The long-term answer actually lies in the transition to sustainable, regenerative, chemical-free farming practices, and making the sustainably-grown foods produced by small farmers accessible to all.

Reposted with permission from Mercola

How Colombia’s Small Farmers Contribute to Resilience and Food Sovereignty in Post-Conflict and COVID-19 Pandemic Times

/by

By Ana Prada

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – In his book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed“, Jared Diamond analyzes why certain societies prevail and others collapse, and explains how the decline of some, such as the Mayan and the Easter Island civilizations, resulted from the  mismanagement of nature. 

Indeed, the way societies manage their natural resources largely defines their future, according to Diamond.  The abundance of resources and successful adaptation to climate change, together with the correct decision-making by a society’s leaders, are some of the factors that determine a society’s ability to survive over time.

Conversely, the abuse of environmental resources and exploitative agricultural production systems can lead a society to collapse.

Socio-environmental conflicts are not foreign to the Colombian reality. The unequal distribution of land and territory has given rise to Colombian armed conflict. The socio-environmental confrontations in Colombia date back to the time of the Spanish conquest.  However, the trigger for the armed conflict occurred in 1948, with the assassination of political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. 

In 1948, the country was ruled by conservatives and landowners, and was totally polarized between extreme poverty and wealth. Thus, one of the longest-running armed conflicts in recent world history was born. It was not until 2016 that the Peace Agreements were signed between the National Government and the extinct guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Initially, the guerrillas were driven by political ideals. But later, toward the end of the 1970s, with the arrival and subsequent consolidation of drug trafficking, the conflict became a business matter. The search for concentration of land by the various sides left the Colombian small farmers in the middle, and on the losing end. 

Yet despite being politically marginalized, culturally undervalued and economically excluded, and despite experiencing greater difficulty accessing land than any other social group in the country, small farmers, who represent 30 percent of the country’s total population, produce 70 percent of the food consumed in the country. 

In addition, this disadvantaged but industrious population reminds those of us who live in cities of the value of having roots in our land and territory, and cherishing our identity.

Small-scale agriculture has taught Colombians about resilience and innovation. On less than one hectare, small farmers manage to feed themselves, create surpluses to sell and learn about the diverse Colombian soils and ecosystems through trial and error.  And despite being displaced because of the armed conflict, it has been small farmers who have opened the agricultural border in the country, and started their lives from scratch, in the country with the greatest internal displacement in the world—worse even than Syria.

In the value chains of the drug trafficking industry, small farmers have become the first link. Indeed, it is the most vulnerable link in a chain characterized by the predominance of activities that leave Colombia with nothing but social burdens: land concentration, idle lands ownership, diminished productivity and at-risk national food sovereignty and autonomy.

In the Peace Agreements, small farmers are recognized as victims of the armed conflict. A political framework to reduce the gaps between the countryside and the city was designed, guaranteeing the small farmers the right to political and economic participation and decision-making regarding the future of their territories. 

In points 1 and 4 of the Peace Agreements, Comprehensive Rural Reform and Comprehensive Solution to the Drug Problem respectively, multiple political and legal instruments were created. These include the land fund for Comprehensive Rural Reform, the multipurpose cadaster; Development Plans with a Territorial Approach; and Comprehensive Nations Plans for Substitution, among others. 

Although the implementation of these political and legal instruments has been slow, they have become novel tools to rethink small farmers as a strategic actor in the territorial planning to restore peace, the conservation of the territories and the guarantee of security, sovereignty and food autonomy.

In 2013, there was a national agrarian strike in Colombia, supported by the main farmers’ organizations, as well as workers from other areas, which over time managed to get the recognition of the citizens. Since then, Colombians who live in cities have shown growing empathy towards the small farmers’ movement, appreciating the producers of the food they have on their plates daily, as well as the need to rethink and re-territorialize cities to stop the growing trend of food deserts, which put at risk the right to food, especially for the most vulnerable. These transformations have become more necessary than ever in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

This is a country whose rulers have lacked the gallantry to guarantee its citizens the right to food, and to preserve the country’s rich biocultural diversity. They have succumbed to globalization and progress in the short term, at the expense of resources that give us life. 

In these days of covid-19, we ​​have witnessed two trends that are two sides of the same coin.

On the one hand, we see citizens who increasingly demand healthy, local and sustainable food, and who are more willing to consume food from small farmers, family and community agriculture. 

On the other hand, small farmers continue to face the traditional challenges of the agricultural Colombia: the appalling road and telecommunications infrastructure, the persistence of the armed conflict, the murder of social leaders, insufficient healthcare system that increases the risk of infection and death due to the epidemic, price speculation and misinformation, among many other challenges.

Despite these challenges, there are reasons to be hopeful. For instance, the creation and strengthening of collaborative networks between the territories, the building of close relationships between producers and consumers, the possibility of resuming peace dialogues between the National Government and the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the use of information and communication technologies to facilitate food distribution and the consolidation of small farmers and/or agro-ecological markets as viable and secure supply alternatives, even in times of epidemic.

The reader may be wondering, how can I put my grain of sand? It is very simple, buy local! Buy from small farmers, family and community agriculture! Go back to the farmers markets, go to meet the producer so you give him your vote of confidence to stay in the territory feeding hope to the country.

In Colombia, The National Network of Family Farming (RENAF) leads the national campaign “Yo llevo el campo Colombiano (I carry the Colombian countryside) that seeks to make visible the farmers markets that exist throughout the country.

By eating local and seasonal food lime the uchuva or the curuba, and supporting the small farmers, Colombians can put their grain of sand in the construction of peace in Colombia.

About 3Colibrís

We are an organization that contributes to the strengthening of marketing and logistics of products from small farmers, family and community and/or agroecological agriculture in Latin America. We work for the construction of sustainable farming that’s connected to the cities in Colombia and Latin America. We seek out and involve producers of healthy food and agro-ecological products so consumers have easier access to these foods. We visit and guide food producers to improve their marketing channels and ensure that we work with ethical and responsible organizations.

Ana Prada is the founder of 3Colibrís and a business administrator and sociologist from the Javeriana University of Bogotá, apprentice for the International Training in Dialogue and Mediation at the University of Uppsala and the International Course on Food Systems at the University of Wageningen. She has worked for Colombian Caritas in the implementation of “Article One” of the Peace Agreements, and on projects for UNDP, UNFAO, EU and the Suyusama Foundation. 

To keep up with Regeneration International news, sign up for our newsletter.

No cultivamos porque está de moda: Cultivamos como resistencia, para la curación y la soberanía

/by

Durante más de 150 años, desde las zonas rurales del sur hasta las ciudades del norte, las personas Negras han utilizado la agricultura para construir comunidades autodeterminadas y resistir las estructuras opresivas que las destruyen.

Hoy en día, la agricultura sigue desempeñando un papel importante en la vida de las personas Negras, por lo que vemos proyectos y programas de agricultura urbana en Filadelfia, Detroit y Washington D.C. y otras ciudades de los Estados Unidos. En todas estas ciudades, hay organizaciones lideradas por personas Negras que cultivan soberanía alimentaria y de la tierra ayudando a individuos y comunidades a recuperar su agencia y posesión sobre sus sistemas alimentarios.

Mi camino dedicado a la lucha de defensa y recuperación del territorio para la sobrebania alimentaria comenzó mucho antes de que yo naciera. Mis antepasados eran africanos esclavizados, obligados a cultivar en condiciones abominables en Carolina del Sur, Texas y Georgia. En 2012, comencé mi primer trabajo profesional trabajando en una organización sin fines de lucro dedicada a la justicia alimentaria e educación nutricional en Filadelfia.

CONTINUE LEYENDO EN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH NEWS

We don’t farm because it’s trendy; we farm as resistance, for healing and sovereignty

/by

For more than 150 years, from the rural South to northern cities, Black people have used farming to build self-determined communities and resist oppressive structures that tear them down.

Today, agriculture still serves an important role in the lives of Black people, which is why we see urban agriculture projects and programs in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington D.C. and other cities across the United States. In all of these cities, there are Black-led organizations cultivating food and land sovereignty by helping individuals and communities regain agency and ownership over their food system.

My journey in food and land work began long before I was born. My ancestors were enslaved Africans forced to farm under abhorrent conditions in South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia. In 2012, I started my first professional job working at a food justice and nutrition education non-profit in Philadelphia. I worked with youth from across West Philly to explore connections between food, agriculture, culture, sustainability, and leadership.

KEEP READING ON ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH NEWS

Will Pandemic Push Humans into a Healthier Relationship with Nature?

/by

ROME, May 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Daniel Wanjama had everything ready for this year’s first seed fair in the Kenyan town of Gilgil, an important event where poor farmers exchange seeds of nutritious, hardy local crops they cannot easily buy in shops or markets.

But a week before the fair Wanjama had organised for late March, the government banned gatherings in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“Farmers who were ready to deliver seeds are stranded with them, and those who were to obtain seeds have not planted (their crops),” he said by email.

“This is a serious situation because not planting means not having food,” added the founder of Seed Savers Network-Kenya, a social enterprise based in Gilgil, about 120 km (75 miles) north of Nairobi.

KEEP READING ON THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION