Tag Archive for: Food Security

How Processed Foods Wreak Havoc on Your Health

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Authors: Elaine Catherine R. Ferrer and Ronnie Cummins

It’s safe to say that most American consumers probably can’t recall the last time they ate a meal prepared entirely from wholesome, farm-to-table ingredients, without any canned or prepackaged products. That’s because most Americans today consume mostly processed foods—foods produced with pesticides, GMOs and synthetic chemicals, routinely laced with too much sugar, salt and unhealthy fats.

In fact, processed foods make up as much as 70 percent of people’s diets– meaning only 30 percent of what they consume consists of wholesome, natural, or organic foods!

But here’s the truth about processed foods: Long-term consumption of these “food products” spell bad news for your health.

Processed vs. ultra-processed: What’s the difference?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines “processed food” as any raw agricultural commodity that has been subjected to processing methods, including canning, cooking, dehydration, freezing or milling. This means that the only time a food can be classified as “fresh” is when you’ve taken it straight from the source (washing it is okay, and would not be classified as a form of processing) and eaten it. By this definition, most foods would be considered processed.

However, in layman’s terms, processed foods can refer to sodas, potato chips, candy, baked pastries with extended shelf life–basically, “convenient,” easy-to-eat products that have been altered through the addition of artificial or ingredients, synthetic flavorings, fillers and chemical or genetically engineered additives. But this type of description actually refers to “ultra-processed food.” Researchers from the University of São Paulo and Tufts University define “ultra-processed” as:

Formulations of several ingredients which, besides salt, sugar, oils, and fats, include food substances not used in culinary preparations, in particular, flavors, colors, sweeteners, emulsifiers and other additives used to imitate sensorial qualities of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product.

But most people use the term “processed food” and “ultra-processed food” interchangeably when talking about these consumer products. Conventional processed foods today come in a variety of forms. These include:

• Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables
• Canned meats (luncheon meat and sausage, corned beef, and meatloaf)
• Breakfast foods, including cereals, oatmeal, energy bars
• Canned, bottled, or tetra-packed fruit juices, energy drinks, and soda
• Jarred baby foods and infant cereals
• Foods “fortified” with nutrients
• Ready to eat meals, microwave dinners
• Ramen noodles
• Pastries, including cookies, breads, frozen pizza, and pies
• Condiments, seasonings and marinades, salad dressing, and jams
• Yogurt and other commercially made fermented foods

The simplest way to determine if a food is processed is by looking at the ingredient list at the back of its packaging. The longer the ingredient list, the more processed a food is likely to be.

After more than 20 years of struggle by consumer activists and public interest groups such as the Organic Consumers Association, major food manufacturers are finally being forced to label GMO ingredients in processed foods sold in grocery stores. Because of this, many of them are starting to remove GMOs from their products, along with other artificial chemicals and additives.

KEEP READING ON THE ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION

Agroforestry offers sustainable alternative to worrying trend in Mekong region

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Author: Kate Langford

A shift towards monoculture plantations and higher chemical use is of great concern to many in the Mekong region, particularly due to the impact this is having on food security and health.

Farmers who have resisted monoculture cropping, and opted to maintain or create mixed-species agroforestry systems, are benefiting from income and food security and reduced reliance on fertilizer and pesticides.

“Rubber trees are invading fruit orchards and watershed forest,” explains Cheardsak Kuaraska, vice-dean of the Faculty of Technology and Community Development at Thaksin University in Phattalung, Thailand. “Oil palm is invading rice paddy and lowland forests, especially peat forests.” He warns that southern Thailand is now faced with a food security problem.

Kuaraska estimates that rubber and oil palm now cover 33 per cent of the province of Phattalung in Thailand. Not only are they replacing food crops, he says, they are impacting on ecosystems; farmers are using higher amounts of fertilizer which is causing damage to the environment and health problems.

Lamphoune Xyvongsa from the Faculty of Forestry at the National University of Lao explains that it is becoming more difficult for people to gather food from the forest because many natural forests have been converted to plantations.

Kuaraska and Xyvongsa are among a group of researchers and farmers from Thailand, Lao, Cambodia and Viet Nam who appear in a series of 13 short films produced by the World Agroforestry Centre, discussing land-use problems in their countries and the role agroforests play in solving them.

Both believe agroforestry offers a sustainable alternative for farmers in the Mekong region; providing them with year-round income and a diversity of foods and other products while also offering many environmental benefits.

“How can we expand this knowledge to other farmers so that they can change their practice from monoculture to mixed-species?” asks Kuaraska. “Research is still necessary. We need to collaborate so that we can compare data on how one kind of farming practices is better than other kinds.

Farmers Chamni Yodkaewruang and Charus Kaewkong from Phattalung, Thailand and Pasith Pimpramote, from Vientiane in Laos, say agroforestry gives them different products at different times which can be consumed and or sold.

KEEP READING ON GLOBAL LANDSCAPES FORUM

Justice for All Filipino Farmers: A Statement on the Kidapawan Massacre and the State’s Abandonment of Agriculture

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The National Movement for Food Sovereignty, a local affiliate of the Asia-Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty, and an alliance of small holder farmers, artisanal fishers, rural women, rural youth and other anti-neoliberal individuals and organizations, stand in solidarity with the victims of the Kidapawan Massacre. We strongly condemn the Philippine Government’s abhorrent actions last April 1, 2016. We are calling for immediate and long-term justice for all protesters, whose rights were blatantly violated and whose tragic situations were ignored.

We demand accountability from the government armed forces whose responsibility in the first place is to ensure that people’s rights are protected. At the same time, we are calling for a food production system wherein small producers are not left on society’s fringes to die of hunger.

A Tragic History

The Philippine agriculture has been made backward by a landed elite dominated government, which systematically neglects and abandons it, resulting to the peasantry’s further desolation. As if economic violence were not enough, Filipino farmers have also time and time again encountered state-perpetrated violent suppression and reaction.

Year Name Location Fatalities
1950 Maliwalu Massacre Maliwalu, Bacolor, Pampanga 21
1966 Culatingan Massacre Culatingan, Concepcion, Tarlac 7
1985 Escalante Massacre Escalante City, Negros Occidental 30
1987 Mendiola Massacre Manila City 13
1987 Lupao Massacre Lupao, Nueva Ecija 17
2004 Hacienda Luisita Massacre Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac 7

The table above illustrates the tragic history of the Filipino farmer’s struggle for land, food, and justice. Time and time again, the poor Filipino farmers have put forward their legitimate demands to the Philippine government. Yet instead of meting out social justice, the state has chosen to respond with armed violence – with the Mendiola and the Hacienda Luisita Massacres perhaps being the most prominent examples in recent history. By no means is the list complete, as there are surely more cases of such atrocities inflicted upon the peasantry that have been effectively kept under wraps or hidden in the guise of the government’s anti-insurgency programs.

Rampant Hunger and Protests

It is at this juncture that we found ourselves in when, once again, the state has turned its guns against its own citizens. As combined elements of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines shot at a crowd of poor and hungry farmers conducting a peaceful protest in Kidapawan City, we are again reminded of the degree of marginalization and oppression being imposed upon our small food producers.

In January 2016, a State of Calamity has been declared in the provinces of Mindanao due to the drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Damages to crops are estimated at around P3.6 million. Expectedly, most affected by this crisis have been poor farmers. According to DA estimates, 17,000 hectares of rice and corn land have been damaged by the drought and more than 20,000 farmers have been affected in Maguindanao alone. The damage to their crops is beyond repair, resulting to too much hunger and poverty.

Reports from the ground have revealed cases of farmers having to eat pig feed because they have nothing else, and of a farmer having committed suicide because of no yield. The drought has virtually taken away their source of livelihood, if not their source of subsistence. In the face of this crisis, the Philippine government has done nothing to genuinely address the needs of its primary food producers.

With the El Niño crisis having become a matter of life and death to farmers and their families, it is not surprising then that Mindanao farmers were moved into collective action. No less than 6,000 farmers rose up and blockaded the Cotabato-Davao Highway, denouncing state neglect, and demanding the local government to release 15,000 sacks of rice as calamity aid.

The blockade was already on its third day when the police and armed forces intervened. Instead of government assistance, what the hungry farmers received was a hail of gunfire. The ensuing chaos left at least 3 farmers dead, 87 missing, and 116 hurt – 18 of which are hospitalized, most of whom due to gunshot wounds. The remaining protesters are now held up in a nearby church that has granted them refuge, yet security forces still continue to harass them and have even resorted to cutting off the building’s electricity in the middle of the night. Of course, the military is defending its action by accusing protesters of instigating the chaos. Yet, nothing can justify such violent act against an unarmed group of protesters with a very legitimate demand.

Hunger, Rural Poverty, and State Abandonment

The marginalization of the peasantry is a natural product of the neoliberal economic order to which the Philippine economy is being fully integrated. Under this economic system, policies of deregulation, liberalization, and privatization were designed to shift away from government subsidy in order to freely facilitate profit extraction by corporate business and financial institutions. These neoliberal policies have proven devastating to the Philippine economy, specifically agriculture and rural development. Philippine agriculture has been dramatically spiraling downward over the past decades with its GDP share steadily contracting. At the same time, its technological advancement has stagnated, with most of the farmlands still dependent on manual labor. Rural poverty continues to rise. Environmental degradation continues to worsen. Yet, the government has instead further pursued the same neoliberal policies causing rural poverty.

State abandonment of agriculture and rural development also manifests itself in terms of the government’s lack of emergency assistance and comprehensive rehabilitation program for agriculture, which is the first victim of climate change. Until today, farmer victims of Typhoons Lando and Nona in Luzon remain unassisted and unsupported. As if this is not enough, farmlands in Nueva Ecija are now being plagued by army worms – commonly classified as climate change pests – resulting in widespread damage to crops and loss of capital. Despite the government’s claims that we are climate change ready, the government’s lack of action on the issue only proves otherwise. More importantly, however, this serves as another proof of the government’s insensitivity towards the needs of our food producers.

The neoliberal policy direction is made even more apparent in the development aggression projects being pursued by the Philippine government. Development aggression occurs when the state imposes ‘development’ projects on unwilling communities. The mining projects in the province of Zambales fit this description perfectly. Zambaleños have strongly opposed mining operations in the province citing their harmful impacts on the environment. For one, the mining operations have exacerbated the impacts of Typhoon Lando in the area – resulting in severe flooding of homes and rice fields. This has led to community’s resolve to barricade the mining area and demand the ouster of these mining firms. As usual, the people’s legitmate protest was also violently suppressed by the PNP resulting to injuries and illegal arrests of protesters.

This shooting in Kidapawan and the other examples mentioned here are clear manifestations of the generalized forms of state-violence currently being perpetrated against farmers and other small food producers. Bogus land reform programs, coupled with development aggression, as well as the lack of subsidy and support services make up the government’s policy of abandoning its peasantry and agriculture. It pushes the peasant class to the brink of existence. It is not simplistic to say then, that this whole situation was created solely by the Philippine government and its fixation with the neoliberal dogma.

Justice and Food Sovereignty

The Philippine government’s response to the legitimate demands of its farmers is beyond abhorrent. However, the general condition of Philippine agriculture is even more detestable as it perpetuates the cycle of violence being imposed upon the impoverished Filipino small food producers. We are living in a society with an agricultural sector that is so backward that our farmers remain in the quagmire of hunger and poverty.

Hence, we are calling for a food system that is just and sovereign. We call on everyone to join us in our fight for justice and food sovereignty.

We demand the Philippine government to:

  1. Free all protesters who were unjustly detained.
  2. Immediately investigate and prosecute all police units/forces and government officials involved in the Kidapawan Massacre.
  3. Immediately provide food assistance to El Niño farmer families at least one sack of rice per farmer-family until they recovered from the El Niño crisis.
  4. Stop withholding food and aid to farmers and hold local government accountable for this crime against the farmers.
  5. Indemnify all victims of the Kidapawan Massacre and their families.
  6. Provide financial assistance to farmers for the recovery of their livelihood and rehabilitation of their farmlands.
  7. Implement genuine agrarian reform; stop resource grabbing.
  8. Stop the unabated plunder and excessive exploitation of the ecosystems in the Philippines.

 

Initial Signatories:

South Asian Network for Social & Agricultural Development (SANSAD)

Comité catholique contre la faim et pour le développement (CCFD) -Terre Solidaire

Mokatil-Movimentu Kamponezes Timor Leste (Timor Leste Farmers movement)

North South Initiative (NSI)

Jagrata Juba Shangha (JJS)

Progresibong Alyansa ng Mangingisda sa Pilipinas (PANGISDA)

Katipunan ng Bagong Pilipina (KABAPA)

Pambansang Kilusan ng Makabayang Magbubukid (PKMM)

Pagkakaisa Labab sa Liberalisasyon sa Agrikultura (PALLAG)

Nagkakakaisang Samahan ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan (NAGSAKKA)

MAKABAYAN-Pilipinas

Center for Grassroots Studies and Social Action

SEAFISH for Justice

Koalisi Rakyat untuk Keadilan Perikanan (KIARA)

Damayan ng mga Manggagawa,Mangingisda at Magsasaka (DAMMMBA)

Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (PKMP)

Dunong at Dangal ng Makabagong Dumagat (DUMAGAT)

Regeneration International

 

Organic techniques can help conventional growers boost margins

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Can farmers make more money by growing food using regenerative, or agroecological, practices?

Yes, say the innovators behind the Agricology, a UK-based website launched last November, to help farmers transition away from conventional farming practices. Agricology, an online resource, translates scientific research into practical farming advice to help farmers increase food production while maintaining biodiversity.

So it’s in the UK. And it’s designed for farmers. Why should consumers care?

Because in a world where the population is growing, biodiversity is shrinking, modern farming models are polluting the environment and producing pesticide-contaminated nutrient-poor food, and global warming threatens us with extinction, consumers—the people who choose which food to buy and which to reject—hold if not all, at least most of the cards when it comes to reversing these trends.

WATCH THE VIDEO ON FARMERS WEEKLY

Towards a “Peoples” Agroecology

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Author: Blain Snipstal

This is the first article of the series “People’s Agroecology,” written by Blain Snipstal, a returning generation farmer part of the Black Dirt Farm Collective in Maryland. As part of the continuation of the 2015 Campesino a Campesino Agroecology Encounter led by farmworkers in the US, Blain visited four leading organizations in the US and Puerto Rico in this effort to learn more about challenges and current practices to advance their goals through Agroecology.

The place of Agroecology

As people in struggle, our causes, and our organized efforts do not exist in a vacuum. They are efforts that, taken into the historic contexts in which they appear, are created by and/or in response to the conditions of their time. It is within this vein that the articulation of agroecology in the US should be located, and as part of the 500 year (plus) process of struggle and resistance.

It is also critically important to situate agroecology as a tool for social struggle – that is, to use it to fundamentally change the relations of power in the food system and as way for healing of our Mother Earth, at local and national levels. It is not just a mere form of “Sustainable Agriculture”. To be clear, it is not about situating one word against another like permaculture versus agroecology, or sustainable agriculture versus biodynamic – to do so would limit the narrative to its ecological boundaries. It is about a series of ecological principles and values, the revalorization of local/traditional/indigenous knowledge, bringing dignity and vibrant livelihoods back to rural life and food systems labor, and a clear alternative to the industrial model of agriculture. Agroecology is a political and social methodology and process, as much as it is an ecological alternative to Agribusiness. This clarity is especially important given the current efforts by NGO’s, community based organizations and social movement organizations that are raising the banner of agroecology in the United States.

Why Agroecology? Who is advancing and using agroecology in the US? Why situate political training and leadership development while developing agroecological systems? These are some of the questions to explore and discuss throughout this series.

Starting from the bottom

The industrial food system as we know it today is the child of the plantation system of agriculture. They are both built upon exploited labor, dispossession and exploitation of land from indigenous peoples, the destruction of rural culture and land, consolidation of power and land in the ruling classes, and the forced migration of peoples. The plantation system was the first major system used by the colonial forces in their violent transformation of the Earth into land, people into property, and nature into a commodity – all to be sold on the “fair” market. This transformation was long, crafted and violent, and supported by the state. Land was stolen from the Indigenous and people were stolen from Africa. Race and White Supremacy were then created to give the cultural and psychological basis to support the rationale, organization and logic of capital. The church was implicated in deepening the rationale of slavery. Violence against women and gender-based violence further drove the normalization of servitude home. This was all woven into the fabric of the plantation system of agriculture in the South, during its development from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

KEEP READING ON WHY HUNGER

Freebee: How bees can help raise food security of 2 billion smallholders at no cost

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What do cucumbers, mustard, almonds and alfalfa have in common? On the surface very little. But there is one thing they share: they all owe their existence to the service of bees.

For centuries, this tiny striped helper has labored the world’s fields without winning much recognition for its many contributions to food production. Wild bees, in particular, seemed doomed to slog in the shadow of their more popular cousin – the honeybee – whose day job of producing golden nectar has been far more visible and celebrated.

But bees of all stripes are finally getting their moment in the sun with the publication of a paper that quantifies, for the first time, just how much our crop yields depend on the work of pollinators who unknowingly fertilize plants as they move from flower to flower.

And in doing so, they may have a key role to play in improving the production of some 2 billion smallholder farmers worldwide and ensuring the food security and nutrition of the world’s growing population.

The paper, published in the magazine Science, makes the case that ecological intensification – or boosting farm outputs by tapping the power of natural processes — is one of the sustainable pathways toward greater food supplies.

KEEP READING ON FAO

Study says climate change pushes fish toward poles, threatening food source for poor

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Author: Chris Arsenault

TORONTO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Climate change is pushing fish toward the planet’s North and South poles, robbing traditionally poorer countries closer to the Equator of crucial natural resources, U.S. biologists said in a study published on Wednesday.

Key species of fish are migrating away from temperate zones and toward the poles as global temperatures rise, according to a research team from Rutgers University, Princeton University, Yale University and Arizona State University.

The migration patterns of fish, a critical food source for millions of people, are likely to exacerbate inequality between the world’s poor and rich, they said.

The world’s wealthier areas tend to be in cooler regions closer to the poles.

“Natural resources like fish are being pushed around by climate change, and that changes who gets access to them,” said Malin Pinsky, one of the study’s authors and a marine biologist, in a statement.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal “Nature Climate Change,” used data on fish migration patterns along with a mathematical formula that tracked the movement of natural resources and shifts in wealth.

KEEP READING IN REUTERS

A Great Day: Saving the World from Catastrophic Climate Change

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[ English | Español ]

Author: Courtney White

“Dec 1, 2015, will be one of the most important days in human history. It will be seen as the tipping point when the world was saved from catastrophic climate change.” – André Leu, President of the IFOAM (Organics International)

One of the most significant events at the recent UN climate summit in Paris went largely unnoticed.

We know the headlines: In an effort to slow dangerous climate change, representatives from 197 nations concluded a two-week marathon of negotiations by signing a breakthrough agreement that commits governments to targeted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2020.

This was justifiably big news. After 20 years of failed attempts to craft an international consensus on climate action, most spectacularly in Copenhagen in 2009, the world simply had to get its act together. It did so, to well-earned applause, on December 12, 2015.

So what happened on December 1?

That’s the day the French government launched the 4 per 1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate, a plan to fight climate change with soil carbon. The initiative’s goal is this: to increase global soil carbon stocks by 0.4 percent per year by drawing down atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) via the increased photosynthesis of regenerative farming and land use.

On the surface, that may not sound like a lot of carbon, (it amounts to 10 billion tons of carbon per year sequestered in global soils), but French scientists say it’s enough to halt human-induced annual increases in CO2 globally.

That sounds like a front page headline to me!

How will the initiative succeed? The key is regenerative agriculture. France, for example, intends to hit its 4/1000 target by employing agro-ecological practices on 50 percent of its farms by 2020.

Agro-ecological practices restore damaged land and build biologically healthy soil through the use of cover crops, perennial plants, no-till farming, and livestock grazing patterns that mimic nature. If managed properly, these nature-based practices not only increase carbon stocks in soil, they also can dramatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the use of fossil fuel in industrial agriculture, one of the biggest polluters on the planet.

Agro-ecological practices also increase resilience to climate change. In an op-ed published days after the French announcement in Paris, Michael Pollan and Deborah Barker wrote:

Regenerative farming would also increase the fertility of the land, making it more productive and better able to absorb and hold water, a critical function especially in times of climate-related floods and droughts. Carbon-rich fields require less synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and generate more productive crops, cutting farmer expenses.

Those are bold, but as we’ll see later, realistic claims. But here’s the best news: Regenerative agriculture is a shovel-ready solution to climate change.

Agro-ecological practices are practical, profitable and have been ground-tested by farmers and ranchers around the world for decades. In fact, shovel-readiness is a big reason why more than 100 nations, international NGOs and farmers’ organizations signed onto the 4/1000 Initiative–and why many more have signed on since then.

After years of neglect, soil carbon is now viewed as key to how the world manages climate change. “[It] has become a global initiative,” said French Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll. “We need to mobilize even more stakeholders in a transition to achieve both food security and climate mitigation thanks to agriculture.”

“The time for talking is finished,” said IFOAM’s André Leu. “Now is the time for doing. The technology is available to everyone. It is up to us to mobilize in time. Let’s start working to get this done and give our world a better future.”

Paying for regeneration

A critical step will be creating a viable carbon economy where regenerative farmers and ranchers can be paid to build soil carbon. This has been a difficult challenge so far, but thanks to the Paris Agreement, 197 nations now have a huge incentive to draw down their emissions to meet official targets. And regenerative agriculture can help get them there.

From the carbon emitter’s perspective, offsetting carbon dioxide emissions with verifiable increases in soil carbon, validated now by the French government’s 4/1000 Initiative, will likely stimulate other nations to create market-based mechanisms which, in turn, will encourage farmers and ranchers to adopt regenerative practices, round and round. From society’s perspective, all this is great news!

Creating carbon markets isn’t a new idea. Over the past twenty years, a variety of efforts have been made to energize a voluntary carbon credit trading system, including programs in Europe, Australia, New England, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, each with varying degrees of success. In New Mexico, where I live, the state legislature considered a bill in 2015 that would have created a policy framework for enacting a carbon credit system–a first for the state.

New Mexico attempted to established a carbon credit as a contract right and to create a five-member board to review and audit the credits as potential offsets for carbon emitters. The board specifically identified the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and its accumulation within plants, soils and geologic formations as a legitimate means by which a credit can be created–also a first (specifically, one carbon credit equaled one metric ton of CO2 or its equivalent).

Unfortunately, the bill didn’t become law, and it’s not the only model for paying for regeneration. But the bill represents an important step toward stimulating market-based responses to climate change.

Serious concerns about the shortcomings of carbon offset markets (sometimes called cap-and-trade) have been raised. This is especially true for organic, regenerative and family-scale agriculture, which could easily be pushed aside by large industrial producers. Here’s a useful primer on how climate-friendly agriculture can be treated fairly in a carbon economy.

The bottom line is this: We need state and federal policies that make the polluters pay, create publicly-controlled pools of money, and pay regenerative farmers and ranchers for building carbon stocks in their soils.

Science is on our side

Markets and their regulators will require sound science and hard numbers–credible and verifiable–to work effectively. This is a challenge, however, because understanding soil carbon involves chemistry, biology, ecology, hydrology, and agronomy—which means the science can get complex quickly, for researchers and laypeople alike. Fortunately, there has been a veritable explosion of soil carbon science recently, creating a clearer portrait of carbon’s potentials.

One researcher whose work has shed exciting light on regenerative agriculture is Dr. David Johnson, a molecular biologist at New Mexico State University. Johnson believes that “getting the biology right” is critical to creating significant increases in soil carbon stocks.

It’s essentially a two-step process, according to Johnson: (1) get life back into soils that have been stripped of their biological fertility by industrial agriculture; and (2) employ practices that bring about a shift in the soil from bacteria-dominated to fungi-dominated communities. The latter is important because fungi are the “carbon brokers” between plant roots and soil microbes. This process also improves soil structure which improves its ability to resist erosion–equally crucial to long-term carbon storage.

Of course, all of this soil rebuilding can be undone by the plow, which exposes microbes to the killing effect of heat and light. That’s why not turning the soil over is a key component of regenerative agriculture.

Johnson’s research also shows that “getting the biology right” reduces the amount of carbon that is “burped” back into the atmosphere (as CO2) by microbes as a waste product. This is important because the viability of long-term carbon storage in soils–and thus the size of monetary payments to farmers and ranchers from markets–depend on there being more carbon flowing into the soil system than flowing back out.

It’s not just about money. Additional carbon improves plant productivity, improves water infiltration and soil water-holding capacity, reduces the use of synthetic amendments, and promotes a healthy environment for pollinators and other beneficial insects.

A win-win for the land and ourselves!

Johnson notes that nature is three to four times more productive than any agricultural system yet devised by humans. And nature achieves that productivity without pesticides, synthetic amendments, irrigation or monocropping.

“Shouldn’t we be asking what we’re doing wrong?” Johnson said in an interview. “Plus, nature had the capacity to increase soil carbon in the past. Our task is to find out how it was done and mimic it in our current practices.”

Improved soil fertility, better food, more efficient use of water, reduced pollution, fewer energy requirements, better animal health, increased biodiversity, and keeping global warming in check–all possible for as little as 4 per 1000 a year!

For more information see:

Carbon Sequestration Potential on Agricultural Land by Daniel Kane, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Soil Carbon Restoration: Can Biology Do the Job? by Jack Kittredge, Northeast Organic Farming Association

***

Courtney White, co-founder and former executive director of the Quivira Coalition, is the author of multiple essays and books, including “Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey Through Carbon Country” and “The Age of Consequences.”  

French Ministry of Agriculture Official, Leading U.S. Soil Scientists Outline Plan to Stall Global Warming through Soil Carbon Sequestration

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Regeneration International, IFOAM Organics International and other NGOs Host Experts and Media for Critical Climate-Agriculture Discussion

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2016

CONTACT: Katherine Paul, katherine@regenerationinternational.org, 207-653-3090; Alexis Baden-Mayer, alexis@organicconsumers.org, 202-744-0853; Ercilia Sahores, ercilia@regenerationinternational.org

WASHINGTON DC—Today Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, Director General for the Economic and Environmental Performance of Enterprises of the French Ministry of Agriculture spoke to climate and agriculture reporters and climate and food activists about “4 per 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate,” an initiative to mitigate, and eventually reverse, climate change. The Initiative, launched in December at the COP21 Climate Summit in Paris, calls for countries to increase soil carbon worldwide by 0.4% per year. So far, 26 countries and more than 50 organizations have formally signed on to the initiative.

Also speaking at today’s event, held at the National Press Club, was André Leu, president of IFOAM Organics International, and leading soil scientists: David C. Johnson, Ph.D., New Mexico State University; Kris Nichols, Ph.D., Rodale Institute; Tim LaSalle, Ph.D., Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; and Richard Teague, Ph.D., Texas A & M. (Full bios here)

Leu told the audience: “The French Government 4 per 1000 Initiative is a fantastic win, win, win for the planet. By changing agriculture to one that regenerates soil organic carbon we not only reverse climate change we can improve farm yields, increase water holding capacity and drought resilience, reduce the use of toxic agrochemicals, improve farm profitability and produce higher quality food.”

LaSalle said: “If we stopped all GHG emissions today, the planet would still warm for the next 40 years.  We absolutely must stop the emissions.  But what is now also imperative is that we reduce this legacy of CO2 in our atmosphere and oceans.  We have mechanism to do this through photosynthesis and our soils.  And with the right incentives in place, our farmers and ranchers the world over can perform this heroic feat. But this is key: We must create the proper incentives for our civilization’s survival.”

Teague said: “Data from leading conservation ranchers in North America indicates that with appropriate grazing management the goal of the COP21 Climate Summit in Paris to increase soil carbon on grazed agricultural land by 0.4% per year can be exceeded by a factor of 2 or 3. With appropriate grazing management, ruminant livestock consuming only grazed rangeland and forages can increase C sequestered in the soil to more than offset their GHG emissions. This would result in a GHG-negative footprint, while at the same time supporting and improving other essential ecosystem services for local populations. Affected ecosystem services include water infiltration, nutrient cycling, soil formation, reduction of soil erosion, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat.”

Nichols said: “Research shows that soils are carbon-deficient, which is not only causing problems with soil erosion, but also negatively impacting air and water quality, water management, increasing flooding and drought, and negatively impacting nutrient cycling in soil and nutritive quality of food. Organic farming practices will regenerate soils by putting carbon back into the earth.”

Johnson said: “Microbes have fashioned the destiny of our planet for over 4 billion years, and they currently facilitate the day-to-day cycling of all earth’s elemental components flowing between terrestrial, oceanic and atmospheric environments. In efforts to sustain our civilizations over the past 200-plus years, we have employed agricultural practices that exhaust soil carbon resources, a practice that in the past has invariably led to the downfall of many civilizations. Restoring the population, structure and function of microbes in soils of our agroecosystems will begin the process of building soil health, and in turn promote development of mutualisms between plants and microbes towards improving soil fertility and soil carbon reserves while concurrently reducing atmospheric CO2.”

Joining Regeneration International in organizing today’s event were Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, GrassPower, IFOAM Organics International, Rodale Institute and Soil4Climate.

Additional materials:

Speaker bios
Fact Sheet
Program

Regeneration International,  a project of the Organic Consumers Association, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis. 

Agroecology Will Feed the World

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EVIDENCE IS MOUNTING: A widespread global shift in farming away from industrial production models toward agroecology is key to increasing food production and mitigating the effects of climate change.

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