Tag Archive for: Policy

Diverse Groups Call for a Bold, New Vermont Agriculture Issue- Open Letter to Governor-Elect Scott

/by

Author: Regeneration Vermont | Published: December 6, 2016

Today a group of more than a dozen Vermont farm, environmental and business leaders issued an open letter to Governor-Elect Phil Scott calling attention to the serious issues facing the state’s conventional dairy industry and proposing a solution to begin a necessary statewide transition toward regenerative and organic dairy production.

“We are deeply concerned about the dire economic conditions that continue to face Vermont’s conventional dairy producers and their families and the impact this is having on the economy, the working landscape, farmers and farm workers, the environment, and our rural communities,” the letter begins. “These are hardworking families and your leadership is needed to address what we believe requires a bold, new economic model that will result in a viable dairy sector in Vermont that lives up to our ideals and solves many of our farm-related issues.”

The letter was co-authored by former Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Roger Allbee and the team from Regeneration Vermont, a new nonprofit organized to promote agricultural solutions to the state’s environmental, climate and economic problems. The list of co-signers includes the Conservation Law Foundation, Lake Champlain International, Vermonters for a Clean Environment, VPIRG, NOFA-VT, Sierra Club (VT Chapter) and business leaders like The Alchemist Brewery, Butterworks Farm, and Chelsea Green Publishing.

The letter points out that, currently and for the foreseeable future, “Vermont’s conventional, non-organic dairy producers are getting paid less than it costs them to produce their milk — an economic travesty that is not only forcing farms out of business but is also giving rise to a host of ecological, worker justice, and animal welfare issues.”

The impacts from relying on this economically crippling, commodity-based model go far beyond just bankrupting farmers, but also include causing nearly half of Vermont’s water quality woes, promoting the use of GMO-derived feed, toxic pesticides and climate-threatening nitrogen-base fertilizers, giving rise to social and worker justice issues relating to farm and farm workers, and causing cow burnout and ill health from the dramatic push for more and more production of cheap milk.

KEEP READING ON REGENERATION VERMONT 

The Role of Forestry and Agriculture in Mitigating Climate Change

/by

Author: Peter Holmgren | Published on: November 30, 2016

The Paris Agreement and The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out a raft of new and challenging global targets for people, the environment, business and development. SDG 13 directly embeds the climate change challenge in the framework. In other words, the global community has explicitly linked its broad development agenda and the climate agenda, clarifying that climate benefits must be part of our investments in the future of humanity.

For forestry, some linkages are explicit, such as SDG 15 concerning the sustainable management of forests, which relates to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+); and SDG 12, covering corporate responsibility, sustainable consumption and production. At CIFOR, we have concluded in our new strategy that forestry links to all 17 SDGs. This way, we emphasise the essential contributions that forests and trees make to all aspects of sustainable development, including the climate change challenge.

 The path to implementation

Countries set out their plans for post-Paris Agreement action in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions  (INDCs). Analysis of the 158 INDCs submitted to the UNFCCC prior to COP21 shows that there is a significant gap  between the contributions proposed and the emission reductions needed (https://climateactiontracker.org). Even if  countries fully implement their INDCs, the world may experience warming of 2.7-3.0°C, therefore countries need to  notably elevate the ambitions set out in their INDCs if we are to avoid disastrous climate change.

Forestry, agriculture and landscapes may offer significant additional mitigation or removal opportunities beyond the  options elaborated in the negotiations and INDCs.

More importantly, it is clear that improving resilience and reducing vulnerability – the third pillar of the Paris  Agreement – by and large means safeguarding the natural production systems on which we depend for food,  ecosystem services and economic development. This clearly reflects the sustainable development aspiration of the  Paris Agreement and illustrates the important context of the climate change challenge.

Approximately 20-24 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to forestry, agriculture and landscapes. Clearly, better management of the world’s landscapes has a key role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, most INDCs do not comprehensively include agriculture and forestry in their mitigation targets. A recent study of INDCs in seven countries in Asia, to which CIFOR contributed, found that only two countries include both agriculture and forestry mitigation targets and measures in their INDCs.

Looking beyond the mitigation of emissions, the world’s landscapes have great potential to act as carbon sinks by increasing stocks held in vegetation and soils. INDCs are generally not exploring these potentials at the moment, and more research into the biological and socioeconomic potential is needed.

Even where forestry and agriculture are included in INDCs and national plans, it is unclear how contributions from these sectors will be achieved. Insufficient international support in the form of finance, technology transfer and capacity building hinder many countries’ abilities to implement the adaptation and mitigation measures outlined in their INDCs in agriculture, forestry and other land-use sectors.

KEEP READING ON CLIMATE ACTION

Transforming Agriculture to Address Climate Change

/by

Author: José Graziano da Silva | Published: November 30, 2016

Climate change is already having an impact on agriculture, and the implications for food security are alarming. They highlight the urgent need to support smallholders in adapting to the challenges the whole world faces. Farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and community foresters all depend on activities that are intimately and inextricably linked to climate. Their livelihoods are thus the most vulnerable to climate change. They will require far greater access to technologies, markets, information and credit for investment to adjust their production systems and practices to climate change.

Action must be taken now to make agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient. Otherwise, the impacts of climate change will seriously compromise food production in countries and regions that are already highly food-insecure – and jeopardise progress towards the key Sustainable Development Goals of ending hunger and poverty by 2030. We cannot let that happen, especially as the negative impacts on agriculture will be even more widespread after 2030.

Food security is under threat

Through its effects on agriculture, livelihoods and infrastructure, climate change threatens all dimensions of food security. It will expose both urban and rural poor to higher and more volatile food prices. It will also affect food availability by reducing the productivity of crops, livestock and fisheries, and hinder access to food by disrupting the livelihoods of millions of rural people who depend on agriculture for their incomes.

Hunger, poverty and climate change need to be tackled together. This is, not least, a moral imperative as those who are now suffering most have contributed least to the changing climate.

Adaptation strategies

FAO’s new State of Food and Agriculture 2016 report describes ways of adapting smallholder production to climate change and making the livelihoods of rural populations more resilient. Diversification and better integration of food production systems into complex ecological processes create synergies with the natural habitat instead of depleting natural resources. Agroecology and sustainable intensification are examples of approaches that improve yields and build resilience through practices such as green manuring, nitrogen-fixing cover crops and sustainable soil management, and integration with agroforestry and animal production.

More resilient agriculture sectors and intelligent investments in smallholder farmers can deliver transformative change, enhancing the prospects and incomes of the world’s poorest while buffering them against the impacts of climate change.

KEEP READING ON CLIMATE ACTION

The Obama Administration Announces New Steps to Advance Soil Sustainability

/by

Published on: December 5, 2016

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in collaboration with Federal agencies and private-sector stakeholders, is announcing new steps to work towards the long-term health and sustainable use of one of America’s most important natural resources: its soil. OSTP is also releasing today a Federal framework for soil science, developed in collaboration with more than a dozen Federal agencies, with input from approximately 80 stakeholders from academia, industry, non-profit organizations, and the agricultural community.

Soil is essential to human life. Not only is it vital for providing most of the world’s food, but it also plays a critical role in ensuring water quality and availability; supports a vast array of non-food products and benefits, including mitigation of climate change; and sustains the biodiversity needed for ecological resilience. These roles make soil essential to modern life. Thus, it is imperative that everyone—city dwellers, farmers and ranchers, land owners, and rural citizens alike—take responsibility for caring for and investing in our soils. Given their importance, soil must be protected from degradation, as the alternative is the loss of an array of important ecosystem services.

The new actions being announced today aim to advance scientific understanding of soils so that land managers and farmers are better able to care for them and maintain their ability to support food security, climate mitigation, ecosystem services, and public health. These actions focus on three key areas:

  1. Promoting interdisciplinary research and education, to answer key questions on rates of soil genesis and erosion, the role of soils in bioenergy production, the development of advanced soil sensors, and research to better understand non-agricultural soils.
  2. Advancing computational tools and modeling, to improve analytical capacity and develop a robust predictive framework in studying soil properties, including pursuing a more sophisticated understanding of soil-carbon fluxes and the potential for soil-carbon sequestration.
  3. Expanding sustainable agricultural practices, to ensure farmers and ranchers have the information and tools they need to protect and enhance agricultural soils and ensure global soils can continue to provide food security and climate benefits for future generations.

The projects in this Fact Sheet build on decades of experience, research, and conservation efforts of farmers, ranchers, and land owners, along with States and the Federal Government. Since the 1930s, when the onset of the Dust Bowl led to the creation of the Soil Conservation Service, Federal agencies have invested tens of billions of dollars in soil conservation and research initiatives. During this Administration, land managers have increased the number of acres of farmland enrolled in the Department of Agriculture’s conservation programs by nearly 200 million acres. Federal soil-science efforts are not limited to agricultural soils—across the Federal research enterprise, more than a dozen agencies work to protect soils in rangelands, cities, forests, coasts, and other areas—often working hand-in-hand with citizens, universities, local organizations, and other private-sector partners.

New Steps Being Taken by the Administration Today

To support the coordination of future government-wide science and technology efforts to protect soils, the National Science and Technology Council’s Soil Science Interagency Working Group (SSIWG) is releasing today “The State and Future of U.S. Soils,” a Framework for a Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science, which is the result of a collaborative effort from more than 15 Federal agencies. In developing the Framework, SSIWG considered input from stakeholders from academia, industry, non-profit organizations, and the agricultural community who attended an OSTP workshop on soils in August 2016. The Framework is available for public comment until January 10, 2017. SSIWG intends to use it to inform the future development of a comprehensive Federal Strategic Plan for Soil Science.

The Framework sets forth the most important threats to U.S. soils and potential Federal research priorities. It identifies three overarching “Challenge and Opportunity” categories: (1) land use and land cover change; (2) unsustainable land management practices, and (3) climate and environmental change. It also lists potential priorities for future Federal science and technology efforts. In addition, several Federal agencies are supporting the development of the Strategic Plan by expanding their research and conservation initiatives:

KEEP READING ON THE WHITE HOUSE

Curbing Climate Change Starts With Healthy Soil

/by

Author: Bill Giebler | Published: December 1, 2016

It’s barely May, but Aspen Moon Farm is bustling with fall harvest-like activity. The inclusion of seedlings in its offerings makes today’s farmers market preparations hum. At least half a dozen helpers line the long dirt drive up to the house, where owner Jason Griffith breaks for a sandwich in his enclosed patio. At 45, Griffith has been farming this plot of land in Hygiene, Colorado, for just a few years—but long enough to expand to 10 acres and learn some critical lessons.

“When I first started farming I was gearing all of my production toward ‘how many crops can I get out of this bed or that bed and how intensely can I plant?'” he says. That approach—despite organic and biodynamic cultivation—resulted in soil degradation, evidenced by diminished plant health and increased pests. Griffith reassessed his multiple annual harvests.”We realized we were going to wear that field out quickly. It was interesting to see how fast it could happen.” Wearing out the field is not unique—modern agriculture relies on synthetic chemicals for fertility, too often viewing soil simply as an inert growing medium. What’s unique about Griffith—as with other small-scale organic farmers dependent on nutrient- rich soil—is he chose to do something about it.

Doing something about it is indeed the recommendation of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Its 2015 report states that “33 percent of land is moderately to highly degraded.” In fact, the report reads, “the majority of the world’s soil resources are in only fair, poor or very poor condition.”

For Griffith, the solution unfolded by reframing the farming effort. “It’s really just about changing the focus from the crop to the soil and what does the soil need so we don’t have to add a ton of fertility every year.” Reducing added fertilizers—natural or otherwise—meant giving scheduling priority to soil-building crops above revenue-producing ones. “Instead of setting up my schedule and saying, ‘I need to plant carrots, beets and all this stuff where I want, whenever I want,’” Griffith says, “I’m basically saying: ‘I need to have a cover crop in this field by this date.’” Then he determines what vegetables work in rotation. The result is a productive farm with a year-round focus on maintaining or improving soil fertility.

This emerging awareness often comes in three words: Soil is alive. And with that comes the breadth of reasons to take care of it. Hint: It’s not just about food.

The dirty truth

It would be difficult to find a more passionate soil advocate than Tom Newmark. The former CEO of New Chapter supplement company, Newmark is cofounder and board chair of The Carbon Underground and co-owner of Finca Luna Nueva lodge and biodynamic farm in Costa Rica.

By phone, Newmark launches into a landslide of daunting truths. “Because of the worldwide destruction of between 50 and 70 percent of the fertile soil in which we grow our food … ” he says, also citing the FAO, “we have only 60 harvests [years] left before the world loses its ability to produce any food.”

Beyond dwindling food production, Newmark lists impending dangers, such as desertification—or drying up—of farm and range lands and a water cycle “so warped and distorted that much of the planet is whipsawed by either drought or flood.” If you’re concerned about the devastating weather extremes that have become far too common, he says, “You have to be concerned about soil.”

He explains how soil carbon correlates with soil organic matter: the rich, decomposing material and microbiology of the soil ecosystem. Acting as what he calls “the soil/water battery,” each percentage point of soil organic matter is able to hold between 20,000 and 70,000 gallons of water per acre. “When you don’t have the top soil, when you don’t have the organic matter in the soil, then the soil can’t store the rain, and plants can’t handle climate extremes because they don’t have water reserves in the soil,” Newmark says. The ripple effect of this includes local relative humidity, which distorts cloud formation and rain. “The destruction of the planet’s soil therefore has an immediate and direct effect on drought, crop failure and desertification.”

Possibly the biggest and most overlooked ecological service soil provides, however, is its role in climate change—via carbon sequestration. Global soils are, in fact, massive carbon storehouses—yes, that carbon: the temperature-raising, sea level-raising stuff of inconvenient headlines. The opportunity to lock this excess atmospheric carbon into the ground is at the root of a movement called regenerative agriculture. But with this comes awareness of the inverse impact: the vast release of carbon by agricultural means. “In fact,” Newmark says, “somewhere around 40 percent of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes directly from the soil.” That’s astounding in a world where human solutions to human-caused climate change tend toward the cars we drive and the lights we turn off. Newmark’s 40 percent is difficult to substantiate.

A U.N. paper puts it closer to 30 percent. But, says Newmark, that doesn’t account for the soil organic matter oxidized due to tilling or nitrogen fertilization.

Regardless, in the broad view of climate change there’s a double win that comes from carbon-rich soil. In addition to slowing or even reversing atmospheric carbon, soils richer in carbon (read: sticky, quenched) are also more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

This is good news, and it sounds even better the astonishingly simple way Newmark puts it: The soil lost its carbon, it wants it back and it knows how to get it. “There’s actually technology that is time-tested, safe and available worldwide for free that will take all the carbon we have irresponsibly let loose in the environment and bring it back to earth. That technology is called photosynthesis.” There’s a third win, too: Getting that carbon into the soil is synonymous with the soil fertility Griffith is looking for.

“The bad news is, we’ve absolutely botched things up with agricultural malpractice in the last 50 years,” Newmark says. “The good news is we can put the carbon back in the soil, recreate fertility, recreate the soil/water battery, recreate food stability and reverse climate change by using agriculture that is in accordance with the laws of nature and not at war with the laws of nature.”

Fixing nitrogen

“The number-one thing we absolutely have to do is to stop using synthetic nitrogen fertilizer,” Newmark says. “It’s just that simple, and the research worldwide is clear: The use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer corresponds with the destruction of soil organic matter and the release of CO2 into the atmosphere.”

We have long known the dangers of nitrogen fertilizer. Its rampant use has been linked to coastal dead zones, fish kills, groundwater pollution, air pollution and even “reduced crop, forest and grassland productivity,” according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). What is newer to the dump on nitrogen is its direct correlation to carbon release and climate change. But, hold on: Nitrogen is a necessary plant nutrient, and the now 100-year-old ability to synthesize nitrogen from thin air is a key part of the agricultural “Green Revolution” that brought more food, more quickly, to more mouths in the mid-twentieth century. The need for nitrogen is what makes synthetic fertilizer so effective, and effectiveness is what makes its use so widespread.

What Newmark describes, though, is a distorted ecosystem, starting with an artificial growth factor—synthetic nitrogen—that stimulates a “rapid, wild cascade of growth of soil microbiome in an almost cancerous form.” Microbiological aliveness is a measure of soil health, but its unchecked growth creates an imbalance. It all comes
down to complex underground trade negotiations, Newmark explains. In order to uptake nitrogen naturally, plants undergo an elaborate exchange with soil bacteria. Although both carbon and nitrogen are amply available in the air, they are inaccessible depending on who’s asking for it. Plants can’t get at the nitrogen; bacteria can’t get the carbon. “But,” says Newmark, “the bacteria have the nitrogen and the plants have this carbohydrate [carbon in the form of plant sugars] so at the tip of the root of every plant there’s an exchange that can happen, where the plants can swap their carbon-rich sugars for the biologically available nitrogen that the bacteria have. Brilliant!” And natural.

Until the introduction of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, that is. With it the plant has received biologically available nitrogen without having to put forth the effort of feeding the bacteria. A conditioned laziness ensues, closing a trade that includes not just nitrogen, but a host of micronutrients, too. “The whole underground economy shuts down,” says Newmark, “because we’ve been giving crack cocaine to the plants.”

What needs to happen, Newmark says unequivocally, is “all agricultural systems that rely on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers have to be abandoned, and they have to be abandoned quickly. We don’t have time to debate this issue.”

The second thing we have to do, Newmark says, is leave the carbon in the soil when it gets there. “If you have carbon that is in a relatively stable form in the soil, you have to leave it there, leave that structure undamaged.” But, he says, deep and repeated plowing, or tilling, breaks apart soil structure and releases CO2 back into the atmosphere. “We have to stop doing that,” says Newmark. “We have to stop ripping apart the thin layer of topsoil that covers much of our land surfaces on the planet.”

KEEP READING ON NEW HOPE NETWORK

American Agriculture in the Cross-Hairs — Is the Farm Bill Helping or Hindering Food Security, Health and Democracy?

/by

Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola | Published: November 26, 2016

Food security. Health. Environmental sustainability. Democracy. All of these things are interconnected like spokes around the hub of agriculture. Agriculture, in turn, has undergone massive changes over the past several decades. Many of them were heralded as progress that would save us from hunger and despair.

Yet today, we’re faced with a new set of problems, birthed from the very innovations and interventions that were meant to provide us with safety and prosperity.

The Price of Divorcing Ourselves From Nature

You don’t have to go very far back in history to get to a point where “What should I eat?” was a nonexistent question. Everyone knew what “food” was. They harvested food off trees, bushes and out of the ground, and they ate it, either raw or cooked in some fashion.

Our current confusion about what is healthy and what is not is basically rooted in having divorced ourselves from the actual growing of food. What’s worse, this separation has led to an even greater forgetfulness about our place in the ecosystem, and our role as shepherds of the natural world.

Soil health, for example, is a crucial component of human health that many are clueless about these days. And because people don’t understand this connection, they fail to realize the importance of regenerative agriculture, and the dangers of industrial farming.

For decades, food production has been all about efficiency and lowering cost. Today, we see what this approach has brought us — skyrocketing disease statistics and a faltering ecosystem.

KEEP READING ON MERCOLA.COM

Small Farms Are Just As Important As Big Agriculture in the Fight Against Climate Change

/by

Author: Duda Cardoso | Published: November 27, 2016

Just four days before the US elections, the Paris Agreement officially became international law after receiving formal sign-off from 55 countries that contribute 55% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. This landmark deal marked a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change, particularly given its ratification by a majority of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, including India, China, the United States, and the European Union.

However, the election of Donald Trump has ushered in a new administration that has vocalized opposition to the agreement, leaving a wake of uncertainty. Now, more than ever, it’s important that we make every dollar and every action count in the fight against climate change.

To make this happen, the Paris Agreement needs to include one key group that has been largely left out of the most prominent plans to combat climate change: smallholder farmers. Smallholder farms are defined as single-plot farms that are often run by families, not by large corporations, such as those behind the cashier at farmers markets and farmers who supply small food chains. The world’s 450 million smallholder farmers are critical to addressing climate change and meeting the world’s food-security needs. New research from the Initiative for Smallholder Finance (ISF), “The climate conundrum: Financing smallholder productivity and resilience in the age of climate change,” suggests that achieving zero poverty, improving food security, and combating climate change can only be made possible with substantial efforts to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions.

KEEP READING ON QUARTZ

Message from Marrakesh: Don’t Mourn, Regenerate!

/by

The bad news is that we are fast approaching (likely within 25 years) “the point of no return” for retaining enough climate stability, soil fertility, water and biodiversity to support human life on this planet. The toxic synergy of our out-of-control political, energy, food, farming and land-use systems threaten our very survival. The good news is that tried-and-tested, shovel-ready, regenerative food, farming, grazing and land use practices, scaled up on billions of acres of farmland, pasture and forests, combined with zero emissions and a renewable energy economy, can draw down and sequester enough excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into our soils, forests and wetlands to reverse global warming. Besides re-stabilizing the climate, this great carbon ‘drawdown’ and regeneration will qualitatively enhance soil fertility and yields, increase rainwater infiltration and storage in soils, supercharge food quality and nutrition, rejuvenate forests and oceans, and preserve and stimulate biodiversity—thereby addressing the underlying causes of rural poverty, hunger, deteriorating public health, political malaise and global conflict. – Social media post by the Organic Consumers Association and Regeneration International from the “Green Zone” of the COP22 Global Climate Summit in Marrakesh, Morocco November 18, 2016

The Donald Effect

Thousands of us attending the COP22 Global Climate Summit in Marrakesh, Morocco—delegates and rank-and-file activists from every nation in the world—woke up on November 9, 2016, to the alarming news that rabid climate deniers and zealots for hyper-industrial agriculture and fossil fuels had seized control of the White House and the U.S. Congress.

Just days after a panel of eminent international scientists warned that we are approaching the point of no return in terms of runaway global warming, Donald (“the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing uncompetitive…”) Trump made it clear where he and his cabal of wealthy, misogynist, racist, cronies stand.

The day after the election, Trump announced that he intended to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Treaty, supercharge the coal, fracking and fossil fuel industries, and eliminate federal regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As part of his “Making America Great Again” agenda, Trump named Myron Ebell to oversee the transition at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ebell, head of both the climate-denying think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cooler Heads Coalition, was reviled last year at the Paris Climate Summit for being one of the world’s top “climate criminals.”

Intercept newsletter outlined Ebell’s credentials as a point man for the new Climate Denier-in-Chief: “A non-scientist whose funders have included ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and coal giant Murray Energy Corporation, Ebell has been a consistent taunter of both scientists and environmentalists. As a talking head on TV news, he has for years offered false balance on climate change in the form of views so far outside of the mainstream as to be downright bizarre. For Ebell, Al Gore is “an extremist” who “lives in a fantasy world.” And the Pope’s encyclical on climate change is a ‘diatribe against modern industrial civilization.’ Current climate patterns, say Ebell, indicate an imminent ice age rather than a warming planet.

Trump’s Fossil Fuel über alles could not come at a worst moment. Just when the world needs all hands on deck to fight the war against runaway global warming, Trump and his men (and women) are going AWOL. Compounding the threat of Trump and his minions on climate policy, the frightening bottom line for the global grassroots is that politicians, corporations, climate negotiators, scientists, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have seriously underestimated the current and near-future (25 years) impacts of saturating the atmosphere with more greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution than the Earth has endured for hundreds of thousands of years.

The climate chaos unleashed by current GHG levels in the atmosphere (400 ppm of CO2 and rising 2 ppm every year and a one-degree C rise in average global temperatures so far) and oceans is already alarming. But what makes our predicament truly frightening is that the noxious chemical GHG blanket already enveloping the Earth is increasingly magnified by powerful feedback mechanisms including: the melting of the polar icecaps; a sharp increase in water vapor (a powerful global warming gas) in the atmosphere; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; disruption of cloud formations; and the “methane bomb” (the runaway thawing and release into the atmosphere of billions of tons of methane gas now frozen and sequestered in the vast tundra and the shallow sea beds of the Arctic). These planetary global warming feedback mechanisms, unless reversed, will detonate over the next few decades triggering rapidly rising temperatures; rising sea levels and catastrophic coastal flooding; extremely violent storms, droughts, and wildfires; deadly outbreaks of disease and pestilence; and massive crop failures and starvation, culminating in wholesale ecosystem destruction and species extinction.

The call-to-action from Marrakesh is that U.S. and global “business-as-usual” is rapidly moving the planet toward runaway global warming—not just two degrees C of global warming, which will be extremely dangerous, but 5-7 degrees C, which will be catastrophic.

Industrial agriculture, factory farming and deforestation are driving global warming

The energy- and chemical-intensive US and global food and factory farming system, now controlled by a multinational cartel of agribusiness, junk food, chemical and genetic engineering corporations, is literally cooking the planet. By spewing out 15-20 billion tons of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere every year (according to United Nations report, 44-57% of all emissions), by degenerating, with GMOs, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and deforestation, the miraculous ability of soils, forests and wetlands to naturally absorb (through photosynthesis) these greenhouse gases and safely store them in the soils and biota, this system is pushing us toward the final cliff, the “point of no return.” (More on the climate impact of our degenerative food, farming, and land use here. And here).

With demonstrably degenerate Climate Deniers in control of the White House and the U.S. Congress for the next four years, we have no choice but to step up our organizing and our actions, from Main Street to Morocco. Every concerned citizen in the world needs to become an active communicator, starting with family and friends, reaching out to all those willing to listen and make change. Circles of concerned friends and acquaintances must evolve into Circles of Resistance and Regeneration.

Every food, justice, health, peace and democracy activist needs to “connect the dots” between the burning issues and become a climate activist. At the same time, every climate activist needs to move beyond tunnel-vision single-issue organizing to a holistic “Movement of Movements” approach. The first step in global resistance, the first step in regenerating our toxic political, energy, food, farming and land-use system is to broaden our awareness and our consciousness, to break down the walls and the single-issue silos that have held us back from building a truly local-to-global Movement of Movements. Our new Internationale, our new Regeneration Movement, must be powerful and inspirational enough to enable us not only to survive, but to thrive.

Regenerative circles of renewal and resistance

Taking the time to grieve and commiserate over our current political and climate emergency, taking the time to regenerate ourselves and our circles of friends and acquaintances, we must begin to strategically weave together our common concerns, our constituencies, our resistance, our positive actions and solutions.  Once we establish synergy and cooperation among the different currents in the Movement, we will generate ever more powerful waves, circles of renewal and resistance, with the capacity to spread outward from our local communities into entire regions, nations and continents, until a regenerative wave spans the globe. This is la lucha grande, the great struggle, that will last for the rest of our lives. Don’t just mourn, organize. Our lives and the lives of our children hang in the balance.

The good news

The good news is that planetary awareness, along with renewable energy and conservation, is growing by leaps and bounds. Leaving remaining fossil fuels in the ground and converting to solar, expanding wind and other renewable forms of energy, retrofitting our transportation and housing systems, and re-carbonizing and restoring soil fertility, forests and wetlands—these initiatives are not just good for the climate, they’re also good for the growth of ethical businesses, for public health and for the body politic.

We must come to grips with the fact that we will be forced to endure four more dangerous years here in the U.S. in terms of reducing fossil fuel emissions, and phasing out coal and fracking. But as the global grassroots, scientists, farmers and climate negotiators here in Marrakesh have acknowledged, we are all in this together. Spokespersons for China, the world’s largest emitter of fossil fuels, as well as 197 other nations here in Marrakesh, reacting to Trump’s proclamation that the U.S. will abandon the Paris Climate Treaty, have made it clear that they will move forward toward zero emissions by 2050, no matter what the Trump administration does.

We can’t all do everything, but we certainly all can do something. We all eat, and many of us on the Earth (three billion in fact) are still making our living off the land—farming, grazing, fishing, gardening, hunting and gathering. In the consumer economies of the global North hundreds of millions of organic and health-minded consumers are starting to understand that “we are what we eat,” and that what we purchase and consume has a tremendous impact, not only on our health and the health of our families, but on the environment and the climate as well. To regenerate and save the living Earth and human civilization we will need to build an active transnational alliance and solidarity between several billion conscious consumers and farmers. This is the only force with the power to put an end to business as usual.

Our most popular slogans or campaigns here in Marrakesh—emblazoned on our banners, leaflets and t-shirts, broadcast in our newsletters and social media, repeated over and over again in our media interviews and workshops, and translated into multiple languages including English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese are: Cook Organic Not the Planet, Boycott Factory-Farmed Food, and Regeneration International: Cool the Planet, Feed the World.

Moving forward from Marrakesh, we are committed to re-localizing and regenerating local foods, local economies and communities. But while building out and scaling up local solutions, we must also join with our consumer and farmer allies across the globe to literally force multinational GMO, chemical-intensive and factory-farmed food brands and corporations to go organic and grass-fed. And we must pressure organic brands and producers to move beyond organic to fully regenerative practices. Our collective campaigns must ultimately transform the eating and purchasing habits of millions of consumers, raise the living standards of several billion farmers and rural villagers, and free billions of farm animals from cruel and climate-destructive Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)—putting these animals back on the land where their grazing and natural behaviors will help sequester billions of tons of carbon in pastures and agro-forestry landscapes.

You can learn more about our Cook Organic Not The Planet campaign here. Please sign up for OCA’s newsletter, Organic Bytes:  Please join our Facebook page here:  To find out more about our Regeneration International: Cool the Planet, Feed the World campaign, visit regenerationinternational.org. Follow RI on Facebook
You can sign up for our RI newsletter and enroll yourself and your organization as a supporter or partner.

To acquaint yourself with the basic science that underlies regenerative food and farming, please read this document and share it widely. It’s available in ten different languages on the RI website.

More good news: France’s 4 per 1000 Soils for Food Security and Climate

On November 17, in Marrakesh, following up on the Paris Climate Treaty last year, over two dozen countries and several hundred civil society organizations reaffirmed their commitment to the “4 for 1000 Initiative” originally put forth by the French government. Countries that sign the “4 per 1000 Initiative” pledge, as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to mitigate and reverse global warming, to draw down or sequester as much excess atmospheric carbon in their soils as they are currently emitting, utilizing organic, agro-ecological, and regenerative farming, grazing and land use practices, and to continue this process for the next 25 years, until atmospheric levels of GHG return to the safe levels that existed prior to the industrial revolution.

Our Regeneration International project, as well as OCA, are among the civil society organizations that have signed the pledge. We are also now officially part of the 4 per 1000 global consortium, and as such will continue to play an active role in supporting and promoting the initiative.

Regeneration Thursdays

On January 12, 2017, organic, climate, natural health, environmental, peace, justice and regeneration activists across the U.S. and beyond will launch Regeneration Thursdays. The plan is to organize, on the second Thursday of each month, community self-organized meet-ups at designated locations, such as brew pubs and community restaurants. These social gatherings, part celebratory, part serious discussion, are intended to break down walls, make new friends and allies, generate camaraderie, explore potential cooperation, and eventually build up greater grassroots marketplace and political power.

Our hope is that regeneration meet-ups will catalyze and inspire a new dynamic, with activists or would-be activists from all of our Movements—food, climate, peace, justice, natural health, democracy—coming together on a regular basis to celebrate, commiserate and cooperate, to share organic and local food and drink, and to discuss how we can build a stronger synergy between our various efforts and campaigns. Regeneration Thursdays is envisioned as an ongoing campaign, starting small but over time taking root and spreading virally into hundreds, and eventually thousands of communities.

The Organic Consumers Association and Regeneration International, along with some of our closest allies, have pledged to provide resources (including organic food) in strategic communities to get the Regeneration Thursdays meet-ups going. Part of the preparation for Regeneration Thursdays will be to work with local regenerators to strategically identify and invite key people, especially youth, who share a broad vision for moving beyond single-issue organizing and campaigning to a more holistic and powerful Movement. If you and your circle of friends or organization are willing to help organize a Regeneration Thursday in your local community, please send an email to: campaigns@organicconsumers.org

The crisis is dire. The hour is late. But we still have time to turn things around. Don’t just mourn. Please join us as we organize, educate, mobilize and regenerate.

Ronnie Cummins is international director of the Organic Consumers Association and a member of the Regeneration International steering committee.

To support OCA’s work, click here. 

To support OCA’s Regeneration International project, click here.

Farm Impasse at Climate Talks Threatens Goal to End Hunger – FAO Chief

/by

Author: Megan Rowling | Published: November 16, 2016

A lack of progress on agricultural issues at the U.N. climate talks in Morocco puts at risk efforts to help farmers adapt to climate change and meet a global goal to end hunger by 2030, the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said on Wednesday.

Ahead of the negotiations, which are due to end on Friday, development agencies had hoped for the establishment of a work plan on agriculture that would pave the way for more concrete discussions on assistance for struggling small-scale farmers.

But governments have failed to agree on that, and plan to push a decision to next year. The impasse has happened even though the new global climate deal, crafted in Paris in 2015, recognises the importance of food security for the first time.

“We had been working since Paris… to push agriculture to be at the center of this meeting (in Marrakesh),” said José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “It is very disappointing.”

Rich nations have long pressured developing countries to address ways to curb planet-warming emissions from their farms, while poorer states would rather focus on how farmers can adjust to rising temperatures and worsening droughts and floods.

Graziano da Silva said the talks in Marrakesh had mainly rehashed old arguments. A division between cutting emissions and adaptation to climate change “does not apply to agriculture”, he said in an interview on the sidelines of the negotiations.

KEEP READING ON REUTERS

UN Agency Calls for Global Transformation of Agriculture in the Face of a Changing Climate

/by

Author: Sreya Panuganti | Published: November 15, 2016

A recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that over the next 15 years, climate change will add to the number of people living in poverty via its effects on the agriculture and food sectors. By 2030, climate-related effects on food-related livelihoods could lead to an additional 35 to 122 million impoverished people, according to the 2016 State of Food and Agriculture Report.

The annual report projects the future of farming and food security in the face of a changing climate. It advocates for a broad-based transformation of agricultural systems “to ensure global food security, provide economic and social opportunities for all, protect the ecosystem services on which agriculture depends, and build resilience to climate change.”

While this kind of transformation won’t be easy, the FAO makes policy recommendations and suggests technical and financial mechanisms that will put farmers and governments on the right path.

Agriculture, at the intersection of human activity and natural resources, “holds the key to solving the two greatest challenges facing humanity: eradicating poverty and maintaining the stable climatic corridor in which civilization can thrive,” writes José Graziano da Silva, the FAO director-general.

But “without adaptation to climate change,” the report states, “it will not be possible to achieve food security for all and eradicate hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.”

KEEP READING ON NEW SECURITY BEAT