Tag Archive for: Resilient Food Systems

Interview: Scientist, Author, Activist Vandana Shiva Leads Movement to Restore Sovereignty to Farmers

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Acres U.S.A. is North America’s monthly magazine of ecological agriculture. Each month we conduct an in-depth interview with a thought leader. The following interview appeared in our January 2016 issue and was too important not to share widely.

Americans who visit India often come back more or less overwhelmed by its vast size and complexity, and if they are not stunned into silence they are at least much less willing to engage in generalities. Timeless beauty, explosive economic growth, persistent poverty and about a billion people all make for an intense experience if you’re used to the predictable movements of cars and shoppers. One thing that does emerge from the ancient nation’s recent history, though, is the way societies that seem chaotic and disorganized to outsiders actually offer opportunities for their citizens who are willing to act with boldness, imagination and fierce resolve. Gandhi was one such actor, and Vandana Shiva may well be another. Increasingly well-known here as an author and lecturer, her popularity makes her a pain in the neck to proponents of industrial agriculture. (Corporate ag apologist Michael Specter recently honored her with an attack in The New Yorker.) It’s a whole other story back in India, however — there Shiva is a force for change not only among the commentariat but also on the ground. She agitates for legislation and political change at one end of society while leading a movement to empower farmers at the other. Shiva is that rarity in modern life, an intellectual who sees possibilities for action in the world outside her study and moves to set them in motion, working with fellow sojourners to build and sustain a counterforce opposing the corporate status quo over the long haul. On a recent trip to California, Shiva spoke with Acres U.S.A., covering an amazing amount of ground. Readers who need a little context are advised to consult Wikipedia on the Bhopal disaster — a 9/11-scale tragedy linked to agricultural chemicals — in particular and modern Indian history in general.

Read the Interview on EcoFarmingDaily.com (PDF)

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An Investor Presses His Case Against Industrial-Scale Farming

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Author: Andrew Martin

Environmental and animal-rights groups have spent decades arguing against large-scale, intensive livestock facilities, arguing that these so-called factory farms are bad for the environment, farm animals, and human health. A private equity investor is taking a different approach to the same fight.

Jeremy Coller, who founded London’s Coller Capital, is warning investors that ignoring animal welfare and other risks associated with industrial livestock farms can be bad for their bottom line. He created the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return Initiative to create a network of  like-minded investors who consider animal welfare and other factory farm issues in their decisions. Coller, a vegetarian, said the effort is “about materiality,” not morality. “It’s about being a bad investment risk.”

Coller has just released a 31-page report that includes “killer stats investors can’t ignore” about intensive livestock farming. The report doesn’t single out companies for investors to avoid. Instead, he outlines more than two dozen environment, social, and governance issues related to industrial livestock farming that he says pose financial risk. For instance, the report notes that livestock produce greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, threaten human health by creating antibiotic resistant bacteria, and consume vast natural resources, such as land and water.

Consumers, companies, and regulators are already making changes to the market, leading to reductions in reducing antibiotic use and the phasing out gestation crates for sows and battery cages for hens. But he believes investors have been slower to consider the consequences of factory-style farming as part of a responsible investment strategy. “There is a huge knowledge gap for investors,” Coller says. “What we are trying to do is start this network to fill this knowledge gap.”

Keep Reading in Bloomberg

Michael Pollan: What You Should Eat to Be Healthy

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Author: Cole Mellino

A new documentary from Kikim Media based on Michael Pollan’s bestselling book, In Defense of Food, helps consumers navigate a food system complicated by globalization and industrialization.

“I’ve been writing about the food system for a very long time,” Pollan said in the trailer for the new film. “But what I kept hearing from readers was ‘yeah yeah yeah, you told me where the food comes from and how the animals live and everything, but what I want to know is what should I eat.’”

In the film, Pollan attempts to answer that very question: What should I eat to be healthy? He addresses what he has called the “American paradox: the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.”

We’re consuming “edible food-like substances” rather than actual food, Pollan said. By actual food, he means the food people ate for thousands of years before we became dependent on processed foods.

“You don’t have to be a scientist to know how to eat,” said Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University. “Just go around the outside of the supermarket and pick up fruits, vegetables and meat, and stay out of the processed foods, because they’re fun to eat once in a while, but they shouldn’t be daily fare.”

Keep Reading on Alternet

How Regenerative Agriculture Can Go Large-Scale, with the Help of Chickens

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Poultry is a staple of most peoples’ diet. It’s one of the least expensive meats around, and a good source of high quality animal protein (provided it’s non-CAFO and raised on pasture with a natural diet).

But while most are aware of the importance chicken plays in the diet, few are likely to be familiar with the ways poultry production can be optimized.

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, an innovator in the field of regenerative agriculture, has developed an ingenious system that has the potential to transform the way food is grown.

You might be familiar with Joel Salatin and the way he raises pastured chickens. I visited him on his Polyface Farm in Virginia, but Reginaldo has massively improved the method of raising chickens naturally, without the use of any cages.

Reginaldo was born in poverty in Guatemala, just before the beginning of the 36-year long civil war that finally ended in 1996, and overcame tremendous struggles to obtain the finest agriculture education in Guatemala — at the Central National School of Agriculture—where conventional agriculture is the primary focus.

Keep Reading on Mercola Health

The Future of the Organic Movement: Organic 3.0

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Author: Susanna Byrd

Organic is due for a re-haul, according to a recent discussion paper released by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) during the International Organic Exposition held in Goesan, Korea in October. The report, Organic 3.0: For Truly Sustainable Farming and Consumption, proposes the worldwide launch of a new phase of the organic movement.

From the visionary phase of organic agriculture in the early 20th century (termed Organic 1.0) to the acceptance of industry regulation and certification from the 1970s to the present (Organic 2.0), the movement towards sustainable food systems has enjoyed growth and success. By 2015, 82 countries had implemented regulations for organic food systems. By 2013, the global market for organic food was valued at US$72 billion.

Despite these accomplishments, however, organic agriculture currently represents less than 1 percent of global land and food production. The IFOAM report argues that the world must now enter into a new organic paradigm, referred to as Organic 3.0, which would address and resolve shortfalls of the current movement. The ultimate goal of Organic 3.0 is to propel organic agriculture out of its current “niche” role and towards a mainstream acceptance of organic practices, along every node of the supply chain. Organic 3.0 proposes a global effort “positioning organic as a modern, innovative system which puts the results and impacts of farming in the foreground.”

The report repeatedly emphasizes the idea of “true sustainability,” admitting that current organic systems struggle to address issues like fair pricing, new farming technologies, and the important role of smallholder, non-certified farmers.

Keep Reading in Food Tank

Healthy Soils are the Basis for Healthy Food Production

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[ Italiano ]

Healthy soils are the basis for healthy food production. The most widely recognized function of soil is its support for food production. It is the foundation for agriculture and the medium in which nearly all food-producing plants grow. In fact, it is estimated that 95% of our food is directly or indirectly produced on our soils. Healthy soils supply the essential nutrients, water, oxygen and root support that our food-producing plants need to grow and flourish. Soils also serve as a buffer to protect delicate plant roots from drastic fluctuations in temperature.

What is a Healthy Soil?

Soil health has been defined as the capacity of soil to function as a living system. Healthy soils maintain a diverse community of soil organisms that help to control plant disease, insect and weed pests, form beneficial symbiotic associations with plant roots, recycle essential plant nutrients, improve soil structure with positive effects for soil water and nutrient holding capacity, and ultimately improve crop production. A healthy soil also contributes to mitigating climate change by maintaining or increasing its carbon content.

Download the Report from FAO

Unlock the Secrets in the Soil

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Believe it or not, there are a lot of interesting facts about healthy soil. These informative graphics provide a glimpse of just some of those secrets.

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Download the Info Graphic from the USDA NCRS

Download More Info Graphics from the USDA NCRS

Small Scale Farmers Cool the Planet

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Fair World Project: “Small-Scale Farmers Cool the Planet.” A 17-minute documentary highlighting the role of industrial agriculture in climate change while expounding on how small farmers are combating the climate crisis through regenerative organic agriculture.

Watch More Videos on Fair World Project’s Youtube Channel

Take Action: Write President Obama and tell him the time for climate action is now and supporting and safeguarding small farmers is the way to do it.

Pension Funds: Key Players in the Global Farmland Grab

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[ Español| Français |日本語 ]

Large scale agricultural land acquisitions are generating conflicts and controversies around the world. A growing body of reports show that these projects are bad for local communities and that they promote the wrong kind of agriculture for a world in the grips of serious food and environmental crises. 1 Yet funds continue to flow to overseas farmland like iron to a magnet. Why? Because of the financial returns. And some of the biggest players looking to profit from farmland are pension funds, with billions of dollars invested.

Pension funds currently juggle US$23 trillion in assets, of which some US$100 billion are believed to be invested in commodities. Of this money in commodities, some US$5–15 billion are reportedly going into farmland acquisitions. By 2015, these commodity and farmland investments are expected to double.

Pension funds are supposed to be working for workers, helping to keep their retirement savings safe until a later date. For this reason alone, there should be a level of public or other accountability involved when it comes to investment strategies and decisions. In other words, pension funds may be one of the few classes of land grabbers that people can pull the plug on, by sheer virtue of the fact that it is their money. This makes pension funds a particularly important target for action by social movements, labour groups and citizens’ organisations.

The size & weight of pensions

Today, people’s pensions are often managed by private companies on behalf of unions, governments, individuals or employers. These companies are responsible for safeguarding and “growing” people’s pension savings, so that these can be paid out to workers in monthly cheques after they retire. Anyone lucky enough both to have a job and to be able to squirrel away some income for retirement probably has a pension being administered by one firm or another. Globally, this is big money. Pension funds are currently juggling US$23 trillion in assets. 2 The biggest pension funds in the world are those held by governments, such as Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Korea and the US (see Table 1).

Table 1: World’s top 20 pension funds (2010)

Rank

Fund

Country

Total assets (US$ millions)
1 Government Pension Investment Japan

1,315,071
2 Government Pension Fund–Global Norway

475,859
3 ABP Netherlands

299,873
4 National Pension Korea

234,946
5 Federal Retirement Thrift US

234,404
6 California Public Employees US

198,765
7 Local Government Officials Japan

164510
8 California State Teachers US

130,461
9 New York State Common US

125,692
10 PFZW (now PGGM) Netherlands

123,390
11 Central Provident Fund Singapore

122,497
12 Canada Pension Canada

122,067
13 Florida State Board US

114,663
14 National Social Security China

113,716
15 Pension Fund Association Japan

113,364
16 ATP Denmark

111,887
17 New York City Retirement US

111,669
18 GEPF South Africa

110,976
19 Employees Provident Fund Malaysia

109,002
20 General Motors US

99,200

Source: Pensions & Investments, 6 September 2010, P&I/Towers Watson World 300      

Keep Reading in GRAIN

The Solution to Climate Change is in Our Lands

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[ Español | Français | Português ]

A global effort to give small farmers and indigenous communities control over lands is the best hope we have to deal with climate change and feed the world’s growing population.

As governments converge on Lima for the UN Climate Change Conference, the brutal killing of Peruvian indigenous activist Edwin Chota and three other Ashaninka men this past September is shining a spotlight on the connection between deforestation and indigenous land rights. The simple truth is plain to see: the most effective and just way to prevent deforestation and its impacts on the climate is to recognise and respect the sovereignty of indigenous peoples’ over their territories.

Peru’s violent land conflicts also bring into focus another issue of equal importance to climate change that can no longer be ignored: the concentration of farmland in the hands of a few.

Small farms of less than 5 hectares represent 78% of all farms in Peru, but occupy a mere 6% of the country’s agricultural lands. This disturbing figure mirrors the global situation. Worldwide, small farms account for 90% of all farms yet occupy less than a quarter of the agricultural land. This is bad news for the climate.

Just as the dispossession of indigenous peoples of their territories has opened the door to destructive, unsustainable resource extraction, the dispossession of peasants of their lands has laid the basis for an industrial food system that, amongst its many negative effects, is responsible for 44-57% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

Keep Reading on GRAIN