African farmers and their seeds under increasing threat by industrialized agriculture model

[JohnyCanuck]

Africa’s Wealth of Seed Diversity and Farmer Knowledge is Under Threat from the Gates/Rockefeller “Green Revolution” Initiative

Statement from African civil society organisations at the World Social Forum 2007 -Nairobi, Kenya, 25 January 2007

Africa is the source of much of the world's agricultural knowledge and biodiversity. African farming represents a wealth of innovation: for example, Canada's main export wheat is derived from a Kenyan variety called "Kenyan farmer"; the US and Canada grow barley bred from Ethiopian farmers' varieties; and the Zera Zera sorghum grown in Texas originated in Ethiopia and the Sudan. This rich basis of biodiversity still exists in Africa today, thanks to the 80% of farmers in Africa that continue to save seed in a range of diverse eco-systems across the continent.

The future of agriculture for Africa and the world will have to build on this biodiversity and farmers' knowledge, especially in the current context of climate change. The diversity of seed varieties continually developed by African farmers will be vital to ensure that they have the flexibility to respond to changing weather patterns. With the challenges that climate change will bring, only a wealth of seed diversity maintained by farmers in Africa can offer a response to prevent severe food crises.


However, new external initiatives are putting pressure on these agricultural systems. A new initiative from the Bill Gates/Rockefeller Foundation partnership, called the "Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa" (AGRA) is putting over $150 million towards shifting African agriculture to a system dependent on expensive, harmful chemicals, monocultures of hybrid seeds, and ultimately genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Another initiative funded by the G8 is pushing biotechnology in agriculture through four new major Biosciences research centres in Africa. And GM companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta are entering into public-private-partnership agreements with national agricultural research centres in Africa, in order to direct agricultural research and policy towards GMOs. These initiatives under-represent the real achievements in productivity through traditional methods, and will fail to address the real causes of hunger in Africa.

SNIP

This push for a so-called "green revolution" or "gene revolution" is being done once again under the guise of solving hunger in Africa. Chemical-intensive agriculture is, however, already known to be outmoded. We have seen how fertilisers have killed the soil, creating erosion, vulnerable plants and loss of water from the soil. We have seen how pesticides and herbicides have harmed our environment and made us sick. We know that hybrid and GM seed monocultures have pulled farmers into poverty by preventing them from saving seed, and preventing traditional methods of intercropping which provide food security. We vow to learn from our brothers and sisters in India, where this chemical and genetically modified system of agriculture has left them in so much debt and hunger that 150,000 farmers have committed suicide.

http://www.rightoncanada.ca/site/c.juIZLdMOJrE/b.2604715/k.457D/Africa_and_Bill_Gates.htm

Hey Bill and Melinda, if you are lurking, maybe this is where you should be spending your money:

Br. Paul's Organic Cotton and Vegetable Farm

Jesuit brother breaks all the rules he learned in agricultural college, and shows how to bring food security to the world

Brother Paul Desmarais of the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre of Lusaka in Zambia is a happy man. He has just demonstrated that cotton can be grown organically, and furthermore, at yields up to more than twice the national average. That is quite an achievement as cotton is notorious for consuming the most agrochemicals of any crop, some 21 percent of that consumed worldwide; and most people have been led to believe that cotton cannot be grown without chemical sprays.

“I am confident that anyone can grow cotton organically in Zambia”, says Br. Paul, beaming from ear to ear. You need to do only two things: increase the fertility of the soil with organic matter, and put extra local plant species into the cotton fields to control insect pests.”

Plants that are sick or doing poorly will be the first to succumb to insect pests; so keeping a crop healthy with fertile soil reduces insect attacks.

The species inter-planted with the cotton crop are those that attract pests away from the cotton crop or beneficial predators, or provide home for beneficial predators; many species serving both purposes. For example, munsale (sweet sorghum) attracts bollworm and aphids as well as a host of beneficial insects; nyemba (cowpeas) provides a habitat and food source for ants and predatory wasps, and also attracts the pests leafhoppers, aphids and bollworms; sanyembe (sunhemp) is highly attractive to beneficial insects as a border crop and controls nematodes as well. Delele (okra) attracts bollworms, caterpillars and leaf eaters; milisi (maize) traps aphids on tassels and bollworms; mupilu (mustard) attracts beneficial hover flies and parasitic wasps as well as aphids on which they feed. Malanga (sunflower) attracts bollworm moths to lay eggs, and the beneficial lacewings that feed on aphids. A horizontal row containing a mixture of all these were planted for every 20 rows of cotton in the field bordered by sunnhemp on two sides. A host of other species can be planted, adding to the diversity of the farm. A variety of trees, such as Sesbania , Leucaena , and other indigenous species can act as windbreaks and provide habitat for farmers' friends and provide material for composting and making teas.

SNIP

Kasisi has actually been growing organic vegetables several years before, and the results are even more stunning. Land was contracted out to a company which started growing in 2000, the organic yields were 40 to 60 percent those of conventionally grown crops, but increased in successive years while those of convention crops decreased. By 2004, the organics were out-yielding the conventionals by 2 to 3 fold (see Table 4).

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BrPaulsOrganicFarm.php

www.RightonCanada.ca has a campaign to oppose the proposed lifting of a ban on terminator seed technology. The ban is opposed by Canada and other industrialized nations.

BAN TERMINATOR NOW!

1.4 billion people around the world depend on farmer-saved seeds for their survival. The right to save seeds is a crucial part of the human right to food.

But this basic right is threatened by Terminator technology which genetically engineers plants to produce sterile seeds after first harvest and, if introduced, would force farmers to purchase seeds every year from transnational seed corporations.

If allowed to proceed, Terminator technology, would transfer control over the world’s seed supply from the hands of farmers to the monopoly control of large corporations. It would also threaten the biodiversity of agriculture and the health of the planet’s food supply.

“Terminator is a direct assault on farmers and indigenous cultures and on food sovereignty. It threatens the well-being of all rural people, primarily the very poorest,” says Rafael Alegría of Via Campesina, an organization representing over 10 million peasant farmers worldwide.

“ Preventing farmers from re-planting saved seed will increase economic injustice all over the world,” says the World Council of Churches, which has called for action to stop Terminator technology. Tell the Canadian Government to Ban Terminator Technology

Recognizing its inherent dangers, governments attending meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity created an international moratorium on Terminator technology in 2000.

The Canadian Government, however, with the help of Australia, New Zealand and some major biotechnology companies, tried in February 2005 and again in January 2006 to overthrow the moratorium.

We want our Government to put the well-being of people and the environment ahead of corporate profits.

Tell our Government to support the ban on Terminator technology.

http://www.rightoncanada.ca/site/c.juIZLdMOJrE/b.2500197/k.BF03/Home.htm

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Kick n/t

[GliderGuider]

2. Every Canadian should join the NFU

http://www.nfu.ca/

It's a fantastic organization dedicated to family farms, local agriculture, seed saving, food safety and food security. They are opposed to agribusiness, factory farming, GMOs, Terminator seeds, and pushing the Green Revolution into Africa. They are totally Peak Oil aware.

My partner and I are associate (i.e. non-farming) members, and she is manning a booth for them today at a large Ottawa environmental show.