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The United Nations released a whopper of a report today. In the midst of soaring global food and oil prices, the agency let loose a public stunner: World hunger and climate change cannot be solved with industrial farming. So much for seed-giant Pioneer Hi-Bred's "We Feed The World" slogan. Yowch.
The U.N. study makes it clear -- small-scale farmers can double food production in 10-years by using simple farming methods. According the The Guardian, insect-trapping plants in Kenya or weed-eating ducks in Bangladesh's rice paddies may be the way to feed the world's burgeoning population.
"To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available. Today's scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production in regions where the hungry live," says Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report.
De Schutter told the Wall Street Journal that promoting natural farming techniques is the only sustainable way to guard against future food crisis.
"We set up our farming techniques in the 1920s when we thought there would be a never-ending supply of cheap oil," he said. "Developing farming in a way which makes it less addicted to fossil energy is much more promising."
- For more global stories that affect us all, check out the AOL News United Nations site.
The agroecological methods mentioned throughout the report sure sound like organic farming to us, but ag writer Jill Richards says there are subtle differences separating the two terms. Agroecology increases soil quality, biodiversity and can make farms more resilient to climate change, but it also values indigenous farming methods, she says.
"A net global increase in food production alone will not guarantee the end of hunger (as the poor cannot access food even when it is available), and increase in productivity for poor farmers will make a dent in global hunger. Potentially, gains in productivity by smallholder farmers will provide an income to farmers as well, if they grow a surplus of food that they can sell," she writes.
So are we on the verge of an agricultural sea change? asks WSJ reporter Caroline Henshaw.
"As leaders debate how to combat record food prices and producers struggle to meet rapidly growing demand, the world is looking for a new agricultural revolution," Henshaw writes.
We think today's U.N. report might give that revolution the mighty shove it needs.
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3-08-2011 @6:18PM Michael Schmitt said... Mixing animals and food (such as the duck eating the weeds) is a recipe for disaster from a food safety standpoint. The animals carry diseases, and those diseases will be passed on to us down the food chain.
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3-09-2011 @9:32PM steve said... where did you come up with that? you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. so shut up
3-09-2011 @10:13PM Michael Schmitt said... Steve: do a bit of reading and Google "foodborne pathogens animal origin" and read through all of the Journal articles that talk about the association of foodborne illnesses and animals. THAT is why I made the statement that I did. Animals around foods that will not be heat-processed is NOT a good idea.
3-14-2011 @12:54AM Maureen Decombe said... Then by all means, let's go home, everybody. Game over. No go. Give it up.
I love the straw men constructed by think tanks that show up whenever the unsustainable status quo is challenged.
3-14-2011 @1:30AM Michael Schmitt said... Maureen: as a food scientist, my status quo is as safe a food supply to the world as I can make it. If you are for increasing the risk of food borne illnesses in the world in your "status quo changing" world, then I don't want anything to do with you, and neither do the infants, the young, the elderly, or the immunocompromised people of the world. By accepting food at the risk of increasing food borne illness, you just hurt the food supply and the people who consume it. Who needs a safe food supply more? You in your first world nation healthcare system, or people in third world nations who don't have access to life-sustaining healthcare? Don't tell me that you're advocating increasing the risk of food borne illness in a population that can't afford it!!!!!
3-14-2011 @8:30PM Stu said... Michael I think your getting food production and food preparation mixed up here. As for the various bugs ie E Coli etc they are everywhere, and in normal healthy beings in clean environments are part of life. Can it occur, yes, but man has been using animal droppings as fertiliser since the beginning of farming. It all balances it self out in a natural environment
3-30-2011 @7:10PM Michael Schmitt said... Don't take my word for it, then. Take the word of someone working for Marler Clark, the food safety/lawyer firm who successfully sued Jack In The Box for E. coli poisoning: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/03/melons-stand-out-as-produce-safety-problem/
3-09-2011 @1:55PM Charles said... @Michael - Farmers already turn their livestock out to pasture in the crop fields after they have been harvested. Mixing animals with crops is nothing new. Please research before you quote something as fact. Perhaps you meant to formulate your concern as a question?
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3-09-2011 @10:06PM Michael Schmitt said... I'm referring to animal carriers of pathogens that can get into the fresh food supply of human beings. Look up "animal carriers of food pathogens" and you'll see that birds (ducks) carry Salmonella, and many animals carry E. coli, and there are animal reservoirs of Camplylobacter. I placed my statement as a point of concern of mixing animals and foods BEFORE or DURING harvest. Without a heat-kill step on foods, these pathogens could kill people.
You point out that people have been turning out animals AFTER crops have been harvested; that practice is fine in my eyes as the crops won't be growing for another season. Use of manure as a fertilizer is great, as long as the manure has sat around long enough to dry out and kill the bacteria, or the manure has been heat treated to kill E.coli.
Look up spinach, lettuce and other foods that are eaten fresh and you'll see outbreaks associated with them and that in many cases, an animal carried in the pathogen.
I realize I made a statement and not a question; however I see that I need to state it in terms of fresh foods being associated with animals (leafy greens and E.coli and such). It was not meant to say that EVERY case of animals being around food will cause problems, but in fresh foods that aren't heat treated. 1 death from a preventable situation is well worth the caution.
3-30-2011 @8:59PM Michael Schmitt said... Those of us in the food safety industry have issues mixing animals and
ready to eat foods. Take a look at an article from Marler Clark who
specialize in food safety:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/03/melons-stand-out-as-produce-safety-problem/
3-09-2011 @3:14PM J. Stanton said... This is an encouraging first step by the UN, which I applaud.
Now if the UN could somehow persuade the USA to stop oversubsidizing the industrial production of corn, soy, and wheat by giant agribusinesses, we might be able to make some progress.
But as long as we guarantee price supports for a few major "commodity crops" without regard to taste, quality or anything but sheer quantity, we will continue to produce nothing but enormous quantities of commodity crops, at the cost of environmental destruction via topsoil loss, soil depletion, and water contamination.
Consider: our supply of corn so exceeds actual demand, due to subsidies for industrial overproduction, that we are forced to put corn in our gas tanks at a net energy loss ("ethanol")! This is insane.
JS
http://www.gnolls.org
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3-09-2011 @5:01PM SustainableAgEx said... HEY MONSANTO! CARE TO COMMENT?
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3-14-2011 @12:05PM mama asantewaa said... DIVEST MONsatan NOW not later~~
We must grow INDOORS. To keep GMO pollen, chem trails, foraging famine victims, weird weather and the food cops out. FOOD SECURITY. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Josephs-Ark-Initiative-Grow-Food-Indoors-NOW-not-later/211791079278
DIVEST MONsatan NOW not later~~
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