tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/agribusiness-861/articles
Agribusiness – The Conversation
2024-01-16T22:32:37Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220638
2024-01-16T22:32:37Z
2024-01-16T22:32:37Z
Wheat Pool 2.0: The time might be ripe for a revival of Prairie co-ops
<p>When <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/bunge-merge-with-viterra-form-18-billion-agriculture-trader-2023-06-13/">Bunge announced its intention to purchase Viterra</a> — the Regina-based grain handling subsidiary of Swiss mining giant Glencore — in June 2023, it represented another milestone in the slow, but steady, erasure of Saskatchewan’s long history with the wheat pool co-operative.</p>
<p>The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the once-mighty agricultural co-operative that became Viterra, is remembered by its iconic, but decaying, grain elevators that still dot much of the province’s rural landscape.</p>
<p>The timing of the announcement is ironic for two reasons. First, it coincides with what would have been the Wheat Pool’s 100th anniversary. </p>
<p>Second, it’s occurring during a period when Saskatchewan and Prairie farmers are facing power imbalances in the market not dissimilar to those that gave rise to co-operative wheat pools in <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/saskatchewan-wheat-pool">Saskatchewan</a> and <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alberta-wheat-pool">Alberta</a> in 1923, and <a href="https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/business/manitobapool.shtml">Manitoba</a> in 1924.</p>
<p>The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool’s origin story is instructive. As journalist Garry Fairbairn described in the preface to his <a href="https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/36552">book on the Pool’s 60th anniversary</a> in 1983, the Pool was founded by 45,000 farmers engaged in “individual acts of desperation, hope, and faith (that) combined to create an enduring co-operative empire and corporate democracy.” </p>
<p>As Fairbairn goes on to note:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Some organizations, like some calves, are born with casual ease, their arrival scarcely noticed until one sunny morning finds them already routinely grazing on a gentle sloe. Others come only after a raw, hard struggle, a grim rancher straining to pull the calf from a desperate cow. The birth of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was definitely in the second category.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As different as the wheat pool’s origins and Bunge’s purchase may seem, they both represent a response to the same underlying desire: control. Bunge, headquartered in Missouri, wants more of it; the wheat pool founders, based all over the province, wanted some of it.</p>
<h2>Increasingly consolidated industry</h2>
<p>The logic that compels a company like Bunge to integrate Viterra into its supply chain is the same logic that evokes nostalgia among farmers old enough to remember the wheat pools, and action among younger farmers with the energy to do something about it.</p>
<p>Once the Viterra takeover is complete, Bunge will be the top player in Canada’s grain trade (and third in the world), joining a small — <a href="https://www.nfu.ca/bunge-viterra-merger-has-drastic-implications-for-cdn-farmers/">and shrinking</a> — number of companies with market power and the ability to impose prices and shift the risks of the market onto producers.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nfu.ca/bunge-viterra-merger-has-drastic-implications-for-cdn-farmers">top five companies already control 90 per cent</a> of the global grain trade; six of them sell 70 per cent of all agrochemicals and four of those also sell 60 per cent of all the seed.</p>
<p>Already, there are indications — albeit anecdotal — that grain handling firms are exerting market power, with many farmers feeling like they have no choice but to <a href="https://apas.ca/news/listing/one-sided-grain-contracts-need-to-change">sign grain delivery contracts</a> where they end up bearing significant financial risks and most of the costs of climate change and market uncertainty.</p>
<p>The result? Farmers <a href="https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/2023/07/29/read-the-fine-print-caution-needed-in-grain-contracts">owing money on contracts they were unable to fulfill because of events out of their control</a>. </p>
<p>With the rise of <a href="https://www.fao.org/digital-agriculture/en/">digital agriculture</a> and <a href="https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/data-governance-and-regulating-data-in-agriculture/536332">little to no regulations or laws for agricultural data governance in Canada</a>, we could see agricultural data issues as well, as supply firms amass and use data from customers to exert market power.</p>
<h2>The view from Australia</h2>
<p>To get a glimpse into what was lost when the Wheat Pool became Viterra, we can look to Australia. Like Canada, farmers in Australia no longer have a national wheat marketing board. It was eliminated in 2008, a few years before Canada’s. Unlike in Canada, however, <a href="https://www.country-guide.ca/guide-business/australias-approach-to-grain-pools/">Australian farmers held on to their co-operative grain handling company</a>, Co-operative Bulk Handling (CBH).</p>
<p>Well into its 90th year, CBH has prospered despite a difficult operating environment not dissimilar to Canada’s, as well as periodic <a href="https://bccm.coop/about-co-ops-mutuals/case-studies/cbh-group/">challenges to its mutuality</a>. With a 62 per cent share of the grain handling business and AU$4 billion in annual revenue, CBH had a record annual profit of $497 million in 2022 and has reported <a href="https://www.cbh.com.au/media-releases/2023/10/best-year-on-record-for-cbh-supply-chain">record-breaking supply chain performance</a> for its 2023 harvest.</p>
<p>Those results belong to CBH’s Australian farmer-members. <a href="https://www.cbh.com.au/our-co-operative/what-we-do">CBH’s success</a> can be attributed to its efforts to support its members by investment in the infrastructure — rail transport, port terminals, marketing, exporting and processing — needed to lower grain handling costs for its producer members. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in shorts, a tee-shirt and a baseball hat standing in a field of wheat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569151/original/file-20240112-19-32g57e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A grain farmer tests wheat for moisture before harvest in Moree, a major agricultural area in New South Wales, Australia, in November 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, CBH says average post-farmgate costs for its members are <a href="https://www.country-guide.ca/guide-business/australias-approach-to-grain-pools/">15 per cent lower</a> than for Australian farmers who rely on multinational corporations — including companies like Bunge and Viterra — for storage, movement, marketing and export. </p>
<p>Through CBH, Australian farmers don’t just have a powerful corporate entity looking out for their financial interests, but a company that can help them navigate government lobbying and relationships with agricultural input providers and their growing arsenal of data being used to power artificial intelligence applications.</p>
<h2>Co-operative green shoots</h2>
<p>Of course, Canada’s agriculture sector today is vastly different than it was when the wheat pool came into being. While there are places in rural Prairies Canada that are prospering — especially those proximate to urban centres — the <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220511/dq220511a-eng.htm">long-term trends remain</a>. </p>
<p>These trends include dwindling populations, aging farmers, increasing farm size as producers pursue scale to amass some negotiating power (competing with <a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-farmland-inequality-in-the-prairies-poses-problems-for-all-canadians-196777">investors buying up shares of farmland</a>), and increasing challenges for anyone or any producer left behind.</p>
<p>But while perhaps dormant, the co-operative impulse is not gone and may indeed be ripe for a reawakening. There are some promising signs in both old and new technologies and from existing farmer co-operatives.</p>
<p>In Alberta, farmers have worked together to purchase their own <a href="https://battleriverrailway.ca/">short-line railway</a> to ensure they could continue to ship their crops at reasonable prices. In the Platte region of Nebraska, farmers have organized a <a href="https://www.gisc.coop/nebraska-tpnrd/">data co-operative</a> to measure, count, aggregate and interpret data on their water usage. </p>
<p>In western Canada in 2010, a group of independent seed, crop protection and fertilizer retailers came together to form a co-operative — now called <a href="https://www.winfieldunited.ca/en/">WinField United Canada</a> — and a division of Land O'Lakes, one of the largest agricultural co-operatives in the United States.</p>
<p>For farmers and policymakers, the lesson should be clear: even as Saskatchewan contemplates the loss of another corporate sector headquarters, perhaps the best hope for the future of the province’s economy and its farmers can be found by looking back to the past and an organizational model that when governed properly, is rooted, resilient and responsive.</p>
<p><em>Jeremy Welter co-authored this article. He is a fourth-generation farmer, small-business owner and director on the board of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc-Andre Pigeon receives funding from the co-operative and credit union sectors as well as funding from government funding bodies for his research into co-operatives and credit unions. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Kallio receives funding from the co-operative and credit union sectors as well as from government funding bodies for research into co-operatives.</span></em></p>
One hundred years after the founding of the once-mighty Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the time might be ripe for a revival of Prairie farmer co-operatives.
Marc-Andre Pigeon, Assistant Professor, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan
Natalie Kallio, Professional Research Associate, Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, University of Saskatchewan
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206138
2023-06-05T10:02:28Z
2023-06-05T10:02:28Z
Farming in South Africa is being hobbled by power cuts and poor roads. Rural towns are being hit hardest
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529353/original/file-20230531-19-u3v1t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The cost of irrigation adds to the farmers' burden.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s agriculture has had <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0441/P04414thQuarter2022.pdf">great consecutive seasons</a> since 2019/20. The sector’s gross value added grew by <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0441/P04414thQuarter2022.pdf#page=11">14.9% in 2020, 8.8% in 2021 and modestly by 0.3% in 2022 </a>. This was primarily supported by favourable weather conditions.</p>
<p>The current season is also likely to deliver <a href="https://wandilesihlobo.com/2023/05/16/farm-jobs/">solid growth for the sector</a>, with variation across sub-sectors. We already see <a href="https://wandilesihlobo.com/2023/05/25/a-solid-maize-harvest-in-south-africa/">prospects of large crops across the country</a>.</p>
<p>Export performance is likely be robust, especially with a <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/687925/heres-why-the-rand-is-so-weak-right-now/">weaker rand exchange rate</a>, which makes South African products more competitively priced in the global market.</p>
<p>Still, the sector is not reaching its full potential. A number of factors stand in the way of even greater successes and greater participation of black farmers in commercial value chains.</p>
<p>The first factor to mention is worsening power cuts. The agricultural sector is heavily reliant on energy. For example, recent work by the agriculture and food policy research group, the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy shows that <a href="https://theconversation.com/farmers-in-south-africa-face-power-cuts-and-a-weak-rand-but-a-number-of-factors-are-working-in-their-favour-too-204243">roughly a third of South Africa’s farming income depends directly on irrigation</a>, which requires power. </p>
<p>But that’s not the only challenge. Deteriorating roads, collapsing water infrastructure and rising crime are barriers to functioning effectively and efficiently. </p>
<p>These are not new issues. They have been flagged before. But they have worsened. They are a challenge for large commercial farmers as well as smaller farming enterprises. The emerging or new entrant black farmers, with limited financial resources, face it more acutely. </p>
<p>These challenges highlight the effects of weak governance across all spheres of government in South Africa. It is serious for all sectors, but particularly so for agriculture, which depends on the proper functioning of essentials such as roads, water and power. </p>
<p>Provincial governments and municipalities have not maintained or upgraded infrastructure that would support agriculture. </p>
<p>The results of this neglect, over time, are likely to lead to declining economic conditions and employment opportunities in small towns. Farming and agribusiness play a crucial role in <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-towns-are-collapsing-across-south-africa-how-its-starting-to-affect-farming-162697">sustaining the economies of small towns and rural areas</a>. Paying attention to infrastructure could catalyse a virtual cycle in which the private sector increases investment, in turn leading to increased economic opportunities.</p>
<h2>Roadblocks facing farmers</h2>
<p>The impact that poor roads have on farmers is well illustrated by a recent case in the Eastern Cape province. <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/letters/2023-05-16-letter-agriculture-in-a-pothole/">Dairy farmers</a> in the Ncorha area struggled to receive farm supplements, feeds and diesel because of the poor state of roads. And they couldn’t deliver their produce to the market. </p>
<p>Ncorha is a small region in the Chris Hani District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. One of its vital economic activities is farming, primarily the dairy industry. The Eastern Cape accounts for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-30-a-sleeping-giant-agriculture-in-eastern-cape/">nearly a third of South Africa’s dairy production</a>. </p>
<p>Poor infrastructure is not isolated to the Eastern Cape. <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-towns-are-collapsing-across-south-africa-how-its-starting-to-affect-farming-162697">Roads across the rural towns</a> of the Free State, North West, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, all of which are major agricultural provinces, are also poorly maintained and are in a bad condition.</p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.sagis.org.za/monthly-grain-transport.html">two-thirds</a> of South Africa’s agricultural produce is now transported by roads, as rail transport has faced challenges over the years. This is a major change from two decades ago when <a href="https://www.sagis.org.za/monthly-grain-transport.html">rail played an important role in transporting agricultural produce, specifically grains</a>.</p>
<p>The poor road network has forced some farmers to pay for road maintenance. They have not been able to reap the full benefit of higher agricultural output because they’re incurring additional operating costs. Farmers have to step in when municipalities <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-towns-are-collapsing-across-south-africa-how-its-starting-to-affect-farming-162697">misuse funds</a> allocated for infrastructure. Details of this have appeared in numerous <a href="https://mfma-2022.agsareports.co.za/pages/media#media-release">Auditor General reports</a>.</p>
<p>Water has often been flagged by various agribusinesses and farmers as another major problem. Key is the maintenance of <a href="https://theconversation.com/basic-water-services-in-south-africa-are-in-decay-after-years-of-progress-185616">water infrastructure</a> such as dams and purification systems. Agribusinesses in some towns have had to step in and maintain water infrastructure. This again takes financial and human capital away from businesses to public service that municipalities should be covering.</p>
<p>Agribusinesses and farmers are also seeing a rise in corruption and crime. Commercial farming businesses have had to tighten security over the years at their own cost because of lawlessness in rural South Africa. <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2022-11-19-syndicates-are-behind-stock-theft-in-south-africa/">Harvest and livestock theft</a> affect all farmers and are much harder for new entrant farmers without a strong financial position to invest in security and technical solutions. Again, having to tighten security shifts resources from more productive uses to cover for the government’s shortcomings.</p>
<h2>Why strong agricultural sector matters</h2>
<p>South Africa faces a high unemployment rate at just <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02111stQuarter2023.pdf#page=6">under 33% in the first quarter of 2023</a>. Rural areas tend to face the harsh effects of the poor economic conditions.</p>
<p>Resolving the unemployment crisis requires that all economic sectors perform optimally, especially the primary sectors with an ability to absorb even the least skilled labour. Agriculture is one such sector, while agribusiness and agro-processing also present a range of employment opportunities. </p>
<p>But all these hinge on effective provision of public services such as roads, water and electricity. In turn, these depend on strong provincial governments and municipalities.</p>
<p>The recently launched <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/220607Agriculture_and_Agro-processing_Master_Plan_Signed.pdf">Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan</a> presents practical steps for implementing <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/devplan2.pdf">Chapter Six of the National Development Plan</a>, which outlined a vision for developing the agricultural sector further. </p>
<p>Weaknesses of the provincial government and municipalities are undermining the <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/220607Agriculture_and_Agro-processing_Master_Plan_Signed.pdf">government’s plans</a> to expand agricultural output and resolve inefficiencies within the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.</p>
<p>These weaknesses are also hindering the economic vision for South Africa <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/ramaphosa-laments-poor-governance-at-municipal-level-7b89bf3d-db67-4a35-b3d3-21540c6b8e58">set out by President Cyril Ramaphosa</a>. </p>
<p>Addressing local government failures should be a top priority for the presidency. Rural towns and communities support millions of people and are currently in despair.</p>
<p>Public-private sector partnerships can also be considered to help tackle some of these challenges. Models of how these can work are outlined in various master plans and need commitment and effective leadership.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).</span></em></p>
South Africa’s agriculture could do even better but is held back by power cuts and poor infrastructure
Wandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201495
2023-03-30T13:55:10Z
2023-03-30T13:55:10Z
Catfish in Nigeria: we set about finding ways of making it more appealing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517860/original/file-20230328-16-83nr91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cooking catfish for the working class can be time-consuming because of the preparation process.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/october-2021-mecklenburg-western-pomerania-rostock-african-news-photo/1236675591?adppopup=true">Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>African catfish (<em>Clarias</em> <em>gariepinus</em>) farming has become a popular agricultural business sector in Nigeria. This is because the species can adapt to a wide range of temperatures and to low oxygen and low salinity levels. <a href="https://animals.mom.com/effects-low-salinity-levels-fish-11549.html">Salinity</a> refers to the salt content of water. And the fish matures in about six months. Nigeria is now <a href="https://thefishsite.com/articles/nigerian-catfish">the largest producer of catfish in the world</a> and the livelihoods of millions depends on it. </p>
<p>Despite being the highest producer of African catfish, <a href="http://eprints.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/3561/#.ZCKiAnZBzIU">the country is still struggling to bridge the gap</a> between consumer demand and fish supply. The country’s annual fish demand is 3.6 million metric tonnes, but only 1.2 million tonnes is produced domestically. The shortfall is usually met through <a href="https://punchng.com/2-4-million-metric-tonnes-fish-imports-depleting-nigerias-forex-fg/">importing frozen fish</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://punchng.com/2-4-million-metric-tonnes-fish-imports-depleting-nigerias-forex-fg/">About 2.5 million tonnes</a> of frozen fish is imported into Nigeria annually to meet demand. This depletes the country’s revenue. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1477-9552.12423">Imported fish is expensive</a>.</p>
<p>One way to support and boost the local catfish production industry would be to improve the processing and packaging of the fish. </p>
<p>Though catfish is popular, preparing and cooking it is not easy. It takes time and patience to remove the slime from the flesh. And processed products such as dried catfish are not always appealing to urban consumers and foreigners in or outside the country. </p>
<p>What’s needed, then, is a way of processing it that adds value to the fish and makes it more attractive for both domestic consumption and export. </p>
<p>We did an experiment to establish if the fish could be canned in a way that would make it appealing to more people. If we could establish a way of preserving the fish it might attract investors, generate employment and help meet the food demands of the growing population. </p>
<h2>Canning catfish</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ijfsab.com/index.php/fsab/article/view/162">Our research</a> was conducted for several purposes: to add value to African catfish; reduce reliance on expensive imported fish; create employment; increase accessibility to protein all year round; create a Nigerian brand; encourage small and medium scale industries; and promote agribusiness and bioeconomy. These aims are aligned with sustainable development goals. The research was not patented because our team is interested in promoting agribusiness in Nigeria. </p>
<p>We canned catfish in tomato sauce with turmeric, known as <em>ata ile pupa</em> in the Yoruba language. <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/turmeric-benefits">Turmeric</a> is a deep, golden-orange spice known for adding colour, flavour and nutrition to foods. A relative of ginger, turmeric comes from the rhizome (root) of a native Asian plant and has been used in cooking for hundreds of years. The turmeric was used as a spice and a bio-preservative. </p>
<p>Catfish were slaughtered and washed in hot salty water to remove the slime. The fish were cut into chunks, gutted, washed, cooked and drained. The chunks were placed in cans and boiled tomato paste containing turmeric was added to fill the can to the brim. The cans were sealed and sterilised in an autoclave for 30 minutes under pressure at 121°C. Cooking at this temperature was done to ensure safety and prevent spoilage.</p>
<h2>Safely preserved</h2>
<p>The canned African catfish was evaluated for safety and spoilage during the period of storage. Canned fish stored at room temperature and elevated temperature (40°C, as is sometimes experienced in Nigeria) were both safe and their qualities conformed to specified standards. This means that it cannot cause illness when consumed and the fish will not get spoilt. After three weeks on the shelf the fish was still safe for consumption. Further work should be done to evaluate the products for an extended period.</p>
<p>The canned catfish samples were also presented to people for evaluation to determine consumer acceptability. All samples compared favourably with the most popular commercial brand available on the market. </p>
<p>The data obtained from this research showed that African catfish can be canned in tomato sauce and still maintain an acceptable taste, colour, aroma and appearance. The analyses conducted also confirmed that there was no spoilage and the products were safe for consumption. </p>
<h2>Benefits and opportunities</h2>
<p>Canned catfish can provide nutrition for people living in urban areas who have little or no time to prepare food. They can use it to prepare stew or soup or eat it with bread or yam as part of a balanced diet. The products contained no chemical preservatives.</p>
<p>Canning of African catfish could provide work and trade opportunities for small and medium scale operators.</p>
<p>We plan to work more on increasing the shelf life of the product, to make it more marketable and acceptable. Microbial and other analysis will be considered beyond three weeks of storage. Then we will be ready to introduce this product onto the global market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malomo Adekunbi Adetola works for Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile - Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. She receives funding from Carnegie and Dutch Government.
</span></em></p>
African catfish can be prepared for sale in canned form, which is more attractive to consumers.
Malomo Adekunbi Adetola, Lecturer in Food Science and Technology, Obafemi Awolowo University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196777
2023-02-28T19:47:11Z
2023-02-28T19:47:11Z
Growing farmland inequality in the Prairies poses problems for all Canadians
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512091/original/file-20230223-20-aqfkhr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=113%2C5%2C3874%2C2323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research found that investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan was negligible in 2002, but by 2018 had climbed to nearly one million acres — almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/growing-farmland-inequality-in-the-prairies-poses-problems-for-all-canadians" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Real estate is a hot topic in Canada. Most Canadians are acutely aware of how home prices and rents have <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-study-reveals-intensified-housing-inequality-in-canada-from-1981-to-2016-173633">skyrocketed in the last 15 years or so</a>. In large cities, investor ownership of condos and houses has attracted the attention of policymakers and the public at large, prompting <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/who-s-exempt-from-canada-s-foreign-homebuyers-ban-here-s-what-you-need-to-know-1.6214997">the federal government to crack down on foreign buyers</a>. </p>
<p>While many are familiar with these urban real estate trends, few are aware of the <a href="https://www.landfoodsovereignty.ca/podcast">restructuring of farmland ownership occurring in rural areas</a>. Since 2014, we’ve been studying changing land tenure patterns in the Prairies, where 70 per cent of Canada’s agricultural land is situated. </p>
<p>Our research reveals three major trends — ongoing farm consolidation, increasing land concentration and expanding investor ownership of farmland — leading to <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/concentration-matters">growing land inequality</a>. Like the transformation of urban real estate, who benefits from these changes is highly contested.</p>
<h2>Investor interest in farmland</h2>
<p>Investor purchases of farmland worldwide increased significantly as part of the <a href="https://grain.org/article/entries/93-seized-the-2008-landgrab-for-food-and-financial-security">global landgrab spurred by the food price spikes</a> of 2007 and 2008. High food prices, a growing global demand for food and environmental pressures <a href="https://www.producer.com/news/dont-farm-just-own/">convinced many global investors that farmland was a safe bet</a> in an increasingly volatile world. </p>
<p>As hedge funds, pension funds and wealthy individuals poured billions of dollars into farmland, researchers like us began to write about the financialization of agriculture — that is, the growing influence of financial players and financial motives over farming and food production.</p>
<p>Our research found that investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan was negligible in 2002, but had climbed to nearly one million acres by 2018 — almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon. (A million acres is about 4,050 square kilometres). While Saskatchewan sought to <a href="https://docs.legassembly.sk.ca/legdocs/Bills/27L4S/Bill27-187.pdf">tighten rules on farmland ownership in 2016</a>, this seems to have done little to slow down the pace of investor acquisitions. </p>
<p>Robert Andjelic, an investor from Alberta, is <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-farmland-ownership-canada-andjelic/">now Canada’s largest farmland owner</a> with <a href="https://andjelic.ca/">225,435 acres in 92 Saskatchewan rural municipalities</a>. His company leases farmland to dozens of farmers and undertakes “land improvements,” such as clearing trees, brush and other natural habitat, as well as filling in wetlands in order to farm from corner to corner of every parcel.</p>
<p>Another major investor is <a href="https://www.avenuelivingam.com/fund/agricultural-land-trust/">Avenue Living</a>, which has a foot in both urban real estate (as the owner of multi-family housing units across North America) and farmland, with a portfolio of some 83,000 acres.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A map of Saskatchewan showing the land holdings of investors and farmer-investor hybrids in blue" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512089/original/file-20230223-20-u1qbht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Land holdings (in blue) of investors and farmer-investor hybrids in Saskatchewan in 2018. Collectively, these entities owned 969,769 acres across the province.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarina Gersher with data from Information Services Corporation)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As investors gobble up more land, there is growing unease among farmers. <a href="https://bonnefield.com/farmers/">Investors argue they are helping farmers</a> by relieving them of their assets and providing young farmers with
access to land through rental agreements. Given that, on average, investors <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/who-buying-farm">pay more for land compared to other buyers</a>, these deep-pocketed buyers have undoubtedly contributed to the rapid increase of farmland prices.</p>
<p>In our <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62251c157af1ef4305dfdfe6/t/633b97a841d091158b52bcca/1664849835129/Wild+West+Report+2022+%281%29.pdf">survey of 400 prairie farmers</a>, 76 per cent of farmers under 35 indicated that non-farmer investor activity has had a negative or very negative effect on the local farmland market. 83.2 per cent of older farmers indicated that investor activity has had negative or very negative impact on the local community. </p>
<p>Farmers also expressed unease about the growing economic clout of large farmers (over 10,000 acres) and mega-farms (over 30,000 acres) in the region.</p>
<h2>Mega-farms keep accumulating land</h2>
<p>Investors are not the only entities with vast landholdings. Some of Saskatchewan’s largest grain farms now own and control tens of thousands of acres. According to our research, Monette Farms owned some 63,000 acres of land in 2018, and farms much more than that with <a href="https://monettefarms.ca/about/">production sites in Montana, Arizona and Saskatchewan</a>. </p>
<p>One Organic Farms <a href="https://www.oneorganicfarm.com/ourstory">reportedly operates on a land base of 40,000 acres</a>, with the large majority of the land rented from Andjelic Land Inc., Saskatchewan’s largest investor-owner. </p>
<p>In-depth interviews with over 100 farmers in <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1993/35283">Alberta</a>, <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1993/35780">Saskatchewan</a> and <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1993/35482">Manitoba</a> revealed many are deeply concerned about the environmental degradation wrought by big agriculture. Others argued these players out-compete locals for farmland and contribute little to local communities.</p>
<h2>Why should city dwellers care?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/uneven-ground-land-inequality-heart-unequal-societies">Land inequality has significant implications</a> for the vibrancy of democracy, the viability of rural communities and the sustainability of agriculture.</p>
<p>Accessing land is currently the <a href="https://doi.org/10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.288">biggest barrier for young and new farmers</a> who want to get into farming and land prices continue <a href="https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/finance_in_the_fields">to soar above what is justified by its productive value</a>. At the same time, <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3210005101">farm debt is the highest it’s ever been</a> and the prairies are experiencing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10353-y">an emptying out of the countryside</a>. </p>
<p>We should also be concerned about the financialized logic promoted by investors and mega-farmers, which seeks to extract monetary value from every square inch of farmland.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Overhead view of two tractors harvesting wheat in a huge field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512092/original/file-20230223-26-huby4v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agriculture is a significant contributor to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given that agriculture is a <a href="https://www.nfu.ca/publications/agricultural-greenhouse-gas-emissions-in-canada-2nd-edition/">significant contributor to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions</a>, doubling-down on this hyper-productive, fossil-fuel dependent model will only make it harder for Canada to meet its <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050.html">climate change commitment</a>.</p>
<p>The question is: what kind of agriculture do Canadians want? Growing land inequality undermines the social, economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture. </p>
<p>Progressive agrarian and food movements <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/pages/LongFoodMovement">propose a different future</a> — one based on food sovereignty. This would entail equitable access to land for farmers, sustainable livelihoods and valuing farmland for its social and ecological worth, as well as its productive value. </p>
<p>As the climate crisis intensifies, there has never been a better time for urban and rural Canadians to work together to transform food systems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annette Desmarais receives funding from the Canada Research Chair Program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>André Magnan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>
Farm consolidation, increasing land concentration and expanding investor ownership of farmland is leading to growing land inequality in the Canadian Prairies.
Annette Desmarais, Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty, University of Manitoba
André Magnan, Associate Professor, Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198796
2023-02-17T11:59:30Z
2023-02-17T11:59:30Z
Africa’s agribusiness sector should drive the continent’s economic development: Five reasons why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508061/original/file-20230203-24-k9czvf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Agriculture is still largely manual in a several parts of the continent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Sheperd/CIFOR</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa’s agriculture sector <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/bo092e/bo092e.pdf">accounts</a> for about 35% of the continent’s gross domestic product, and provides the <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16624/769900WP0SDS0A00Box374393B00PUBLIC0.pdf">livelihood of more than 50%</a> of the continent’s population. These shares are more than double those of the world average and much higher than those of any other emerging region. </p>
<p>Dependence on agriculture has declined in other emerging regions. For example in Southeast Asia, <a href="https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/Books/2022/English/SAPTRG.ashx">agriculture’s share of GDP</a> dropped from 30-35% in 1970 to 10-15% in 2019. In Africa it has remained unchanged for decades, according to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS">World Bank data</a>.
At the same time, Africa’s agriculture sector is the world’s least developed, with the lowest levels of labour and land productivity. Value added per worker in agriculture is about a quarter of the world’s average and less than a fifth of China’s. </p>
<p>The sector is dominated by smallholders, producing mainly for their own consumption. They operate well below minimum efficient scale and scope. <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.36.1.33">Average farm size</a> in Sub-Saharan Africa is 1.3 hectares, compared with 22 hectares in Central America, 51 hectares in South America and 186 hectares in North America, according to International Fund for Agricultural Development <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.36.1.33">data</a>. </p>
<p>Average farm machinery use in Africa is the <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/i0219e/i0219e00.pdf">lowest in the world</a> and has increased only very slightly since the 1960s.</p>
<p>Against this backdrop, the development of the agribusiness sector holds enormous potential to foster Africa’s economic development. For this to happen, the productivity of Africa’s agribusiness must rise. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-has-the-power-to-boost-farming-in-africa-but-a-lot-has-to-change-78489">Science has the power to boost farming in Africa. But a lot has to change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My <a href="https://rdcu.be/c07eD">research</a> on Africa’s economic prospects has led me to believe that agribusiness offers African countries the most promising path for development and a shift towards higher value-added activities. This is the first step towards economic development. </p>
<p>There are five reasons why agribusiness should drive Africa’s economic development. </p>
<h2>Why agriculture should be the focus</h2>
<p>Firstly, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Africa">Africa</a> has abundant land. Agribusiness might be its foremost source of comparative advantage. Africa’s <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/africa-dwarfs-china-europe-and-the-u-s/">land size</a> is larger than China, India, the US and most of Europe combined. More than half is arable land, suitable for crop growing. The weather in different parts of Africa provides perfect conditions for the growth of various crops. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-youth-and-abundant-arable-land-are-a-potential-winning-combination-48855">Africa's youth and abundant arable land are a potential winning combination</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Secondly, agriculture has huge potential for adding value, and Africa has comparative advantages in this sector. Also, most African countries export commodities and raw materials and import finished goods. Ghana, for example, exports cocoa and imports high value-added chocolate; Kenya exports tea leaves and imports expensive branded tea. Nigeria and Angola have some of the world’s largest oil resources, but lack refining capacity and depend on imports for their energy consumption. </p>
<p>Africa’s dependence on imports for its consumption is the <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/09/26/africa-food-prices-are-soaring-amid-high-import-reliance">highest in the world</a> as a share of its GDP. The development of agribusiness is fundamental for Africa’s ability to ensure food security. </p>
<p>Upgrading to activities that add more value in agriculture often requires less advanced technology than in manufacturing industries. Compare the technology of producing spare parts for the automobile industry with that needed to produce tea bags. </p>
<p>Thirdly, agribusiness is attractive because there are ready markets for its output. Africa has vast local markets for food. Agribusiness producers can sell much of their output in local markets. This enables local farming operations to grow and become more sophisticated in a less competitive environment before expanding internationally. Regional integration via the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/agreement-establishing-african-continental-free-trade-area">African Continental Free Trade Agreement</a> greatly increases these opportunities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-and-south-africa-are-working-to-address-trade-barriers-where-to-start-194310">Kenya and South Africa are working to address trade barriers: where to start</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In export markets, Africa’s agribusiness products are likely to benefit from the continent’s reputation for high-quality natural resources. Ghana’s cocoa is considered as some of the world’s best, as are Kenya’s tea and coffee. </p>
<p>Fourth, African countries need to develop their agricultural sector also because they are unlikely to follow the traditional development paths. Many other emerging markets developed through industrialisation and export-driven manufacturing. Growth led by manufacturing needs infrastructure; Africa’s infrastructure is poor. This growth model is also threatened by automation and robotics that replace labour, and by growing protectionism in the world’s major markets. </p>
<p>With a few exceptions, such as Ethiopia and Morocco, most African countries have failed to establish a significant manufacturing sector, despite political efforts. A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07900627.2020.1739512">study</a> showed that most African people who leave agriculture turn to low-skill, low-productivity services rather than to manufacturing. In 2022, manufacturing employment accounted for slightly over 10% of sub-Saharan Africa employment, the smallest share of any emerging region according to <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.IND.EMPL.ZS">World Bank data</a>. Nor did the flow of low-wage manufacturing jobs out of China trigger the development of Africa’s manufacturing sector. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chinese-imports-could-undermine-ethiopian-manufacturing-leaving-women-workers-worst-off-195730">Chinese imports could undermine Ethiopian manufacturing - leaving women workers worst off</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Yet another reason to pay more attention to Africa’s agribusiness is that it is at the forefront of environmental challenges and global warming. Drastic changes in rainfall and weather patterns change what can grow where, and increase the importance of efficiency of land use. It is important to understand the consequences of these changes so that they can be managed effectively. </p>
<p>Africa’s agribusiness must develop in order for the continent to develop economically. Its strengths and weaknesses make agribusiness the most significant sector to drive its overall economic development. Policy makers, educators and researchers should take note. Done right, the economic gains of developing Africa’s agribusiness will be enormous.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lilac Nachum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Average farm machinery use in Africa is among the lowest in the world.
Lilac Nachum, Visiting Professor at Strathmore Business School ;Professor of International Business, City University New York, City University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173154
2021-12-06T04:19:30Z
2021-12-06T04:19:30Z
Australia’s agriculture sector sorely needs more insights from First Nations people. Here’s how we get there
<p>Much of the debate on Indigenous agriculture in Australia has focused on a contested pre-colonial <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-dark-emu-debate-limits-representation-of-aboriginal-people-in-australia-163006">definition</a> as to whether Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people deserve the English title of “farmer”. </p>
<p>However this view stifles the real story of Indigenous engagement in Western agriculture. It also fails to recognise the inherent need for Indigenous peoples’ involvement in the sector.</p>
<p>In 2020, the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment conducted a series of roundtables to develop the <a href="https://www.awe.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/national-agricultural-workforce-strategy.pdf">National Agriculture Workforce Strategy</a>. </p>
<p>The strategy noted the urgency of transforming the agricultural workforce into a “complex, modern, sophisticated sector”. </p>
<p>There is no doubt the agricultural workforce is changing.</p>
<p>However, there’s a worryingly unsophisticated understanding of workforce diversity within the sector – especially in terms of Indigenous involvement in agriculture.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-peoples-are-crucial-for-conservation-a-quarter-of-all-land-is-in-their-hands-99742">Indigenous peoples are crucial for conservation – a quarter of all land is in their hands</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Agriculture must connect with Indigenous people</h2>
<p>There is a critical and overdue need for agriculture to connect with Indigenous people.</p>
<p>This is best demonstrated through the Indigenous land holdings across the nation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2021/may/17/who-owns-australia">The Guardian Australia</a> recently noted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people own up to 54.17% of Australia’s landmass. </p>
<p>This is comparable to the <a href="https://www.niaa.gov.au/indigenous-affairs/land-and-housing">National Indigenous Australians Agency</a> estimate of Indigenous land ownership, which puts the figure at around 40%.</p>
<p>This extensive landholding by First Nations people is an essential component of the continued practice of agriculture in Australia. But despite Indigenous people owning these vast areas of land, only <a href="https://www.awe.gov.au/abares/products/insights/snapshot-of-australias-agricultural-workforce">1%</a> of the agricultural workforce identify as Indigenous.</p>
<p>This rate is unacceptably low, given <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/estimates-and-projections-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-australians/latest-release">3.3% of Australia’s population more broadly identify as Indigenous</a>.</p>
<p>The National Agriculture Workforce Strategy identifies solutions to this lack of Indigenous workforce. Solutions such as promoting Indigenous people in agriculture through marketing, and fostering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in this sector.</p>
<p>However, these proposed strategies fail to acknowledge broader concerns about inadequate Indigenous representation in the sector.</p>
<h2>Better data and a pipeline of Indigenous graduates</h2>
<p>To date, there has been no concerted effort across the agriculture sector to understand the size and scale of current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander involvement, nor their agricultural production.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/2020-21-agricultural-census">Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Agriculture Census</a> does not provide the opportunity for farmers to identify as Indigenous. Agriculture research and development corporations usually don’t collect these data, either.</p>
<p>There are also pipeline issues regarding Indigenous involvement in the sector. A recent study of 15 years of data by one of us (<a href="https://acda.edu.au/resources/IndigenousStudentsDoNotChooseAgricultureAtUniversity.pdf">James Pratley</a>) demonstrated universities had a low attraction and retention rate for Indigenous students. Fewer than five Indigenous students graduate in agriculture across Australia each year.</p>
<p>Despite the lack of university graduates, Australia has a <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/statistical-overview-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples-australia">growing Indigenous youth demographic</a>, which could contribute to a much-needed workforce in future.</p>
<p>To encourage Indigenous people to enter agriculture, we need to show Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people belong in the sector. They need to feel welcome in our universities and TAFEs and we must better support those entering the industry.</p>
<p>Charles Sturt University has developed an <a href="https://www.csu.edu.au/office/advancement/giving-to-csu/active-funds/indigenous-agriculture-initiative">Indigenous agriculture initiative</a> drawing attention to the lack of Indigenous agriculture graduates. It also provides Indigenous students scholarships to study agriculture and/or do postgraduate research on aspects of Indigenous agriculture.</p>
<p>This provides Indigenous people with a pathway into agricultural industries and shows Indigenous people what opportunities exist.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1412194525385162752"}"></div></p>
<h2>Attracting and retaining Indigenous talent</h2>
<p>It’s also imperative larger agricultural companies develop <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation-action-plans/">Reconciliation Action Plans</a> (detailed, long-term strategies to meaningfully advance reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within an organisation). Big firms must also start or renew their efforts towards building more diverse workforces and supply chains.</p>
<p>Over <a href="https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation-action-plans/">1,100 Australian organisations have followed this path</a>.</p>
<p>Agricultural companies such as <a href="https://www.incitecpivot.com.au/%7E/media/Files/IPL/Sustainability/2021-2023-IPL-Innovate-RAP_R6-FIN-web.pdf">Incitec Pivot</a>, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-22/obe-organic-leading-the-way-in-reconciliation-/100307874">OBE Organics</a> and <a href="https://www.bayer.com.au/sites/bayer_com_au/files/Bayer%2520RAP-Final.pdf">Bayer</a> have recently developed Reconciliation Action Plans. Other agricultural businesses and industries need to ensure their houses are in order too. </p>
<p>Reconciliation Action Plans provide a pathway for organisations to advance reconciliation across their business. This can be done through identified actions such as increasing Indigenous staff and initiatives for staff. Organisations are accountable for these actions through the Reconciliation Action Plan they develop. </p>
<p>As these Reconciliation Action Plans mature, employers in the agricultural sector will seek out Indigenous talent to meet targets and to crucially provide new perspectives.</p>
<p>Indigenous people’s input and talent is vital to modernising the agricultural sector. There is a huge opportunity to build employment pipelines from schools through universities into the broader agrifood industry. </p>
<p>A clear understanding of the size and scale of current Indigenous agricultural contributions is sorely needed. </p>
<p>Industry leaders who work to establish and grow the talent pipelines and develop Reconciliation Action Plans will reap the rewards.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-law-on-workplace-gender-equality-is-under-review-heres-what-needs-to-change-172406">A law on workplace gender equality is under review. Here's what needs to change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Gilbert receives funding from the Food Agility CRC. He is affiliated with KU Children's Services, the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office, Reconciliation NSW, and Bridging the Gap Foundation. Josh formally worked at PwC's Indigenous Consulting.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Pratley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The agricultural workforce is changing but a worryingly unsophisticated understanding of workforce diversity lingers in the sector – especially in terms of Indigenous involvement in agriculture.
Joshua Gilbert, Researcher (Indigenous Policy) Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research and Higher Degree Research Student at Charles Sturt University, University of Technology Sydney
James Pratley, Research Professor of Agriculture, Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172328
2021-11-30T14:36:16Z
2021-11-30T14:36:16Z
How to narrow the big divide between black and white farmers in South Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434137/original/file-20211126-13-1xt2chk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's dualistic farming structure is not sustainable</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander J/AFoeP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the dawn of democracy, few probably thought that nearly three decades on, South Africa would still be battling with the phenomenon of “two agricultures”.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-the-south-african-economy-9780192894199?facet_narrowbybinding_facet=Ebook&facet_narrowbyprice_facet=100to200&lang=en&cc=gb">studies</a> show that black South African farmers produce less than 10% of the country’s total agricultural output. </p>
<p>Some progress has been made as black farmers have joined commercial production and supply chains. But a combination of factors has entrenched the divide between commercial agriculture (mainly white) and subsistence farming (mainly black). Often blame is laid at the door of the private sector. But, in our view, this is an insufficient explanation.</p>
<p>Black farmers’ total share of farm output has been held up by a combination of factors. These include the poor and slow implementation of land reform, poor policy implementation, inefficient programmes and bureaucratic delays and poor coordination within government.</p>
<p>We argue that the current dualistic farming structure of South Africa’s agriculture is not sustainable. But that many of the contributing factors to the continuation of dualism in South African agriculture requires, more than anything else, effective policy making and the right incentives.</p>
<p>There is minimal need for massive expenditure programmes. </p>
<h2>Reasons behind the lack of progress</h2>
<p>First, there has been a lack of direction and fast decision-making in the national and provincial government. This has been compounded by poorly designed programmes to support black farmers to become part of the commercial sectors.</p>
<p>Second, poor adoption of the latest technology to increase productivity. Output from the commercial farming sector has <a href="https://www.dalrrd.gov.za/Portals/0/Statistics%20and%20Economic%20Analysis/Statistical%20Information/Abstract%202021.pdf">more than doubled in real terms since 1994</a>. This has been largely due to the use of technological innovation as export markets opened up following South Africa’s integration into the world economy.</p>
<p>Third, the fractious nature of organised agriculture. Many farmer associations in South Africa still appear to be formed along racial lines resulting in unnecessary duplication. This entrenches the dualistic divide. </p>
<p>Fourth, collaboration between government and the private sector (commodity organisations, agribusinesses, farmer organisations, etc) is not optimal. This results in slow implementation of farmer development plans. Farmer organisations are frustrated with the lack of delivery and bureaucratic inefficiency. Efforts to try and implement transformation initiatives are sometimes not supported by government officials, primarily at provincial level and in the municipalities. As a result, the farmers who need and deserve support the most are underserved.</p>
<p>Fifth, the inefficiency of many of the provincial departments of agriculture. This results in poor and non-delivery of critical programmes to support farmers. This is particularly true in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, North-West and Limpopo. This includes animal biosecurity, water infrastructure, farm security, extension and <a href="https://www.dalrrd.gov.za/Programme/Comprehensive-Agricultural-Support-Programme">CASP funding</a>. This state of affairs is also worsened by a lack of coordination with Water Affairs, Environmental Affairs, Provincial Roads, and local municipalities.</p>
<p>Sixth, slow delivery of critical large infrastructure projects. A <a href="https://wandilesihlobo.com/2021/11/18/grim-realities-of-south-africas-agriculture-infrastructure-investment-failures/">case in point is the Brandvlei dam</a> which has been neglected. But raising the canal walls by 30cm for 4km at the cost of about R20 million would result in an additional 33-million cubic metres of water. This would lead to an additional 4,000ha of irrigated horticulture in the area. This would have, in turn, facilitated the inclusion of black farmers.</p>
<p>Seventh, the failure of municipalities to deliver basic services such as water, electricity, and road maintenance. These failures have been among some of the major constraints to higher growth of agribusiness as they have increased transaction costs of moving agricultural products. </p>
<p>It has also led to the inability to <a href="https://wandilesihlobo.com/2021/11/08/former-homelands-have-been-left-behind-to-occupy-the-periphery-of-progress/">reorient projects to high-value horticulture</a>.</p>
<p>Eighth, black farmers own a substantive share of the cattle herd in South Africa. Unfortunately, the poor implementation of animal biosecurity systems and the enforcement of regulations on disease controls and the movement of animals have had a negative impact on the commercial aspirations of many of them.</p>
<h2>The answers</h2>
<p>A quick reform of the agricultural support system with a focus mainly on non-monetary interventions could go a long way in boosting growth. At the national level, such interventions could include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the release of land already on the government’s book to beneficiaries with tradable land rights.</p></li>
<li><p>improvements in efficiency in various regulations in the livestock industry and animal hygiene. This would help boost exports and improve the market access for farmers on communal land.</p></li>
<li><p>improvements in the efficiency in registering new agrochemicals and vaccines that can help in making agriculture more efficient. </p></li>
<li><p>new beneficiary selection criteria. This should be properly applied to select the correct jockeys for the land on the land question. </p></li>
<li><p>the government should recognise only one farmers’ organisation and provide financial support to one unified organisation – the “United Farmers’ Association of South Africa”.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There is also scope to boost land donations, but the state will have to do more to improve the incentives list in the current land donations policy. This process also needs to appreciate that there aren’t many farmers who would be able to donate land as there are many farms in South Africa that can be characterised as micro. In 2017 <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=IDd1BLAAAAAJ&citation_for_view=IDd1BLAAAAAJ:q3oQSFYPqjQC">47% of commercial farming units had a turnover of less than R1 million</a>.</p>
<h2>Why it’s important</h2>
<p>There are convincing arguments for pulling out all stops to improve the enabling environment for agriculture in South Africa. </p>
<p>Getting commercial agriculture going in the poorest region of South Africa is critical for a variety of reasons. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Growth in agriculture is in general two to three times more effective at reducing poverty than an equivalent amount of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.05.027">growth generated outside agriculture</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>The advantage of agriculture over non-agriculture in reducing poverty is largest for the poorest in society and ultimately <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.05.027">disappears as countries become richer</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>The advantages of growth in agriculture in reducing poverty can also extend to other welfare outcomes such as food insecurity and malnutrition.</p></li>
<li><p>An important source of the poverty reducing benefits of agricultural growth is through agricultural productivity growth changes driven by widespread adoption of innovations. This increases producer returns (and wage labour opportunities) and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.05.027">reduces consumer prices</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>The authors have a chapter in the recently published <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-the-south-african-economy-9780192894199?facet_narrowbybinding_facet=Ebook&facet_narrowbyprice_facet=100to200&lang=en&cc=gb">Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz), and also a member of the South African President's Economic Advisory Council (PEAC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johann Kirsten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Eliminating the divide between commercial agriculture (mainly white) and subsistence farming (mainly black) requires effective public policy and the right incentives.
Wandile Sihlobo, Senior Fellow, Department of Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University
Johann Kirsten, Director of the Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167405
2021-09-20T14:20:29Z
2021-09-20T14:20:29Z
Global demand for cashews is booming. How Ghana can take advantage to create jobs
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419790/original/file-20210907-19-11zj5ct.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Key cashew producing countries in Africa are rolling out strategies to increase production and processing of raw cashew nuts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pxfuel.com/en/search?q=salted+nuts">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://unctad.org/news/cashing-cashews-africa-must-add-value-its-nuts">global cashew industry</a> has grown rapidly over the last decade, driven by increasing consumption of cashew nuts around the world. And the market for raw cashews is <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/01/12/2156832/28124/en/Outlook-on-the-Cashew-Kernel-Global-Market-Industry-Expected-to-Grow-at-a-CAGR-of-4-27-Between-2020-to-2025.html">forecast</a> to continue growing at an annual rate of 4.27% between 2020 and 2025. It is expected to reach almost US$7 billion by 2025.</p>
<p>The growing demand for cashew nuts around the world, particularly in developed and emerging economies, is driven by a number of factors. They include recognition of their <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/processed-fruit-vegetables-edible-nuts/cashew-nuts/market-potential">health and nutritional benefits</a> and the growth in plant based diets. Cashew nuts are also considered a substitute for <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/processed-fruit-vegetables-edible-nuts/cashew-nuts/market-potential">dairy products</a> and they represent a popular <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/processed-fruit-vegetables-edible-nuts/cashew-nuts/market-potential">savoury snack</a>. They are also a substitute for the ever popular <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/processed-fruit-vegetables-edible-nuts/cashew-nuts/market-potential">peanut butter</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditccom2020d1_en.pdf#page=22">African countries</a> are at the forefront in responding to this growing demand. They have increased production.</p>
<p>Demonstrating this, the African continent now <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditccom2020d1_en.pdf#page=23">accounts for over 50% of raw cashew nut</a>. <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditccom2020d1_en.pdf">About 90%</a> of all Africa’s production is exported, mainly to Vietnam and India. These two countries account for 98% of the world’s raw cashew nut imports. Vietnam and India deshell and process cashews before re-exporting them to the US, Europe, the Middle East, China and Australia, where they are in turn roasted, salted and packaged prior to consumption.</p>
<p>The low rates of cashew nut processing in Africa’s cashew producing nations is driven by a number of factors. These include limited infrastructure and local processors. But a number of African governments have recently put in place policies and measures to address these shortfalls. There are still gaps though. Research is needed to understand better the structural challenges that constrain local processors.</p>
<p>Ghana is among Africa’s major producers of cashew nuts. Ghana currently produces around <a href="http://www.ijsaf.org/index.php/ijsaf/article/view/37">85,000 metric tonnes</a> of raw cashew nuts each year, which accounts for about one percent of the worlds’ total production. Of this, over 90% is exported to India and Vietnam by Asian exporters and processors.</p>
<p>Cashew production in Ghana dates back to the <a href="https://www.gardja.org/story-behind-cashew-production-ghana-2/">1960s</a>, with production for export markets expanding significantly in the last decade. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://ijsaf.org/index.php/ijsaf/article/view/37">research</a> focused on the Brong Ahafo Region – now Bono East, Bono and the Ahafo regions. Here we sought to better understand dynamics and issues associated with Ghana’s growing cashew nut sector, including the particular challenges facing local processors.</p>
<h2>Local processors face many challenges</h2>
<p>Ghana has 14 cashew processing plants, with a total annual capacity of <a href="https://thebftonline.com/17/09/2020/govt-exploring-international-collaboration-to-boost-local-cashew-processing/">65,000</a> metric tonnes of raw cashews. While 10 of these plants are active, they process less than 10% of total annual cashew production. The remaining processing plants have either ceased operation, or have completely shut down.</p>
<p>There are a number of challenges that hinder local processing of cashew nuts in Ghana. Key amongst these is a lack of capital to maintain operations, alongside the inability of local processors to access raw cashew nuts from farmers - the latter of which is exacerbated by poor transport infrastructure. Although local processors are able to access loan and credit facilities from commercial banks, high interest rates leave this an unviable option, especially for small domestic operators.</p>
<p>Shortfalls in capital also limit the ability of local processors to purchase raw cashew nuts from farmers. Local processors also face intense competition from foreign processors and exporters – most notably from Asia – who drive up cashew nut prices. While Asian processors and exporters are able to afford high farmgate prices due to their access to preferential <a href="https://afsaap.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/vol40no1june2019_boafo-et-al_pp31-52.pdf">interest rates</a> in their home countries, local processors are unable to compete, leaving them simply unable to afford to purchase raw cashew nuts. </p>
<p>Cashew farmers also demonstrate a preference for selling their nuts to Asian processors and exporters who pay them immediately in cash. Local processors, in contrast, often purchase cashew nuts on credit.</p>
<p>These conditions leave Ghana off the field, thereby missing out on the significant opportunities for jobs and revenue generation via the booming global cashew industry. Recent estimates indicate this loss at about <a href="https://thebftonline.com/01/09/2021/economy-loses-us100m-revenues-annually-on-cashew-nuts-expert/">$100 million</a> each year. This loss is primarily tied to Ghana’s inability to process - and thereby add value to - its raw cashew nuts.</p>
<h2>The way forward: Ghana should learn from other countries</h2>
<p>Governments in key cashew producing countries across Africa are increasingly rolling out strategies to increase both the production and processing of raw cashew nuts. For example, in Cote d'Ivoire, the largest exporter of raw cashew nuts in the world, an <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/sites/default/files/vca-cashew-west-africa_0.pdf">export tax of FCFA 30 per kg</a> of raw cashew nuts has recently been introduced. Revenue from this tax is then used to subsidise and support local processors. This has incentivised local processing, making Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana’s neighbour, <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditccom2020d1_en.pdf">the largest cashew processor in Africa</a>, with a capacity of 70,000 metric tonnes annually.</p>
<p>Similarly, Mozambique and Tanzania have <a href="https://www.intracen.org/uploadedFiles/intracenorg/Blogs/Cashew_Nuts_-_Main/Cashew%20quarterly%20bulletin%20Q2%20Final.pdf">adopted a range of measures</a> to protect and incentivise local cashew processors. These include granting local processors preferential access to raw cashew nuts. It also includes imposing export duties on raw cashew nuts. Meanwhile, since 2009 Kenya has introduced a <a href="https://www.intracen.org/uploadedFiles/intracenorg/Blogs/Cashew_Nuts_-_Main/Cashew%20quarterly%20bulletin%20Q2%20Final.pdf">ban on the export of raw cashew nuts</a>, a strategy which has increased local processing from <a href="https://www.intracen.org/uploadedFiles/intracenorg/Blogs/Cashew_Nuts_-_Main/Cashew%20quarterly%20bulletin%20Q2%20Final.pdf">30% in 2009 to 80%</a>in 2012.</p>
<p>The Ghana Export Promotion Authority is currently working with Cashew Industry Association of Ghana to increase local processing. This collaboration may benefit by drawing from the experiences of other African countries, including to guide a national cashew processing strategy. </p>
<p>Importantly, local processors must be protected against Asian competitors who come to Ghana to buy cashew nuts during cashew harvesting season. They also need tax incentives, affordable credit facilities and modern technology to thrive. </p>
<p>With appropriate support, Ghana may be able to take advantage of the growing demand and consumption of cashew nuts in the developed and emerging economies, with outcomes that will generate jobs and revenue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristen Lyons is a senior research fellow with The Oakland Institute, and member of the Australian Greens. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Boafo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ghana is losing out the booming global cashew industry in terms
of job and revenue generations.
James Boafo, Lecturer in Geography and Sustainable Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
Kristen Lyons, Professor Environment and Development Sociology, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162697
2021-06-18T08:13:59Z
2021-06-18T08:13:59Z
Small towns are collapsing across South Africa. How it’s starting to affect farming
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407041/original/file-20210617-23-12gef37.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cattle grazing on a farm near Tulbagh in the Western Cape, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Titmuss/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Farming and agribusiness play a crucial role in sustaining the economies of small towns and rural areas. There is a lot of evidence of this in the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09654313.2013.872231">economic literature</a> and in the <a href="https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/keeping-small-towns-alive-in-tight-farm_5-ar45625">popular media</a>. This dependency has its inherent risks. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271020902_Small_Towns_and_Agriculture_Understanding_the_Spatial_Pattern_of_Farm_Linkages">International literature</a> tends to focus on the devastation of small towns in <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41287-018-0182-z">times of drought</a> or when farming lobby groups argue for particular policies. In South Africa, a different pattern has emerged. This is when municipalities fail to provide basic services to their communities and businesses. These services include water and sanitation, electricity, roads and technological infrastructure.</p>
<p>South Africa has a three-tier system of governance. National government sets national economic development policy and drives the search for investment by both domestic and international investors. Provincial government plays a big role too in searching for investment and executing government’s policies and programmes. The most successful province has been the Western Cape, which has achieved the status of the country’s <a href="https://www.wesgro.co.za/invest/sector/tech">technology hub</a>. But where the investors are located within a province depends on municipalities, specifically how well run they are.</p>
<p>South African municipalities are in deep trouble. For many years households and residents have felt the impact. They have resorted increasingly to mounting <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-revolting-against-inept-local-government-why-it-matters-155483">protests</a> across the country. But lately, there is growing evidence that governance and service delivery failures are also directly affecting the functioning and efficiencies of farming and agribusinesses in small towns. </p>
<p>A case in point is the recent <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/clover-closes-sas-biggest-cheese-factory-due-to-municipal-woes-in-the-north-west-20210608">decision</a> by the food and beverages group Clover to move its cheese production from Lichtenburg, a town in the North West province of South Africa, to an existing plant outside Durban in KwaZulu-Natal due to “ongoing poor service delivery”. </p>
<p>Lichtenburg is part of the country’s <a href="https://www.namc.co.za/sip11/maps-of-maize-production/">maize producing triangle</a>. Three provinces – Free State, Mpumalanga, North West – account for 84% of the country’s maize production, according to latest estimates of the 2020/21 season.</p>
<h2>State of collapse</h2>
<p>South Africa’s finance minister, Tito Mboweni, recently <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.za/comm_media/speeches/2021/Budget%20Vote%20Speech%20by%20the%20Minister%20of%20Finance%20Tito%20Titus%20Mboweni,%20MP%20%20-%20National%20Treasury%20The%20Pillar%20of%20the%20State%20-%2020%20May%202021.pdf#page=10">painted a gloomy picture</a> of the state of municipalities in the country. There are about <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/government-system/local-government">278 municipalities</a> in South Africa. Mboweni said that 163 municipalities were in financial distress, 40 were battling to deliver basic services, and 102 had adopted budgets for 2021/22 that they cannot fund. </p>
<p>A growing number are also failing to collect revenue from residents and businesses for electricity, water and property taxes.</p>
<p>Mboweni added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And, for the first time in our democracy, the national executive has been <a href="https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/astral-obtains-high-court-order-for-govt-to-improve-lekwa-municipal-service-delivery-2021-04-13">ordered</a> by a high court to constitutionally intervene in the affairs of a municipality owing to
a financial and service delivery failure. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Municipalities in rural areas and small towns are worst off. A recent <a href="http://ulspace.ul.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10386/3265/moloto_factors_2020.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">study</a> by the Tshwane University of Technology researchers stated that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the level of service delivery in rural communities is less compared to urban areas, and there is no sign of improvement.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Consequences</h2>
<p>The multiplier effects of Clover’s decision to relocate are likely to be large. The closure of the firm in such a small town is likely to have a number of negative spillover effects across the local economy.</p>
<p>The company, according to <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/n-west-government-intervenes-clover-factory-closure">official statements</a> from the government, provided 380 permanent jobs and 40 temporary jobs. It also employs 20 general workers and 20 truck drivers and cleaners. </p>
<p>In addition, the plant gave farmers market access for their produce, and a range of businesses bought and sold products from the company. The income from these activities would have supported many other businesses in the community. </p>
<p>Clover is not the first major company to decry poor municipal services. There’s the long running case of <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/industrials/2021-04-13-astral-foods-wins-court-order-over-lack-of-service-delivery/">Astral Foods</a>, a poultry producer that also supplies animal feed, and the <a href="https://www.lekwalm.gov.za/About/Us/history">Lekwa Municipality</a>. Astral <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/industrial/astral-forks-out-r3m-for-lost-production-as-standertons-horror-continues-20210617">has lost millions of rands</a> in production because of failures by the municipality in the Mpumalanga province to provide its poultry plant with water and electricity.</p>
<p>These two cases illustrate how efficiency and economic sustainability of agribusinesses depend on delivery of basic services. Without them, levels of investment in the businesses will shrink in such towns. Importantly, this may affect the sustainability of agribusinesses as some might incur more costs as they try themselves to provide the services that were supposed to be provided by local governments.</p>
<p>The farmers face a similar challenge, directly and indirectly. The agribusiness provides a range of solutions and market access to local farmers. If agribusinesses’ sustainability is threatened, farmers suffer too. More directly, poor roads, unreliable electricity supply and water supply directly affect the profitability and sustainability of farming operations. </p>
<p>Importantly, these are all entities that provide job opportunities to the least skilled South Africans and indirectly sustain the communities around small towns.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa set out an <a href="https://www.gov.za/economy">economic reform and recovery agenda</a> for the country in October 2020. In it he identified agriculture and agro-processing (food security) as one of the drivers of economic growth and job creation, especially in small towns.</p>
<p>But a vibrant agriculture and agribusiness won’t develop if poor service delivery by municipalities continues.</p>
<p>There are some basic practical interventions the government could make. These include ensuring that a municipality has competent management, financial officers, civil and electrical engineers, as well as competent political leadership.</p>
<p>The Financial and Fiscal Commission, an independent constitutional advisory body on financial fiscal matters in the country, recently <a href="https://ffc.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Submission_for_the_Division_of_Revenue_2020-2021-1.pdf">argued municipalities</a> should look closely at their wage bills. This would ensure that salaries didn’t crowd out money for critical service delivery functions. These include waste removal, waste management, sewerage systems, roads and water provision. </p>
<p>These improvements need to happen simultaneously and not before or after agriculture revitalisation, which is supported by the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/gro-processing-stakeholders-further-discussions-agriculture-29-mar-2021-0000">Agricultural and Agro-processing Master Plans</a>. These seek to expand and grow South Africa’s agriculture and agro-processing. </p>
<p>But a healthy farming sector rests on towns that are functional and that have the basics in place. </p>
<p>This is a challenge that the South African government should face head-on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wandile Sihlobo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The collapse of local government in small towns is beginning to affect investment in farming, and the ability of agribusinesses to operate.
Wandile Sihlobo, Visiting Research Fellow, Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146069
2021-03-09T13:32:33Z
2021-03-09T13:32:33Z
Growing food and protecting nature don’t have to conflict – here’s how they can work together
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387851/original/file-20210304-17-izkl00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C8%2C2770%2C1986&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paul and Becky Rogers converted 14 acres of land in Kent County, Mich. to habitat that supports pollinators, songbirds and wildlife.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/tbUyzx">USDA/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Growing food in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way – while also producing enough of it – is among the most important challenges facing the U.S. and the world today. </p>
<p>The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that food security can’t be taken for granted. Putting affordable food on the table requires both innovative producers and well-functioning markets and global supply chains. With <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-farmers-are-dumping-milk-down-the-drain-and-letting-produce-rot-in-fields-136567">disruptions to the system</a>, prices rise, food is scarce – and people go hungry. </p>
<p>But feeding the world’s <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/">7.8 billion</a> people sustainably – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0594-0">including 332 million Americans</a> – presents significant environmental challenges. Farming uses <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Water-for-Food-Water-for-Life-A-Comprehensive-Assessment-of-Water-Management/Molden/p/book/9781844073962">70% of the world’s fresh water</a>. Fertilizers pollute water with nitrates and phosphates, sparking algal blooms and creating dead zones like the one that forms every summer in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/lob.10351">Gulf of Mexico</a>. </p>
<p>Clear-cutting land for farms and ranches is the main driver of <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1093/reep/rew013">deforestation</a>. Overall, the planet loses about 48,000 square miles (125,000 square kilometers) of forest each year. Without habitat, wildlife disappears. Farming also produces roughly <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter11.pdf">one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions</a>. </p>
<p>All of these challenges make balancing food production with environmental security a crucial issue for the Biden administration, which is working to address both a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/22/bidens-executive-orders-address-hunger-crisis-raise-minimum-wage.html">hunger crisis</a> and an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55829189">environmental crisis</a> in the U.S.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O_DZBTiFjeo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Climate change is wreaking havoc on weather patterns, making conditions more challenging for farmers. But scholars and the Biden administration believe agriculture can be part of the solution.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Two different pathways</h2>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DulicT8AAAAJ&hl=en">economist studying food systems</a>, I’m keenly aware that trying to provide affordable food and a thriving agricultural sector while also preserving the environment can result in <a href="http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-22662-0">many trade-offs</a>. Consider the different strategies that the U.S. and Northern Europe have pursued: The U.S. prioritizes increased agricultural output, while the EU emphasizes environmental services from farming. </p>
<p>Over the past 70 years, the U.S. has <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/international-agricultural-productivity/">increased crop production</a> with ever more <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/89114/err-249.pdf?v=0">sophisticated seed technologies</a> and highly mechanized farming methods that employ far fewer workers. These new technologies have contributed to farm productivity growth which has, in turn, allowed U.S. farm output to rise without significant growth in the aggregate economic index of agricultural input use.</p>
<p><iframe id="OmRMp" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OmRMp/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>This approach contrasts sharply with Northern Europe’s strategy, which emphasizes using less land and other inputs in order to protect the environment. Nonetheless, by achieving a comparable rate of agricultural productivity growth (output growth minus the growth rate inputs), Northern Europe has been able to <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/89114/err-249.pdf?v=0">maintain its level of total farm output</a> over the past three decades. </p>
<p><iframe id="08Gwo" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/08Gwo/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Boosting prices versus benefiting nature</h2>
<p>The U.S. also has a long history of <a href="https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2020/06/production-controls-set-aside-acres-part-1-reviewing-history.html">setting aside agricultural land</a> that dates back nearly a century. In response to low prices in the 1920s, farmers had flooded the market with grain, pork and other products, desperately seeking to boost revenues but only pushing prices down further. </p>
<p>Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the U.S. government paid farmers to reduce their output and limited the supply of land under cultivation to boost farm prices. This strategy is <a href="https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2020/06/production-controls-set-aside-acres-part-1-reviewing-history.html">still in use today</a>. </p>
<p>In 1985 the U.S. launched a new program that created real incentives to protect environmentally sensitive land. Farmers who enroll in the <a href="https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/Conservation/PDF/35_YEARS_CRP_B.pdf">Conservation Reserve Program</a> “rent” environmentally valuable tracts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 10-15 years. Withdrawing these acres from production provides food and shelter for pollinators and wildlife, reduces erosion and improves water quality.</p>
<p>But this is a voluntary program, so enrollment ebbs and flows in tandem with crop prices. For example, when corn, soy and wheat prices fell in the late 1980s and early 1990s, enrollment grew. Then with the commodity price boom of 2007, farmers could make more money from cultivating the land. Protected acreage dropped more than 40% through 2019, erasing many of the environmental benefits that had been achieved. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385667/original/file-20210222-17-1hvmgcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enrollment in the USDA Conservation Reserve Program dropped by almost 13 million acres from 2007 to 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/Conservation/PDF/ChangeInCRPAcreagefrom2007_2016.pdf">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rental rates for agricultural land in the U.S. vary widely, with the most productive lands bringing the highest rent. Current rental rates under the Conservation Reserve Program 2021 range from US$243 per acre in Cuming, Nebraska to <a href="https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/reports-and-statistics/conservation-reserve-program-statistics/index">just $6 in Sutton, Texas</a>.</p>
<p>The EU also began <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A31988R1272">setting aside farmland</a> to <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A31988R1272">curb overproduction</a> in 1988. Now, however, their program focuses heavily on environmental quality. Policy reforms in 2013 required farmers to allocate 5% of their land to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12217">protected ecological focus areas</a>. The goal is to generate long-term environmental benefits by prioritizing nature. </p>
<p>This program supports both production and conservation. Within this mix of natural and cultivated lands, wild pollinators benefit both native plants and crops. Birds, insects and small predators offer natural bio-control of pests. In this way, “rewilded” tracts foster biodiversity while also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.06.012">improving crop yields</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=198&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387068/original/file-20210301-20-140maye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rewilded area in Germany, near Dresden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Hertel</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who will feed the world?</h2>
<p>What would happen if the U.S., a major exporter of agricultural products, followed the EU model and permanently withdrew land from production to improve environmental quality? Would such action make food unaffordable for the world’s poorest consumers? </p>
<p>In a study that I conducted in 2020 with colleagues at Purdue and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we set up a computer model to find out. We wanted to chart what might happen to food prices across the globe through 2050 if the U.S. and other rich economies followed Northern European conservation strategies. Our analysis focused on <a href="http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/2020/en/">the world’s most food-insecure region</a>, sub-Saharan Africa. </p>
<p>We discovered that altering food production in this way would raise food prices in that region by about 6%. However, this upward price trend could be reversed by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103479">investing in local agriculture and new technologies</a> to increase productivity in Africa. In short, our research suggested that conserving the environment in the U.S. doesn’t have to cause food insecurity in other countries. </p>
<h2>Implications for US farm policy</h2>
<p>Many experts on hunger and agriculture agree that to feed a growing global population, world food output must <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066428">increase substantially</a> in the next several decades. At the same time, it’s clear that agriculture’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10452">environmental impacts need to shrink</a> in order to protect the natural environment. </p>
<p>In my view, meeting these twin goals will require renewed government investments in research and dissemination of new technologies. Reversing a two-decade <a href="https://www.thelugarcenter.org/newsroom-news-409.html">decline in science funding</a> will be key. Agriculture is now a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppx045">knowledge-driven industry</a>, fueled by <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4419-0658-8_8">new technologies and improved management practices</a>. Publicly funded research laid the foundations for these advances. </p>
<p>To reap environmental gains, I believe the U.S. Department of Agriculture will need to revamp and stabilize the Conservation Reserve Program, so that it is economically viable and enrollment does not fluctuate with market conditions. The Trump administration <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2021/02/05/usda-extends-general-signup-conservation-reserve-program">reduced incentives and rental payment rates</a>, which drove down enrollments. The Biden administration has already taken a modest step forward by <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2021/02/05/usda-extends-general-signup-conservation-reserve-program">extending the yearly sign-up for the program indefinitely</a>.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>As I see it, following Northern Europe’s model by permanently protecting ecologically rich areas, while simultaneously investing in knowledge-driven agricultural productivity, will enable the U.S. to better preserve wildlife and its natural environment for future generations, while maintaining an affordable food supply.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Hertel receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Energy.</span></em></p>
It’s possible to feed the world’s 7.8 billion people with more environmentally friendly farming practices. Here’s how.
Thomas Hertel, Professor of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141921
2020-07-08T16:16:18Z
2020-07-08T16:16:18Z
Silencing whistle-blowers on farms conceals animal and employee abuse
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346086/original/file-20200707-194409-15s9pb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian agricultural businesses cannot compete on the world stage if consumers do not trust the safety of their products. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It will take time for authorities to determine whether the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-protester-dies-after-being-hit-by-truck-outside-slaughterhouse-in/">recent death of a woman outside a slaughterhouse</a> in Burlington, Ont., was an accident or homicide. We don’t need to wait for the outcome, however, to know why the animal welfare protester died and what must change to prevent future harm — not only to activists, but also to consumers and businesses. </p>
<p>The events that led to Regan Russell’s death were set in motion last month in the Ontario legislature, when <a href="https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-42/session-1/bill-156">lawmakers passed a sweeping “ag-gag” law</a> that prevents journalists and other investigators from entering animal agriculture facilities to expose illegal activities such as animal cruelty, employee mistreatment or health and safety violations. </p>
<p>Days later, Russell was protesting this same law on public property when she was struck and killed by the driver of a truck transporting pigs in what seems a cruel twist of fate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345693/original/file-20200706-33939-1ymyj87.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Regan Russell is seen in this undated photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Animal Justice</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Canadians prefer openness</h2>
<p>Canadians certainly have an interest in ensuring activities that take place on farms, on transport trucks and in slaughterhouses adhere to our laws and to our sense of decency. Opinions are strikingly aligned on the matter. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.campaignresearch.com/single-post/Last-Chance-for-Animals-Study">June 2020 survey of more than 1,000 Ontario residents</a>, 84 per cent said they believe conditions in meat-processing plants should be transparent to the public. Similar numbers said whistle-blowers should be able to expose problems on farms and in food-production facilities related to working conditions, animal abuse and food safety. </p>
<p>But when the newly enacted ag-gag law, Bill 156, comes into force it will ensure the opposite. Just like a <a href="https://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_status&selectbill=027&legl=30&session=1">similar law introduced in Alberta last year</a>, Ontario’s new legislation will prevent whistle-blowing employees from collecting the type of video evidence that in the past has led to the prosecution and conviction of lawbreakers across Canada, including <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/3-men-in-chilliwack-cattle-abuse-scandal-get-jail-time-1.4121997">agricultural workers abusing animals</a>.</p>
<p>This law will also interfere with workers’ rights advocates and journalists who seek to uncover evidence that employees are being mistreated, which these days could prevent authorities from being made aware of cases where slaughterhouse workers, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/essentials-meatpeacking-coronavirus/611437/">who already face a high risk of COVID-19 infection</a>, may be forced to work without adequate personal protective equipment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345695/original/file-20200706-33939-s6z51m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A worker walks into a Cargill meat-processing factory in Chambly, Que., in May 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Likewise, this law could prevent employees from exposing information that would help public health authorities pinpoint the origin of pathogens that cause avian flu, swine flu and other infectious diseases that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10408410701647594">known to arise in animal confinement facilities</a>. </p>
<p>Additionally, this law will prevent people like Russell from exercising their legal rights to peacefully protest on public property, a right protected by the <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html">Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>. In her decades of social activism, Russell had exercised that right by advocating for a wide range of social causes and was <a href="https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2020/06/22/prominent-animal-rights-advocate-regan-russell-is-killed-at-ontario-protest/">especially vocal in her opposition to the mistreatment of animals raised as food</a>.</p>
<h2>Consumers, businesses look to future</h2>
<p>Because many people share Russell’s concerns about animal welfare, and also worry about the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0594-0">large environmental footprint</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906908116">health risks</a> associated with eating meat, demand for plant-based products has rapidly increased in recent years. Many food-production firms are shifting away from animal-based products, diminishing the purported role for ag-gag laws. </p>
<p>The CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, Michael McCain, projected in 2018 that the tastes of consumers would continue drifting away from meat, signalling his company’s intention to continue satisfying those tastes by producing more plant-based proteins. “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/michael-mccain-on-how-to-save-the-planet-and-feed-nine-billion-humans/article38035613/">We view ourselves as a protein company</a>,” he stated. </p>
<p>The following year, he announced plans to build a $310 million plant-protein food processing facility.</p>
<p>Maple Leaf Foods is not alone in evolving away from animal agriculture. Some of the largest meat-production companies in the world, including colossal <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/13/tyson-foods-unveils-plant-based-nuggets-in-move-into-meat-alternatives.html">Tyson Foods</a>, have introduced plant-based products to their menus of offerings. </p>
<p>One of the hottest new stocks of 2019 was the vegan food-production company <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/beyond-meat-ipo-51556043270">Beyond Meat</a>. And the newest plant-based meat company to go public, Canadian firm <a href="https://thecse.com/en/listings/diversified-industries/the-very-good-food-company-inc">The Very Good Food Company</a>, saw its share price surge above its initial value in its early days of trading last month.</p>
<p>The federal government stands ready to encourage businesses to adapt to consumers’ preferences. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/videos/2020/06/22/remarks-supporting-and-investing-canadian-businesses">recently announced</a> about $100 million in funding for a Winnipeg facility that “will be a world leader in plant-based proteins, and will create good jobs in a fast-growing field.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345697/original/file-20200706-33935-oslzwr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Riders and their horses pass through a canola field near Cremona, Alta., in July 2016. The federal government is helping finance a new agricultural production plant in Winnipeg that turns peas and canola into protein powders for the food industry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This adds to Canada’s <a href="https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/093.nsf/eng/00012.html">Protein Industries Supercluster</a>, an ambitious federal program that aims to add more than $4.5 billion and 4,500 jobs to the Canadian economy over 10 years by supporting crops used in the plant-based foods market. It’s notable that a key intention of the protein supercluster is to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2020/02/new-protein-supercluster-project-to-improve-transparency-and-productivity-of-canadian-farms.html">improve transparency on Canadian farms</a>, something Ontario’s Bill 156 directly erodes.</p>
<p>Backward-looking policies have no place in our country. Canadian businesses cannot compete on the world stage if consumers do not trust the safety of their products. </p>
<p>But the opacity enshrined in ag-gag laws destroys consumer confidence by its very nature, to the detriment of Canadian companies, their employees and their customers. It will also hide the cruel treatment of animals and workers, which the factory farming industry would do well to eradicate.</p>
<p>Regan Russell died trying to spread that message. I, for one, received it. The ag-gag law must be repealed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Kramer receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>
What are known as ‘ag-gag’ laws impede the transparency Canadians expect from farms and food-production facilities, particularly dangerous in the COVID-19 period.
Lisa Kramer, Professor of Finance, University of Toronto
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141964
2020-07-06T15:41:48Z
2020-07-06T15:41:48Z
Puppies & burnout: The economic impact of the coronavirus on vets
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345589/original/file-20200703-33913-14cfdlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C176%2C2100%2C1207&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on veterinarians due in part to a run on puppies, but financial uncertainties have also added further strain on an already stressed-out profession.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a superficial glance, becoming a veterinarian seems like the realization of an animal lover’s childhood dream — devoting a career to the care of animals.</p>
<p>What many don’t realize is the level of mental health distress associated with the profession in terms of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6135272/">work-life balance, emotional stress and financial health</a>. Research has shown that veterinary professionals are already <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/veterinarians-far-more-likely-die-suicide-other-americans-research-confirms-n950671">at high risk of suicide due to occupational stress, depression and burnout</a>.</p>
<p>COVID-19 is having a further impact on vets. Earning a living as a veterinarian is directly tied to the financial success of a business, and the disruption from the pandemic has had a big impact on small businesses, including veterinary practices. </p>
<p>The owner of one successful mixed-animal veterinary practice in Alberta was willing to share with me his practice’s pandemic experiences and the impact of economic policies during this critical time. </p>
<p>One vital theme emerged from the conversation: any financial strain has been eclipsed by the emotional toll of the pandemic and the need to plan for the unknown. </p>
<h2>Puppies: The new toilet paper?</h2>
<p>As stewards of animal and public health, veterinarians have been authorized to provide services during the pandemic. The most visible impact on small animal veterinary services has been the influx of newly acquired puppies to the clinic.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3468%2C2668&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3468%2C2668&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345576/original/file-20200703-33922-1kn9u8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s mixed hound dog, Abby, is seen here.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Jean-Yin Tan)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Noting 50-person wait lists for dog adoptions and empty animal shelters, the Alberta veterinarian — I’ll call him Dr. Brian Jones because he asked that his real name not be used — muses that “puppies are like Toilet Paper 2.0.” </p>
<p>Despite financial uncertainty facing many families, pet adoption and fostering has increased in Calgary as people found themselves with extra time at home and <a href="https://livewirecalgary.com/2020/05/07/calgary-animal-rescues-see-a-coronavirus-bump-in-pet-adoptions-fosters/">sought to fill a need for companionship</a>.</p>
<p>As puppies grow older in their new homes, hopefully a short-term decrease in demand for vet services due to the pandemic will translate to a permanent increase in demand as veterinary practices gain new canine patients for life.</p>
<p>By contrast, large animal clientele have taken a financial hit from the pandemic, and this has had an impact on large animal veterinary services.</p>
<p>For Jones’ bovine clients, the closure of processing plants has been devastating, with the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/meat-processing-backlog-puts-strain-on-alberta-cattle-ranchers-1.5631700">backlog of cattle</a> hurting the calf market. </p>
<p>The vet explains that cattle ranchers and others in agriculture are “price takers,” meaning they input the costs of vaccinations, feeding and medications, with no knowledge of their ultimate price at market and return on investment. The uncertainty posed by the pandemic has placed a great deal of stress on his cattle-ranching clientele.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345561/original/file-20200703-33950-1lf0eyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cows are facing uncertainty during the pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The different experiences of his practice’s small and large animal clientele have demonstrated the differences between demand for small animals — pets are usually adopted to become longtime family members — and large farm animals. The large losses suffered by the agricultural market as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic highlight a more volatile demand for large animal veterinary services.</p>
<h2>Vets freed up supplies during pandemic</h2>
<p>Veterinarians play an important role as stewards of food safety, public health and animal health. </p>
<p>When veterinary services received essential status at the onset of the pandemic, the industry pledged to limit non-essential procedures so that ventilators, surgical masks and other critical supplies could be conserved for use in human hospitals.</p>
<p>Jones explains: “We weren’t sure how many gloves we would have and how much oxygen we would have,” and therefore vets made a conscientious effort to voluntarily reduce the supply of veterinary procedures and services in order to reduce consumption of medical supplies.</p>
<p>But according to the vet, the reduction in the number of staff working each shift as well as long hours has resulted in high emotional wear and tear, to the point that he’s worried about worker burnout. </p>
<p>Furthermore, curbside dropoffs of pets to fulfil social distancing requirements have removed the face-to-face interaction between animal owner and veterinarian. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345570/original/file-20200703-33943-1jslb9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">COVID-19 social distancing requirements have made it difficult for vets to have meaningful conversations with pet owners.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not only is the added layer of phone calls with each client time-consuming, it also adds to the challenge of using non-verbal cues in conversation in order to have meaningful discussions that result in shared decision-making in health care. </p>
<h2>Stress of applying for government help</h2>
<p>Although government assistance programs are well-intentioned, Jones’ veterinary practice discovered first-hand how such programs can fail small businesses. </p>
<p>Without access to experts to help them navigate the eligibility requirements of each program and the paperwork to apply, his practice did not ultimately qualify for the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/subsidy/emergency-wage-subsidy.html">Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy</a>, while it may have qualified for the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/work-sharing.html">work-sharing program</a>. </p>
<p>Jones acknowledged that the stress and time spent applying for the programs added to the emotional toll on his staff, with only disappointing results when they were unable to take advantage of any of them.</p>
<p>Although veterinarians were granted essential service status and some have been financially stable through the crisis due to consistent consumer demand for vet services, the pandemic’s emotional toll has been severe.</p>
<p>With veterinary professionals already stressed out emotionally, it’s more important than ever to evaluate how these essential workers can be supported during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141964/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean-Yin Tan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Veterinarians are already at risk of emotional distress and burnout. The experiences of an Alberta veterinary practice shows COVID-19 is having a further impact.
Jean-Yin Tan, Senior Instructor in Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140120
2020-07-05T10:46:55Z
2020-07-05T10:46:55Z
Rethinking the boundaries between economic life and coronavirus death
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345386/original/file-20200702-111284-1ns77q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C2038&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A temporary foreign worker from Mexico plants strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., in May 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As governments around the world begin <a href="https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/global-destinations-reopening-to-tourists/index.html">to reopen their borders</a>, it’s clear that efforts to revive the economy are redrawing the lines between who will prosper, who will suffer and who will die. </p>
<p>Emerging strategies for restoring economic growth are forcing vulnerable populations to choose between increased exposure to death or economic survival. This is an unacceptable choice that appears natural only because it prioritizes the economy over people already considered marginal or expendable.</p>
<p>The management of borders has always been central to capitalist economic growth, and has only intensified with neoliberal reforms of the last several decades. Neoliberal economic growth has increasingly become tied to opening up national borders to the flow of money and the selective entry of low-wage labour with limited access to rights. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">What exactly is neoliberalism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Nation-state borders regulate this flow, and in so doing, reconstitute the borders between people: those whose lives must be safeguarded and those who are considered disposable.</p>
<p>COVID-19 has brought heightened visibility to these border-making practices, with the pandemic intensifying the decisions between economic and social life.</p>
<h2>Exceptions made for seasonal workers</h2>
<p>Early in the outbreak, for instance, Canada closed its borders to international travel, but <a href="https://www.immigration.ca/coronavirus-priority-canada-work-permits-for-these-agriculture-occupations">made exceptions</a> for an estimated <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/canada-lifts-travel-restrictions-for-foreign-workers-1.5505579">60,000 seasonal agricultural workers</a> from Latin America and the Caribbean. </p>
<p>Anxious to avert the potential <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/covid-19-restrictions-on-migrant-workers-will-be-devastating-ontario-farmers-warn-1.5500269">loss of as much as 95 per cent</a> of this year’s vegetable and fruit production, temporary farm workers were deemed the essential <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/canada-lifts-travel-restrictions-for-foreign-workers-1.5505579">backbone of the agri-food economy</a>. For the health and safety of Canadians and seasonal farm workers, farmers required the farm workers to self-isolate for 14 days in order to prevent the spread of the virus.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-farming/ontario-testing-migrant-farm-workers-after-coronavirus-deaths-severe-cases-idUSKBN23G33D">deaths of two farm workers</a> in Windsor, Ont., and serious <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-canada-stigmatizes-jeopardizes-essential-migrant-workers-138879">outbreaks of COVID-19 infections</a> among migrant workers on farms across the country, have revealed systemic forms of racism that reveal the priority given to profit maximization over the health and safety of Black and brown migrant farmers. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/foreign-workers/agricultural.html">Temporary Foreign Worker Program</a>, migrant farmers are not entitled to standard <a href="https://migrantworkersalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Unheeded-Warnings-COVID19-and-Migrant-Workers.pdf">labour rights such as a minimum wage, overtime pay or days off</a>, and federal oversight over housing conditions has been notoriously inadequate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345315/original/file-20200702-111269-1yyqu34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers walk on the property at Scotlynn Group where 164 migrant workers tested positive for COVID-19, shutting down the asparagus farm temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic in southern Ontario in June 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With worker welfare left largely to the discretion of employers, it is not altogether surprising that reports of crowded and unsanitary housing, an <a href="https://migrantworkersalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Unheeded-Warnings-COVID19-and-Migrant-Workers.pdf">inability to socially distance</a>, delays in responding to COVID-19 symptoms and <a href="https://migrantworkersalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Unheeded-Warnings-COVID19-and-Migrant-Workers.pdf">threats of reprisals</a> for speaking out have become rife throughout the agri-food economy. Even as COVID-19 cases soar in Ontario, provincial guidelines make it possible for infected farm workers to continue working if they are asymptomatic.</p>
<p>It is a tragic irony that the quest for a better life among migrant workers should be one that demands levels of exposure to abuse, threats, infection and premature death that few citizens are likely to face. </p>
<h2>Choosing between health and the economy</h2>
<p>Now, as governments speak of opening borders more widely due to the economic costs of COVID-19, countries are beginning to make new, challenging decisions between public health and economic growth. </p>
<p>For example, across the Caribbean, the abrupt closure of international borders decimated the region’s <a href="http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20200605/tourism-reopening-matter-economic-life-or-death-bartlett">tourism industry</a> overnight. Estimating a contraction of the industry of <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200317-stress-scenario-the-sovereigns-most-vulnerable-to-a-covid-19-related-slowdown-in-tourism-11387024">up to 70 per cent</a>, Standard & Poor has already predicted that some islands will experience significantly deteriorated credit ratings. </p>
<p>For example, with tourism accounting for half of Jamaica’s foreign exchange earnings and more than 350,000 jobs, it is not entirely surprising that the tourism minister has justified re-opening as “not just about tourism. It is <a href="http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20200605/tourism-reopening-matter-economic-life-or-death-bartlett">a matter of economic life or death.</a>” It’s also not surprising that <a href="https://www.caribjournal.com/2020/05/08/sandals-resorts-caribbean-reopen/">resort chains</a> like Sandals and <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article241249651.html">airlines</a> alike have been eager to resume business as usual. </p>
<p>But assurances that “vacations are back,” even <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/dominican-republic/">as new cases emerge</a>, ring hollow given that most Caribbean countries have long struggled with <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1060842">overburdened health-care systems</a>. And even with <a href="https://www.travelagewest.com/Travel/Caribbean/The-Latest-on-Jamaica-s-Reopening-to-Tourism-Including-Mandatory-Testing">new protocols</a> for screening, isolating or <a href="https://www.caribjournal.com/2020/06/09/jamaica-tourism-reopening-protocols-preparing/">restricting the mobility</a> of infected visitors, it is likely that the region’s poorer citizens — many of whom are women in front-line hospitality services — will bear the brunt of the costs of new infections. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345377/original/file-20200702-111374-1jmg136.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The beach is empty where a few tourists spend time on the waters’ edge in Cancun, Mexico in June 2020. The white sand beaches are sparkling clean and empty on the Caribbean coast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Victor Ruiz)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unequal dependencies</h2>
<p>The dependence of Caribbean and Latin American governments on tourism and remittance dollars, and Canada’s dependence on Black and brown people to carry out low-paid essential work, are unequal dependencies that are intimately tied. For the most vulnerable, these dependencies mark the stark overlap between economic life and COVID-19 death. </p>
<p>Yet COVID-19 has also presented us with a unique opportunity to rethink the border inequalities that have governed our lives and the primacy of the economy within it. </p>
<p>It forces us to ask: Who does “the economy” serve? What types of activities are valued or dismissed when we prioritize economic growth? Whose life is valued, and whose continues to be expendable? </p>
<p>Prioritizing the economy over the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable should never be an acceptable fix.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is a collaborative article written by members of the Global Economies and Everyday Lives Lab at Queen’s University, Canada. Nathalia Ocasio Santos, Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin, Priscilla Apronti, Hilal Kara and Tesfa Peterson co-authored this piece.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140120/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Prouse receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beverley Mullings, Dairon Luis Morejon Perez, and Shannon Clarke do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
COVID-19 has proven that prioritizing the economy over the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable should never be an acceptable fix to economic woes.
Carolyn Prouse, Assistant Professor of Human Geography, Queen's University, Ontario
Beverley Mullings, Professor of Geography, Queen's University, Ontario
Dairon Luis Morejon Perez, PhD Student in Geography and Urban Planning, Queen's University, Ontario
Shannon Clarke, PhD Student in Geography, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134804
2020-04-13T07:41:15Z
2020-04-13T07:41:15Z
Why Ghana’s smallholders aren’t excited by the latest ‘Green Revolution’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325723/original/file-20200406-74220-fb7sv2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Ghanaian vegetable farmer sits on his land</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghanaian_Vegetable_Farmer.jpg">Vrinda Khushu/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Green Revolution – the introduction of new higher yielding seed varieties, increased use of fertiliser, irrigation and other mechanisation introduced since the 1960s – brought about a great <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/300/5620/758">increase in crop yields</a> in some countries in the Global South. Hybridised seeds produced more grains per plant and were more responsive to fertiliser and irrigation.</p>
<p>But the effects of this “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Africas-Green-Revolution-Critical-Perspectives-on-New-Agricultural-Technologies/Moseley-Schnurr-Bezner-Kerr/p/book/9781138185951">revolution</a>” were famously uneven, both between and within countries. The farming environment in sub-Saharan Africa wasn’t as well suited to the technologies as Asia and Latin America. </p>
<p>In the past 20 years, a newer model of the Green Revolution has emerged predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. Domestic and international agribusinesses have a much more prominent place. The Green Revolution of the past was more heavily supported by public and quasi-public institutions. Now the private sector is encouraged to take the lead role in distributing agricultural inputs and getting outputs to market. The idea is to commercialise production and integrate farmers into global markets. </p>
<p>The contemporary version of the Green Revolution is promoted largely by the <a href="https://agra.org/">Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa</a>, the G7/G8’s <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/535010/EXPO_STU(2015)535010_EN.pdf">New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa</a>, the World Bank, USAID, the African Union among others. These donors generally take the view that African agriculture must be transformed to use land more efficiently and catch up with the productivity levels of other regions.</p>
<p>But there are many questions about whether this newer Green Revolution can increase production in a way that will reduce poverty and food insecurity. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/11287462.2014.1002294">previous research</a> analysed whether this approach is likely to succeed. We looked at the assumptions it’s based on and the possible consequences, particularly for smallholder farmers. Focusing on northern Ghana, we then completed a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504509.2020.1733702">case study</a> of how the strategy is playing out. </p>
<p>We found that the vast majority of smallholder farmers were reluctantly adopting the new varieties of seed, chemical fertilisers, agrochemicals and farm contracts promoted as part of the Green Revolution. Farmers adopted these inputs and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2018.1552076">business arrangements</a> to address the immediate challenges of erratic rainfall, shortened growing seasons, drier soils with diminished fertility and increasing land competition. But many described this decision as a short-term trade-off to maintain the yields required to survive. They did not have the hope of increasing yields.</p>
<p>They also identified serious negative consequences of these newer farming practices. </p>
<h2>Reluctant adoption</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504509.2020.1733702">case study</a> we found that many farmers expressed deep concern about the long-term consequences of the Green Revolution prescriptions. These included damage to soils from herbicides and fertilisers, the narrowing of crop varieties planted and foods consumed, rising levels of indebtedness, and heightened risks of land dispossession, particularly for women. </p>
<p>Most smallholders used new varieties of seed when planting soy, rice, maize and groundnuts. These matured and could be harvested in a shorter time than “non-improved” varieties. This helped in a shortened growing season associated with a changing climate. </p>
<p>But some farmers insisted that the new seed does not actually increase yields. </p>
<p>The improved varieties were also “open pollinating” – the plants produce seeds for the next season. But only a limited number of crops have been improved and could grow within shorter time periods (such as 90 days for maize). This was reducing the diversity of crops planted and the variety of foods consumed. Crops that required longer growing periods, such as millet and sorghum (120-150 days), were once common but are grown by fewer farmers. This could have shifted diets to maize instead of more nutritious staples such as sorghum or millet.</p>
<p>Many smallholders said they were more frequently turning to herbicides to deal with weeds – a growing problem which they blamed on soil degradation. They said chemical fertilisers were becoming necessary just to maintain production levels, and this put them further into debt. Their increasing dependence on pesticides and chemical fertilisers was becoming a vicious dependency spiral. </p>
<p>Community members pointed out that farming was becoming polarised between those who could afford to finance the promoted package of inputs and those who couldn’t. </p>
<p>Another major concern for many smallholders was the growing presence of newcomers to their communities who have access to finance to farm, including direct payments from development projects. Their presence stoked competition for land. One smallholder described his sense of the newcomers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Big people, MPs and the educated who are all into farming. I think it is a way of investment. That is why more of such people are rushing into it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Land was regularly described as being in short supply, as more people moved into farming in response to new incentives and environmental changes. Some were trying to increase their acreage planted to compensate for lower yields stemming from drying conditions. </p>
<p>The majority of farmers felt they had to continuously cultivate all of their fields. Many knew this contributed to soil degradation and reliance on chemical inputs but they are trying to minimise the risk of dispossession. As one smallholder put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We know of the benefit of fallowing, but the moment you even leave it, somebody is hungry for land, he will even come and say, ‘you are satisfied and left some’, so he will be begging to farm on it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our case study shows that even though many smallholders have adhered to the newer Green Revolution model, they are worried about its long-term implications. It is also clear that wealth and gender disparities affect the ability of farmers to access and benefit from new technologies and markets. Female farmers are especially disadvantaged and at risk of dispossession. </p>
<p>In developing more sustainable agriculture, the first step should be to listen to what smallholder farmers say about their particular environments and constraints. And not funding technologies and business arrangements that exacerbate environmental changes and socioeconomic inequalities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siera Vercillo has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the International Development Research Centre and Western University in Ontario, Canada.</span></em></p>
And why development funders should listen to smallholder farmers
Siera Vercillo, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126583
2019-11-07T03:57:46Z
2019-11-07T03:57:46Z
Australia’s drought relief package hits the political spot but misses the bigger point
<p>There are two basic components to the Morrison government’s latest A$1 billion package response to the drought affecting large parts eastern Australia. One part involves extra subsidies to farmers and farm-related business. The other involves measures to create or upgrade infrastructure in rural areas.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most funds will be misdirected and the response is unlikely to secure the long-term prosperity of regional and rural communities. This is a quick fix to a political problem, appealing to an important constituency. But it misses the point, again, about the emerging economics of drought.</p>
<h2>Hitting the political target</h2>
<p>The bulk of the A$1 billion package is allocated to a loan fund. The terms of the ten-year loans are more generous than what has been offered in the past. They are now interest-free for two years, with no requirement to start paying back the principal till the sixth year. </p>
<p>Farmers will be able to borrow up to A$2 million. In addition, loans of up to A$500,000 will also be available to small businesses in drought-affected towns. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-sets-up-concessional-loan-scheme-for-drought-hit-small-businesses-126529">Government sets up concessional loan scheme for drought-hit small businesses</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Because recipients are not having to pay the full cost, these loans are in practice a form of subsidy. </p>
<p>Subsidies are used by government to make more people undertake an activity than would otherwise be the case. In this case the government is offering a subsidy to keep farmers and small businesses owners doing what they’ve been doing, even though from an economic point of view this might not be very wise at all. </p>
<p>The question that should be asked is: “do we want more or fewer people to be involved in a farming activity that is vulnerable to drought?” </p>
<p>Most farming in Australia is completely reliant on rainfed crops and pastures. Rainfall is already highly variable. All the indicators from climate science is that rain will be even more unreliable in the future. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-drought-is-complex-but-the-message-on-climate-change-is-clear-125941">The science of drought is complex but the message on climate change is clear</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In addition, the agricultural industries currently drought affected are not just at the whims of rainfall. These industries are constantly changing and being affected by new technologies and market forces. </p>
<p>For most agricultural produce the key market force is price. Sure, some farms and farmers can carve out niche markets, but most farm businesses depend on producing at lowest cost. Increasingly, the farms that survive in a highly competitive global environment do this by exploiting economies of scale. Big farms are thus more profitable than small ones in the good times (such as when it rains); and during the tough times (such as during drought) they have more resources and deeper reserves to ride it out. </p>
<p>Ultimately, this means successful farms are continually getting bigger and small farmers are getting squeezed out. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/just-because-both-sides-support-drought-relief-doesnt-mean-its-right-121744">Just because both sides support drought relief, doesn’t mean it's right</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The data also support the view that the farmers who survive and are simultaneously exposed to drought <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8489.12195">ultimately become even more profitable</a>, because of what they learnt about managing in a difficult environment.</p>
<p>This is not to argue drought is a good thing for any farm, but it does raise a serious question about any government policy that effectively encourages more people to keep doing something when global and technological forces would point to it being unsustainable. </p>
<h2>So what’s the point?</h2>
<p>The second component of the Morrison government’s relief response involves directing about A$500 million from existing regional infrastructure funds into building roads and other things into affected communities. </p>
<p>While many will welcome this on top of the the extension of loans to small business in country towns, the policy detracts from the serious questions that confront rural and regional communities. </p>
<p>The economics of agriculture has flow-on effects to towns, but it would be wrong to think all are impacted in the same way. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/helping-farmers-in-drought-distress-doesnt-help-them-be-the-best-105281">Helping farmers in drought distress doesn't help them be the best</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As a general rule, when farmers sell up, they tend to leave from the small communities first. The upshot is that small communities get smaller, older and poorer as those least mobile are left behind. These people also generally require more, not less, public support. Mid-size communities tend to level out, while continuing to age. Large regional centres tend to grow and prosper. </p>
<p>The point is that each community requires different things from government. Genuine public goods like roads, health services and education are desperately needed and undersupplied in many cases. Providing cash to a few select businesses and grading a gravel road in this situation belies the complexity of the long-term challenges and fails to address serious issues. </p>
<p>An elderly retiree in a rural town might well ask why their local road or bridge is only upgraded during a drought. Surely, government should focus on providing legitimate public goods for the long term, regardless of the weather.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lin Crase receives funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
The question in drought relief is this: do we want more or fewer people to be involved in a farming activity that is vulnerable to drought?
Lin Crase, Professor of Economics and Head of School, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123490
2019-11-04T09:28:50Z
2019-11-04T09:28:50Z
For a sustainable future, we need to reconnect with what we’re eating – and each other
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296419/original/file-20191010-188783-uzafst.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/urban-gardening-malacca-malaysia-415964887?src=JbbbLSZ79a_ZM294avtPug-1-29">Jakob Fischer/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Eating alone, once considered an oddity, has become commonplace for many across the Western world. Fast food chains are promoting eating on the go or “al desko”. Why waste time in your busy day sitting down at a table with others? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/%7E/media/Files/S/Sainsburys/living-well-index/sainsburys-living-well-index-sep-2018.pdf">Surveys</a> indicate that a third of Britons regularly eat on their own. Open Table, an online restaurant booking app, found that solo dining in New York <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-new-york-city-restaurants-welcome-tables-for-one-11550066400">increased by 80%</a> between 2014-2018. And in Japan, the world capital of solo dining, a trend for “<a href="https://timeline.com/japan-eating-alone-56c5fafe89ee">low-interaction dining</a>” has taken off. Restaurants are opening which facilitate the ultimate solo dining experience: passing bowls of noodles through black curtains into individual booths. </p>
<p>Is this a worrying trend? We think so. Research is revealing the negative impacts of eating alone, which has been found to be linked to a variety of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4621239/">mental</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871403X17300960">physical</a> health conditions, from depression and diabetes to high blood pressure. So it’s cheering that <a href="https://sharecity.ie/research/sharecity100-database/">hundreds of food sharing initiatives</a> have sprung up around the world which aim to improve food security and sustainability while combating loneliness. </p>
<p>There’s London’s <a href="https://www.casseroleclub.com/">Casserole Club</a>, for example, whose volunteers share extra portions of home-cooked food with people in their area who aren’t always able to cook for themselves. Or South Africa’s <a href="https://new.foodjams.co.za/">Food Jams</a>, social gatherings in which participants are paired up, preferably with strangers, and given a portion of the meal to prepare. Such initiatives offer lessons of all kinds to those thinking about how our food systems need to change. This is why we have been researching them, in our several ways, for the last few years.</p>
<p>So why has eating together declined? There are a variety of reasons. Authors such as the food writer <a href="https://michaelpollan.com/">Michael Pollan</a> argue that it is due to the general undervaluing of home-based labour, including cooking. The widening of the workforce, which brought many women out of the kitchen and into the workplace during the 20th century, also contributed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296440/original/file-20191010-188829-1hbxlqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The food industry encourages eating on the go.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-january-5-2019-people-1279348291?src=enpf8mZBbl7i6JFzaPjD6A-1-94">Alena Veasey/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, the growth in insecure and inconsistent <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/13/2319">working patterns</a> among a <a href="https://theconversation.com/self-employment-and-casual-work-arent-increasing-but-so-many-jobs-are-insecure-whats-going-on-100668">growing proportion</a> of the population also discourages meals eaten communally. And an increasing number of people <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1468-4446.12231">live alone</a>, which certainly does not help. Reports of <a href="https://theconversation.com/loneliness-on-its-way-to-becoming-britains-most-lethal-condition-94775">increasing feelings of loneliness</a> are widespread.</p>
<p>The variety of people’s social circles is also decreasing. Declines in <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-11-americans-volunteering-decades.html">volunteering</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/10/17/international-political-engagement/pg_2018-10-17_political-engagement-01/">political participation</a> (beyond voting), fewer people giving <a href="https://www.thenonprofittimes.com/fundraising/giving-usa-overall-philanthropy-increased-despite-decline-from-individuals/">to charity</a> and less time spent <a href="https://qz.com/1320344/americans-are-socializing-less-and-playing-more-games/">informally socialising</a> are all symptoms of this.</p>
<p>All this is capitalised upon by the food industry. Solo dining suits commercial interests across the food system, with the rising giants of the food industry keen to communicate a convenience culture around food – eat when you want, wherever you are. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>Food is big business</h2>
<p>This should be no surprise. As <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/issue/view/154">new research</a> shows, power and control over food globally has become so highly concentrated that large, profit-oriented multinationals are influential in shaping critical decisions about how our food is produced, traded and marketed. Some consider such global agri-food businesses to be <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/327/5967/812">necessary</a>, viewing the increase in food production and distribution that they have generated as a prerequisite for global food security. Many others – us included – point out that this production-focused approach has led to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928882/">negative effects</a> on people’s livelihoods, cultures and environments. </p>
<p>It is undeniable that the global food system that has been created over the past half century is unsustainable. The increasing incidence of monocultures – huge swaths of a single crop grown over enormous areas – are heavily dependent on synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics. </p>
<p>These in turn <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315754116">lead to</a> biodiversity loss, environmental pollution and increasing fossil fuel dependency – synthetic fertilisers often require significant fossil fuel inputs (primarily natural gas). Around <a href="http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/">one-third</a> of food produced is lost or wasted across the system and yet still billions of people globally go hungry every day.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296442/original/file-20191010-188792-qxnhsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monocultures are not good socially or environmentally.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-image-tractor-spraying-soil-young-1074836360?src=RgdGfTGt4f-SGAXlWE8hXg-1-57">Budimir Jevtic/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So it is certain that food systems need to be reconfigured to meet many of the UN’s global 2030 <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">Sustainable Development Goals</a>. But achieving these goals will not be easy. People are increasingly disconnected from the food system, with an ever-shrinking number of people involved in food production. As the then UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/03/463522">argued</a> back in 2014, one of the greatest challenges to creating a more sustainable and inclusive food system is how to ensure people are able to participate actively in it. </p>
<p>But what would a more democratic and sustainable food future look like? By discussing this with a range of stakeholders, we developed <a href="http://www.consensus.ie/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Food-scenarios-and-narratives.pdf">three scenarios</a> for sustainable food systems: technological, community-based, and educated.</p>
<p>The technological scenario puts “smart eating” at its centre. Fridges might monitor the food that is contained within them and provide recipes for using food that is close to use-by dates to avoid unnecessary waste. High levels of socio-cultural change, meanwhile, are envisaged under the “community eating” scenario, which champions greater opportunities and spaces for communal lifestyles. In this scenario, grow groups (basically technology-enabled community gardens) become mainstream activities, available to everyone. Meanwhile, the “educated eating” scenario, which puts high levels of regulatory innovation at its core, envisages advances in carbon accounting of food products and individualised carbon credit budgets.</p>
<p>The ideal food system would of course incorporate elements of all three of these visions. But above all – and in all three scenarios – it was stressed that a sustainable food future should be replete with opportunities to share food <a href="http://www.consensus.ie/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Food-scenarios-and-narratives.pdf">with others</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296444/original/file-20191010-188783-vzl1sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Food enjoyed together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/children-having-lunch-asian-school-sitting-228253357?src=gnwzZSzJ-1cYHixvK7vKbw-1-70">Anna Issakova/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Food sharing</h2>
<p>The seeds for such a world already exist. Our research into food sharing initiatives over the past four years has demonstrated that reinvigorating opportunities to share food – whether that is eating, growing or redistributing food together with others – can support greater food democracy as well as sustainability. So how do we get there?</p>
<p>People often blame modern technologies – smartphones, apps, web platforms and the like – for <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv62hdfx">disconnecting us from each other</a> and creating a world in which solo dining becomes commonplace. Smartphones mean we live in an “always on” culture. Fast food of any description is waiting to be delivered straight to our desk, with no need to leave home or the office. Meanwhile, apps allow us to connect seamlessly with people halfway round the world <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/313732/reclaiming-conversation-by-sherry-turkle/">at the expense</a> of those next to us on the bus or in a restaurant.</p>
<p>But the internet also provides many opportunities to <a href="http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=1004846">reconnect over food</a>. Whether it is identifying opportunities to grow together via <a href="https://phsonline.org/programs/garden-tenders/community-gardens-map/">interactive maps</a> of community gardens, or discovering the location of <a href="https://www.open-table.org/">social dining experiences</a> in your neighbourhood, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001671851730266X">thousands</a> of grassroots and community-led initiatives use food as the catalyst to bring people and communities together. These initiatives are often local, small-scale and run by volunteers – but their online presence means we were able to locate them in all four corners of the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296445/original/file-20191010-188819-kvygi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Combating food security and loneliness at once.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/qgHGDbbSNm8">Elaine Casap/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We systematically mapped these food sharing initiatives in <a href="https://sharecity.ie/research/sharecity100-database/">100 cities</a> developing an online interactive tool to explore why, what and how food is shared. We prepared detailed sharing profiles for cities including <a href="https://sharecity.ie/research/city-profiles/">Dublin, Berlin, London, Melbourne and Singapore</a>. This was <a href="https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12340">no easy process</a> given the diversity of people and places covered, but it gives important visibility to activities that easily fall below the radar of politicians and the media. </p>
<p>We found that different sharing initiatives occur at all stages of the food chain – from growing food, to preparing and eating it, to distribution of waste.</p>
<h2>Growing together</h2>
<p>There are thousands of food sharing initiatives that focus on providing opportunities to grow food together. These often build on a long cultural tradition of food cultivation that is evolving and embracing new technologies to facilitate shared growing activities.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296448/original/file-20191010-188829-d4umt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Use Spades Not Ships. Poster by Abram Games, 1941-45. V&A Food Futures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Estate of Abram Games</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such initiatives are immensely valuable. Growing with and alongside others provides a way to combat loneliness and opportunities to spend time in nature without spending money. It also provides a range of health and well-being benefits, reducing stress, heart rate and blood pressure. Recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/13/two-hour-dose-nature-weekly-boosts-health-study-finds">research</a> has uncovered that spending only two hours in nature each week can have the same health benefits as five portions of fruit and vegetables a day or 150 minutes of exercise.</p>
<p>Despite this, urban green spaces are becoming increasingly <a href="http://theconversation.com/many-people-feel-lonely-in-the-city-but-perhaps-third-places-can-help-with-that-92847">rare</a> and food growing initiatives often operate under threat of <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/growing-pains-the-dublin-community-gardens-under-threat-1.3715835">eviction</a> on temporary “meanwhile” leases. Governments should therefore look to shared growing initiatives for inspiration when considering future policies.</p>
<p><a href="https://himmelbeet.de/">Himmelbeet</a>, for example, is an intercultural community garden in the district of Wedding in Berlin. The <a href="https://himmelbeet.de/ueber-uns/das-gute-leben-fuer-alle">goals</a> of the initiative are to to enable access to healthy food and education, providing “the good life for all”. Founded in 2013, it is currently located on vacant space in one of Berlin’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The initiative offers opportunities to grow food as well as providing cooking workshops, a monthly open-air movie screening, repair cafes, swap shops and much more. </p>
<p>Everything in the garden is developed in a collaborative manner with many volunteers working together to facilitate learning and give room for friendships to develop. One of Himmelbeet’s current projects is the development of a book on gardening that is accessible to everyone, with a diverse group working together to develop the content to ensure it meets this goal. Himmelbeet promotes its shared growing activities via <a href="https://www.facebook.com/himmelbeet/">social media</a> and actively campaigns for more transparent land use planning in the city. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296433/original/file-20191010-188829-1wloam3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Himmelbeet Community Garden, Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Oona Morrow</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We identified many community gardens which use technology as a tool to organise and spread their shared growing activities. Out of 3,800 initiatives in the database, around a quarter involve shared growing, although their distribution varies from city to city. Our research suggests permanent growing gardens across the city should be developed as a form of social and environmental prescription. This is not hard to do – local governments protect parks all the time – but it requires officials to recognise the value of growing together.</p>
<h2>Sharing food, Singapore style</h2>
<p>Technology is also being harnessed to enable eating food more communally, acting as an antidote to the industry-encouraged trend towards solo eating on the go. This new wave of food sharing start ups are a range of peer-to-peer dining applications and platforms that offer food experiences to those who want to share their passion for cooking and eating. These food sharing experiences often build on local food flavours, secret recipes and eating within the intimate space of a stranger’s home – ranging from supper clubs to cooking classes to ad hoc soup kitchens.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://sharecity.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/SHARECITY-Rut-and-Davies_Transitioning-without-confrontation.pdf">Singapore</a>, sharing food has always been part of community, providing a sense of rhythm, friendship and social belonging. Eating is commonly agreed to be a national passion. Often described as a food paradise, the city’s food landscape is shaped by diverse culinary practices and cuisines, including Chinese, Eurasian, Indian, Malay and Peranakan traditions. Such dishes can be found within hawker centres – basically down-to-earth food courts offering diverse and reasonably priced food – across the city-state. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297332/original/file-20191016-98661-1te4ytm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thiong Bahru Hawker Center, Singapore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Monika Rut</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But many traditional hawker fares such as <em>loh kai yik</em> (stewed chicken wings) are becoming increasingly hard to find in the hawker centres. Many Singaporeans feel that today, food is being influenced by fast food cooking styles and consumption of convenience food, weakening hawker traditions. </p>
<p>So, while the city-state has nominated hawker centres for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage to continue practice of food hawking, it is not so common to come together as strangers and sharing meals and cultures, something that shaped Singapore’s gastronomic profile. </p>
<p>But all is not bleak. In response to this trend, an emerging internet-driven food sharing scene in Singapore is now providing other ways to sample, taste and share traditional Singaporean cooking, such as meeting and dining with home chefs through the <a href="https://www.sharefood.sg/">Share Food App</a>, a platform for sharing and selling home-cooked food.</p>
<p>One person using the app, Elizabeth, grew up with her grandmother, who used to be a hawker. She remembers her grandmother’s ingenious ways of sourcing vegetables from the market, cooking with local ingredients and preparing traditional recipes. Elizabeth spoke to us about her passion for sharing <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/singapore/articles/6-things-you-didnt-know-about-peranakan-cuisine/">Peranakan food</a>, which combines Chinese and Malay cuisines, and the experience of dining together provided a unique way to explore the culinary history of Singapore. She told us that “food sharing apps such as Share Food have potential to create new food ways that inspire food practices against relentless globalisation of tastes”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297355/original/file-20191016-98670-1xv8mr9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A home-cooked meal, shared through the Share Food app.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Monika Rut</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As this demonstrates, technologically enabled food sharing is not only a form of environmental and social activism, these digital tools also enable people to come together through food, and salvage dying cultural traditions and stories.</p>
<h2>Sharing futures</h2>
<p>These stories of food sharing barely scratch the surface of the <a href="http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=1004846">food sharing activities</a> we have tracked that are emerging globally. Some initiatives focus on waste, for example, with large platforms such as <a href="https://olioex.com/">Olio</a> and <a href="https://fallingfruit.org">Falling Fruit</a> allowing people to access surplus food, while others such as <a href="https://food.cloud/">FoodCloud</a> and <a href="https://fareshare.org.uk/">FareShare</a> connect smaller organisations with large retailers to reduce food waste. Others, such as <a href="https://www.eatwith.com/landings/things-to-do/dining-experiences">EatWith</a>, offer the opportunity to dine with people in their homes, connecting people for more personalised food sharing experiences.</p>
<p>What is certain is food sharing has the potential to really change how we think about the sustainability of our food system and the well-being of global populations. Of course, food sharing will not solve all the issues facing our flawed global food system but, at its best, it demonstrates how the food system can and should be designed for people and the planet, rather than just for profit.</p>
<p>If such initiatives are to be a force for change, however, their benefits need to be clear. On the policy level, this means they need to be measurable. And so we have been trying to establish more precisely what kinds of impacts food sharing initiatives are creating. We found that all of the initiatives express either social, economic or environmental <a href="https://sharecity.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SHARECITY-Briefing-Note-3-Goals-and-Impacts.pdf">goals</a>, but few conducted any formal reporting of impact. This is not surprising; food sharing initiatives have limited time, money and skills available to them to take on such additional tasks. They are often battling just to survive. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296438/original/file-20191010-188835-356ket.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fewer people than ever are involved in food production.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PHÚC LONG/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is relatively easy to count the amount of food produced, consumed or shared. Some surplus food redistribution initiatives, such as <a href="https://food.cloud/">FoodCloud</a>, are already doing this very effectively. It is much more difficult to establish how shared experiences make a difference to people in terms of their emotional or social needs. Even here we have some useful indicators. The number of meals people share with others can be an indicator of <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/23398">social capital</a> as seen in the <a href="https://www.edenprojectcommunities.com/blog/social-eating-helps-connect-communities">big lunch project</a>. </p>
<p>We worked with initiatives to co-design the free <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195925519301064">SHARE IT</a> online toolkit to help food sharing initiatives of all kinds to understand and communicate their impacts more clearly. We are providing the resources and online infrastructures, food sharing initiatives just need to find the time to consider the impact they are having on those with whom they share.</p>
<h2>Advancing food democracy</h2>
<p>Whether food sharing initiatives flourish or fade is not only down to the energies of those who establish and participate in them. Government policies and regulations play an important role in shaping food sharing activities. In a <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2090">new publication</a>, we document how food sharing initiatives often struggle to gain visibility among policy makers. </p>
<p>Governments tend to see food only as a commodity. They regulate food activities as if they were either solely commercial businesses or entirely private matters. As a result, the social, environmental and health benefits that accrue from food sharing that doesn’t fit neatly in either of these boxes are often missed. The lack of holistic food policy departments, particularly at the local government level, does not help.</p>
<p>These are <a href="https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=d04d27a0-af62-46e2-a291-cd8468805822">common challenges</a> across European, Oceanian and North American cities attempting to build sustainable urban food policies. But there are reasons to be optimistic. London, for example, has just launched a <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/final_london_food_strategy.pdf">new food strategy</a> that seeks to increase the visibility of food matters all around the city. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, actions need not always be state-led. London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is currently hosting <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/food-bigger-than-the-plate">an exhibition on food</a> which explores how global issues from climate change and sustainability to workers’ rights interact with the way we produce and consume food. It takes visitors on an experimental journey, including food sharing initiatives <a href="http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=1004846">we have examined</a> such as <a href="https://olioex.com/">Olio</a> and <a href="https://fallingfruit.org/">Falling Fruit</a>, asking: “Can what we eat be more sustainable, ethical and delicious?” Slowly, such actions are encouraging more people to think about different ways in which we can produce and can come together around food.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296450/original/file-20191010-188802-4wthbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fernando Laposse, Totomoxtle table detail. V&A Food Futures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Fernando Laposse</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Better together</h2>
<p>Thinking outside the box around food is crucial given the challenges we now face in relation to global environmental changes. There is general agreement that our food systems need a dramatic overhaul.</p>
<p>It is sometimes hard to keep positive in the face of social, economic, environmental and political instability. So it is heartening that people are organising in solidarity with others around the most basic of human needs: food. Acting together in this way has been shown to be an empowering way to deal with issues of <a href="https://theconversation.com/im-up-late-at-night-worrying-about-global-warming-please-can-you-put-my-mind-at-rest-124940">eco-anxiety</a>. By their very existence, these food sharing initiatives provide a demonstration effect for others. They are, as Jane Riddiford from <a href="https://www.globalgeneration.org.uk/">Global Generation</a> and The Skip Garden and Kitchen initiative puts it, “creating the conditions for change”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296446/original/file-20191010-188819-ygbrsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK hop picking trip, 2018. V&A Food Futures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Company Drinks, photo by Nick Matthews</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many cases, initiatives are acting and organising themselves in the face of government inaction rather than because of it. Initiatives plug gaps in emergency food provision and provide opportunities for community groups to bring food into their services in ways that would have been impossible otherwise. They provide actual care in the community as vulnerable and marginalised groups are welcomed into community gardens and participate actively in cultivating both food and interpersonal relationships.</p>
<p>Food sharing initiatives are then to be celebrated for their collective actions contributing towards the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs">sustainable development goals</a>, but this is not enough. The way we govern food needs to change. The current agri-food system has been set up to regulate multinational corporations and private consumers, not support digitally-enhanced community groups and entrepreneurial grassroots start ups set on delivering social, economic and environmental goods and services.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the value of food sharing – and the contribution it makes to physical and mental well-being of individuals, communities and the planet – needs to be made visible. Cultivating widespread food sharing takes a lot of time, labour and care but the social and environmental return on investment is worth it. In these difficult times, cooperation is key to our redemption.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/environmental-stress-is-already-causing-death-this-chaos-map-shows-where-123796?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Environmental stress is already causing death – this chaos map shows where
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-world-a-history-of-how-a-silent-cosmos-led-humans-to-fear-the-worst-120193?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/futurology-how-a-group-of-visionaries-looked-beyond-the-possible-a-century-ago-and-predicted-todays-world-118134?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Futurology: how a group of visionaries looked beyond the possible a century ago and predicted today’s world</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Davies receives funding from the European Research Council to support the SHARECITY project. She is a member of the governing board of the European Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production, The Future Earth Sustainable Consumption and Production Knowledge Action Network, The International Science Council, Ireland's Climate Change Advisory Council and The Rediscovery Centre, a social sustainability enterprise based in Dublin, Ireland.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agnese Cretella receives funding from the European Research Council to support the SHARECITY project.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monika Rut receives funding from the European Research Council to support the SHARECITY project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Mackenzie receives funding from the European Research Council to support the SHARECITY project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivien Franck receives funding from the European Research Council to support the SHARECITY project. </span></em></p>
These inspirational food sharing initiatives around the world demonstrate that sustainable food system can – and should – be democratic.
Anna Davies, Chair professor, Trinity College Dublin
Agnese Cretella, Postdoctoral Researcher, Trinity College Dublin
Monika Rut, PhD Student, Trinity College Dublin
Stephen Mackenzie, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Trinity College Dublin
Vivien Franck, Research Assistant, Trinity College Dublin
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122587
2019-09-02T12:55:13Z
2019-09-02T12:55:13Z
Amazon in flames: Brazil’s Huni Kuin indigenous people count the social costs of fire and conflict
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290291/original/file-20190830-166005-z27sdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the Huni Kuin community survey the damage after a fire on August 22. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/huwakaru/posts/732602613865559">Centro Huwã Karu Yuxibu via Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The cultural centre of Huwã Karu Yuxibu was the educational and spiritual centre of Brazil’s indigenous Huni Kuin people. Located 50km from Rio Branco, the capital city of Acre, a state within the Amazon rainforest, it was constructed in 2015 and provided a focus for agroecological knowledge, traditional medicine cultivation and cultural ceremonies for the community. But on the afternoon of August 22, Huwã Karu Yuxibu was burned along with trees, the well, and the medicinal and food gardens of the Huni Kuin people. </p>
<p>Many of the Huni Kuin people who live near the centre have been previously displaced from the Brazilian-Bolivian border where they lost territory to competing land interests on the Amazonian frontier.</p>
<p>Across Brazil, there was an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49415973">84% increase in fires</a> between 2018 and 2019, the greatest number of registered fires in seven years. Over half of these have been in the Amazon according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. In the state of Acre, there have been a staggering <a href="http://queimadas.dgi.inpe.br/queimadas/bdqueimadas/">2,498 separate outbreaks</a>, an increase of 176% from the previous year. </p>
<p>The Huni Kuin community are well known to us, and articulated their ongoing struggle for territorial autonomy at the launch of our <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS001417%2F1">major research project</a> in February. In April, they made clear to researchers and students at the Federal University of Acre of their determination to preserve their cultural identity and practices, underpinned by the Huwã Karu Yuxibu. </p>
<p>The <em>cacique</em> (chief), Mapu Huni Kuin, told us the community has called on the government to investigate the cause of the fire, and invited a research visit in the coming weeks. The images they <a href="https://www.facebook.com/huwakaru/posts/732602613865559">shared on social media</a> of the scorched trees, gardens, medicinal plants, and the centre are symbolic of the social and cultural conflict that lies at the heart of the Amazon fires. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290293/original/file-20190830-166009-iqo9b9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Livelihoods and cultures destroyed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/huwakaru/posts/732602613865559">Centro Huwã Karu Yuxibu via Facebook</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legacy of marginalisation</h2>
<p>The Amazon is a complex ecosystem. For centuries it has been home to indigenous communities, African descendants, riverbank and fishing communities, rubber tappers and peasant agriculturalists who depend on the cycles of the trees, soils and rains for their individual and collective livelihoods.</p>
<p>The presence of many of these distinct communities within the forest bears the hallmarks of colonial incursions by Europeans, as their violence and diseases decimated the original dwellers of the Amazon. Then the rubber boom of the mid-19th century and cattle ranching led to further expulsion of indigenous people, like the Huni Kuin, from territories that they are yet to recover. The legacy of this is <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12541">still felt keenly</a> in the marginalisation of so many of the Amazon’s residents today. </p>
<p>The 21st-century commodity boom that underpins so much of the world’s green economy has put new pressures on the Amazonian frontier. It has led to a revival of massive scale <a href="https://pureportal.strath.ac.uk/en/publications/at-the-cutting-edge-precarious-work-in-brazils-sugar-and-ethanol-">sugar cane plantations in Brazil</a> for bio-ethanol export with enthusiastic international backing, the <a href="http://revista.fct.unesp.br/index.php/pegada/article/viewFile/5352/4419">construction of huge dams</a> for hydroelectric power, the dedication of land equivalent to the <a href="http://www.livrosabertos.sibi.usp.br/portaldelivrosUSP/catalog/book/352">area of Germany to soya</a>, new palm oil plantations, and the westward expansion of cattle pasture for meat production. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blood-in-bio-ethanol-how-indigenous-peoples-lives-are-being-destroyed-by-global-agribusiness-in-brazil-101348">Blood in bio-ethanol: how indigenous peoples' lives are being destroyed by global agribusiness in Brazil</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Alongside this trajectory is the increasing number of illegal land invasions by timber merchants, cattle ranchers and the armed merchants that accompany them. The culture and practices of indigenous people has <a href="https://periodicos.fclar.unesp.br/estudos/article/view/6458">put them at odds</a> with the logic and strategy of large farmers, agribusiness and their representatives in government. Land-related conflicts <a href="https://www.cptnacional.org.br/publicacoes-2/destaque/4687-conflitos-no-campo-brasil-2018">increased 36% between 2017 and 2018 in Brazil</a> with 960,630 people the victims of land-related disputes. </p>
<p>In this context the large increase in recent fires must be distinguished from the historical burnings by indigenous groups, used to produce modest clearings for their own food consumption. Instead, they should be considered as criminal actions by landowners, land grabbers, loggers and agribusiness in order to appropriate new property and undermine territorial claims by Amazonian communities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-fires-indigenous-people-show-fire-can-be-used-sustainably-122493">Amazon fires: Indigenous people show fire can be used sustainably</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Protections eroded</h2>
<p>Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has not hidden his intention to roll back protections for the Amazonian region and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/02/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-amazon-rainforest-protections">exploit its mineral resources</a>. This followed from his election <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3b60ba1e41e04cb08853afc51e81e415">campaign vow</a> not to give one more centimetre to indigenous people.</p>
<p>In an interview with Ricardo Augusto Negrini, public prosecutor for the Amazonian state of Para in August, which we did as part of our research, he pointed to a worrying correlation between severe resource cuts to public environmental agencies and rising figures for illegal logging and land seizures in the region. He said government rhetoric in favour of large farmers and mining interests had compromised the credibility of agencies tasked with environmental protection and emboldened those intent on land seizure.</p>
<p>In Acre, cattle ranchers have opened up new swathes of forest with the public support of the state’s governor, Gladson Cameli, who <a href="https://g1.globo.com/ac/acre/noticia/2019/07/31/governador-do-ac-diz-a-produtores-para-nao-pagarem-multas-de-crimes-ambientais-quem-manda-sou-eu.ghtml">recently declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If someone is in the countryside and is being fined by the Acre Environment Institute (for illegal deforestation) let me know, because I will not allow them to harm those who want to work. Let me know and don’t pay any fines, because it’s me now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If there is something to be salvaged from the ashes of the fires still sweeping across the Amazon it is greater attention to the existence, value and meaning of the lives lived within its canopy. Thousands of communities remain determined to resist the ongoing commercialisation of the trees, waters, soil and minerals of the Amazonian region by local and international interests. </p>
<p>Back in Acre, Ixã Txana, a member of the Huni Kuin community, made a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/huwakaru/posts/732602613865559">public appeal on Facebook</a> for public support to rebuild the community centre, replant the medicinal herbs, trees and crops.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is very sad to see what we are passing through today. We are working as indigenous people … in peace, with love, in happiness, not to destroy the forest. We want to plant, cultivate, and care for the soil in which plant. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the global importance of the forest’s carbon has captured headlines, the biodiversity of the Amazon includes myriad human cultures and <a href="https://doaj.org/article/793839cff834435bb8411654821d53fe">experiments</a>
in sustainable extraction, agro-ecology and agro-forestry. Their potential to contribute to the building of a more socially and environmentally committed future for all of us is threatened by each fire, each invasion and each <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2018/04/17/brazil-killings-in-land-conflicts-up-by-105-since-2003/">killing related to land conflict</a> that all, unfortunately, are on the rise in today’s Brazil.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Garvey works at the Department of Work, Employment and Organisation at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. He receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council for this current research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>José Alves, Professor of Geography at Federal University of Acre, Brazil. Co-researcher of project financed by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC-UK).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria de Jesus Morais, Professor of Geography at Federal University of Acre, Brazil.</span></em></p>
Huwã Karu Yuxibu, the cultural centre of the Huni Kuin indigenous group in the Amazonian state of Acre, was destroyed by fire in August.
Brian Garvey, Lecturer Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde
Jose Alves, Professor, Department of Geography, Federal University of Acre
Maria de Jesus Morais, Professor, Centre of Philosophy and Human Sciences, Federal University of Acre
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106432
2018-11-19T11:37:09Z
2018-11-19T11:37:09Z
A sharing economy for plants: Seed libraries are sprouting up
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246005/original/file-20181116-194516-3q61w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Got a license for those seeds?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/collection-grain-cereal-seed-bean-agriculture-279330770?src=wD2_hxn-sejl7mmr-ftDyg-1-7">xuanhuongho/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans have been holding late-year <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/american-tradition-thanksgiving-harvest-festival-roots-old-world-004694">harvest celebrations</a> for millennia. Beyond bulking up for winter, these events have an enduring theme: Being grateful for what one has, while noting a duty to share one’s good fortune. </p>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://islandpress.org/books/food-sharing-revolution">“The Food Sharing Revolution: How Start-Ups, Pop-Ups, and Co-Ops are Changing the Way We Eat</a>,” I look at sharing from a variety of angles – good, bad and downright ugly. One example is the custom of seed sharing, which can be traced from indigenous societies and the <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/american-tradition-thanksgiving-harvest-festival-roots-old-world-004694">earliest fall festivals</a> that ultimately inspired American Thanksgiving. </p>
<p>For centuries, people in agrarian societies shared seeds to help each other subsist from year to year. Today, thanks to intellectual property rights and often well-intentioned laws, our ability to share seeds is restricted. Realizing this, food activists, garden enthusiasts and community leaders are trying to make it easier by making seeds available through libraries. Surely there’s nothing controversial about that, right? Actually, there is.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246023/original/file-20181116-194509-45mjpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seed swap at the ‘Harvesting Change: Food and Community’ gathering in Detroit, Michigan, May 20, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/nFP5ry">W.K. Kellogg Foundation</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Free seeds by mail</h2>
<p>Until the early 1800s, U.S. farmers either saved seed from their own crops or obtained it through personal networks. Then in 1819, Treasury Secretary William Crawford called upon all ambassadors and military officers stationed overseas to <a href="https://www.deltafarmpress.com/us-seed-law-history-primer">collect seeds and bring them home</a>, where they would be shared freely. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=994&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1250&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246026/original/file-20181116-194494-oitvwj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1250&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seed advertising card, 1887.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/eDXbPN">Boston Public Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initially this program was informal, but in 1839 Commissioner of Patents Henry Ellsworth persuaded Congress to appropriate funds for it. Ellsworth owned large tracts of land in the Midwest, so his motives may not have been strictly public-minded. Soon his office was distributing 60,000 seed packages annually through the U.S. mail. By the turn of the 20th century, the Department of Agriculture was shipping a billion free packages of seed each year.</p>
<p>This was relatively uncontroversial until 1883, when a group of representatives from mostly vegetable seed trade firms formed the American Seed Trade Association. No business model can work if the government gives away for free what private merchants want to sell.</p>
<p>After decades of lobbying, the group convinced Congress to end the free seed program in 1924. Without granting ownership rights to plant breeders, members argued, there would be no incentive to “improve” seed for qualities such as yield, tolerance, germination length, root depth or aesthetics. As <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/301768?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">two plant breeders put it in 1919</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The man who originates a new plant which may be of incalculable benefit to the whole country gets nothing – not even fame – for his pains, as the plants can be propagated by anyone.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The 1930 <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Eota/disk1/1989/8924/892407.PDF">Plant Patent Act</a> was a watershed. It initially applied only to nursery plants propagated through cuttings, such as roses and apple trees. Soon, however, breeders of agricultural commodities pressed to expand the law in recognition of their labor. As a result, the majority of commercial crops and garden plants in use today were developed by agricultural companies, to the point that <a href="https://theconversation.com/counter-crop-patents-by-freeing-seeds-to-feed-the-world-29858">three companies</a> – Bayer Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – account for roughly 50 percent of all global seed sales.</p>
<p>Today the seed industry is highly controlled. <a href="https://www.betterseed.org/the-issues/state/#resources">Every state</a> has laws that require suppliers to obtain licenses, test seeds to ensure they are the variety advertised and properly label them. And the federal government regulates seed sales across state lines. </p>
<p>These laws exist for good reason. If farmers buy seed that turns out to be the wrong variety, or doesn’t germinate, their livelihood is at risk. Seed laws hold providers accountable and protect buyers. Some laws apply even to those who offer seeds for barter, exchange or trade.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246028/original/file-20181116-194497-1gzcao4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Benton County Nursery Co. seed catalogue, 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benton_County_Nursery_Co.,_Inc_(1960)_(20355889112).jpg">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seed sharing redux: Seed libraries</h2>
<p>But another community pillar is distributing seeds without charge: Libraries. The process works much the same as with books. Patrons receive seeds and plant them, then allow some of their plants to go to seed and return those seeds to the library for others’ use.</p>
<p>According to some proponents, there are <a href="http://www.richmondgrowsseeds.org/sister-libraries.html">more than 660 seed libraries in 48 states</a>. <a href="https://omahalibrary.org/browse_program/seed-library/">Public libraries</a>, <a href="https://new.library.arizona.edu/seed-library">universities</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/d64.org/lincoln-middle-school-lrc/seed-library">secondary schools</a> are getting involved. Their motives range from <a href="https://grist.org/food/seeds-on-seeds-on-seeds-why-more-biodiversity-means-more-food-security/">preserving plant diversity</a> and <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2018/05/25-2-Seed-Libraries-and-Food-Justice.pdf">local history</a> to <a href="https://www.newlibs.org/article/5045-a-place-for-seed-libraries-in-higher-education-setting-the-stage-for-new-outreach-and-engagement-initiatives">enhancing food access</a> and building regional agricultural resiliency in the face of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2017.1294653">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>One of the nation’s first seed libraries is the <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/homeandgarden/article/Seed-libraries-sow-more-than-good-will-6545823.php">Bay Area Seed Interchange Library</a>, or BASIL, which opened in 2000 at the Berkeley Ecology Center in Berkeley, California and is run by volunteers. Sascha DuBrul, its founder, is said to have came up with the idea after wanting to <a href="http://www.mapstotheotherside.net/history-of-seed-libraries/">find a home for seeds</a> that were left when the University of California, Berkeley closed its campus farm. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GvnQjMXQre4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A librarian from the Tulsa City and County Community Library in Oklahoma explains their seed program.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People who I interviewed for my research say the seed library movement has grown exponentially, starting with a few pioneers but expanding rapidly in the past five years. The movement includes food and community activists, gardeners, lawyers and citizens who support the idea that everyone has a right to seed. </p>
<p>Libraries don’t test seeds or place expiration dates on packaged seed, so some states have moved to regulate seed libraries. For example, in 2014 the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture informed the Joseph T. Simpson Public Library in Mechanicsburg that it was <a href="https://cumberlink.com/news/agriculture/pa-department-backs-seed-library-protocol-as-reaction-grows/article_d3acf6fc-1cf2-11e4-adf9-0019bb2963f4.html">violating the state’s Seed Act of 2004</a> and needed to follow the same stringent requirements as agricultural supply companies. </p>
<p>Labels had to be in English and clearly state the plant’s species name or commonly accepted name, and the library had to conduct germination and purity analyses. Failure to do so, one county commissioner asserted, could threaten local food supplies through what she called “<a href="https://cumberlink.com/news/local/communities/carlisle/department-of-agriculture-cracks-down-on-seed-libraries/article_8b0323f4-18f6-11e4-b4c1-0019bb2963f4.html">agri-terrorism</a>.”</p>
<p>The seed library eventually reopened after officials
agreed that patrons would not be required to bring seed back to the
library, and that seeds it provided would be commercially packaged. It now hosts seed swap events to encourage person-to-person sharing. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"957296412777164801"}"></div></p>
<h2>Defending the right to share</h2>
<p>Seed sharing advocates believe, as one who I will call Barry told me, that “people ought to be able share seeds without being treated like they’re Monsanto.” Many are alarmed by government crackdowns on seed libraries. </p>
<p>I met Barry in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was advising state officials on adding an exemption to the state’s seed law for seed libraries. “I’ve made the rounds”, he confessed when asked how many states’ revised seed laws have his fingerprints on them.</p>
<p>Since 2015, states ranging from <a href="http://seedstock.com/2015/05/03/the-little-library-that-could-advocates-change-seed-exchange-laws-in-minnesota/">Minnesota</a> to <a href="http://www.nda.nebraska.gov/regulations/plant/NebraskaSeedLawRelatedStatutes.pdf">Nebraska</a>, <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/opinion/ct-sta-slowik-seed-library-st-0125-20170124-story.html">Illinois</a> and, more recently, <a href="https://www.ktva.com/story/38928684/new-legislation-legalizes-seed-trading-in-alaska">Alaska</a> have adopted such exemptions. In <a href="https://caldwell.ces.ncsu.edu/2017/02/caldwell-seed-library/">North Carolina</a>, seed libraries are legal thanks to a blanket seed sharing exemption that applies to all nonprofit oganizations. <a href="http://alfafarmers.org/stories/news-detail/seed-library-cultivates-community-connections#.W9yu1npKigQ">Alabama</a> exempts any providers who sell up to US$3,000 worth of seed. </p>
<p>In September 2016, California Governor Jerry Brown signed <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1810">Assembly Bill 1810</a>, known among activists as the Seed Exchange Democracy Act, into law. The measure amended state law to exempt seed libraries from burdensome testing and labeling requirements.</p>
<p>Despite these successes, a number of activists I spoke with fear that agribusinesses seeking to protect their intellectual property rights will push back if the seed library movement keeps expanding. The hard reality is that sharing is not a right, even in this age of the so-called <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharing-economy.asp">sharing economy</a>, if the thing people want to share is a valuable commodity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Carolan receives funding from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea, the National Research Foundation of Korea, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture . </span></em></p>
Sharing seeds was common practice among farmers throughout history until the rise of agribusiness. Now seeds are trademarked and regulated, but there’s a new place to get them for free: the library.
Michael Carolan, Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Affairs, College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81061
2017-07-17T23:10:08Z
2017-07-17T23:10:08Z
How changing your diet could save animals from extinction
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178513/original/file-20170717-6069-118ptx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3329%2C2562&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly one-third of tropical animal species face extinction if humans do not curb our growing appetites for beef, pork and other land-intensive meats. The Panamanian golden frog bred by the Vancouver Aquarium in this 2014 file photo may be extinct in its natural habitat.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cpimages.com/fotoweb/cpimages_details.pop.fwx?position=4&archiveType=ImageFolder&sorting=ModifiedTimeAsc&search=golden%20and%20frog&fileId=7ED4E565C8CEED275AEAE4A023E6F0DBFE75CC55B6586039AFA3A4A9FE951D3F22B34ACC50499F0099000C676EF56B79FD8133928F397B4233BD2F0B4AD858FA1638DDC87EBA9DB8E94B0839D79C227DF75A92B14A2B5F1A1225BCBD55DF59F06EB5BD7C5D2616EF6A9A1C79CADDD85732C9D97DC19FAC898908539CF52E943D">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Transforming large swaths of the tropics into farmland could render almost one-third of wildlife there extinct, new research suggests. </p>
<p>From the Amazon rain forests to the Zambezi floodplains, intensive <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0234-3.epdf?author_access_token=b6E1O0fG6Z2pt7i17O5LcdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Pk8s5ohTQBT5s50rsawiGLYGm5dBnXDBv1BU9t-BbojU0HQHmSIi7-KmQMAcQb1FgkSHgkdZLVFDTFxUt1byLe-6By_qDh-GymAFfpKHOMSA%3D%3D">monoculture farming could have a severe adverse impact on wildlife</a> around the world. </p>
<p>Wildlife would disappear most dramatically in the remaining forests and grasslands of Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The greatest species loss would occur in the Peruvian Amazon basin where as many as 317 species could vanish as a result of agricultural development. </p>
<p>As a doctoral researcher at Humboldt University Berlin, I studied human food consumption, land use and how they affect wildlife. Our research was published July 17 in Nature Ecology and Evolution.</p>
<p>While human population has doubled since 1970, the number of <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/lpr_2016/">birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians have dropped by more than half</a>. At its root, this widespread environmental destruction is a result of our growth as a species and increasing food consumption to sustain ourselves.</p>
<p>Although climate change casts a shadow over future conservation efforts, farming is the <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7656/full/nature22900.html">No. 1 threat to wildlife</a>. We have already <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/070062/abstract">altered some 75 per cent of the ice-free land</a> on this planet. If we continue along our current course, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/108/50/20260">we will need to double our crop production</a> to feed a growing world population that demands more resource-intensive foods such as meat and dairy.</p>
<h2>Africa at risk</h2>
<p>Our research shows that Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly at risk of harmful agricultural development. This region is at the crossroads of economic, demographic and agricultural growth, and minimizing potential effects of agricultural change there is an urgent challenge.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178522/original/file-20170717-6046-18tdj36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The potential biodiversity loss due to agricultural expansion and intensification worldwide could be as high as 317 species in some locales (left), reaching 31 per cent of known vertebrate animals (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Laura Kehoe)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This becomes more worrying when considering the percentage of land that is currently at risk (i.e. natural but arable) and not protected against future development. Four-fifths of the regions we identify at risk of farmland expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa are unprotected. This is less than half of the 43 per cent protected in Latin America.</p>
<p>Some may mistakenly believe that protecting land from farming is about preserving wildlife habitat while local people go hungry. But it’s not a binary choice. Instead, the goal is to ensure an ample supply of nutritious food while at the same time conserving the most biodiverse and unique places on Earth. This is possible if we try. Knowing in advance what areas are most at risk allows us to better plan for a more sustainable future.</p>
<p>Aside from protecting land, food can be grown at little to no cost to biodiversity. For example, small-holder agro-ecological farming, which uses diverse cropping techniques along with fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides, can produce <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320712000821">large quantities of nutritious food at little to no cost</a> to wildlife. </p>
<p>We need to increase awareness of agro-ecological farming methods and secure local people’s land-holder rights — a crucial step to preventing large foreign corporations from buying up land for monoculture farming. </p>
<p>Communities adopting agro-ecological techniques is a win-win solution that goes a long way towards sustainably feeding the world without pushing wildlife towards extinction.</p>
<h2>What can policy makers do?</h2>
<p>Current large-scale <a href="http://www.conservation.org/How/Pages/Hotspots.aspx">conservation schemes</a> are based on factors that include past habitat loss and the threatened status of species, but none include the potential for future land-use change. We need to do a better job of predicting future pressures on wildlife habitat, especially because timely conservation action is cheaper and more effective than trying to fix the damage caused by farming. Our research takes a step in this direction.</p>
<p>We also show which countries could do with more support for conservation initiatives to protect land and find ways to sustainably grow food. Suriname, Guyana and the Republic of the Congo are just a few examples, as well as a number of countries in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa that are at the centre of high agricultural growth, low conservation investment and very high numbers of species that could be lost due to agricultural development. </p>
<p>Since most agricultural demand comes from richer nations, those countries should provide education and support for sustainable farming methods and locally led conservation efforts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178526/original/file-20170717-27512-dd5mjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map shows countries at risk of high species loss from agricultural development (yellow, bear icon), rapid agricultural growth 2009 to 2013 (orange, tractor symbol), and differing levels of conservation spending. Red represents low spending, high growth, and high species loss. Purple shows high spending, high growth, and low species loss. Green is high spending, low growth, and high species loss. Low values for all three factors are in grey. White represents no data. Dollar figures per square kilometre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Kehoe</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can you do?</h2>
<p>All of this raises the question: How can we eat well without harming wildlife? One simple step we can all take right now that would have a far greater impact than any other (aside from having fewer children): Cut out the grain-fed beef. </p>
<p>The inefficiency of feeding livestock grain to turn them into meals for humans makes a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715303697">diet heavy in animals particularly harsh on the Earth’s</a> resources. For example, in the United States, it takes <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Should_We_Eat_Meat_Evolution_and_Consequ.html">25 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef</a>. Pigs have a grain-to-meat-ratio of 9:1, and chickens are 3:1. </p>
<p>Imagine throwing away 25 plates of perfectly good food to get one plate of beef — the idea is absurd and would likely be news if done en masse. But that is precisely what we are all unknowingly doing by eating resource-intensive meat. Articles on food waste seem half-baked when keeping in mind the bizarre grain-to-meat ratio of many of our most popular meats. </p>
<p>There are ways in which farmers can raise livestock with little to no environmental damage, particularly when land is not overgrazed and trees remain on the landscape. Indeed, in some remote areas grazing cattle are a crucial source of food and nourishment. Unfortunately, the industrialized feedlot model that relies heavily on grain makes up the overwhelming majority of the meat in your supermarket. That is the kind of farming that our research investigates.</p>
<h2>Livestock and deforestation</h2>
<p>To make matters worse, the grain we feed animals is the leading driver of deforestation in the tropics. And it’s a hungry beast: our <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7369/full/nature10452.html">cows, pigs, and poultry devour over one-third of all crops</a> we grow. Indeed, the grain we feed to animals in the U.S. alone <a href="http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat">could feed an additional 800 million people</a> if it were eaten by us directly — more than the number of <a href="http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-statistics/">people currently living in hunger</a>. </p>
<p>Livestock quietly causes <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-deforestation/whats-driving-deforestation#.WSsT8e1tnIU">10 times more deforestation</a> than the palm oil industry but seems to get about 10 times less media attention. While it’s certainly true that avoiding unsustainable palm oil is a good idea, avoiding eating animals that were raised on grain is an even more effective conservation tactic.</p>
<p>Feeding the world without damaging nature is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces. But with a little foresight, better land governance and some simple meal changes, many of the solutions are at arm’s length. </p>
<p>For wildlife’s sake, go forth and enjoy your veggie burgers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Kehoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As much as one-third of animal species in the tropics could be eradicated if their habitats continue to be converted for monoculture farming. We can all do something to make a difference.
Laura Kehoe, Researcher in Conservation Decision Science and Land Use, University of Victoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78256
2017-06-30T03:43:49Z
2017-06-30T03:43:49Z
Growing food in the post-truth era
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173909/original/file-20170615-22797-1o9q86j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Critics fear the merger of agricultural giants Bayer and Monsanto will drive an increase in use of pesticides.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/agrilifetoday/16929844842/in/photolist-rN2T3A-8DXsx1-9MgfGd-7TiZ1v-8DXhCU-9zwKsJ-8Zqd7z-cdx66W-eg2HUM-f4x9f4-7TnhMw-7TngnU-9n7zac-9Mdr7Z-4HJkxG-4MtZUF-7TnfAo-4HDXgM-fDx8fH-4SD8sy-a2AY4x-9Mdt24-4HgvNC-8PfXpg-4Sy8Lv-4Momau-nZcxJD-4SCmjG-cYVa8A-9KBLmm-8wTEQi-4StvM3-4SCmnS-9MgdN5-6mtHKD-8aothc-6bH8UH-4StvGy-8vNsza-4Mu41V-mV1z39-5UzgMr-Df1fp5-pFE5TJ-4SCmgf-9MgewL-9MghJ7-8aWBAw-kmjRKg-4StvNA">AgriLife Today/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.</em> </p>
<p><em>The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics, and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (<a href="http://chcinetwork.org/sydney-social-sciences-and-humanities-advanced-research-centre-sssharc">SSSHARC</a>), the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a> and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades. Having constructed food scarcity as a justification for a <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/green-revolution/">second Green Revolution</a>, Big Agriculture now employs its unethical marketing tactics to selling farmers “climate-smart” agriculture in the form of soils, seeds and chemicals.</p>
<p>The cover of Monsanto’s 2016 annual report, <a href="http://www.monsanto.com/investors/publishingimages/annual%20report%202016/2016_monsanto_annual_report.pdf">A Limitless Perspective</a>, presents a vista of galaxies worthy of a George Lucas production. The brightest star is an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-12/basf-syngenta-said-among-bidders-for-bayer-monsanto-disposals">A$88 billion merger with German chemical company Bayer</a>, to be finalised this year.</p>
<p>Critics have described this as a “<a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/manufacturing/bayer-monsanto-merger-an-88b-marriage-made-in-hell/news-story/23e17cf89cbf1a98a6c413410a6afd25">marriage made in hell</a>”. They fear the new mega-corporation will impose even more pesticides and genetically modified seeds on the world’s farmers.</p>
<p>Monsanto’s oft-stated aim is to <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/capture-smear-contaminate-the-politics-of-gmos/5459021">“consolidate the entire food chain”</a>. That means a corporatised food regime that concentrates knowledge and power in the hands of a few.</p>
<p>This cedes control of food security to profit-making companies. The democratic governance of food and agriculture policy is under threat.</p>
<h2>The myth of scarcity</h2>
<p>Framing market opportunities as moral imperatives, the agribusiness narrative is to “<a href="https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/feeding_the_world/EWG_FeedingTheWorld.pdf?_ga=2.136434672.1539845188.1496713081-816214048.1496713081">feed the world</a>”. That’s while making exorbitant profits at the expense of small-scale farmers and consumer health.</p>
<p>The rhetoric of scarcity is hollow; <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf">excess production</a> is the problem. The food industry is a major contributor to overproduction, food insecurity and environmental degradation.</p>
<p>This includes the production of up to one-third of <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708">global greenhouse gas emissions</a>, when fertiliser production, food storage, and packaging are included.</p>
<p>Yet “Big Ag” is committed to raising output, intensification of farming, mass processing, mass marketing, homogeneity of product, monocultures, and chemical and pharmaceutical solutions.</p>
<p>The post-truth claim that the powerful US agribusiness lobby uses to justify these practices is that America’s farmers <a href="https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/feeding_the_world/EWG_FeedingTheWorld.pdf?_ga=2.136434672.1539845188.1496713081-816214048.1496713081">must double grain and meat production</a> to meet the needs of a global population of 9 billion by 2050.</p>
<p>In reality, the surplus, heavily subsidised production of the US grain-livestock complex makes little contribution to ending global hunger and malnutrition. Some <a href="https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/feeding_the_world/EWG_FeedingTheWorld.pdf?_ga=2.136434%20672.1539845188.1496713081-816214048.1496713081">90% of US exports</a> go to countries where people can afford to buy food.</p>
<h2>The corporate capture of climate change</h2>
<p>Ironically, a new enemy within threatens Big Ag’s market opportunities. </p>
<p>When US President Donald Trump met his election commitments by stepping out of the Paris Agreement on June 2, 2017, he stepped on some big toes. Following Trump’s election, Monsanto and Du Pont had joined more than 360 US-based multinationals in signing a letter to Trump demanding action on climate change: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Implementing the Paris Agreement will enable and encourage businesses and investors to turn the billions of dollars in existing low-carbon investments into the trillions of dollars the world needs to bring clean energy and prosperity to all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The altruism of these motives is questionable, given the profits to be made in the corporate capture of climate change. The low-carbon economy is big business.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.adm.com/en-US/company/Pages/overview.aspx">Archer Daniels Midland</a>, which bills itself as “supermarket to the world”, is investing in carbon capture and sequestration projects with the aim of reducing emissions and storing them underground.</p>
<p>Bayer is <a href="https://www.cropscience.bayer.com/en/crop-compendium/key-crops/oilseeds">developing</a> stress-tolerant oilseeds, maize and wheat varieties that will cope with extreme weather.</p>
<p>Global Swiss agro corp Syngenta’s <a href="http://www4.syngenta.com/what-we-do/the-good-growth-plan">Good Growth Plan</a> assures us the private sector can deliver on “the promise of sustainable and inclusive development” while mitigating the effects of climate change.</p>
<h2>If you tell the same story five times, it’s true …</h2>
<p>Rising global temperatures will bring new varieties of pests and disease, and a new twist on the time-worn post-truth spin that pesticides are the solution to feeding a fast-growing population. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The
pesticide business is huge, despite the increasingly well-documented evidence of the harm it does.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jz909/1450513463/">jetsandzeppelins/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a report in March this year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/017/85/PDF/G1701785.pdf">publicly dismissed</a> this claim. The report cites evidence that pesticides cause 200,000 deaths a year.</p>
<p>In the report, the UN special rapporteur for the right to food, Hilal Elvar, says global corporations manufacturing pesticides are guilty of “systematic denial of harms” and “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics”.</p>
<p>She condemns lobbying practices that have “obstructed reforms and paralysed pesticide restrictions”. Companies infiltrate federal regulatory agencies via “revolving doors” and “cultivate strategic public-private partnerships that call into question their culpability or help bolster the companies’ credibility”.</p>
<p>This credibility is propped up by networks of academics and regulators recruited as consultants. In accepting corporate funding and signing confidentiality agreements, scientists sacrifice autonomy and are co-opted into disinformation campaigns that support Big Ag agendas, at the cost of their ethics.</p>
<p>For example, when bee scientist James Cresswell presented findings that linked Syngenta pesticides to colony collapse, he was pressured “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html?_r=1">to consider new data and a different approach</a>” in his industry-sponsored research. The “Faustian bargain” he had made cost him dearly.</p>
<p>Some are brave enough to call out post-truth claims. Angelika Hilbeck found toxins in genetically modified corn killed lacewing bugs as well as pests. Scientists like her are <a href="https://geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/angelika-hilbeck-ecologist-claims-agri-corporations-stalk-claiming-gmos-dangerous/">labelled</a> “ideological researchers” and part of the “extremist organic movement”.</p>
<h2>World views collide</h2>
<p>This frank dismissal of alternative production systems represents a collision between competing frames, stakes and forms of expertise in food and agriculture policy.</p>
<p>Big Ag relies on the myth that large-scale, conventional agriculture generates higher yields and is more efficient than small-scale, family farms. Yet the latter produce <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-%206_Investing_in_smallholder_agriculture.pdf">more than three-quarters of the world’s food</a>.</p>
<p>Concerns about the lack of sustainability and resilience of industrial farming practices has led to critical questions about the way we produce food. Notably, in 2008 the Internal Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) recognised the need for changes in “<a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf">paradigms and values</a>” to include alternative, agro-ecological production systems.</p>
<p>A multi-year study involving 44 scientists from more than 60 countries, the IAASTD considers the political conditions that contribute to food insecurity. This includes damaging structural adjustment policies and unfair international trade agreements.</p>
<p>The findings highlight how poverty rates, levels of education, knowledge of nutrition, war and conflict marginalise those most vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition. Importantly, the report emphasises that critical communities, by raising questions of ownership and control of technologies, play a vital role in food systems governance.</p>
<p>These include the global peasant farmers’ movement <a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php">La Via Campesina</a>, which openly rejects climate-smart rhetoric as <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/blog/whats-%20wrong-with-%20climate-smart-%20agriculture/">promotion of an agribusiness agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Promoting the concept of food sovereignty, La Via Campesina denies simplistic linkages between population growth, climate change, conflict, and resource scarcity. We are reminded that technological solutions are not neutral. The <a href="https://nyeleni.org/spip.php?article290">2007 Nyeleni Declaration</a> of the Forum for Food Sovereignty asserts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These farmers are the vanguard of resistance to Big Ag’s efforts to further intensify agricultural production at the expense of people and environments.
We have a responsibility to join them in challenging the logic of an industrial food system that is about growth at all costs.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other pieces in the post-truth series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">here</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series is a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alana Mann is affiliated with the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.</span></em></p>
The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades.
Alana Mann, Chair of Department, Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80088
2017-06-28T12:54:53Z
2017-06-28T12:54:53Z
Okja: a film that provides food for thought on ‘sustainable’ meat production
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176031/original/file-20170628-24675-18n0tmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What if we could meet the challenges of the ongoing environmental crisis without changing our behaviour and practices in any way? What if, rather than revising our way of life, we could instead propose a few technical fixes that would reduce our environmental impacts while allowing us to go on living as before? Would this really settle the ethical and political questions that are posed by our current moment of climate catastrophe, mass extinction, resource scarcity and industrialised animal slaughter? These are some of the questions that are posed by Netflix’s latest original movie, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjCebKn4iic">Okja</a>.</p>
<p>The story centres on the eponymous Okja, an animal belonging to a new species that has been genetically engineered to fulfil the developed world’s boundless appetite for meat, while minimising the environmental impact of its production. In the words of CEO Lucy Mirando (played by the always wonderful Tilda Swinton):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This beautiful and special little creature will be a revolution in the livestock industry. Our super pigs will not only be big and beautiful; they will also leave a minimal footprint on the environment, consume less feed, and produce less excretions; and most importantly – they need to taste fucking good.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The film follows Okja and her young keeper Mija as agribusiness interests compete with animal activists to decide her fate.</p>
<p>Okja is a timely intervention into debates about the environmental costs of meat production. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet">For some years now</a>, the United Nations has been suggesting that we need to cut back on meat and dairy production for the sake of the planet – and, more recently, the wildly successful activist documentary <a href="http://www.cowspiracy.com/">Cowspiracy</a> brought this argument to a wider public. </p>
<p>As a consequence, there has been a recognition that livestock production needs to make a case for itself in terms that are <a href="http://www.beefmagazine.com/blog/my-response-cowspiracy-8-ways-cattle-grazing-supports-wildlife">more compatible</a> with recent environmentalist thinking – often by drawing on emerging technologies to reduce environmental impact. </p>
<p>Recently, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/11/scientists-might-reprogram-cow-guts-cattle-burp-less/">adjustments to cows’ gut flora</a> were proposed as a way to cut methane emissions. More radically, new developments in tissue engineering promise to bypass the living animal altogether by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/05/world-first-synthetic-hamburger-mouth-feel">growing real animal flesh</a> through cell culture in the laboratory.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AjCebKn4iic?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Okja deftly satirises this turn from shameless profiteering to an (at least ostensibly) ethically and environmentally responsible agribusiness. Swinton’s CEO is more Steve Jobs than Henry Ford – and her vision for agribusiness owes more to tech-industry utopianism than it does to 20th-century industrial capitalism. Having wrested control of the company from her father (who developed military technology) and her sister (whose tenure as CEO was marred by industrial-ecological catastrophe), Mirando aims to turn “the most hated agrochemical company in the world” into a seemingly beneficent force for good.</p>
<h2>Killer question</h2>
<p>But in creating Okja’s species as an ecologically sustainable alternative to cattle, has Mirando finally reconciled animal agriculture to its ethical and environmental obligations? Animal activists in the film – and in wider society – would strenuously disagree. It’s worth noting here that the director is sympathetic to these claims, having <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/2017/06/okja-bong-joon-ho-vegan-1201839076/">become vegan</a> during the filming of Okja – and having borrowed much of the film’s visual rhetoric from footage taken by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TFdHAnpTYI">undercover activist documentarians</a>. In order to settle this question, we need to more carefully explore how sustainability functions as an ethical and political ideal.</p>
<p>Sustainability is a deeply ambivalent concept. On the one hand, it names a broad desire to take more responsibility for our impact on the planet – and this is clearly a good thing. On the other hand, unless it is directed by an ethical analysis which isn’t easily reduced to technical tinkering, it can quickly become a kind of cynical calculation. In this context, consider the strange paradox of new, more sustainable fishing practices: we save species from extinction in order to better kill them in the future.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nV04zyfLyN4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The shift to thinking about the sustainability of meat production in merely technical terms (“how should we reduce emissions?”) entirely bypasses the question of animal ethics. Instead of asking “should we kill?”, we find ourselves asking “how should we kill with maximum efficiency?” By translating an ethical question into a technical one, this model of sustainability lets animal agriculture off the hook for the violence that it does.</p>
<p>Okja pushes back against this by foregrounding the relationship between a little girl and her animal friend. So, yes, Okja is a well-engineered beast who contributes to lower environmental impact, but she’s also an individual animal who loves and is loved – and she has an ethically significant interest in her own well-being. </p>
<p>As Okja and Cowspiracy make clear, the technical debate into the environmental impact of eating meat is critically important. But even if animal agribusiness could be made thoroughly sustainable, routine practices of confinement, forcible reproduction and slaughter remain highly ethically questionable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80088/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Seán McCorry is a co-founder of the Sheffield Animals Research Centre, and a member of the Vegan Society's Research Advisory Committee.</span></em></p>
Netflix’s new film is a timely intervention into discussions on whether it can ever be ethically sound to eat meat.
Seán McCorry, Postdoctoral researcher in English Literature, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76355
2017-05-23T14:40:45Z
2017-05-23T14:40:45Z
The pros and cons of commercial farming models in Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170298/original/file-20170522-25082-38am7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers harvesting from a commercial farm in Ethiopia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Barry Malone</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Colonialism brought large-scale farming to Africa, promising modernisation and jobs – but often dispossessing people and exploiting workers. Now, after several decades of independence, and with investor interest growing, African governments are once again promoting large plantations and estates. But the new corporate interest in African agriculture has been criticised as a “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2011.559005">land grab</a>”.</p>
<p>Small-scale farmers, on family land, are still the mainstay of African farming, producing <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf">90% of its food</a>. Their future is increasingly uncertain as the large-scale colonial model returns. </p>
<p>To make way for big farms, local people have lost their land. Promises of jobs and other benefits have been slow to materialise, if at all.</p>
<p>The search is on for alternatives to big plantations and estates that can bring in private investment without dispossessing local people – and preferably also support people’s livelihoods by creating jobs and strengthening local economies. </p>
<p>Two possible models stand out. </p>
<p><a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/africa-s-land-rush-pb.html">Contract farming</a> is often touted as an “inclusive business model” that links smallholders into commercial value chains. In these arrangements, smallholder farmers produce cash crops on their own land, as ‘outgrowers’, on contract to agroprocessing companies.</p>
<p>Then there is growth in a new class of “<a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/africa-s-land-rush-pb.html">middle farmers</a>”. These are often educated business people and civil servants who are investing money earned elsewhere into medium-scale commercial farms which they own and operate themselves.</p>
<p>So what are the real choices and trade-offs between large plantations or estates; contract farming by outgrowers; or individual medium-scale commercial farmers? </p>
<p>These different models formed the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1263187">focus of our three-year study</a> in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259222">Ghana</a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1260555">Kenya</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1276449">Zambia</a>. Evidence suggests that each model has different strengths. For policy makers, deciding which kind of farming to promote depends on what they want to achieve. </p>
<h2>Plantations are ‘enclaves’</h2>
<p>Our cases confirm the characterisation of large plantations as being “enclaves” with few linkages into local economies. They buy farming inputs from far afield, usually from overseas, and in turn send their produce into global markets, bypassing local intermediaries.</p>
<p>Plantations are large, self-contained agribusinesses that rely on hired labour and are vertically-integrated into processing chains (often with on-farm processing). They’re usually associated with one major crop. In Africa, these started with colonial concessions, especially in major cash crops such as coffee, tea, rubber, cotton and sugarcane. Some of these later became state farms after independence while others were dismantled and land returned to local farmers. </p>
<p>Many plantations do create jobs, especially if they have on-site processing. Plantations may also support local farmers if they process crops that local smallholders are already growing. For example, we found an oil palm plantation in Ghana that buys from local smallholders, giving them access to processing facilities and international value chains they would otherwise not reach. </p>
<p>But, typically, plantations have limited connections into the local economy beyond the wages they pay. Where production is mechanised, they create few jobs, as we found in Zambia: the Zambeef grain estate employs few people, and most of these are migrants whose wages don’t go into the local economy. And the jobs that are created are invariably of poor quality.</p>
<p>The main story is that plantations take up land and yet often don’t give back to the local economy. In the cases we researched, all the plantations led to local people losing their land. For instance, the establishment and later expansion of the 10,000-hectare Zambeef estate led to forced removals of people from their cropping fields and grazing lands.</p>
<p>There are some benefits from plantations and estates. But, given more than a century of bad experience, it may be time to concede they seldom – if ever – live up to their promises.</p>
<h2>Contract farming brings benefits for some</h2>
<p>Contract farming has a <a href="http://www.fao.org/uploads/media/FAC_Working_Paper_055.pdf">long history in Africa</a>, dating back to colonial times. As with plantations, these arrangements were largely for the major cash crops, including cocoa, cotton, tobacco and sugarcane. </p>
<p>Contract farmers are smallholders who enter into contracts with companies that buy and process their crops. Sometimes members of outgrowers’ households might also get jobs on larger “nucleus” estates run by the companies. Whether or not they benefit, or get mired in debt and dependence, depends entirely on the terms of these contracts. Our study looked at contract farming in Ghana’s tropical fruit export sector, in French bean production in Kenya and in sugarcane farming in Zambia. </p>
<p>Contract farming has been hailed by some as the “win-win” solution, enabling commercial investment for global markets without dispossessing local farmers. Farmers farm on their own land, using their own family labour, while also accessing commercial value chains – rather than being displaced by large farms. But we found that this is not necessarily the case. Crucially, there are different kinds of arrangements that determine who benefits. </p>
<p>In Kenya, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1260555">contract farmers</a> are poorer than most farmers around them. For them, farming on contract provides a crucial livelihood, especially for poor women, who cultivate French beans for the European market and combine this with seasonal jobs on big farms.</p>
<p>In one <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1276449">Zambian</a> block scheme all outgrowers gave up their land to Illovo, a South African company that grows sugarcane. The company pays them dividends. Here, the landowners, typically the old patriarchs, benefit from cash incomes. Young people lose out: they neither inherit the land nor control the cash incomes. </p>
<p>Contract farming clearly provides one effective avenue for smallholders to commercialise. It means, though, that smallholders take on both the risks and the benefits of connecting to commercial value chains. </p>
<h2>Medium-scale farming: a promising option</h2>
<p>Between the large plantations and the small contract farmers is another model: medium-scale commercial farms owned by individuals or small companies. We studied areas where medium-scale farms were dominating: mango farmers in Ghana, coffee farmers in Kenya and grains farmers in Zambia. While this kind of medium-scale farming also has colonial origins, the past two decades have seen massive growth in new “middle farmers”. Many of them are male, wealthy, middle-aged or retired, often from professional positions.</p>
<p>The medium -scale commercial farming model has a lot to offer. We found that they create more jobs and stimulate rural economies more than either big plantations or smallholder contract farmers. Yet cumulatively, such farms may threaten to dispossess smallholders, just as the big colonial and more recent plantations and estates have done. </p>
<p>The push behind the explosion of the “middle farmers” in the countries we studied has been investment by the educated and (relatively) wealthy. In <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259222">Ghana</a> in particular, we found, their expansion has displaced smallholders. Cumulatively, even modest-sized farms have led to substantial dispossession and reduced access to land. </p>
<p>Their informal employment patterns mean poor working conditions and few permanent jobs. But, unlike the plantations, these farms are well connected with the local economy. Building on social networks, these “middle farmers” often buy inputs and services from local businesses. At least some of their produce is sold into local markets. </p>
<h2>Winners and losers</h2>
<p>While policy choices are of course political, they can and should be informed by research about the implications of these different pathways of agricultural commercialisation. What is clear from our research is that different kinds of commercial farming will have different effects on the economy. It’s not just about efficiency. Ultimately, it’s about who wins and who loses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Hall received funding from the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Grant ES/J01754X/1) which made possible the research reported in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dzodzi Tsikata received funding from the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Grant ES/J01754X/1) which made possible the research reported in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scoones received funding from the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (Grant ES/J01754X/1), which made possible the research reported in this article</span></em></p>
Many African countries are still searching for inclusive commercial farming models that can bring in private investment without dispossessing local people.
Ruth Hall, Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape
Dzodzi Tsikata, Associate Professor, University of Ghana
Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72445
2017-02-06T15:04:57Z
2017-02-06T15:04:57Z
Lettuce in February: the hidden cost of buying fresh vegetables all year round
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155657/original/image-20170206-18517-wajip0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">mmkarabella</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shortages of lettuces, courgettes, broccoli and other unseasonal vegetables due to bad weather in the Murcia and Andalucia regions of Spain have caused a predictable number of column inches about the UK’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/03/tip-of-the-iceberg-lettuce-rationing-broadens-to-broccoli-and-cabbage">reliance on imported fresh produce</a>. Typically, the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/9579109/The-clean-up-begins-after-torrential-rain-and-flash-floods-in-south-eastern-Spain.html">distress and devastation of torrential rains and flash floods</a> in the region has been less reported. </p>
<p>Reports of supermarkets introducing rationing for iceberg lettuces because café, restaurant and other catering outlets were bulk buying to fill in shortfalls from their regular suppliers caused a mixture of amusement and moralising in the press, along with <a href="http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/seasonal-calendar/all">guides on what vegetables are in season in February</a> in the UK. </p>
<p>However, the point is that southern Spain does usually have a climate in which much longer growing seasons are feasible and in which crops with short growing periods can be planted throughout the year. The dilemmas involved with eating imported fresh produce are concerned with environmental and social impact, and the socialisation by commercial entities into expecting any food we want to be available at any time, without the complications of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving">ethical buying and eating</a>. </p>
<p>These are vital discussions – but what are the costs of a system that means people get used to fresh produce of a high visual and quality specification available 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Who coordinates the many suppliers and their crops to ensure shelves are not empty and that the product on those shelves has a lengthy “shelf life”? </p>
<h2>Fast and loose</h2>
<p>On the whole, most supermarket buyers negotiate with large intermediary firms called “grower-packers”. With two colleagues from Spain, I collected data from three grower-packers – one based in the UK, one based in Spain and one with offices in both countries – who between them supply more than 50% of the UK’s vegetables and salads. Their networks include thousands of growers in UK, Spain and elsewhere. </p>
<p>Grower-packers have expanded in the past 20 years – since category management became the norm for supermarkets and mass caterers. Most began as family horticultural businesses or cooperatives that saw the problems that supermarkets would have coordinating supply as opening hours grew ever longer. It’s a frenetic industry, based on an agreed level of quality and delivery when a supermarket makes an order rather than binding contracts to supply at particular prices and times. The companies we studied were able to supply the big retailers and caterers “on time, to specification, in full” 99% of the time.</p>
<p>Grower-packers provide a risk buffer between the supermarkets and the suppliers, reducing the risks for both. The big customers rely on them to coordinate – not just the buying – but everything from the initial planting through to the quality of the quality of the produce on delivery. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"828019055693012992"}"></div></p>
<p>The grower-packers provide agronomy advice to suppliers and work with them to ensure a market for their produce. It is a flexible system, but the risk is that neither customers nor suppliers are committed to the intermediary or each other. The reason is the incredibly tight margins everyone is working with: the opportunity to save or gain even a penny or less per kilo (depending on whether you are buying or selling) drives relentless searching around – or “promiscuity” as one of our interviewees put it. </p>
<h2>Pea-sized margins</h2>
<p>The big question is how such a system can be sustained. Intermediaries in the food supply business make average net profits (that is, after everything has been paid) of around 1-2% – margins that are easily wiped out by inflation, weather or fuel price increases. Horticulture is not subsidised and individual growers do not always break even. We know that produce is sometimes bought at prices that are less than the cost of production – but most grower-packers take a basket approach in which hopefully losses on one crop can be balanced against gains on another. </p>
<p>Like most family-run businesses, the shares are held by directors who also run the business day-to-day. They get a salary but rarely a bonus and don’t pay themselves a dividend out of profits. They often support the industry further through making personal loans to their businesses. Their aim is survival for themselves and their suppliers rather than maximising wealth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155667/original/image-20170206-18517-17i3ddw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not your usual hearty winter fare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leigh Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s a low-wage industry. To protect margins, costs are rarely discussed between supply-chain partners – but knowing your own costs is the key to survival. The growers and intermediaries are efficient businesses but there are as yet unquantified costs in supplying a vast network of supermarkets such as those related to transportation, waste disposal and inaccurate forecasting. It’s not a case of raising prices to consumers: it’s about identifying the considerable waste associated with distribution throughout the system and making savings there. </p>
<p>Unless suppliers’ margins allow growers and their intermediaries to reinvest and expand, then food systems lack real resilience. People in the UK will become more reliant on imports and run the risk that not only the production of food but the management of food supply has moved out of the UK.</p>
<p>When there is a shortage, these businesses, with their networks of suppliers across Spain and the UK, can use their contacts elsewhere to supplement their usual supply with produce from elsewhere in the world – but this can be costly. Smaller businesses, unless they have a local, seasonal produce approach, may lose out until another crop comes through. There is also some risk of being defrauded – for example by suppliers who pass off as respectable alternative produce from growers using unsafe pesticides.</p>
<p>So demand for lettuces in February relies on a very fragile ecosystem. Something as capricious as bad spring weather in another part of Europe can empty UK supermarket shelves. And, until a more robust model can be developed that reduces the financial risk for all sides, consumers may have to get used to alternatives closer to home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72445/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Jack currently consults for Red Tractor and ECR Community ASBL. The support of the CIMA General Charitable Trust is gratefully acknowledged. The project referred to has been also partially funded by the SEJ-5061 research project of the Andalusian Government.
</span></em></p>
Getting food on to our plates out of season relies on a fragile business ecosystem. The latest shortages show how easily this can break down.
Lisa Jack, Professor of Accounting, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72203
2017-02-01T07:36:20Z
2017-02-01T07:36:20Z
Why the US has a lot to gain from investing in Africa’s agri-food systems
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155000/original/image-20170131-3265-mw4n94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inspecting seeds in Uganda. US development organisations need to understand that today there is considerably greater local expertise.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">TAO/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US’s incoming administration has an historic opportunity to extend America’s global leadership by promoting the economic transformations underway in Africa. An effective US strategy would be based on the fact that Africa’s development still greatly depends on the performance of its agri-food systems. </p>
<p>Farming remains the primary source of <a href="http://www.fairmatchsupport.nl/wp-content/uploads/africa-agriculture-status-report-2015.pdf">employment</a> for 65% of Africa’s population. Poverty rates are in decline. But they remain unacceptably high. Putting more money in the hands of 500 million Africans who <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45076">rely on</a> farming for their livelihoods will have a decisive influence on the pace of economic growth. </p>
<p>Virtually no country in the world has transformed its economy from an agrarian economy to a modern one without sustained agricultural productivity growth.</p>
<p>Why should US citizens care? Quite simply, because investing in Africa’s economic growth is in America’s national interest. </p>
<p>US exports of agricultural products to sub-Saharan Africa <a href="http://trade.gov/dbia/us-sub-saharan-africa-trade-and-investment.pdf">totalled</a> $2.6 billion in 2013. This will grow rapidly if Africa continues to develop. By 2050, sub-Saharan Africa will <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/radelet.htm">have</a> 2.1 billion people – 22% of the world’s population compared to 12% today. Rapidly rising populations and incomes will increase the demand for a safe, affordable and sustainable global food supply. </p>
<p>US farmers and agribusiness can help themselves by helping Africa meet its rapidly growing food needs. This can be done through investments in agri-food systems as well as supporting a sustainable, efficient global food system.</p>
<p>It is increasingly recognised that most African agricultural exports do not compete with US farm and agribusiness interests. In most instances they are highly complementary. </p>
<p>Rising farm incomes in Africa promote growth <a href="http://www.unep.org/pdf/TechnologiesAdaptation_PerspectivesExperiences.pdf">multipliers</a>. These expand private investment and employment opportunities in African agri-food systems and in the rest of the <a href="http://fsg.afre.msu.edu/fsp/Yeboah_Jayne_Africa_evolving_employment.pdf">economy</a>. Rising incomes in Africa also promote US export interests. A vibrant agricultural sector will hasten Africa’s transition to a more prosperous, diversified and stable region. </p>
<p>These are the benefits that would emerge from strong partnerships between African governments, the private sector and millions of African farmers and entrepreneurs. Enlightened US development assistance programmes are required.</p>
<h2>A changing landscape</h2>
<p>An effective US government approach will need to recognise the dramatic changes in the African landscape over the past few decades with respect to partnerships. Development models premised on 1980s conditions no longer fit 2017 realities. US development organisations can be especially effective if they understand that today there is much greater local expertise and awareness.</p>
<p>Many more Africans have professional job expertise related to agri-food systems than they did 25 years ago. This is true in both the public and private sectors. Many are educated internationally and possess valuable technical skills. They can operate effectively given superior knowledge of local culture and connections with centres of local power. That means they’re capable of influencing government investments. </p>
<p>An effective US strategy toward African agricultural development will engage more African professionals than in the past.</p>
<p>But conditions have not changed much in at least one important respect. Public agricultural institutions, such as R&D and extension services, play a crucial role in supporting farm productivity growth. But many in Africa can’t fulfil their mandates. Most African agricultural research systems are woefully underfunded. Asian farmers benefit from the fact that their governments annually <a href="http://www.instepp.umn.edu/sites/default/files/product/downloadable/oc51_4.pdf">spend over</a> eight times more on agriculture on average than African governments. Not surprisingly, the pace of productivity growth in Asia has eclipsed Africa’s.</p>
<h2>A new model for development assistance</h2>
<p>US and African governments share core interests in promoting private investment in African food systems. This would be done in partnership with local firms. It would support fair agricultural trade and a sustainable global food system. </p>
<p>Achieving mutual US-Africa interests for economic transformation in Africa will require greater support for African institutions that support the development of agri-food systems. This means supporting institutions that create the next generation of African educators, farm extension workers, research scientists, entrepreneurs and policy makers. These people will define the pace of private investment and agricultural transformation in African countries.</p>
<p>The US has one of the world’s most dynamic and productive agricultural systems. This is greatly indebted to the US <a href="http://www.aplu.org/about-us/history-of-aplu/what-is-a-land-grant-university/">land-grant university system</a>, the US Cooperative Extension <a href="https://nifa.usda.gov/extension">Service</a>, and a host of other public institutions. These bring vital practical information to agricultural producers, small business owners, consumers, families and young people. This rich history and know-how means the US can provide much needed leadership and expertise to support institutional capacity building in Africa. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.farmersfeedingtheworld.org/policy-briefing/">My colleagues, Isaac Minde and Chance Kabaghe, and I propose</a> that the main thrust of a new approach to development assistance in Africa should be to shift the role of US organisations. Instead of providing the technologies, services and answers themselves they should help African organisations to do so.</p>
<p>The time has arrived for the US to find effective ways to support capacity building. This should include African universities, agricultural training colleges, vocational schools, crop research organisations, extension systems and policy analysis institutes. International private companies, universities and NGOs have important but increasingly redefined roles that put African institutions in the lead. </p>
<p>Once enacted, the proposals made here will take time to generate their full impact. This is why there is no time to waste in getting started.</p>
<p><em>You can find the full policy paper on “Enhancing US efforts to develop sustainable agri-food systems in Africa” <a href="http://www.farmersfeedingtheworld.org/policy-briefing/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Jayne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
US farmers and agribusiness can help themselves by helping Africa to meet its rapidly growing food needs.
Thomas Jayne, MSU Foundation Professor, Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69907
2016-12-18T16:04:12Z
2016-12-18T16:04:12Z
Important wins were notched up for African agriculture in 2016
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150082/original/image-20161214-32195-wswlww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Somalia a programme was launched to train people in the handling and processing of fish to reduce waste.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Feisal Omar </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>2016 was a big year for agriculture in Africa with some notable “wins” across the continent. One of the most important gains was the increased use of emerging technologies beyond the traditional use of mobile phones in agriculture. The range includes precision agriculture, sensors, satellites and drones.</p>
<p>For example <a href="http://www.fieldlook.com.sd/">FieldLook</a> is using satellite images in the Gezira irrigation scheme in Sudan to provide information about crop growth, humidity, and nutrient needs of plants. This is then conveyed to farmers using mobile phones.</p>
<p>In Nigeria drones are being used to map the potential for expanding rice cultivation. The UK-based <a href="http://www.growmorex.com/about">GrowMoreX Consultancy Company</a>, for example, operates drone-based farming services. It conducted a survey of 3,000 hectares of land suitable for irrigated rice farming in New Bussa, Niger State. The area is 700km away from the capital Abuja. It has limited access to roads, electricity, clean water and other amenities.</p>
<p>Innovation gains in 2016 are just one aspect that was captured in a new study released by the <a href="https://agra.org/">Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)</a> this year. The <a href="http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/assr.pdf">2016 Africa Agriculture Status Report</a> also noted that African agriculture is finally taking root, showing how long-term policy commitments and funding were key to the sector’s growth.</p>
<p>The gains reported in 2016 went hand in hand with overall growth in Africa over the last two decades. According to the AGRA report, “GDP per capita increased in Africa from an annual average of $987 in 1995-2003, to $1,154 in 2003-2008, and even higher to $1,289 on 2008-2014.”</p>
<p>Many sectors such as communication, transportation, wholesale and construction contributed to the growth. But more remarkably, agricultural value addition grew by “5.2% in 2000-2014 compared to less than 3% (in) previous decades”. Manufacturing’s share of total value addition grew, while agriculture’s did not.</p>
<p>These trends are in line with historical patterns in Asia and other regions where productivity in agriculture was a key driver of long-term economic transformation. This shows that agriculture is more than just producing food. <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/25699/new_harvest.html">It is a driver</a> for overall economic growth. </p>
<p>There have been some clear “wins” worth highlighting from the past year.</p>
<h2>Free trade area</h2>
<p>2016 was a critical year in Africa’s negotiations to create a Continental Free Trade Area. This is scheduled to be finalised in 2017. The free trade area is expected to significantly expand Africa’s trade in agricultural products by building on current growth in the sector. </p>
<p>The talks are building on the <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/25444/benefits_of_africas_new_free_trade_area.html">Tripartite Free Trade Area</a>. This is a proposed African free trade agreement between the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC). It has created a market of more than 620 million people in 26 countries valued at $1.5 trillion.</p>
<p>The Continental Free Trade Area will cover more than a billion people in 54 countries with a combined GDP of over $3.5 trillion. It is also expected to create opportunities for trade in agricultural machinery and associated services.</p>
<h2>Overcoming ecological hurdles</h2>
<p>In many parts of Africa agriculture has been pursued at the expense of the environment. This has largely been due to the lack of training in new methods that take the environment into consideration. Such skills would reduce agriculture’s ecological footprint and make it more resilient to climate change.</p>
<p>An example of promoting ecological food production is an effort by Somalia to rebuild fisheries after decades of conflict. The <a href="http://www.fao.org/blogs/blue-growth-blog/rehabilitating-the-fisheries-sector-in-somalia/en/">initiative</a>, supported by Norway and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, includes new methods of drying and storing fish. This would reduce post-harvest losses.</p>
<p>To begin to address this, a programme was launched in which more than 200 young men and women will receive training and mentoring support in the handling and processing of <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/somalia/14455/eu-and-fao-engage-supporting-somali-coastal-communities-framework-igad-regional-initiative_en">fish and fish products</a>. </p>
<p>“Given the importance of fisheries and aquaculture in food security in Africa, other countries…can draw on the experiences of Somalia to develop national sectoral development plans and build partnerships to improve the sustainable intensification of their fisheries sector,” <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3844e.pdf">a report</a> from the Food and Agriculture Organisation notes.</p>
<h2>Infrastructural wins</h2>
<p>The AGRA report also highlighted the importance of investment in rural infrastructure – particularly transportation, energy, telecommunications and irrigation. It says a “10% decrease in rural transport cost can generate a 25% increase in the quantity of food traded.” This year in Kenya’s Rift Valley, <a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2016/12/uhuru-gives-road-network-kericho-bomet-counties-sh9bn-revamp/">rural roads were</a> revamped. This reduced the cost of transporting food. </p>
<p>Transportation is only one aspect of infrastructure. Reliable energy is also key for the creation and growth of agro-industries in rural and urban areas. More importantly, the use of renewable energy can help African countries generate energy more sustainably. A good example is <a href="http://www.powermag.com/press-releases/east-africas-largest-solar-plant-starts-operations/">the launch of </a> East Africa’s largest solar plant in Soroti, Uganda. </p>
<p>Similarly, irrigation is essential for crop production. Only about 4% per of African agriculture is irrigated, whereas the share is 45% in Asia and 18% for global agriculture. African countries are increasingly using solar power for irrigation. In 2016, for example, <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201612010151.html">Rwanda launched</a> a $13 million solar-powered irrigation scheme in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency.</p>
<p>Another key highlight of the 2016 AGRA report is the importance of including nutrition in overall agricultural strategies. Nourishing people is just as important as feeding them. In 2016 Ghana launched a new project aimed at improving maternal and child nutrition by encouraging <a href="http://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/project-to-solve-malnutrition-launched.html">the consumption of milk</a>. In addition to improving nutrition, the project seeks to support income generation along the dairy value chain.</p>
<h2>Complex agricultural economies</h2>
<p>Leaders need to upgrade their capacity to govern increasingly complex agricultural economies if they’re to sustain the gains seen and reported in 2016. Modern agriculture involves decisions on topics such as the impact of climate change, nutrition, improved seed and agricultural inputs, emerging technologies, infrastructure, research and extension and financing.</p>
<p>Countries around the world have responded to the need for up-to-date information by creating <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/06-foresight-african-agriculture-juma-gordon-1.pdf">offices of science and technology advice</a>to complement the work of other presidential advisers. African presidents and prime ministers need to have similar knowledge support offices. Otherwise they risk making decisions that are not supported by the best possible available advice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Calestous Juma receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.</span></em></p>
The gains reported in 2016 went hand in hand with overall growth in Africa over the last two decades.
Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development, Harvard Kennedy School
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.