Tuesday, December 15, 2009

COP15


The early bird gets the worm here at the COP15. It appears that Urs Niggli and I are the only members of the IFOAM delegation to make it inside the COP15 today.

This morning was a necessary early start here at the COP15 in Copenhagen. Half asleep without breakfast or coffee I made my way from our IFOAM flat in the north of the city to the Bella Center to join the ranks of shivering NGO workers. The line outside stretches from one tram stop to another and the line for those not yet registered is even longer. The que outside is probably already beyond the capacity of the center which is a real bone of contention for us -why would UNFCCC register more people for the center than capacity? There are some 40,000 people registered with a capacity for 15,000 for this event. Standing together in line with the rest of the members of 'Civil Society' we discussed the implications of this poor organization on the part of security staff here in Denmark. The lines are neither marked nor is the purpose of each line known to the security staff. It is a mess.

The Party members are now pouring past the IFOAM Booth with entourages of support staff and security. No plenary sessions officially start until after 1700 but these guys are on the way in to pick up tickets and see Prince Charles, Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger speak to the issues.

That is all for now from the COP15

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Can Organic Agriculture Feed The World?

My story has changed a bit in regards to organic agriculture as a global solution. I am sharing my ideas with people every day. I am thinking of it as the good news. My, now zen-buddhist-philosopher father was a preacher when I was young and I can remember him talking about giving people 'the good news' - maybe it is in the blood.

Anyway, sitting at the IFAOM Booth at the COP15 (H-017F) I have been approached by many people who want to hear about yields and argue about the merits of a high input conventional system for the necessary yield increase for a growing world population.

My response, thus far, has been to report the fact that the world is already producing more than enough food to feed everyone - the problem is giving access to that food to the people who need it. Another argument has been to point out that the yield potentials of high input systems is based on the additions of resource inefficient and biologically hazardous chemicals. The pesticides and herbicides remove the potential for the farmer to harvest nutritionally important non-crop food sources. This is a big problem in a world where 1 in 3 people is a farmer and most of these farmers are marginalized people on degraded land and a tradition of gathering food in nature as well as from cropping systems.

After a short chat with Australian Water Lilly farmer and IFOAM World Board member Andre Leu I have learned that the yield potential in organic systems in no lower than in conventional. Having a quick cruise around the web and a read of his 2005 work on the subject I can see that he has strong scientific support for his arguments.

Have a look:

Andre Leu 'Organic Can Feed the World'

Science Daily 'Organic Farming Can Feed The World'

Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley 'Can Organic Farming "Feed the World"?'

Catherine Badgley, University of Michigan 'Scientists Find Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World & More '

New IFOAM Publications at the COP15 in Copenhagen


The staff of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) has been sleepless for the last few weeks finalizing two publications to promote organic agriculture as a mechanism that should be included in the talks here in Copenhagen.

New IFOAM Climate Change and Food Security Publications
In time for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference IFOAM and IFOAM EU Group have published two new publications to raise awareness of the important role of organic agriculture in mitigating and adapting to climate change and securing food supply.

Organic Agriculture - Guide to Climate Change & Food Security
Contribution of Organic Agriculture to Climate Change Adaptation in Africa


I am here at the IFOAM booth blogging and pressing organic (H-017F or those who are here). Smiling behind my green both and mac laptop shell I am trying to catch the attention of the passing delegates and other country officials as they walk past on the way to the negotiations and plenary sessions. Singapore, Uganda and Japan have shown strong interest this morning asking for more information and taking copies of publications with them to the inside.

I have been inside from dawn to dusk each day andI have not had a chance to see what it is like outside the event other than a quick chat with greenpeace activists and the wind powered coffee man. Security is getting tougher and it seems that soon our delegation will be limited by the UNFCCC event staff, perhaps then I will hve a chance to dance and chant with the protesters and the un-invited. Tomorrow in the center of town I will go to see Vandana Shiva speak at the Klimaforum 'People's Global Climate Forum' and get a chance to see what it is like for everyone outside the event. Meanwhile I am well dressed, cheerful, warm and full - I hand out 'fresh off the press' publications like a suited newspaper boy and push organic.

Stay tuned for more on the progression of COP15.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement/ Samwell Naikada and the Maasai Herders



'As long as we think that the other forms of life are here for us
we cannot give them the respect they deserve'
-Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai

Just returing to the busy IFOAM Booth (H-017F for anyone who is around) after an inspiring but packed side event with Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, Brighter Green , Nobel Womens Innitiative and a young Maasai herder.

Wangari Mathai has started the Green Belt Movement in 1977 in response to serious soil and water resource losses in her region. It all started when Maatthai decided that the way forward was for the women of her village to plant trees, she found some foresters to teach them how to do it and has since invigorated the land and helped her people through the many benefits of reforestation. Maatthai has since started the Pan African Greenbelt Workshops to encourage and support other communities around Africa to reforest and regenerate natural places in their countries. Maathai then asked for the help of the Kenyan army for reforesting the country. 'While you are protecting the country the country is disapearing' she told them 'To protect the country give it complete protection'. Her requests got the attention of the commander of the Kenyan army who has since had his troops plant many trees. 'They come in uniform' she said. 'Even the UN Blue Helmets should be involved in tree planting.'

Samwell Naikada is a Maasai herder who told us about the changes his people are experiencing in Kenya. The Maasai people (Maasai Association) have about 500 hectares of forest left. This loss of forests is being suddenly felt by the people there. There are now wild grassland animals grazing in the forests and orangutan coming from forests to feed on young goats and sheep in the fields. These are things the Maasai have never seen before. Naikada runs a small organization to try and encourage people to raise fewer animals and stop cutting the trees in Kenya. He says that when he tells the Maasai herders that the animals are part of the problem they tell him he is lying. 'You are not speaking the truth' they say.'When you are a man you need to have cattle' he told us 'not just a few cattle you need many of them. In my family we have five men' he said 'and we will need to have 500 cattle.'

Ultimately it was a packed event with a load of information about the benefits of community involvement, of a sensible agricultural policy, of good governance and of the necessity for giving access to carbon funds to communities, especially communities of women, and small scale community forests.

That is it for now from Hopenhagen.

Mor Useful Links:

Maasai Women Development Organization (MWDO)
ENGISHON
Ngoronogogo

Thursday, December 10, 2009

FAO Climate Change and Food Security

Sacco vuoto non può star in piedi.
An empty sack cannot stand upright

Just returning from a workshop with the world agriculture leaders. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the US Agricultural Minister Tom Vilsack among others were there to discuss in a panel about the role of agriculture in these COP15 climate change talks.

Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Eva Kjer Hansen spoke about agriculture as both a challenge and a solution in climate change. Agriculture produces 14% of Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) with another 17% being produced through 'land use change' (converting land from forests and fields to agricultural lands - this contributes to 90% of all deforestation by the way). She went on to say that we need to address hunger and climate change simultaneously, that these are the same project and that organic agriculture can play a large role in this.

Next we heard from Director of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Gilberto Câmara who spoke of the fact that with the projected climate change scenarios Brazil will have Savannah instead of the Amazon by 2050 - that the coffee will need to be imported from Argentina and that Brazil is doing everything it can to change that. He told us that Brazil will cut emissions by 20% below 2005 levels by 2050, that they will use 55% renewable energies (up from 46% today).

Ajay Vashee president of the International Federation of Agriculture Producers (IFAP) (600 million family farmers member organization) spoke about the problems of hunger, loss of biodiversity disease and the social and economic implications of climate change. He spoke about the importance of access to carbon funds to small producers (or conglomerates of small producers), access to capacity building and income improvement. He pointed out that 1 out of 3 people in the world are farmers and 1/3 of the land surface is agricultural land, farmers play the largest role in human impact on nature therefore the rights of farmers should play a big role in the talks about climate change.

Jaques Dioff of FAO spoke briefly about the agriculture situation in the world. 1 in 6 is hungry, the world population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 requiring a 70% increase in food production and that means a 100% increase in many developing countries. Making this change, he says, will require many billions of dollars, maybe even tens of billions, but in a world where we spend over 300 billion on arms we ought to be able to find the money. He warns that we should steer away from this movement toward biofuels, the production of biofuels will compete with the need to produce food and conserve water.

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had a lot to say about agriculture from the US and agri-industry perspective. The party line here really seems to be that science and technology will save us, that we need more technological advancement and Dr. Norman Borlaug is our hero - and we should follow his vision so that other countries can have as much extra food as we do in the US. He did (possibly unknowingly) say some inspiring things about the need for more recognition of the role of soil in carbon sequestration. That is clearly in favor of organic.

So, that is it for now. The conference continues.

Cory's Dr Green Blog Posts:
Small is Beautiful
Give Organic a Chance
Beekeeping
No Work Farming
Growing Organic




Visit Farmers for the Future


View Cory Whitney's profile on LinkedIn

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

COP15 in Copenhagen


Now sitting over my morning breakfast and getting ready to head in for another day of the COP15 here in Copenhagen. The sun has not yet risen but the rest of the IFOAM staff is already huddled around the kitchen table working on the final draft of a guide to climate change and food security.

We are here selling Organic Agriculture as a viable, affordable, and realistic way for people to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. The guide is co-authored by IFOAM, FiBL and the Rodale Institute and is designed as a definitive work to describe the role of organic agriculture in the steps we need to take in the face of climate change.

The food served here at the COP15 is 75% organic which is already a big win for us and says something about the amount of understanding that people already have about the role of organic in climate change. However, few people know about the benefits of organic in sequestering soil carbon, increasing biodiversity and increasing food security. That is where we come in: networking, talking and generally making a fuss about the potential of organic agriculture.

Cory's Dr Green Blog Posts:
Small is Beautiful
Give Organic a Chance
Beekeeping
No Work Farming
Growing Organic




Visit Farmers for the Future


View Cory Whitney's profile on LinkedIn

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Ideas about Web 2.0; Social Networking to Save the Planet: Facebook, Twitter and Couchsurfing

The problems left for this generation to tackle are paramount. The facts are clear: our species is using up more than our fair share of the natural resources resulting in a period of rapid global extinction. The fate of the current diversity of life on this planet is in our hands.

The dysfunctional relationship between people and nature is paradigmatic. It cannot be addressed by scientists or politicians but must be tackled by a whole community. Community building through the medium of social networking websites is one important way that the relationship might start to get better. Facebook and Twitter among the myriad others allows people to get informed about issues as they happen and as they relate to their social network through the so called web 2.0.

Since moving back to land I have spent some time dabbling with these tools for democratic and ecological action. One that I am particularly enamored with is the non-profit organization 'Couchsurfing Network' www.couchsurfing.org.
What is Couchsurfing?
Couchsurfing is a unique idea started, naturally, in San Francisco by a bunch of activists, party animals and college kids. It has grown to become a large and effective community of movers and shakers. Although the mission and vision have no direct link to environmental action I have seen and done some good things through connection with the membership.

I have the unique honor of volunteering for the Couchsurfing Network as a Nomad Ambassador. This means that I basically travel around, doing as I do, with the added responsibility of spreading the word and creating events and gatherings in the places where I travel.

Please check out couchsurfing.org and read the introduction to Couchsurfing pages and the mission. The benefits are great - the cross-cultural and inter-community exchanges are deep and rewarding.

Couchsurfing Mission Statement

Cory's Dr Green Blog Posts:
Small is Beautiful
Give Organic a Chance
Beekeeping
No Work Farming
Growing Organic




Visit Farmers for the Future


View Cory Whitney's profile on LinkedIn

Couchsurfing Vision Statement

To create a profile and make a donation visit www.couchsurfing.org.