Small NGOs reject Climate-Smart project while farm leader defends it
September 24, 2014 | 11:25 PM
NEW YORK CITY — A long list of small nongovernmental organizations has rejected the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, but World Farmers’ Organization President Peter Kendall, a former British farm leader, defended it today in an interview with The Hagstrom Report.
“Food producers and providers — farmers, fisherfolk, and pastoralists — together with our food systems are on the front lines of climate change,” the NGOS wrote in a joint statement.
“We know that urgent action must be taken to cool the planet, to help farming systems — and particularly small-scale farmers — adapt to a changing climate, and to revive and reclaim the agroecological systems on which future sustainable food production depends.”
“The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, however, will not deliver the solutions that we so urgently need,” the groups continued.
“Instead, ‘climate-smart’ agriculture provides a dangerous platform for corporations to implement the very activities we oppose. By endorsing the activities of the planet’s worst climate offenders in agribusiness and industrial agriculture, the Alliance will undermine the very objectives that it claims to aim for.” (See link for full statement and list of groups.)
In a separate statement, ActionAid International said,
“Developed by the World Bank and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ focuses on delivering a ‘triple win’ of reduced emissions, crops that can grow in changing climate conditions and increases in yields."
"But there are no criteria to explain what ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ really means, ActionAid continued.
“And it could be used as an unfair way of getting poor countries to take on a large portion of the emissions cuts that are needed, leaving rich countries free to carry on polluting.”
La Vía Campesina, which describes itself as an international peasants movement, also issued a lengthy statement criticizing every element of the alliance's agenda. (See link.)
Peter Kendall
But Kendall, president of the World Farmers’ Organization, which is aligned with the National Farmers Union in the United States, said in an interview that farm leaders have to “take the responsibility” on how to produce food for a growing population while protecting the climate.
Even though the alliance’s goal of raising the profile of the climate change issue and agriculture to the highest political levels will be hard to assess, “I can’t see a downside to us wanting to have climate-smart agriculture,” said Kendall, who headed the NFU in the United Kingdom before taking over the Rome-based WFO from Robert Carlson, an American and former head of the North Dakota Farmers Union.
“To me it is just a no-brainer that we want to actively work together to produce food in an environmentally sustainable way,” Kendall said.
The fact that the United Nations is raising the issue means that world leaders will think about it when they are determining their country’s research budgets, he said.
Kendall noted that it is his personal experience that there needs to be a movement to encourage agricultural research. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher closed down agricultural research stations in the United Kingdom because she thought agricultural research was not needed, Kendall said, and only today is the British government investing in “smart research and development.”
“There is an element of fear that we will be discussing things that they feel uncomfortable with,” Kendall said, adding that he would urge the leaders of the small farm movements to “come listen to the debate.”
Kendall also said he had been impressed at a separate United Nations event at which former Vice President Al Gore had spoken on Tuesday. Gore’s pictures of the “worst, wet winter” in the United Kingdom and the drought in California demonstrated that the climate change issue is “everywhere,” Kendall said.
▪ Corporate-Smart Greenwash: Why We reject the Global Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture
▪ ActionAid International — Clever Name, Losing Game? How Climate Smart Agriculture is sowing confusion in the food movement
▪ La Vía Campesina — UN-masking Climate Smart Agriculture
▪ World Farmers’ Organization
“Food producers and providers — farmers, fisherfolk, and pastoralists — together with our food systems are on the front lines of climate change,” the NGOS wrote in a joint statement.
“We know that urgent action must be taken to cool the planet, to help farming systems — and particularly small-scale farmers — adapt to a changing climate, and to revive and reclaim the agroecological systems on which future sustainable food production depends.”
“The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, however, will not deliver the solutions that we so urgently need,” the groups continued.
“Instead, ‘climate-smart’ agriculture provides a dangerous platform for corporations to implement the very activities we oppose. By endorsing the activities of the planet’s worst climate offenders in agribusiness and industrial agriculture, the Alliance will undermine the very objectives that it claims to aim for.” (See link for full statement and list of groups.)
In a separate statement, ActionAid International said,
“Developed by the World Bank and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ focuses on delivering a ‘triple win’ of reduced emissions, crops that can grow in changing climate conditions and increases in yields."
"But there are no criteria to explain what ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’ really means, ActionAid continued.
“And it could be used as an unfair way of getting poor countries to take on a large portion of the emissions cuts that are needed, leaving rich countries free to carry on polluting.”
La Vía Campesina, which describes itself as an international peasants movement, also issued a lengthy statement criticizing every element of the alliance's agenda. (See link.)
But Kendall, president of the World Farmers’ Organization, which is aligned with the National Farmers Union in the United States, said in an interview that farm leaders have to “take the responsibility” on how to produce food for a growing population while protecting the climate.
Even though the alliance’s goal of raising the profile of the climate change issue and agriculture to the highest political levels will be hard to assess, “I can’t see a downside to us wanting to have climate-smart agriculture,” said Kendall, who headed the NFU in the United Kingdom before taking over the Rome-based WFO from Robert Carlson, an American and former head of the North Dakota Farmers Union.
“To me it is just a no-brainer that we want to actively work together to produce food in an environmentally sustainable way,” Kendall said.
The fact that the United Nations is raising the issue means that world leaders will think about it when they are determining their country’s research budgets, he said.
Kendall noted that it is his personal experience that there needs to be a movement to encourage agricultural research. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher closed down agricultural research stations in the United Kingdom because she thought agricultural research was not needed, Kendall said, and only today is the British government investing in “smart research and development.”
“There is an element of fear that we will be discussing things that they feel uncomfortable with,” Kendall said, adding that he would urge the leaders of the small farm movements to “come listen to the debate.”
Kendall also said he had been impressed at a separate United Nations event at which former Vice President Al Gore had spoken on Tuesday. Gore’s pictures of the “worst, wet winter” in the United Kingdom and the drought in California demonstrated that the climate change issue is “everywhere,” Kendall said.
▪ Corporate-Smart Greenwash: Why We reject the Global Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture
▪ ActionAid International — Clever Name, Losing Game? How Climate Smart Agriculture is sowing confusion in the food movement
▪ La Vía Campesina — UN-masking Climate Smart Agriculture
▪ World Farmers’ Organization
