DAVAO CITY, April 17, 2009– An international study belied the claims of big corporations that chemically-driven and corporate agriculture will solve the problem of hunger and poverty in Mindanao.
A coalition of organic agriculture practitioners and advocates under the Go Organic Mindanao said that chemically-driven and corporate agriculture in Mindanao failed to address hunger and poverty as confirmed by a recent scientific assessment report prepared by the world's experts and supported by 58 governments across the globe.
Two of the Filipinos involved in the study, Dr. Romy Quijano of the Pesticide Action Network- Asia Pacific and Neth Dano of the Third World Network, presented the report with particular focus on its implications on Philippine agriculture.
“The IAASTD report calls for fundamental changes away from corporate dominated and toxic agriculture to a sustainable ecological farming with empowered small farming communities,” said Quijano, the country's respected toxicologist and an IAASTD bureau member.
The International Assessment on Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report emphasized that corporate agriculture is no way a solution to the rising poverty in Mindanao.
IAASTD report is a landmark study which involved 400 of the world's experts or a total of 900 participants from all regions of the world was a unique international effort undertaken and approved in April last year in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The report also recounted the failure of industrial farming as it reflects a growing consensus among the global scientific community and most governments that the old paradigm of industrial, energy-intensive and toxic agriculture is a concept of the past, that small- scale farmers and agro-ecological methods provide the way forward to avert the current food crisis and meet the needs of local communities.
IAASTD objective is to assess the impacts of past, present and future agricultural knowledge, science and technology on the reduction of hunger and poverty; the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health; and the equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development.
“The Green Revolution strategies of the past, with all their expensive and toxic products, have left a trail of destruction. The report essentially says it is time to clean up and move on,” Quijano said.
“A national government policy to develop two million hectares (has.) into agribusiness lands where one million has. of which are targeted for Mindanao will definitely not answer the call to end hunger and poverty in the country,” said Neth Dano lead author of IAASTD East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Report-Chapter 5.
“While this kind of agricultural system may have brought increased employment opportunities especially for impoverished farmers, its effect on food self-sufficiency, agrarian reform, rural livelihoods, and ecology have been disturbing,” Dano added.
The IAASTD report must have supported this observation in their findings that explained: “People have benefited unevenly from yield increases across regions in part because of different organizational capacities, sociocultural factors, and institutional and policy environments. Emphasis on increasing yields and productivity has in some cases had negative consequences on environmental sustainability.”
“The environmental shortcomings of agricultural practice associated with poor socioeconomic conditions create a vicious cycle in which poor smallholder farmers have to deforest and use new often marginal lands, increasing deforestation and overall degradation,” the report noted.
The report also explained that 1.9 billion has. and 2.6 billion people today are affected by significant levels of land degradation. Fifty years ago, water withdrawal from rivers was one-third of what it is today and is attributable to irrigated agriculture, which in some cases has caused salinization (or saltwater intrusion on freshwater). Approximately 1.6 billion people live in water-scarce basins. Inappropriate use of pesticides has led to groundwater pollution.
Dr. Quijano and members of GOM said: “we urge all concerned sectors to raise public awareness on the issues raised by IAASTD and pressure policy makers and stakeholders to implement measures to realize food sovereignty, agro-ecology, social justice and equity.”
The IAASTD is under the co-sponsorship of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Global Environment Facility, United Nations Development Program, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the World Bank and the World Health Organization WHO. (Mark S. Ventura w/ PR)
