CSD-17 May 2009 Report by Feargal and Juliet Duff, IEN

This year, the CSD-17 focused on Agriculture, Land, Rural Development, Drought, Desertification and Africa within the over-riding context of Climate Change.  The chair of CSD-17 was Minister Gerda Verburg of the Netherlands, and to many participants, having a woman chair the commission was seen as a significant step forward.  The outcome of this meeting was a Shared Vision Statement from the governments represented at the CSD 17, from which new policies could be implemented toward more a sustainable development project, globally.

The backdrop to this meeting was the multifaceted global crises we are facing: Food crisis, Financial crisis, Energy crisis, Environmental disasters (Climate Change) together with the rising threat of water scarcity and increase in conflict/terrorism (threatening Security Crisis) considered to be exacerbated by dwindling natural resources.  The additional threat of disease pandemics, though mentioned in corridors and alluded to in side sessions was not a focus for this conference.  However, quality of food nutrition was considered to be a key issue for some delegates as they said that their citizens were at higher risk of morbidity/mortality due to an increase in the availability of poor quality food.

Many considered the various global crises to be interconnected and that sustainable development is the appropriate forum in which to unite the often-fragmented responses to come up with a comprehensive and effective strategy.

Almost one billion of the world’s population live in poverty and they are also often the most adversely affected by global warming.  We were asked, “Where are they/we to go?”  This may have alluded to the possibility of mass migration to greener lands in the developed Northern countries and therefore the realization that though some of the crises may not yet seem to affect present lifestyles in all societies, it will…

The Commission’s plenary sessions were divided into two sections:

• Working Group 1 dealt with Agriculture and Rural Development
• Working Group 2, with the issues of Land, Drought, Desertification, and Africa.

The major themes in the conference seemed to be that:

• Sustainable agriculture/farming is not only part of the problem in Climate Change but it needs to be central to the solution and at the heart of the Climate Change agenda.  It provides food, fuel, rural resources and is central to land and water management.
• At the heart of global sustainable agriculture are the small-hold farmers (who are often women).  Agriculture was described as the engine of economic growth and service provision.
• Traditional knowledge was frequently cited as being an essential partner to new biotechnology information and education, in creating a sustainable future in agriculture.
• There were calls and references to a “New Green Revolution” or a “Double Green Revolution”, to enable Africa to cope with its food crisis.
• There was also a focus on the importance of the urban-rural link for sustainable food production and consumption, worldwide.  This was emphasised by an official from New York city who described the progressive work they are doing in partnering the city’s high need for food with the surrounding rural area’s need for markets.  They are working on a template toward a more sustainable management system to accommodate the rising global transfer of populace from rural to urban settings.  This partnership of support is considered to be a major theme for sustainable development as cities are estimated to consume 75% of the resources though they only occupy 2% of the land.
• Another emphasis was on how to stop the accelerating drain of rural inhabitants migrating to the urban areas.  This also severely impacted on small-hold farmers’ food productivity and their access to markets.
• In terms of global climate change effects on agriculture, it was generally considered that the wet areas will get wetter and the dry ones will get dryer exacerbating both drought and floods, globally.  Accordingly, methods for carbon sequestration, economic compensation for protecting, preserving and planting forests as well as agro-forestry practices should be encouraged.

Though Health was not on the agenda this year, it was easy to show people how it was central to all the issues.  It is one of the subjects on the agenda for next year’s CSD18.

Major reasons sited for the global food crisis:

• 20 – 30% of food wastage in the developing world occurs between the production and the markets due to inferior, or lack of, transportation, infrastructure, appropriate storage facilities and education/skills. In the developed world, more wastage occurs after the food has reached its market often linked to over-consumption.
• At least 50% of food produced is wasted either before reaching the market, or after.  Therefore, we were reminded that if we did not increase food production at all, but only addressed this wastage we could double the world’s access to food.
• Inequitable trade conditions, which give unfair advantage to some economies:  One example was the dumping of cheap food onto developing world markets.  This destabilizes local economies and particularly the local farmers’ ability to sell their produce, as it becomes more expensive than the devalued imported food.  Once people become dependent on imports, those food prices may rise and become unaffordable to many.
• That food has become a commercial commodity rather than a human right.  This was central to the global financial speculation process that affected food prices world-wide and had little to do with local production or market (ie. within control of the affected communities).
• The transfer of cropland from food to biofuel production along with its competing use for water and other resources were considered to also play a role in the food crisis.
• It was also identified that political will to stem economic greed may be more precisely the source of the problem.

A call to change both consumptive patterns and production patterns recognized that fulfilling the developed world’s consumerist lifestyle demands is a main source of the current problems.

On the one hand there was a call for more research and technology to feed the world’s growing population, on the other hand after four years of research by an international team of scientists in their comprehensive research report the IAASTD concluded that at this point, we have all the research and facilities available to feed the world now.  It is time, instead to ensure that the people who need the knowledge can access it.  That knowledge should be integrated into programmes and capacity building with more attention to adaptation measures.  There is already enough knowledge to increase production yields by 2 – 3 times their current rate. Research, education, local knowledge and extension were considered to be fundamental to the new way forward.  The small-hold farmers should be given access to the necessary money (micro-credit systems), education and land tenure to give them basic security.

There was a call to share more information both North/South and South/South.  This included facilities for early warning systems for weather and financial markets as well as traditional solutions to food production problems.

Major questions from the South were “Where do we get the resources to implement this New Paradigm of agriculture?” and “Who will take the leadership?”

There was a strong call from most sectors and governments for higher investment in the agricultural sectors both from international and national sources.

Both the challenges and opportunities posed by biofuels were emphasized, but as with many of the other issues, no specific strategy or policy was debated.

The words “Business as usual is not an option!” were repeated frequently throughout the conference by both governmental delegates and representatives of the Major Groups.  The current economic model is now considered to be incapable of delivering sustainable development because it is grounded in inequity.  We need to develop a new equitable model quickly for the world has now reached its tipping point.  It was called, by some speakers, for agriculture to be embedded in the Ecosystem approach and that we must move from a position of trying to master, to cooperating, with the ecosystem and that continuing on with our present consumption/production model will soon destroy the planet.  One speaker referred to the planet’s illness due to various dis-eases that though possibly still reversible, if left unchecked would become critical, requiring life support.  He named two of the conditions as “Affluenza” and “Povertitis”.

Inequitable trade was identified as a major threat to developing countries’ access to affordable food yet it was considered that trade issues are highly sensitive and are being discussed in a different forum.

Toward the end of the second week, the interpretation of Sustainable Agriculture became an issue for several of the Major Groups.  Though some believed that it retained its original meaning encompassing biodiversity, food sovereignty, the ecosystem approach and the precautionary principle, others voiced their reasons to believe that the term had been hijacked by industry to incorporate, support and encourage the use of GM food crops and other expensive biotechnological agricultural interventions under a new more elastic definition of sustainability.

The Chairperson’s final Shared Vision Statement basically confirmed an earlier affirmation that agriculture (in a broad sense including livestock raising, agro-forestry and mixed systems) is central to sustainable development and must, as part of a new paradigm, be part of the solution to the multifaceted crisis we now face.  Farmers (those who make a living from the land) particularly women farmers and small rural farmers are at the heart of sustainable agriculture.  And though it is the farmers who feed the world, their families are usually the ones who go hungry.

Reaching agreement on the statement was a painfully slow process as it seemed that there were many vested interests at stake with each addition or removal of a bracket.

A final agreement on the Chair’s text for a Shared Vision Statement was reached, but will it lead to any policy changes that can help to solve the present global predicament?

An analytical summary of the CSD report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) can be accessed by googling:

IISD RS @CSD17 4-15 May 2009. (Link: http://www.iisd.ca/csd/csd17/)

As members of the Major Group faction, we found the networking and sharing of ideas and possible solutions in the corridors and participatory workshops, to be stimulating and positive.  Many of the issues of key concern to citizens represented in the Major Groups were discussed more openly and directly in the more informal setting.  Some of the solutions discussed and recommended included:

That the current dependence on long distance transport of goods, the increasing consumptive patterns globally (dependence on cars, etc) and the dominant economic globalisation model are at the heart of the interconnected crises facing the world.  This was also reflected many times in the plenary sessions with the persistent calls to radically change consumption and production patterns (recognized as unsustainable) and that “business as usual” reflected in our current global economic and development model must stop immediately to be replaced with a sustainable and more equitable process.  But within that complex process of conflicting interests, neither specific contributing habits/behaviours nor solutions were discussed there.

A major fear expressed by many groups was the possibility that various strong lobbies may exploit the present crises to proliferate the GM food crop industry and force it on peoples as part of aid packages.  This could facilitate the transfer of ownership of food crops and land sovereignty from farmers and nations into the hands of a few, increasingly powerful groups.  These commercial groups are often only concerned with profits, not humanitarian problems.   For some, this was considered to be one of the biggest threats to the already existing food crisis and that safeguarding the right to seeds and water must remain a basic human right.

It was posited that assuring food sovereignty based on peasant and family farm agriculture and removing speculative finance capital from the food system could offer a way out of this crisis.

Neither the privatisation, nor use of Gm food crops or of terminator technology should be permitted.  Biofuels should be assessed according to economical, ecological (including water stress) and social sustainability.

Through the reliance on petroleum, industrial agriculture was considered to have a warming effect on the planet while the ecosystem approach used in peasant agriculture cools the planet.  The latter would also have the effect of de-linking food prices from petroleum prices, recovering degraded soils with organic matter, conserving forests and providing fresh more nutritious food.

It was estimated that we could eliminate up to 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions through changing the patterns of transportation and consumption.  Investing in the necessary infrastructure to have communities depend more on local goods and services, than imported ones could help this shift.

Involve the creativity and strength of the rural young people in their struggle to create a future in the countryside.

The paradigm shift, to which the Chair often referred throughout the session, needs to be one of shifting from quantity of things to quality of relationships.  The current model breeds fear of scarcity, of conflict and of Nature’s wrath.  As was mentioned in the plenary sessions, we must stop working against Nature and learn to work cooperatively with it.

There was “outrage” officially stated by the Major Groups at the apparent dismissal of the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development) report that many had expected to be the underpinning knowledge base for the CSD 17 meeting.  The publication assessed the impact of past, present and future agricultural knowledge, science and technology in reducing poverty and hunger, improving rural livelihoods and human health and facilitating equitable, environmentally socially and economically sustainable development.  The report drew on the work of hundreds of experts from all regions of the world that participated in its preparation and peer review process extending over a period of more than four years.  It was a product of a multi-stakeholder process involving governments, NGOs, industries and an array of UN bodies (FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, WHO) and the World Bank.

Amongst a wide range of findings, the IAASTD found highly unequal benefits in the trade of food around the world.  This current trade model also produces serious ecological impacts, now recognized as contributing to climate change.  In the highly sensitive and charged realm of the role of GM food crops in helping to feed the world’s rising starvation, the report pointed out various potential problems in using that technology.  They did not recommend this technology as a helpful way forward in the context of our present global situation.

The report sites under- nutrition as the underlying cause of over 15% of the global disease burden.  It calls for dietary quality to be a main driver of food production, not just quantity or price.  Health concerns include presence of pesticides residues, heavy metals, hormones, antibiotics and various additives in the food system and related to large- scale livestock farming.

The IAASTD report recommends options within an interdisciplinary, holistic and systems-based approach.  The in-depth report examines issues such as Poverty and Livelihoods, Food Security, Environmental Sustainability, Human Health and Nutrition, Equity, Investments, Bioenergy, Biotechnology, Climate Change, Human Health and Natural Resource Management.

In an interview with Dr. Hans Rudolf Herren, one of the Co-Chairs of the report and President of the Millennium Institute, he expressed his frustration and sadness at the lack of willingness that “people in many high places in government and the donor agencies no longer want to hear the facts”[1].

SOME GOOD NEWS

Amongst the Major Groups, there was a call to research/invest in more agro-ecological practices (which had also been mentioned in the plenary) and to emphasize the good news stories that are not being publicized.  For example, some farmers and NGO technicians in Burkina Faso, in the Sahel region of Africa, experimenting to improve traditional practices (planting pits called “zai”) that work organically with the ecosystem, have seen tens of thousands of badly degraded acres turned into productive land[2].  Niger, also in the Sahel, is also succeeding in regenerating cultivated fields on at least 12.5 million acres using organic practices.[3]

Twelve and a quarter million rural Indians, mostly women, many landless, have created a network of 100,000 local dairy coops, which generate many times more than the jobs often claimed to be created by high-tech information industry.  Although these cooperatives provide over 20% of the country’s total milk supply, there is little international knowledge of them[4]

In India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh civil society organizations helped rural women’s groups who were struggling with an extraordinary rate in farmer suicide after catastrophic losses in their GMO cotton seed crop.  The farmers were so deeply indebted to Monsanto that they drank their pesticide to end their lives.

Farming using the non-pesticide approach gives them a 23% higher net income, due to lower production costs and a healthier environment.[5] Independence from a chemical regime also allows for more complex human and ecological relationships to emerge giving way to production of more diverse cereals, fodder and fuel wood exchanged locally.  Small businesses are sprouting to produce natural pest control substances using the ancient Neem tree and other local ingredients, such as chillies and cow dung,.

A multi-disciplinary study at the university of Michigan concluded that if the whole world sifted to sustainable, organic practices, our total food supply could increase by about 50%.[6] Because this approach tends to disperse rather than concentrate power, it means that the increase in output is more likely to reach the neediest people.

Feargal was invited to be part of the drafting group to prepare questions/interventions on an ecosystem management approach to agriculture and rural development.

Feargal attended the CSD as a representative of the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (FEASTA) and a member of the Irish delegation as an adviser .He had discussions with members of inter alia the following delegations– Irish, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, UK, USA, The Holy See –on a proposal to ask UNEP to host a peer review meeting on climate solutions/models which have been developed by governments NGOs, businesses and foundations which take a global rather than a nation-by-nation view of the problem.  Such proposals could enable countries to escape the constraint of thinking solely about the effects that rapid emissions reductions would have on their own economies and look at a wider picture. The proposals include Contraction and Convergence, Cap and Share, Cap and Dividend, Kyoto2 and Greenhouse Development Rights. The idea for peer review meeting is that neutral, objective assessors should rate the proposals and discuss their findings with those putting them forward, climate negotiators and climate experts. The meeting’s findings would provide the international community with useful information about the options available in the lead up to Copenhagen.

UNEP is ideally placed to organise such a peer review meeting as it has a broad environmental perspective and also expertise in linking climate change to other environment and development issues. It frequently facilitates dialogues between business, and industry representatives with public officials, NGOs and other stakeholders. Furthermore, UNEP jointly with WMO provides the secretariat for the IPCC and facilitates its functioning in informing the world about trends and effects of climate change based on sound science, thereby supporting climate change policy-making at all levels

Feargal also spoke inter alia with:

• Mr Achim Steiner The Executive Director of UNEP.
• Ms Veerle Vandeweerd Director Environment and Energy Group Bureau for Development Policy UNDP
• Julia Marton – Levfevre Director General IUCN.
• Achim Steiner informed me that if we get support from a few governments he will do everything he can to make this proposal happen.
• Veerle Vandeweerd’s office has followed up with an email stating that consultations on Cap & Share are underway and I will hear from them soon. She is also interested in the Peer review proposal.

The initial feedback from Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and UK was positive.

We would like to thank the IEN and the Irish government very much for supporting and facilitating our trip to the CSD17 in New York.  We found it to be a most helpful experience for better understanding the challenges and, more importantly, potential solutions to some of our current global problems.  The two of us working there, as a team was very productive as we brought complimenting knowledge, skills and approaches for participating and networking more effectively at the multifaceted conference.

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[1] Outreach Issues by SDIN (Sustainable Development Issues Network) and SF (Stakeholder Forum) International Report Ignored, Wednesday, May 13, 2009, CSD17, New York.

[2] Kabore and Reiji (2004), The Emergence and Spreading of an Improved Traditional Soil and Water Conservation Practice in Burkina Faso. Discussion paper #114, Washington DC. Environmental and Production Technology Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

[3] International Institute for Environment and Development et al., (2008) Building on a Current Green Revolution in the Sahel: Some Lessons from Farmer-Managed Re-greening in Niger. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.

[4] World Banck, (2008) Agriculture for Devlopment, World Development Report. Washington, DC: World Bank

[5] GRAIN Editors (2008) Saying “No” to Chemical Farming in India.  Seedling, Juliy:27-29.

[6] Badgley, Catherin et al. (2007) Organic agriculture and global food supply. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 22 (2): 91