From: Dale McMillen <dmcmillen@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Date: 06 Jan 93 23:08 PST
Subject: Re: SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1678600049:cdp:1678600050:000:52823
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  6 23:08:00 1993


Topic 45        The Green Revolution: Another look worldpnews
worldpnews       4:56 pm  Dec 23, 1991

From WORLD PERSPECTIVES magazine. Box 3074, Madison, WI 53704

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE "GREEN REVOLUTION"
The following comes from R. Australia:

 The Green Revolution  is now being widely seen as a little short
of a disaster. In the Philippines, by 1987, at the time it was
exporting surplus rice, 70% of the rural population was
malnourished. In 1965, before the arrival of Green Revolution (GR)
technology, this figure was 40%.

The problem with GR technology was that while new, high yielding
varieties often gave larger tonnage per hectare, they required
increasingly high levels of fertilizers, pesticides and water to
maintain their productivity. Governments, with the support of the
World Bank, forced many small farmers to use those new varieties.
Many failed and their land was taken over by larger, more
successful farmers, forcing them to become impoverished laborers.
Rich farmers were encouraged to treat rice and wheat as cash crops
for export rather than crops to be sold in their local district.
Consequently, prices rose and malnutrition spread.

Traditional methods like crop rotation were sacrificed in the
interest of gaining greater short-term return on investment.
Three, rather than two, crops of rice per year became common,
putting additional pressure on the soil and providing ideal
breeding grounds for new pests. The costs of input began to rise
and yields began to fall. The fields were becoming fertilizer and
pesticide junkies.

Writer, anthropologist and film maker Lon Blair has lived in the
same village in Bali for the past 20 years. He says: "It was a
devastating change and one I thought they wouldn't be able to
stave back. It affected them on great many levels:  Socially,
culturally,, economically - the farmers are worse off because of
it, it affected the environment everywhere dramatically. It's very
hard to turn back from something like that. People came here and
taught the world's greatest experts on rice agriculture how to
grow rice! They forced them to follow new ways.

"[The GR] has caused a great concentration of wealth in many parts
of Bali. There are a lot of field workers and a few land owners."

In India, the new high-yielding varieties required four times the
water of traditional varieties. This meant that while more wheat
was grown, there was a significant decline in crops such as the
pulses; peas and beans which help fix nitrogen in the soil. It is
only now that the calculations of the GR are being subjected to
real scrutiny. It was not until an independent study was carried
out by an Australian researcher working with the Indonesian
government that a proper comparative cost- benefit analysis has
been available.

Says Blair: "His conclusion was that although you have almost
three harvests a year with the new strains and only two in the old
strains, that the productivity at sea level slightly favored the
new rice, in the middle levels it was neck and neck in actual
tonnage productivity and as soon as you got higher, the new rice
was a disaster, there was a loss of productivity. The increased
productivity [at sea level] was counter-balanced by the fact that
suddenly the farmers were no longer independent and
self-sufficient because of the fertilizer that has to be bought
from factories and the insecticide. They used to use natural
insecticides. The net results in all areas, I believe, has been a
reduction in living standards..."

He says: "I talked to my Balinese friends and they said that their
children are getting sicknesses they didn't have before.  One
noticeable example is amoebic cysts in the liver. It makes sense
that this would come from a highly chemicalized water, the amoebas
are doing fine, it's humans who are not doing fine You talk to
them and they say: 'We don't hear the birds anymore, we don't have
the fox anymore, we don't see eels... they haven't eaten any in
years nd this used to be staple food in their diet. They talk to
each other about the deterioration of their environment.

"These people work in a very cooperative way and always with the
fundamental understanding which is under threat now, that you do
not own the land which your father passed on to you, you have the
use of it. At the village level it is still highly democratic here
in Bali. The villagers are like islands surrounded by rice fields
and the people decide who gets water and when dikes need to be
repaired and that is when common efforts are needed.

Blair adds that farmers who didn't want to were forced to change
to GR methods and varieties by their governments. Once the latter
realized the problems accompanying the GR, it seemed impossible to
change back. However, there seems to be hope which is in the
step-by-step process. The farmers are first taught to reduce
insecticide and fertilizer use by 50% and eventually more. It is
hoped that within ten years they will be able to return to a
naturally fertilized agriculture with a yield that is "every bit
as good."

Topic 33        Chemical Dependent Farming 2 jdmann
en.agriculture  12:13 am  Jul  8, 1989

*****  ONE FARMER'S VIEW  *****
***  written by David Stern, prepared by David Yarrow  ***
***  published in Solstice magazine, May-June, 1989  ***

    Today the Natural Resources Defense Council released their
report on pesticides in our food supply. Reality was like a slap
in the face. Yesterday, when we went to market, we thought about
cost and nutritional quality.  Today we realize our families are
eating dangerous chemicals applied in the process of producing and
storing our food.  Perhaps the public is more surprised and
disturbed because they presumed that food safety was guaranteed by
U.S.D.A, E.P.A. and F.D.A.  Now, we begin to understand just how
safe "safe levels" of exposure are.  We must look beyond the
immediate concern and realize that unsafe food is only the symptom
of an underlying, greater problem.
    American agriculture, like our society, is chemically
dependent.  The removal of chemical pesticides and synthetic
fertilizers from food production would cause the whole system to
crumble.  Our dependence is nearly total.  Though it's considered
impolite to point out the chemical dependence of friends or family
to booze or pills, addiction means the same thing whether it's
applied to a drug user, our soils or society.
    We have misused our soils, mining out fertility, compacting
structure, gassing microbes, and allowing tons to wash away from
our hillside fields.  This once great resource, intended to last
for generations, is becoming exhausted from overuse and misuse.
Thoughtlessly, we have taken too much out and put little back.  By
whatever measure, our once great land is disappearing into streams
and suburbs sick and sterilized.  Because the goal has been
production at any cost, we continue to pour on expensive
fertilizers to mask the soil's loss of natural fertility.  The
quality of the crop (nutritional value to man and animal) is
actually decreasing.
    Against competitive insects, fungi and weeds, we use poisons.
Pesticides have various levels of persistence, solubility
(leachability) and carcinogenicity.  Most have never been
adequately tested for chronic effects or neurotoxicity.
Pesticides are used for many reasons: sometimes to save a crop,
more often to make it look perfect.  Our dependence on pesticides
means we've neglected other crucial biological and ecological
practices.  Instead of breeding varieties resistant to pests,
we've chosen to breed varieties resistant to pesticides.  When
pests, insects or weeds become resistant to pesticides (which is
easy for them, with their large populations and breeding
capacity), we find another, more toxic material.  Instead of
raising safe, clean food close to home, we breed thick-skinned,
tasteless varieties that can be harvested green, gassed and
shipped 3000 miles without a blemish.  Instead of working with our
farms and the natural orders of diversity and sustainability, we
find ourselves at war with Nature.  Instead of following natural
rotations in the field, we plant the same crop year after year,
creating perfect opportunity for increasing levels of pests, and
then out comes the spray rig!  We've created a system that depends
on chemicals: they enter our environment and they enter us.
    I don't know a farmer who enjoys using chemicals.  The
materials and equipment are expensive, require accurate
calibration and maintenance; the work isn't particularly enjoyable
or safe.  It takes valuable time and timing from a busy schedule.
There is an increased chance for human error with each tank-mix
and each new chemical.  But faced with a mortgage payment and a
crop-threatening pest, the choice is inescapable, and you spray.
Farmers dance to several tunes, none of them their own.  Consumers
demand cosmetic perfection.  Grocers demand constant supply and
longer shelf-life.  Processors demand undamaged crops.  Bankers
demand payment on time.
    Farmers have difficulties with these demands.  Some plainly
contradict others.  Agricultural chemicals satisfy some of these
demands, but evidence seems clear that they don't yield safer,
healthier food.  Deep down, farmers know this.  They also know
they're not being paid enough to produce safe, healthy, life
sustaining food, nor to be good stewards of the Earth.  Society
asks them to do this for free, for altruistic reasons.  Farmers
know they can't stay in business by resting their land, rotating
for pest control, and plowing down green manures to build soil
structure and fertility.  Only production will keep them in
business, and the sheer demands of production are destroying our
land and our farmers.
    Federal farm policies support inadequate and destructive
agricultural practices and have created a gigantic farm welfare
system.  Because farmers need to produce to stay in farming
business, they're locked into a system of chemical and economic
dependence from which they find no escape.
    Ecological and regenerative solutions are hard to come by when
decisions are made solely on the basis of production per acre,
export markets, percent of GNP, and the Futures Market.  We must
ask ourselves, what is the real cost of putting a meal on
America's table?"  The present system has succeeded in making our
food the cheapest in the world for consumers, but at what cost to
farmers, their communities and land?  Moreover, the system has
driven a wedge between food producers and consumers, who might
reasonably be allies in seeking a safe, healthy food supply from a
sustainable production system.
    The time has come for Americans to look squarely at the
"bottom line" of our cheap food system, being sure that soil
fertility and erosion, food safety, clean water, and commodity
payments are factored in.  These values are difficult to determine
precisely,but they are no less real. Silted streams, murky lakes
and polluted groundwater are real and terribly expensive to "fix"
or replace.  The destruction of our family farms and rural
economies will have severe consequences and costs.  Many health
effects of our sloppy use of pesticides and fertilizers will have
severe consequences and costs.  Many of the health effects of our
sloppy use of pesticides and fertilizers will have to be borne by
generations to come, when doctors' bills will be just as real.
The cost of paying for commodity supports is passed on to the
consumer, but not at the supermarket checkout line.  Is this cheap
food, or is it one hand doing without the other knowing?
    As with other forms of chemical dependence, the first
requirement for a cure is acknowledgement of our denial of the
problem.  After acknowledgement comes withdrawal.  During
withdrawal, the farmer will adjust philosophically as the fields
adjust biologically.  Emotional and economic support will be
needed for 3 to 5 years.  Help will also be needed from research
institutions, Cooperative Extension personnel, mortgage holders,
and consumers.  Agriculture stands with a number of major social
and environmental issues such as waste disposal, energy production
and use, global warming, and critical resource exhaustion.  It
demands our attention and it's right on our dinner plate!

***  David Stern, Organic Vegetable Farmer, Rose Valley Farm,
Rose, NY 14542, spring, 1989  (David stopped using chemicals and
fertilizers in 1979.)
***  David Yarrow, a founder of the Natural Organic Farmers'
Assoc. of NY, is Associate Editor of Solstice magazine, has worked
as a community organizer and health & diet counselor, and is a
naturalist and dowser.
***  Solstice magazine, devoted to "Perspectives on Health and the
Environment, is published six times a year from offices at 201 E.
Main St Suite H, Charlottesville, VA  22901  804-979-4427/0189.
Subscriptions are $14.95/year.  Publisher and Editor is John David
Mann (jdmann).  One special concern of Solstice is the global
climate crisis; Solstice has published a booklet of reprints on
this subject: "Perspectives on the Climate Crisis."

Topic 150       High Cost of Pesticide Dependence panna
en.agriculture   4:06 pm  Apr 22, 1991

The High Cost of Pesticide Dependence

A new study shows that integrated pest management (IPM) practices
such as crop rotation and biological pest control could cut U.S.
pesticide use in half. While the study estimates that food costs
would increase $1 billion per year (less than 1%), it also
calculates a savings of $4-10 billion a year from reduced
pesticide regulation, reduced health care costs from pesticide
poisonings (currently 20,000 annually), and decreased damage to
water supplies and fish.

The study, by Cornell University agricultural scientist David
Pimentel, points out that pesticide use has become increasingly
counterproductive. Since 1940, the tonnage of pesticides applied
to U.S. crops has increased 33 times and their toxicity has
increased 10 times, yet crop losses to insects, fungi, and weeds
have actually increased from 31% to 37%. Pimentel argues that the
main culprit is not the development of pesticide resistance, but
U.S. government price supports which encourage farmers to
specialize in single crops instead of rotating them to control
pests. Published in a new edition of the Handbook on Pest
Management in Agriculture, the report synthesizes more than 300
previous studies and, according to Pimentel, represents the first
comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of pesticide use.

Source: Science, 2/1/91. The three-volume Handbook is available
for $249 per volume from CRC Press, 2000 Corporate Blvd. N.W.,
Boca Raton, FL 33431.
____________________________________________________

This article was excerpted from the PANNA Outlook, a bimonthly
bulletin covering pesticide and related issues published by the
Pesticide Action Network North America Regional Center (PAN NA
RC).


Topic 173       IPS:NIGER REPORTED TO RETURN PESTIC rliskey
en.agriculture  10:50 pm  Aug  5, 1991

From: <rliskey> Subject: IPS:NIGER REPORTED TO RETURN PESTICIDES

washington aug 2 (ips) -- about 50 tonnes of banned pesticides
''donated'' to niger over the last 30 years was returned to the
netherlands this week, according to the environmental group,
greenpeace usa.

but the group warned that, despite niger's ''return-to-sender''
move, u.s. and european aid agencies and chemical companies
continue to develop plans to dispose of pesticides in african
countries.

Topic 30        Sustainable Ag Policy Conf 3/89 1 response jdmann
en.agriculture  10:06 pm  Jul  6, 1989

    ***  1989: The Year of Sustainable Agriculture  ***
    ***  A Report on the National Conference on
    Sustainable/Organic Ag Policy  ***
    ***  written by David Yarrow  ***
    ***  prepared for Solstice magazine, May-June, 1989  ***

In 1980 USDA published a Report on Organic Agriculture by Garth
Youngberg.  This book quickly sold out and outsold all other USDA
books.  It's conclusion:  organic farms compare favorably in
productivity and profitability with chemical farms; in soil and
water conservation, organic farms are superior.  For a brief
moment it seemed organic had come into its own in America.

Then Ronald Reagan was elected, Garth Youngberg fired and an eight
year drought wilted the organic flower.  The only federal rain to
fall since was $3.9 million in the 1987 Ag Productivity Act for
low input sustainable agriculture (LISA), less than 1% of USDA's
research budget.

Yet March 16, 1989 in Washington a Conference on
Sustainable/Organic Agriculture Policy had that feeling again:
organic is an idea whose time has come.  Senator Patrick Leahy, Ag
Committee Chair, opened a standing room only conference calling
1989 "the year of sustainable agriculture" and promised "to make
the 1990 Farm Bill the farm bill for sustainability."

Quite a challenge when USDA's current budget provides no funds for
LISA, while last year 2 billion tons of pesticides were sold in
the U.S.  Dave Stern of the Natural Organic Farmers' Assoc. of NY
(NOFA-NY) said, "American farm policy has supported inadequate and
just plain bad farming practices and created a gigantic farm
welfare system.  Farmers need to produce to stay in business -
they're locked into a system of chemical and economic dependence
from which they find no escape."  Another farmer was more blunt,
"It's spray crazy nozzleheads in industry, USDA and Extension who
got us in this expensive, toxic mess."

Conference hosts were the usual food activist lobbies: Center for
Science in the Public Interest (Michael Jacobson), Americans for
Safe Food (Dan Howell) and Institute for Alternative Agriculture
(Garth Youngberg).  But joining to sponsor this landmark event
were 4 state departments of agriculture: Texas, North Dakota,
Minnesota, and Vermont.  Sustainable farming has some powerful
political allies.  But the real thrills at the Conference came
from the highly visible organic food industry.  For a month their
phones had been ringing constantly.

Of the speakers, the high note was Texas Ag Commissioner Jim
Hightower, author of Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times, one of the first
books to criticize the U.S. farm & food system.  Texans take
farming so serious their Ag Commissioner is elected, not
appointed.  In 30 fiery, colorful minutes Hightower told how his
Department is certifying organic food, putting the state's
reputation and muscle behind organic food.  Texas is encouraging
farmers to use fewer chemicals, if not switch to sustainable
methods completely.  And in a triumph of states' rights, Texas is
selling hormone free beef to Europe despite U.S. trade problems
and USDA obstruction.

In 1987 Minnesota created a Energy and Sustainable Agriculture
Division in the Agriculture Department was created to "demonstrate
energy efficient, environmentally sound and profitable practices."
In 1988 the Legislature approved a landmark $1.45 million for
sustainable farming.  This set up a $1 million revolving loan fund
for sustainable farming.  $300,000 was disbursed to farmers as
Sustainable Agriculture Grants.  And Minnesota's Agriculture
Department contracted $100,000 with the Organic Growers and Buyers
Assoc. to develop organic certification and marketing.

Though not sponsors, many other states are promoting sustainable
farming.  Like Texas, Washington's Agriculture Dept. is certifying
oganic food.  In Iowa alarm over public wells contaminated by farm
chemicals sparked serious pledges to LISA.  Iowa State
Representative Dick Ostenberger told how in '86 Iowa used $7
million from the DOE's Exxon oil overcharge fund to reduce
nitrogen fertilizer as a way to save energy and protect
groundwater.  Iowa's 1987 Groundwater Protection Act provided $7.5
million for LISA projects.  On the principle the place to get
money is the problem's source, the Act put a 75/ton tax on
nitrogen fertilizer, .2% tax on manufacture and .1% on sale of
pesticides to raise $4 million for the Leopold Sustainable
Agriculture Center at Iowa State University, which is endowing a
Chair for Sustainable Agriculture.  In '89 Iowa votes on another
Ground-water Act to put a $1 tax on pesticide containers and
$1/lb. on atrazine, the #1 persistent groundwater contaminant.

Similarly an agent of Minnesota's Agricultural Resources
Management Division told how millions in Exxon overcharge funds
went to sustainable agriculture projects to save energy, reduce
farm chemical use, improve farm profitability, and reduce
environmental damage.  This yielded more positive publicity for
the Dept. than any other program.  A special appointee to the Ag
Secretary will recommend state support for organic certification
and marketing.

But the real elation wasn't these farm state political heavies.
The star of organic food wasn't present except in a phone call on
a radio show with Tom Harding, a pillar of organic industry.
Three weeks before actress Meryl Streep, in a personal campaign
against Alar, mobilized housewives by telling them on the Donahue
Show to buy organic food.  The effect on consumers alarmed over
safe food (what ever happened to nutritious?) was electric. Bob
Scrowcroft, Director of California Certified Organic Farmers, put
it this way, "Our office usually has 20-30 calls a day.  Since
Meryl we've had up to 150 calls a day.  I'm glad to be here to get
away from the phone."  Every organic farm and food seller reported
the same sharp reaction.

It couldn't come at a better time: the last week before spring -
in time for farmers to plan crops, buy seed and prepare fields.
Joe Dunsmore, President of Organic Farms in Beltsville, Maryland,
the largest organic distributor in the east, was ecstatic, "For 10
years I worked 16 hour days through organic market ups and downs.
Two months ago I was selling organic apple juice below cost, now I
can't keep it in stock.  This time I'm ready.  I got growers lined
up and trained with fields ready to seed. We have literature and
certification.  I have refrigerated trucking from Florida to
Maine.  I'm ready."

To consumers, it's safe food free of chemicals.  To farmers, it's
sustaining soil life.  Sustainable farming deals with nature, who
works in circles, cycles and rhythms.  Organic food - the consumer
side of the supply and demand equation - is a supermarket world of
packages, processing and promotion.  This is the ancient koan: How
do you fit a round pumpkin in a square box?  Or a square meal? Or
a laser scanner? Without markets for its crops, sustainable
agriculture will remain but a good, sensible idea.  A thriving
organic food industry is critical to the growth of sustainable
agriculture.  How do these two worlds connect together?

In the last 10 years organic food industry has grown rapidly.  In
1979 Joe Dunsmore couldn't sell 10 cases of organic produce in all
of Baltimore.  In 1989 certified organic produce from his $10+
million/year Organic Farms is sold in 14 Baltimore supermarkets.

In 1980 Whole Food Store in New Orleans became a health store with
a produce dept.  In 1989 Whole Food Stores, the largest organic
retailer in the U.S., has 9 organic supermarkets in 3 states, with
2 more planned.  Their foods are certified by Texas' Agriculture
Dept.  Their $60 million business has grown at 30-60% yearly.

The Organic Foods Production Assoc. of North America (OFPANA) was
founded in 1985 to set standards of excellence for organic
industry.  OFPANA united organic farmers, processors and
distributors to create uniform guidelines for labeling, marketing
and certification.  On March 17 in Washington OFPANA President
Marc Shwartz hailed a consensus to set up reciprocal
certifications.  And former OFPANA President Tom Harding reversed
a long held stance by a call for a federal definition of organic.

Serious challenges face organic industry: legislation,
certification and education.  Legislation means a legal definition
of organic.  Eleven states have organic label laws which include a
definition, and, after Meryl, many other states will have similar
legislation pending.  There's little consistency among them.  To
bring order to this, OFPANA has a definition which it hopes will
become the national standard.

Behind this is a question of the relationship between governments
and organic industry.  Officially the federal government and most
states continue to ignore organic industry.  In the coming months
positive working relations must emerge between industry and
government, not only on the regulation of organic markets, but the
agricultural policies which decide how farmers farm.

A key issue is the number of years a field must be without
chemicals before it can be organic.  Most states and certification
programs have a three year rule.  NOFA-NY has a two year waiting
period.  California Health and Safety Code requires only a single
year.  OFPANA seems to favor a three year standard for
certification, but for general labeling one or two years may be
adequate.

Second is certification.  At present over 30 certification
programs exist, each with its own Standards; NOFA-NY Standards run
over 25 pages and list several hundred farm chemicals.  Without
uniform standards consistent between states, interstate trade in
organic products is roadblocked.

Third is consumer education.  At present nearly 75% of Americans
would pay more for food without chemicals, but fewer than 20% know
that organic means grown without chemicals.  Organic industry must
fill this gap with ads and promotion to educate consumers about
organic food.

OFPANA guidelines avoid saying organic is residue free or superior
nutritionally.  Bryan Silberman of the Produce Marketing
Association, the mainstream industry, said, "There's no research
to prove organic is any better " and cautioned against making
nutritional claims.

At the end of the Marketing session a man with a CIA nametag spoke
up:  "We're sitting on a pressure cooker.  Meryl Streep didn't
invent the pressure cooker, or fill it with hot air.  All she did
was jiggle the valve to reveal how much pressure has built up.
Nearly 8 years ago I did a consumer survey about chemicals in food
to discover 60% would pay more for food grown without chemicals.
That was before Alar, aldicarb watermelons, EDB grains, and
Mediterranean fruit flies.  Consumer alarm about chemicals is
already high.  Anyone offering organic food this year will likely
be trampled in the market this year."

"I predict within one year - two at most - organic baby food will
appear in supermarkets with a major food corporation name.  A Food
Marketing Institute survey 3 years ago showed Americans would pay
more for food without chemicals.  The largest, most reliable
clientele are mothers of young infants.  A massive baby food plant
is already underway.  I'm glad Meryl jiggled the pressure cooker -
now we all know how intense this is."

Other speakers confirmed that all major food companies are
spending millions on alternative agriculture.  Most see the
handwriting on the wall that the Chemical Era is coming to a
close.  They're betting heavy on a bio-tech revolution prophesied
by men in white coats, but have covered their bets with organic
research.  A California lettuce grower is planting 300 acres this
year as an organic experiment.  OFPANA fears such experiments may
compromise legiti-mate products of farmers committed to authentic
organic ethics.

So organic industry is bracing for a triple wave: states, feds and
agribusiness.  What was an obscure ideal is now the hottest sector
of America's food system.  The impact will test the strength,
commitment and unity of an organic industry faced with efforts to
erode organic standards.  Will organic go the way of natural -
compromised?  Can this young industry survive with its moral
principles intact?  Can it supply a vision to transform farming?
Is it time for such transformation?  Or will it be engulfed and
swallowed?

Beneath the elation was the grim, harsh reality of a deepening
farm crisis now in its second stage with savings and loan
failures.  One South Carolina farm organizer with the Rural
Advancement Fund wants to hold workshops on LISA, but all his time
is spent on how to fill out 99 page Farmers' Home Administration
foreclosure forms.  With droughts in '87 and '88, many farms made
little feed, food or money.  It's thin comfort to know LISA farms
fare better than their chemical cousins in a drought.

Over it all loomed a dark spectre.  Many speakers alluded to
climate crisis and greenhouse effect.  A few pointed out another
year of drought will see world grain reserves vanish, calling for
a brand of belt tightening and brotherhood few governments will be
able to stomach.  Organic food may be trendy in the U.S., but for
much of the planet it's a question of any food at all.

For years macro folk voted with our mouths and dollars because
there was no political alternative.  Now food is coming to the
forefront of American politics.  Organic food is no longer hard to
find - it's public policy.  It's time for macrobiotic folk to vote
with their hands and feet, letters and calls, and soon with
ballots.  Legislators and policy makers need to hear our voices;
we must share with them insight gained in macrobiotic eating and
study.

Dave Stern, a NY organic farmer, said: "Agriculture stands with a
other major social and environmental issues such as waste
disposal, energy production and use, global warming, and critical
resource exhaustion.  It demands our attention and it's right on
our dinner plate!"

    RESOURCES

    Healthy Harvest III: A Directory of over 1000 Sustainable
    Agriculture and
Horticultural Organizations.  $16.95 + $1.30 P&H from Potomac
Valley Press, 1424 16th St., NW #105, Washington, DC  20036

    Organic Foods Production Association of North America (OFPANA)
is the trade association of the organic food industry, open to all
firms, businesses, organizations, and individuals in production
and marketing of certified organic food. P.O. Box 31, Belchertown,
MA 01007

    ***  Solstice magazine - devoted to "Perspectives on Health
    and the
Environment - and is published six times a year from an office at
201 E. Main St Suite H, Charlottesville, VA  22901
804-979-4427/0189.  Subscriptions are $14.95 a year.  Publisher
and editor is John David Mann (jdmann).  One special concern of
Sosltice is the emerging global climate crisis; Solstice has
published a booklet of reprints on this subject called
"Perspectives on the Climate Crisis."

    ***  David Yarrow is a founder of the Natural Organic Farmers
    Assoc. of
New York, writer, community organizer, naturalist, health and diet
counselor, and a dowser.

Topic      NGO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE TREATY JUNE 11, 1992

I. PREAMBLE:  CURRENT POLICY & CRITIQUE

Knowing that:
1. The dominant global socio-economic and political system which
promotes the model of industrial agricultural production and rural
development is the root of the social and environmental crisis in
agriculture, and its effects extend from rural to urban areas on a
planetary scale;

2. Although the present model of agriculture has contributed in
the last decades to a substantial increase in food production, it
has not solved the world's hunger problem, which has increased
parallel to increases in food production;

3. This model decreases diversity in ecosystems, landscapes and
production, reduces natural resources that are the common heritage
of all to criteria and a logic of production which mines the
resource base, seeks immediate profits, and shifts the control of
production of foods and raw materials toward large transnational
corporations and trade interests at the expense of local control
and quality of life for farmers and food security for all people;

4. The present industrial, chemical intensive agriculture system
of the so-called "Green Revolution" degrades the fertility of
soils, intensifies the effects of droughts and contributes to
desertification, pollutes water resources, causes salinization,
increases non-renewable energy dependence, destroys genetic
resources, contaminates the food supply and contributes to
climatic change;

5. The prevailing agricultural model blocks effective agrarian
reform, concentrates land, income and production to a very small
minority, and raises input costs. This exploits producers,
agricultural laborers, and indigenous communities working in
subsistence agriculture; generates debt and marginalizes large
numbers of producers, causes and accelerates rural exodus and the
disintegration of communities and their cultures; reduces
opportunities for rural employment and intensifies the urban
explosion, while aggravating problems of poor health,
malnutrition, famine, and misery in rural and urban areas
especially in Southern countries;

6. This model ignores and tends to destroy the cultural diversity
and knowledge accumulated over thousands of years by people and
traditional communities in the sustainable management of diverse
ecosystems;

7. The national policies of the majority of countries are oriented
toward consolidating and developing this pattern of industrial
agriculture which is harmful to the environment and the quality of
life for human beings and all other life on our planet;

8. The so-called "liberalization" of agricultural trade, as
proposed in GATT, will strengthen the monopoly of the present
agro-economic system and uniformity of production systems, making
it impossible to democratize and achieve active participation of
peasant, family and small farmers, thereby undermining the food
security systems throughout the world;

9. This dominant economic model has a corresponding vertical
communication model that has been used as an instrument of
domination and disinformation of rural producers, promoting the
commercial interests of agro-industry;

It is therefore an urgent necessity to:

10. Break with the dominant predatory model of agriculture in
favor of new patterns of sustainability which are equitable and
participatory, to guarantee the full control of the means of
production and natural resources in the hands of the people who
work the land, insuring them a permanent source of income and high
levels of productivity;

II. PRINCIPLES OF AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

11. Sustainable agriculture is a model of social and economic
organization based on an equitable and participatory vision of
development which recognizes the environment and natural resources
as the foundation of economic activity.  Agriculture is
sustainable when it is ecologically sound, economically viable,
socially just, culturally appropriate and based on a holistic
scientific approach;

12. Sustainable agriculture preserves biodiversity, maintains soil
fertility and water purity, conserves and improves the chemical,
physical and biological qualities of the soil, recycles natural
resources, and conserves energy. Sustainable agriculture produces
diverse forms of high quality foods, fibers, and medicines;

13. Sustainable agriculture uses locally available renewable
resources, appropriate and affordable technologies, and minimizes
the use of external and purchased inputs, thereby increasing local
independence and self sufficiency and insuring a source of stable
income for peasants, family and small farmers and rural
communities.  This allows more people to stay on the land,
strengthens rural communities, and integrates humans with their
environment;

14. Sustainable agriculture respects the ecological principles of
diversity and interdependence and uses the insights of modern
science to improve rather than displace the traditional wisdom
accumulated over centuries by innumerable farmers around the
world;

15. Women play a key role in providing the largest proportion of
the world's food resources, by growing, buying and selling;

16. The root causes of environmental degradation in various
regions of the world must be identified and addressed;

17. To construct new and democratic patterns of social
organization and sustainable agriculture techniques, it is
necessary that proposals and concrete experiences in sustainable
agriculture development are both articulated and strengthened for
an active and worldwide expression of critical social conscience
in order to overcome the social and environmental crisis created
by the dominant model of agricultural policies, programs and
practices;

III. ACTION PLAN

WE NGOs & SOCIAL MOVEMENTS PLEDGE TO:

18. Commit to democracy and participation of NGOs and social
movements, especially peasant, family and small farmer's groups,
in all levels in order to accomplish political proposals connected
with sustainable agriculture as an essential condition to
construct new patterns of social, and economic and technical
organization of rural areas;

19. Support efforts and interaction between people's movements,
women's groups, youth, indigenous peoples, local communities and
peasant, family and small farmers' organizations to preserve,
enhance and maintain intact sustainable farming systems, to
restore degraded agroecological and cultural systems, to
accelerate development and implementation of sustainable
agriculture practices;

20. Promote new and existing popular networks among people and
organizations involved in sustainable agriculture at local,
national, and regional levels to facilitate quick exchange of
affordable, reliable information and to consolidate cooperation
and action;

21. Promote international networks to strengthen and facilitate
cooperation and communication among existing networks;

22. Promote strategies of participatory communication
corresponding to sustainable agriculture principles by creating
communication media, both locally and regionally, to work as
instruments of information and education as an alternative to mass
media;

23. Promote awareness within our respective organizations and
others about the need for an agriculture based on sustainable
principles;

24. Mobilize voluntary educational and advocacy campaigns to bring
the principles and methods of sustainable agriculture to all forms
of education, and pressure governments to develop sustainable
agriculture curricula at all levels;

25. Emphasize the need for people's empowerment, especially the
active participation of women, at all levels of decision making,
and establish support services to obtain access to land tenure,
credit, training opportunities and education in sustainable
agriculture;

26. Pressure governments, agricultural research institutes and
rural extension agencies include or increase participation of
peasants, family and small farmers and rural residents in the
decision-making process, and to base research and funding
decisions on direct consultation with and consideration of the
needs and priorities identified by farmers;

27. Commit to the preservation of remaining genetic resources and
biodiversity by such mechanisms as preserving local seeds,
nurseries, livestock and animals, and participate in-situ genetic
reconstruction-preservation efforts complementary to sustainable
agriculture;

28. Develop and promote alternative national and international
policies to reverse and prevent the policies currently discussed
in GATT and in individual countries which seek to privately
appropriate genetic capital and patent life forms;

29. Increase sustainable agriculture production in urban,
peri-urban and rural areas at the grassroots level with emphasis
on alleviating poverty and improving regional food supply, small
scale production and self-sufficiency;

30. Advocate aggressively locally, regionally, nationally and
internationally for democratic and equitable distribution of land
wealth through the principles of agrarian reform based on the
control of the land workers;

31. Push for and support sustainable agriculture and trade
policies at the local, national and international levels;

32. Pressure the public and private sectors to make the
transitions to sustainable agriculture and to direct their
resources to the research and development of sustainable
agriculture methods;

33. Campaign for the creation of a trust fund to sustain peasants,
family and small farmers during the transition to sustainable
methods of agriculture through a tax on agrichemicals;

34. Advocate for a substantial reduction in pesticide and chemical
fertilizer use in conventional agriculture by the year 2000, for
adoption of the precautionary principle in all pesticide
development and promote biological pest control measures that
reduce to zero the use of bioaccumulative hazardous inputs;

35. Support the amended London Guidelines for exchange of
information on chemicals, adopted by UNEP on May 25, 1989, which
prevent the shipment from one country to another of agricultural
chemicals banned or severely restricted;

36. Promote environmental legislation to preserve agricultural and
natural areas and provide a legal framework to address the
environmental impacts of industrial agriculture;

37. Campaign for international negotiations on agricultural trade
practices, notably in GATT, which encourage and support policies
on sustainable agriculture, ensuring that the is sue of food
security and the health and nutrition of all people be given top
priority, with emphasis on poor people;

38. Build relationships with appropriate international and
regional development agencies and institutes to promote the
development of sustainable agriculture;

39. Support research and dissemination of information on the
potential impacts of climate change, such as global warming and
ozone layer destruction, on agriculture;

40. Push for legislation to regulate biotechnology research, to
test genetically modified organisms, and to mandate freedom of
access to information on applied biotechnology so as to avoid
monopolization of biotechnology and dependency of rural
producers.

Topic          NGO FOOD SECURITY TREATY JUNE 11, 1992

I. PREAMBLE:  CURRENT POLICY & CRITIQUE

1. Food security is having the means as an individual, family,
community, region, or country to adequately meet nutritional needs
on a daily and annual basis.  It includes freedom from both famine
and chronic malnutrition.  Food security is best assured when food
is locally produced, processed, stored and distributed, and is
available on a continuous basis regardless of climatic and other
variations.

2. Despite significant increases in food production in recent
years, food insecurity has increased.  Recent estimates by the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) place deaths due to
hunger-related problems in rural areas of the developing world at
more than 15 million for 1990, and about 500 million from the same
areas are likely to remain chronically undernourished.

Paradoxically, these occurred in spite of dramatic increases in
food production.

3. Presently, the world food insecurity problem is a result of an
undemocratic and inequitable distribution of and access to
resources (such as land, credit, information and incentive),
rather than a problem of global food production.  As a result,
there is a concentration of production in certain regions and in
the hands of fewer and fewer intensive producers, to the detriment
of the other regions, small scale farmers and local food
security.

4. Although hunger can be caused by social or political
breakdowns, crop failure or ecological disaster, the main cause of
hunger is chronic poverty -- a poverty so absolute that its
victims possess neither the resources to buy food nor control over
the resources needed to produce it.

5. The food security problem is addressed by two approaches --
local self-reliance or trade policy.  The trade-oriented policy
promoted by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and
other bilateral and multilateral agencies does not solve food
insecurity but aggravates it.

6. The prevailing export-oriented development strategy has led to
numerous problems.  These include having only four multinational
corporations control ninety percent (90%) of world trade in
cereals; dependency of developing countries on a few exportable
products which are vulnerable to falling commodity prices;
widescale cash crop production at the expense of local food
production; and the gradual isolation of small farmers.  The
current foreign debt load of many developing countries is a
deterrent to their food security.

7. Dependency on food imports also leads to numerous difficulties:
increased debt and compounding of balance of payment problems;
fluctuating external market prices for developing countries, which
face a sharp reduction of their import capacity; and increased
energy consumption in food transportation.  The problems of
dependency on food import and food aid include political
conditionality, vulnerability to a failure of delivery mechanisms,
disincentive to local producers due to decreased food prices,
competition with local traditional foods and changed consumption
patterns.  Additionally, importing countries face vulnerability to
drought and political unrest, and have less control over food
quality, which require increased chemicals to preserve the food
being transported long distances.

II.  PRINCIPLES OF FOOD SECURITY

We agree that:

8. Food Security is a basic human right.  Every person must be
assured access to safe, high quality food. To ensure the right of
people to feed themselves, food security must be based to the
extent possible on local self reliance. Food security is best
assured where the production, transporting and consumption of
local food is a priority and where dependence on food imports is
reduced as much as possible, acknowledging that food imports can
be necessary to supplement local supplies.

9. The attainment of food security is vital to sustainable
development.  People have the right to the dignity of sustainable
self-reliance.  National and international trade policy must not
be allowed to undermine this right.

10. The right to food encompasses not only material aspects such
as quantity, quality, and access but also the cultural aspects of
food.  Food production and consumption patterns reflect  the
environmental, cultural, political and social diversity of
communities and societies, and should be respected and promoted.
However, non-healthful food consumption patterns should be
discouraged.  The community should decide for itself what is
healthy or unhealthy.

11. Just and democratic forms of land ownership, use and access
are essential to the creation of sustainable food systems and food
security.

12. The application of the principles of sustainable agriculture
and biodiversity maintains the health of the resource base which
is critical to food security.

13. The strengthening of people-oriented initiatives in the area
of agrarian reform, community organization, development activities
and enterprise, can create strong foundations for eventual
community control over food related decisions, strategies and
economic sustainability.

14. Women often play critical roles in food production, and have
the responsibility for the storage of food and seed.  In addition,
they provide the cultural bonds in the process of ensuring
nutrition, health care and income generation for the family and
society at large.

15. A full understanding of the ecological, economic and social
aspects of agricultural systems is a pre-condition to sustainable
agriculture and food security.  Well-trained food producers and
consumers educated in the principles of food security and
sustainable agriculture are essential.

16. Insuring food security is an essential and appropriate
agricultural policy for governments to pursue. As there is an
important difference between agricultural subsidies which
encourage overproduction and those which are used to increase
local self-reliance, quantitative import restrictions are
appropriate for improving food security as long as they are linked
to an effective policy that stops over production and export
dumping.

17. The geographic distance between consumers and producers must
be as narrow as possible in order to insure food security.  A
close relationship of mutual understanding between consumers and
producers is also essential.

18. Special attention must be given to those who are potentially
the most food insecure, including indigenous people, refugees,
displaced persons, the unemployed and disabled, and minority
groups.

19. Traditional agricultural peoples often possess substantial
knowledge about the principles of food security, which are
applicable to sustainable production systems.

20. Opportunities for exchanges of information, ideas, resources
and experiences on the principles of food security can be
essential for improving the capacities of those working in this
field.

21. It is essential for food security that farmers receive fair
income from sustainable agriculture by internalizing the
environmental and social costs in all agriculture.

III. FOOD SECURITY ACTION PLAN

We Agree to:

22. advocate for food security to be a central objective in the
agricultural and food policies of local and national governments,
intergovernmental agencies, and NGO and community groups;

23. encourage intra-regional trade in food products in both
primary and processed forms to increase diversification in food
production within countries and to improve regional food
security;

24. work within our communities to develop mechanisms to reduce as
much as possible the distance between producer and consumer;

25. work within our communities to ensure the viability of small
and family farms, and the diversity of products and production
practices;

26. establish community buffer stocks of seed and food;

27. actively promote democratic and just forms of land ownership
and land tenure systems, including community control over land
use, access and ownership, as well as water resources, and over
food related decisions and strategies;

28. advocate for national and local governmental agencies,
intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs to give priority to
integrating women's roles into mainstream agricultural development
and other agricultural activities, and to empowering women's
capacities by ensuring their access to such resources as land,
credit, appropriate technology, and education.

29. work to promote infrastructural facilities such as
transportation, storage, communications, water, and energy to
enhance the capacities of women and men, enabling them to
participate fully in the economic activities of the community
leading to food security;

30. promote traditional knowledge and practices of sustainable
agriculture, biodiversity, and food security strategies and
techniques (such as beneficial seeds and plants), and policies
which preserve and reinforce that knowledge and those practices;

31. establish research programs, especially participant-oriented*,
to identify successful food security policies and practices;

32. develop educational and training programs (especially on site)
for food producers and consumers in the principles of food
security, sustainable agriculture, and nutrition;

33. establish regional and international mechanisms (egs.
networks, institutions, cooperative agreements) among farmers
groups, environmental and development NGOs, consumer advocates,
and other concerned groups and individuals to implement these and
other food security actions;

34. identify funding sources for these actions and actively seek
funds from those sources;

35. advocate for financial assistance programs to make food
security a top priority and to allocate sufficient resources
accordingly;

36. support efforts to deal with critical environmental threats to
food security in such areas as global climate change, loss of
biodiversity, biotechnology, deforestation, soil loss,
desertification, misuse of chemical inputs, population growth, and
overconsumption;

37. advocate for food security becoming a central objective of
trade policies (especially in GATT), including the right of
countries and regions to regulate imports in order to achieve food
security as long as it is linked to effective systems that
prohibit overproduction and export dumping;

38. promote funding priorities that lead to, insofar as possible,
independently sustainable food security systems;

39. ask our governments and multilateral institutions supporting
structural adjustment policies to withdraw their support to
measures and mechanisms, including commodity boards, which halt
and undermine food security in developing countries rather than to
promote it;

40. promote the concept that farmers receive fair income from
sustainable agriculture by internalizing the environmental and
social costs in all agriculture.

*  that is, the participation of those who may be affected by or
benefit from the research.
 appropriate for improving food security

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