The next Green Revolution!?!
Apparently, an influential faction of GOs at the current World Food
Conference is calling for the next "Green Revolution" to effectively feed
the burgeoning world pop.
Unfortunately, it's the old GR (i.e.: central " big plan", quick fix
solutions utilizing reductionist high tech "one size fits all"
approaches). The clarion call has gone out for recruiting genetically
engineered "super crops", massive water allocation and irrigation
schemes,
much higher chemical fertilizer applications, etc... all apparently
geared
for (SURPRISE!) the same industrial scale, cash mono-crop ag we now are
soooo familiar with. The same system that tends to concentrate ag profits
into the hands of the few.
Apparently ignored by these "gods of western know how" are (again
SURPRISE!) the small scale, complex poly-crop farming operations typical
of the "peasant" families that are most at risk in the coming crisis and
who operate at the most appropriate scale to implement sustainable
Said "big plan" ag systems, IMO, tend to drive these folks out of farming
and
into the streets of the "3rd world cities" to beg or die.
A SUB committee on "sustainable ag" was formed but appears not to be
getting the attention that the "whiz-bang BOYS" are harnessing. Most of
the calls for sustainable, scale appropriate, and socially just solutions
(for instance, empowering the matriarchs of poor families) are coming
from (surprise #3) the NGO's that are meeting concurrently but apart from
the formal conference.
And so it goes.
Don't "feed the world", but empower the "world" to FEED ITSELF in scale
appropriate, dynamic balance with the biosphere.
Regards
Christopher M Robinson
The Humboldt Sustainable Community Project
The HumboldtNation <http://www.humnat.org>
admin@humnat.org