Living Democracy, Feeding Hope

Originally published on Common Dreams on 04/07/2016 Photo courtesy of the authors (This interview was conducted during the Democracy Spring march from Philadelphia to Washington, DC — part of a two week action to push for a more equal and representative democracy.) We are about sixty miles into our 140-mile march to Washington, D.C. from Philadelphia. How are you feeling? Exhilarated…and that’s after waking up at 4 am on a hard floor! Why are you feeling so exhilarated? At the risk of sounding cheesy, Democracy Spring is a moment I’ve hoped for all my life: Finding myself in a nurturing community that’s uniting people across issues, ethnic groups, genders, and backgrounds to tackle the mother of them all, our democracy deficit. We’re determined to create real democracy, one accountable not to Big Money but to the citizens. What could be more exhilarating than that? Before the march, I confess, I imagined most people moving along, ear buds in place, in their own worlds. But, no. Everyone’s talking and telling each other what brought them here. Each story I’ve heard — from the veteran to the MIT engineer, the teenager to the former Wall St. banker — is so engrossing that I forget to ask how many more miles to go! Day after day, I see everyone staying positive, being respectful, and welcoming each person who’s joining us. You’ve been writing about democracy for almost three decades. Is this sense of community new for you? The food movement, which I know best and respect deeply, has always felt like a vibrant, connected community. But honestly, I feared I’d never find that in the world of democracy. But my fear has evaporated here. In Democracy Spring, I sense a powerful community forming. It embodies the democratic spirit, in which our heads and hearts meet. We have long known the facts of our democracy crisis, but few of us have dared to hope that foundational change is possible. I have a strong sense that we’ll come to see Democracy Spring as more than an event. It might well become one historic marker of the budding democracy movement. So why has this community formed now? Because millions of Americans now get it! We must remove Big Money from politics to succeed on any issue we care about from racial justice to climate change. It’s the plurality of commitments within Democracy Spring that is our strength, not our weakness. Why is marching from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. so important? It makes the movement visible. No one can ignore one hundred and fifty people marching one hundred and forty miles. Hundreds of people from their cars and front steps are honking and waving at us, calling out, “Yes! Finally!” When people see us, I sense they see themselves in our action. Many are thanking us for representing them because they aren’t able to march for themselves. Everyone who sees us will likely tell their friends, “Hey, I saw people marching on the highway about money in politics!” And some will think: “Okay, maybe I don’t have to give up on real change.” In this way we’re fighting our one real enemy — despair. Also, the march is transforming all of those in it. At least it’s true for me! I will carry the stories I’ve heard forever as well as the community we’ve formed. Learning and standing up together for what we believe in is powerful. Taking this action, I feel myself becoming more convincing to myself. Don’t you think that can make me more convincing to others? Yeah, protest certainly can do that. For me, “protest” doesn’t really capture Democracy Spring. I think of what we’re hoping to embody as “civil courage.” I hope that doesn’t sound self-important, because all I mean is that we’re choosing to do something most of us have never done before to stand up for the good of the whole. We are not only naming the crisis, but we are also offering specific solutions. Can you tell me more about what you mean by “civil courage”? To me it’s the essence of democracy. For here is the human challenge: By nature we are so very social that we want desperately to fit in and to feel accepted. What’s toughest for most of us is to break with the pack — even when the wider group is heading into great danger. Civil courage means trusting one’s vision and saying to those who’ve given up or don’t see the danger: “I respect you, but I’ve got to go and stand up for what I believe is necessary for all to thrive.” It can feel scary. But the reward of acting with others for the good of all is great. It is hope itself. When my daughter Anna Lappé and I founded the Small Planet Institute, we chose this as our motto: “Hope is not what we seek in evidence, it is what we become in action together.” What’s the difference between the typical understanding of courage and civil courage? We all admire someone rushing into a burning building to save a stranger. That instantaneous response demonstrates enormous courage. Civil courage is different and often unheralded. It builds over time. It is built on human solidarity and often requires deep reflection. But in the end, you realize that in all of life, it’s not possible to know what’s possible, so you take the leap. It’s deeply patriotic. And that’s what I sense in the people around me: marchers making big sacrifices financially or otherwise to fight for all Americans. Many are even willing to sit-in at the Capitol on April 11th, risking arrest for the first time in their lives. I’m fortunate to have my family and friends behind me. But some people don’t. I admire them the most. Taking the leap to stand up for a future of dignity for all is civil courage. And for me, Democracy Spring embodies it. Are you hopeful that the Democracy Spring movement can flourish? It could be a turning point. Within it, we are creating a culture of engagement in which every person’s voice is respected; therefore everyone has dignity — a fundamental human need. In that spirit, as soon as Democracy Spring is finished, Democracy Awakening begins, in which over 200 groups are organizing teach-ins and other actions, including civil disobedience, to push for meaningful election and voting rights reform. All I know for sure is that right now, for the first time in my life, I feel I am a part of historic movement responding to three basic human requirements for life: connection , something I feel with everyone that is here; meaning , as getting Big Money out of politics is the most important issue of our time; and a sense of power , because together we are making a difference. So you can imagine how grateful I am to those who created Democracy Spring. It is changing me, it’s building my courage quotient, and I firmly believe that courage is contagious.

As perhaps never before in our history, all the pieces are in place for a democracy movement to take off in America, one strong enough to tackle the system-roots of our country’s crises. What? You don’t see it? I understand, because it is really hard to discern the democratic impulse in a political culture increasingly dominated by bluster, bullying, and blame, all bank-rolled by a tiny minority. But here’s all I ask — that you take in the six key pieces below, and then imagine what they could add up to, and your place in them. One: We’re angry. Not handfuls of marginal “activists” but most Americans — left, right, middle — are really pissed. We know things are foundationally unfair, and getting worse — in just the first three years after the ‘08 Wall St. crash, 91 percent of all income gains went to the top 1 percent. So today the 20 richest Americans hold as much wealth as the bottom half of our entire population . Twenty people? Please let this sink in. In the Manhattan coffee shop where I sit, that’s the number in easy view. Incredible. Two: We now know the system is rigged. We know that those making the rules in Washington and our state houses make them in the service of those who fund them, not the vast majority of us. Out of 120 million American households, just 158 families contributed nearly half the money in the early stage of the 2016 presidential election. No wonder 84 percent of American adults believe that money has too much influence in politics. We feel evicted from our home — democracy itself. Three: We’re finally connecting the dots. More and more of us grasp that whether the outrage most afflicting us, or moving us, is hunger and homelessness, racism in all its forms, roadblocks to unions, an unjust justice system, crippling student debt, unaffordable housing, assault on voting rights, our climate catastrophe, or a maddening healthcare system, we see that without democracy we’re stuck . Our inability to solve any of these problems — for which solutions are already known — comes back to one thing: the growing democracy deficit as the voices of regular citizens are drowned out by the megaphones of great wealth. Four: We agree on solutions. Fully 85 percent of us want deep change or a complete “rebuild” of our campaign finance system. Almost two-thirds of us want “citizen-funded” elections and 80 percent oppose secret or “dark” money in political contests. And 78 percent of us want the Citizens United ruling overturned. I for one can’t recall such widespread agreement across party and generational lines, ever. Plus, another great thing: Most of the solutions favored by so many Americans today are already proven to work . They include at least these five elements: •Citizen-funded elections •Disclosure of political funding sources •A strong election-rule enforcement agency staffed by people who believe in the rules •A ban on non-persons (i.e. corporations) influencing elections. (Among many reasons for limiting participation to real human beings is that healthy democracy depends on citizens able to weigh the impact of their choices on the wellbeing of our whole society not just on our own pocketbooks. Corporations fail the test.) •An end to the “revolving door” between lawmaker and lobbyist that lures legislators to make choices based on future employment options and circles lobbyists with strong loyalties to industry back into shaping laws. Five: We’re uniting across old divides. Did you ever imagine environmental, civil rights, and labor activists all organizing toward common goals? Likely not. Yet, recently 131 organizations came together to create a Unity Statement of Principles on solutions to the undue influence of money in politics. And two years ago six huge but very different groups — the Sierra Club, NAACP, Greenpeace, AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers of America, and Common Cause — created a coalition called Democracy Initiative to press forward essential democratic system-reforms. It helped lead the 2015 thousand-mile march for voting rights restoration. Now roughly fifty issue organizations are on board.Plus, thought-leaders from both left and right are standing up for democracy. Robert Reich, who most recently wrote Saving Capitalism for the Many Not the Few , is a powerful progressive voice. Law professor Richard W. Painter made the “Conservative Case for Campaign Finance Reform“ in the New York Times last month. And Tea Party strategist John Pudner now leads Take Back Our Republic , an organization building conservative support for reducing the influence of private wealth in politics. Six: A massive and savvy citizens’ movement is taking off. We’ve learned a lot since the Occupy Movement focused hearts and minds on the inequality crisis. The movement now arising is organized, goal oriented, and amazingly unified. So, this April, get ready to join in two of its unprecedented public actions. First is Democracy Spring . Launched last fall by 99Rise and Avaaz, it now has one hundred organizational backers, including the Small Planet Institute. Demanding fundamental electoral reform for citizen-funded elections, voting rights protection, and beginning the process of amending the constitution, its march begins April 2nd at the Liberty Bell in Philly and travels to the steps of the capitol on the 11th. There, 2,000 have already pledged to risk arrest if Congress does not act on its demands. Starting on the 16th, a broad coalition, Democracy Awakening , takes up the torch! A series of public actions include a march, teach-ins, a concert, a human circle around the capitol, and visits to legislators to press the case for democracy in America. Already about 200 organizations, including mine, are official endorsers. These mobilizations are enabled by strong communications across issue lines and really savvy use of social media. They are intergenerational, with a spirit appreciative of diversity of views. All this looks, feels, talks, and walks like what could be an historic citizens’ movement. Surely, you would not want to miss out! On the sites linked above and at our Field Guide to the Democracy Movement you’ll find groups eager for your enthusiastic engagement. There are so many ways to jump in: Join or start a campus group through Democracy Matters or get in through your faith community through DemocraticFaith.com . Ask teachers and students you know to bring the debate on the shape of our democracy into their classrooms. Sign up to help register voters and to get out the vote this election year! To seize this moment in which six essential pieces are now in place, there is, though, one still-needed ingredient I’ve yet to mention: the catalytic agent bringing all this to life. Some might say that ingredient is greater compassion, but I sense that human hearts are good enough. Since our species is so deeply social, what’s even tougher to come by is courage—the courage to break with the pack and take a stand. True, the deeply human need for inclusion and camaraderie can be increasingly met within the growing throngs of gutsy people who’ve gotten the democracy movement this far, but we still need guts to speak up and act up. So let’s help each other be heroes. Often, it only takes one gutsy soul to trigger a cascade. And, as we show up, I think we’ll discover that the surging, solutions-oriented democracy movement is a whole lot more fun than either ranting or moping. It’s truly stirring, and it’s changing my life. See you in April? Originally published by Huffington Post on 03/08/2016

Originally published by Civil Eats on 03/03/2016 Three years ago, an explosion at a West, Texas fertilizer plant killed 15 people and injured another 260. In January, the Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency that investigates chemical disasters, released their final report . The conclusions are sobering: More than a thousand communities nationwide are home to similar fertilizer production facilities that store fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate—the agricultural chemical that caused the deadly explosion, and there are 80 facilities in Texas alone. Vanessa Allen Sutherland, the chairwoman of the agency, told reporters: “It’s possible for another type of incident like this to happen.” We’ve long heard from proponents of industrial agriculture—and the synthetic fertilizer industry driving it—that we need these products to feed the world. But is the risk of another West, Texas the price we have to pay for a well-fed world? More and more scientists have uncovered data that suggests it’s not. Take the recent study lead by Professor John Reganold at Washington State University (WSU). In a first-of-its kind effort, researchers there have analyzed studies covering 40 years of data comparing the “long-term prospects” of organic and chemical farming. In a peer-reviewed article released last month in Nature , Reganold and his team made a strong endorsement of organic farming. They wrote: “Organic agriculture is a relatively untapped resource for feeding the Earth’s population, especially in the face of climate change and other global challenges.” Organic systems are especially compelling, the authors note, when considering not only productivity, but also the environment, economics, and community well-being—the four pillars of sustainability. What’s perhaps most important to note about these findings is what they tell us about feeding our growing population. Researchers looking narrowly at yield-to-yield comparisons found that organic production systems have lagged behind those of chemical ones in most cases. But that science was based on historic data. And we can safely say the climate of 10 or 20 years ago is not the climate of today. With climate change will come greater extremes in weather and temperature—from droughts and floods, to unusual heat waves and cold snaps. And Reganold and his team found ample evidence that organic production fares better during these extreme conditions. For one, the WSU study found that organic agriculture had yielded more food “in severe drought conditions.” This was the case in large part because of the “the higher water-holding capacity of organically farmed soils.” The authors also note that organic farms “consistently have greater soil carbon levels, better soil quality, and less soil erosion compared with conventional systems” and they can withstand flooding better as a result. Organic farming production is also generally more energy-efficient, the researchers found. Keep in mind that the historic yield performance of organic systems is also a reflection of the knowledge and seed varietals of the past. Innovations in organic farming are ongoing and will certainly increase the performance of future organic farmers. Only a fraction of agricultural research worldwide goes toward organic agriculture. Investing in this research would reduce the yield gap. The WSU team also notes that those comparing these farming systems should take into account the other costs of chemical farming, including the ones beyond the “field boundaries.” Biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and water and air pollution are all associated with conventional farming systems, but are often not accounted for in the studies they reviewed. What else is beyond those “field boundaries?” The industrial fertilizer supply chain. Widen the lens and you end up in places like West, Texas or any of the other 1,300 facilities that house potentially explosive chemical fertilizer components. Widen the lens even further and you end up at the industrial operations of BASF, Dupont, or other agricultural chemical producers. Places like Midland, Michigan , where Dow Chemical manufacturing has generated the highest levels of dioxin ever detected in waterways in the United States. These manufacturers have a powerful voice on Capitol Hill. Trade groups like the Fertilizer Institute, whose mission is to “protect, promote and represent the fertilizer industry from the point of production to the point of use,” lobby to promote the industry’s interest in the Halls of Congress. In 2015, the Fertilizer Institute alone had a lobbying budget of more than $8 million. The political influence of Koch Industries is also well documented, with millions spent to protect its business interests; Koch Fertilizer manufactures and distributes more than 13 million tons of nitrogen, phosphate, potash, and sulphur-based products through 90 facilities at locations across the United States and around the world. Meanwhile the citizens of places like West, Texas don’t have well-paid lobbyists to defend their interests. Nationwide, communities are at risk from an industrial accident at a fertilizer production facility. And countless other communities are affected by the industrial food supply chain, from Midland, Michigan to the many communities in the shadow of chemical manufacturing plants nationwide. But research like WSU’s recent survey of studies offers a clear reminder that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can feed the world without having to resort to risky agricultural practices and potentially explosive inputs.

Originally published by Earth Island Journal on 03/01/2016 The majestic half-dome of Yosemite. The psychedelic-colored hot springs of Yellowstone. The jaw-dropping ravines of the Grand Canyon…. Piles of plastic water bottles? Until recently, all of these – yes, plastic bottles included – could be considered iconic of our nation’s national parks. In the Grand Canyon alone, the park was recycling more than 900 tons of bottles a year, including plastic ones. But thanks to people-powered change, an estimated 75 national parks –about one quarter of the nation’s total – have now joined the movement to go plastic bottled-water free. The idea seems like common sense – and it is. Plastic water bottles create litter in our nation’s parks. And the production of the 50 billion plastic water bottles used every year in the United States, including in our nation’s parks, is a major environmental problem. As more and more national parks have kicked out plastic bottles, they’ve also found that adding water stations has increased access to water for visitors, promoting that all-important thing: hydration. But commonsense has a way of being perceived as anything but when it cuts into the profits of one of the biggest industries in the world: bottled water companies. When advocates started pushing for a ban on bottled water, the industry fought back big time. Through its trade group, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), the industry fought the parks’ attempts to ban bottled water, even adding a rider last year to a Congressional appropriations bill. The rider, sponsored by Republican Representative Keith Rothfus, would have made it illegal for the National Park Service to spend federal dollars to implement or maintain bans on the sale of bottled water at any national park. (It seems no coincidence that Rothfus is cozy with the industry: Before proposing this rider, he had received a $1,000 contribution from the IBWA’s trade group and was a featured speaker at an IBWA event.) The advocacy group Corporate Accountability International, along with 19 other organizations, 30 members of Congress, and more than 350,000 people, worked together to call on Congress to block this rider. While these advocates won, defeating the attempt to undermine the National Park Services’ bottled-water-free movement, the industry succeeded in requiring that the government fund a study of the efficacy of the program. Yes, that means you and I – us, taxpayers – are paying for “research” to prove what national park rangers already know: Banning plastic water bottles reduces waste and helps the bottom line of parks around the country. Why all the hubbub about the ban? What I think really has the industry worried isn’t just that the bans successfully kick bottled water out of these iconic places, but that the bans spark a broader conversation about whether we really need bottled water in our lives at all – inside, or outside, park gates. Many of the parks, such as Grand Canyon, have created educational moments about the policy on their web pages and at their reusable water-bottle refilling stations. Park staff report families using the opportunity to reflect on sustainability and the environment – and how bottled water has no place in the equation. Lessons thousands now take home alongside their selfies at Old Faithful and memories of towering Tetons. On this, the centennial of the National Park System, it feels like the perfect moment to toast – with tap water, of course – this huge win on behalf of people and the planet.

Originally published by Down to Earth on 02/23/2016 Director General Roberto Azevedo and Chair of the Tenth Ministerial Conference, Amina Mohamed, mark the conclusion of the WTO conference, which resulted in the adoption of the “Nairobi Package” Credit:WTO In a self-congratulatory tone, lawyer and politician Amina Mohamed (who also served as the Chair of the Tenth WTO Ministerial Conference) called the recently-concluded World Trade Organization’s (WTO) negotiations “a turning point for world trade”. In her opinion piece in The Daily Nation she wrote that the international trade body “is now pointed in the right direction”. With the general council of the WTO meeting Wednesday for the first time after the Nairobi Ministerial, most observers expect a stormy session with the developing countries likely to take on Director General Roberto Azevedo for his non-transparent role by which the Nairobi Ministerial Declaration (NMD) was drawn up. The fate of the Doha Development Round (DDR) and the Doha issues now hangs in balance with the US, the EU and other developed countries expected to make a concerted push for new issues and a new architecture in view of the NMD. Sadly, Mohamed’s apology echoes the triumphalist interpretation of the US negotiators, who claim they have effectively killed the DDR. Unfortunately, Mohamed did not lead the WTO’s first African ministerial in the right direction on development issues so urgently needed by the countries in the continent. She turned the institution back to the time when rich countries set the agenda and wrote the agreements. Let’s examine her claims to success. Analysis of Mohamed's assertions First, she asserts that Nairobi achieved an “…outlawing of export subsides in developed and developing countries by 2018 and 2023 respectively…” This is a half-truth as the Nairobi agreement merely put a cap on the existing levels of support. Fiscal considerations had led the EU to stop much of its export promotion earlier and the US has not acceded to putting binding restrictions on most of its export promotion. This is just a pyrrhic victory for developing countries and not a game-changer, let alone a “valuable leveling of the playing field”, as Mohamed added. Perhaps the most egregious misreporting of the Nairobi outcomes was that the ministers had agreed to end agricultural subsidies. Mohamed feeds the misperception by ignoring that domestic agricultural subsidies, which are by far the most trade-distorting, were not even allowed on the table by the rich countries. In fact, they are at the core of the Doha agenda that was actively resisted by the US and others. The cotton issue The same misrepresentation sits behind her second assertion regarding the contentious issue of cotton. Mohamed writes that the ministers, “…decided on the prohibition of export subsidies immediately by the developed countries.” This is not significant. Far more important are domestic subsidies, especially those provided by the US. Recent studies have shown that the 2014 US Farm Bill, far from eliminating trade distortion in cotton, will continue it, raising the US cotton exports to 29 per cent above their reasonable market levels and suppressing global prices by 7 per cent. That will cost the world’s other cotton producers an estimated $ 3.3 billion per year in lost revenues. Most important, Africa’s long-suffering C-4 cotton producers are projected to lose $ 80 million a year. The Nairobi outcomes left those damaging programmes intact, untouched, and, in fact, not even discussed them. The third assertion is that Mohamed states that the Nairobi package, “…reaffirmed the Bali decision on public stockholding for food security purposes….” This is technically correct, but she fails to note that the developing countries, including India, were pushing for a permanent solution on the public stockholding issue. Non-resolution of this, two years after Bali, in fact betrays the promises made there and subsequently in Geneva. Reaffirming the “peace clause” on the existing programmes is hardly an advance for an issue of such concern for so many developing countries. The IT agreement Then comes the Information Technology agreement, which is a plurilateral agreement, but even the host, Kenya, was not a signatory to it. Surely if this was such a great deal for the developing countries, Mohamed could have easily prevailed on her own government to get on board. But truth be told, elimination of tariffs on IT products has limited benefits for African and most other developing countries. It may lower the consumer cost of some IT products, but will also eliminate needed tariff revenues. In any case, the main beneficiaries will be the more developed countries which manufacture IT products. Another achievement touted by Mohamed is the LDC (least developed countries) package and the extension of “duty-free, quota-free” access of LDC products to rich countries. Any celebration by the LDCs on that count, without looking at the exempted tariff lines, would be premature. In reality, most key products, such as textiles remain excluded, so close to 90 per cent of the goods exported by LDCs will not be covered by the deal. Undermining the Doha round The most enduring myth that Mohamed seeks to create about the Nairobi ministerial is also the most dangerous. She claims that the continuity of the Doha Round mandate has been adequately addressed to by the agreement’s acknowledgment of “polar positions” on the issue. By this Mohamed adds insult to injury. The fact is that for the first time the consensual nature of the WTO decision-making process—one country, one vote—has been cast aside to allow a few rich countries to undermine the Doha Round in Nairobi. She claims that no new issues can supplant the remaining Doha issues without the agreement of all members, but those members now know that any further discussion of, say the US cotton subsidies, will be conditioned on their willingness to negotiate on investment or one of the other “new issues” so central to the rich country’s agenda. Developing countries will now have an uphill task to negotiate in Geneva without the set of principles and the framework that the Doha Round provided. In this sense, Mohamed is perhaps right when she says that as chairperson, the “outcome was not fatal for the WTO”. But it may have been fatal for the interests of developing countries and for any hope that trade rules, written by and for rich countries and global corporations, will not trump the interests of the poor and marginalised communities across the world. Nairobi may well go down in history as the graveyard of development issues in the WTO, and Mohamed as the chairperson of the ministerial can scarcely avoid her responsibility as the undertaker of this endeavour. India, on the other hand, has a chance to redeem itself in the General Council meeting by standing up to the developed countries, having initially buckled under pressure to developed nations in Nairobi. This time it has less credibility having acquiesced to the non-transparency at the ministerial by joining the small group of five countries, which ultimately scripted the downfall of the DDR.

Originally published by The Washington Post on 02/04/2016 In her latest column for The Washington Post , “ The surprising truth about the ‘food movement,’ ” Tamar Haspel argues that the number of people who really care about where their food comes from, how it is grown and its impact on our health and the environment is surprisingly small. We think she’s wrong. As two people who talk to consumers, farmers and retailers every day about food buying choices, we can tell you that the level of awareness and concern for the food we are eating is higher than it has ever been — and shows in changing attitudes and in changing habits, too. But don’t take our word for it. Listen to food industry analysts like Scott Mushkin , who said last year: “To me, the biggest change is what’s going on with eating trends in the U.S. It’s stunning how much food patterns have changed.” His firm’s research found that the No. 1 one message of women surveyed was that they want to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables. Or look at indicators from the marketplace: Flagging profits at Walmart are a sign of the public’s changing attitudes toward food. The company was seen as a mortal threat to traditional food retailers when it entered the market, more than 15 years ago. Today, Walmart finds itself competing poorly with smaller stores offering fresh, local produce and even with other big-box stores, such as Costco, now the nation’s largest seller of organic food. Meanwhile, sales of regular soda in the United States have declined a jaw-dropping 25 percent in the past two decades . This, despite Coca-Cola’s spending $3.5 billion on advertising in 2014 alone and dispensing millions in charitable donations to woo the public and deflect concern about its most profitable — and least healthful — products. Those consumption trends are a reflection that Americans increasingly care about where their food comes from, how it is grown and the health and environmental implications of what they feed their families. Let’s be clear: These changes didn’t just happen. The shifts we are talking about are occurring as a result of the concerted work of dedicated advocates, activists and community-based organizations that are changing the marketplace and the food system. They are doing it not just through purchasing decisions but also by holding their elected officials accountable and demanding better food policy at local, state and national levels — all against the backdrop of billions in marketing by the processed-food and fast-food industries. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a food movement to us. Yes, conventionally grown food still makes up the vast majority of what Americans buy on a daily basis. But that doesn’t reflect a lack of demand for organic food; it reflects a lack of supply. We’ve heard personally from the people who run large food companies that one of their biggest challenges is meeting the demand for organic fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat. And this brings up a very important point: The staggering gap between supply and demand reflects the regulations, policies, infrastructure — and even financial markets — that greatly favor conventional agriculture through billions of dollars’ worth of subsidies, generous insurance coverage, extensive research, technical help and even marketing assistance that make it difficult for farmers to transition to organic. The reality is the demand for organic is growing by leaps and bounds, limited only by the ability for supply to match it. The demand for fresh, local and organic is seen clearly in the popularity of the nation’s farmers markets. Haspel argues that this popularity is waning, citing figures of plateauing sales. But other evidence points to a different story. Data from the USDA’s farmers market manager survey conducted last year found a bump in business: Among the more than 8,400 markets nationwide, 61 percent of those surveyed reported increased traffic; more than half reported increases in year-on-year sales. Because the USDA survey she looked at is done only once every five years, Haspel’s data was from 2007 to 2012, which, as you might remember, coincided with the country’s crippling recession, when the number of Americans struggling with hunger shot up by 12.8 million and consumers stopped spending. Sales of lots of things — homes, cars, refrigerators, even food — felt the effects of the economic downturn. The change in the kind of food we buy isn’t happening just at grocery stores and farmers markets. Between 2006 and 2012, for example, there was a 430 percent increase in farm-to-school programs , reaching more than 4,000 school districts across the country with locally sourced food in school meals. The number of regional food hubs that connect farmers with wholesale, retail, institutional and individual buyers also grew by almost 300 percent during that time. That kind of growth doesn’t just happen. It takes organized, committed parents, teachers, food-service directors and administrators. It takes city planners, business, farmers, restaurateurs and retailers coming together. These changing attitudes toward food are reflected in public opinion. A poll conducted last fall by bipartisan team Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Strategies for the Plate of the Union campaign found that voters are overwhelmingly concerned that not all Americans have access to healthful, affordable food and want to see policymakers take bold action to remedy it. The food movement we are part of is a movement made up of farmers and farmworkers, of teachers and public health officials, of policymakers and chefs, and of everyday Americans from all walks of life. Despite what opinion writers such as Haspel say, they care about labeling genetically modified organisms (GMOs), farmworker rights and the effects of chemicals used to grow their food. Big change never comes easily, and it never happens quickly. Along the way there will always be those who doubt it’s happening at all. But we can see it happening across the country — in grocery stores, in school cafeterias, on family farms. And even in the halls of Congress.

In his State of the Union, President Obama called for “reducing the influence of money in our politics.” Fantastic. He has heard the growing cry of the 85 percent of us who want big changes (with almost half of us wanting a complete rebuild!) in how America funds elections. Eighty-five percent? Yes, whether its climate change, economic inequality, or a biased justice system, Americans grasp that solutions depend on our tackling big money’s corruption of our political system. The President then told us that change “will depend on you”—that we citizens must “demand it.” And we are. We are building a citizens’ movement for democracy, and many of us will soon be taking to the streets: Starting April 2nd in a mass action called Democracy Spring thousands will march from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. If pending money-out-of-politics and voting rights legislation has not passed, on April 11th more than 1,500 citizens have already pledged to risk arrest in a non-violent sit-in at the Capitol. In this blog we share some powerful evidence of what works to reduce money’s corrupting influence, but first a bit about why Democracy Spring is necessary. Just a few numbers—very big and very small—capture the crisis it addresses: The aggregate cost of all federal races climbed from $4 billion in 2004 to over $5 billion in 2008 to more than $6 billion in 2012. The cost of the 2016 election is set to climb higher still. At the same time, the share of Americans footing these bills is minuscule and shrinking: By mid-fall 2015, a mere 158 families and their corporations had already contributed almost half, $176 million, of early money going to presidential campaigns. Think of it this way: A group the size of a high school marching band shaping the fate of the United States. The problem is that even though most Americans see this crisis, they don’t also perceive a big part of the solution there for us to grab: Public financing. It’s an approach our Supreme Court doesn’t object to and is used by a vast majority of global democracies where elections are commonly seen as a public good. In the United States, partial public funding through matching funds for presidential campaigns—conditioned on candidates accepting strict spending limits—began in 1976, triggered by the 1973 Watergate scandal. In its first year, public funds covered almost 60 percent of presidential campaign costs. But public financing was never increased to reflect ballooning private-campaign contributions; so in 2008 candidate Obama decided he would be greatly handicapped by the program’s spending limits and opted out. In Congress, bills to make public (or citizen) financing of presidential and congressional campaigns viable languish for lack of citizen action demanding a solution. They offer two approaches: One, matching systems in which the government funds (e.g. six to one) eligible candidates based on the number of small-money contributions they receive from constituents. Two, voucher systems, such as Seattle voters approved in 2015 for city council races, that give each registered voter a voucher worth a certain sum that can be used to support any candidate opting into the program. We’re convinced that if Americans see the benefits and speak up Congress will act.Benefits start with the obvious: Public funding means a financial elite will likely exert less power over public policy . Also, matching funds tied to the number of small donors motivates candidates to reach out directly to as many voters as possible—rather than only to those who can afford to show up at high-ticket fundraisers. (In Mitt Romney’s case, make that $50,000-a-plate dinners! ) Fortunately, the experience of three states and one city—Maine and Arizona since 2000, Connecticut since 2008, and New York City since 1988—gives us a taste of the many benefits of broad public financing: •Public financing increases the political participation of women and people of color. In Arizona, in 2004, the number of Latino and Native American candidates had nearly tripled compared to the pre-public financing period. Increased diversity has also been found in Connecticut, where 85 percent of the 2014 candidates in the general election relied on public financing to win their seats. In New York City, people of color comprised the majority of the city council in 2012. •With public financing, fewer races are uncontested because the system lessens incumbents’ funding advantage. •Also great for democracy, the range of viewpoints among candidates widens, giving voters more choice . In Maine, the number of candidates has doubled since Clean Elections began. Minnesota also deserves a shout out, as in 1976 it was the first state to adopt public financing, though more limited than the three states above. In all, 13 states plus 17 cities and counties have adopted lump-sum payments and/or matching funds for some offices. To encourage us further, consider this evidence of citizen enthusiasm... •72 percent of Americans favor small-money, public-matching funds, found a late-2015 poll . •Several public-financing ballot initiatives in 2015 succeeded—big time. In Maine, voters strengthened their existing law by increasing funds for public financing and expanding disclosure rules. In Seattle, residents overwhelmingly voted for public financing via a system providing voters four $25 vouchers each to support their candidates. (In 2014, Tallahassee passed similar rules, 2 to 1.) •When Connecticut’s legislature revealed it was considering a temporary suspension of public financing to help deal with a budget short fall, an immediate and vehement citizen backlash forced it to recant . But, naysayers say, money, like water, will always find an outlet. True, leaks happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t turn off a gushing faucet! And there’s another source of energy for us. It’s Democracy Spring, with which we began. Seventy organizations have so far publicly agreed to join, and celebrities including Mark Ruffalo, Lawrence Lessig, and Cenk Unger have made the pledge. I, Frances, have signed on, too. Democracy Spring is poised to be one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in a generation—or what we prefer to call acts of civic obedience to what democracy requires of its citizens when it is under threat. Far from giving up, Americans are standing up for democracy as never before. All of us can pledge to press for reform and to vote only for those backing public financing. And we can join in Democracy Spring. There is no time to waste! Originally posted by Huffington Post on 01/13/2016

Originally published by Scroll.in on 12/24/2015 Noor Khamis/Reuters It didn’t take long for the spin masters to begin working their magic on the latest dismal World Trade Organisation summit in Nairobi. WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo waxed eloquent about the “historic” agreement, stating in a post-meeting press conference that the agreement “will improve the lives of those who most need to benefit from trade, especially those in Africa”. But what really happened in Nairobi and what does it mean for future trade negotiations? We've had the Financial Times declaring the Doha Development Agenda dead, if not buried. For those unfamiliar with the Doha Round, it has been the only negotiating platform to discuss the concerns of developing countries, particularly with reference to agriculture and farm subsidies, in the 15 years at the WTO. While the claims of Doha death are, as Mark Twain might have said, premature, there is no doubt the development agenda has been undermined. Developing countries got very little in Nairobi, official press releases aside, and they are likely to get even less in a future characterised by Southern incoherence and Northern dominance. Taking stock of the real development outcomes Beyond the future of Doha, Azevedo and claimed major advances were made in Nairobi. They touted the “breakthrough” on export competition between countries, cited advances on the controversial issues of special import protection for the agriculture produce of developing countries, and the public stockholding of food. A permanent solution on the public stockholding issue would allow countries like India to buy food grains from farmers at the minimum support price and provide it to the poor under the provisions of the National Food Security Act. While India has a “peace clause” that allows it to continue with the programme, till such time that a permanent solution is reached, developed countries like the United States, European Union and Japan continue to stall the permanent solution and have rejected every constructive proposal put forth by the developing countries. In Nairobi, WTO leaders also pointed to the technology agreement and hailed market access agreements for the world’s Least Developed Countries, which are home to some of the planet's poorest and most marginalised communities. And they claimed long-overdue action on cotton. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Don’t believe the spin. The technology agreement? It does not affect all countries, just the ones that opt in. China opted in. Kenya didn't. A win for developing countries? Nope: it’s great for technology exporters. Not too many of those in Africa right now. What about the LDC package? Surely, enhancing access to rich country markets for goods produced in LDCs is good for development? The agreements reached in Nairobi extend so-called “duty-free, quota-free” exports from LDCs, but not all exports are covered. Industrialised nations exclude “sensitive” tariff lines on products such as textiles to such an extent that more than 90% of LDC exports may be excluded. Agriculture subsidies The most misleading spin, however, concerns measures in agriculture, so oversold that one Kenyan paper headlined the end of rich country agricultural subsidies. Not by a long shot, in fact, they weren’t even on the table. What was agreed was an elimination of export subsidies and limits on other forms of rich country export promotion, such as food aid and subsidized export financing, practiced extensively by the United States. This is indeed a positive step – export subsidies are the most trade-distorting of all as they undercut markets in importing countries by defraying some export costs, which in turn makes products from the European Union and the US cheaper in foreign markets. Those products, and the companies that make them, get an unfair competitive advantage, and the WTO long ago agreed in principle to eliminate them. But the Nairobi agreement really did little more than put a firm cap on existing practices. The EU had already stopped subsidizing its exports, and US resisted putting binding restrictions on most of its export promotion, so the Nairobi deal is unlikely to reduce export promotion much from current levels. And other Northern agricultural subsidies? They remain untouched, removed from the agenda by the United States and other rich countries. These are indeed the most trade-distorting agricultural policies in rich countries today, as they are very large and encourage overproduction of crops, which then get exported cheaply to developing countries. The 2014 US farm legislation, in fact, has been shown to likely result in subsidies in excess of the country’s current WTO commitments and well beyond the commitments negotiated in the Doha Round before the US walked away from the negotiations in 2008. And that’s one of the reasons the US walked away. Spinning cotton Kenya’s Amina Mohamed put a particularly heavy spin on the cotton agreement reached in Nairobi, saying it “will contribute even more to economic growth in all countries, particularly the Cotton 4 (the four major cotton producing countries in West Africa – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, popularly known as the Cotton 4 or C4) which have been waiting for this outcome for many years”. But the much-touted cotton deal only gives preferred market access for some cotton products and expedites the elimination of export subsidies. It does not touch domestic subsidies in the United States, by far the greatest source of trade distortion. So the C-4 can expect to see continued US cotton subsidies estimated at $1.5 billion per year, which will increase US exports 29% and suppress cotton prices 7%. This will cost the C-4 an estimated $80 million per year in lost cotton revenues. That is more than 300 times the gains last year from market access under US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which totalled just $264,000. Jump-starting further negotiations? Officials most hailed the Nairobi agreement for reinvigorating the WTO’s negotiating function, and there is no doubt that reaching an agreement prevented the complete abandonment of the institution by rich countries. But the agreement itself, by failing to reaffirm clearly the commitment to the Doha Round, eliminated any incentive for rich countries to negotiate. They can now condition further negotiations over “outstanding Doha issues” on the inclusion of “new issues”, a huge setback for developing countries. Developing countries won only vague commitments in Nairobi to resolve the public stockholding issue and to enable a safeguard mechanism to slow import surges that undermine domestic producers, a right rich countries have enjoyed for years. Expect no further progress unless developing countries are prepared to pay a price, such as putting public procurement that favours domestic industries on the chopping block. After Nairobi, it is hard to imagine US negotiators even discussing reductions in its domestic farm subsidies. If they do, what will India need to give in return? Perhaps a WTO version of the kind of investment agreement that India has firmly rejected in bilateral talks with the US. India caved in At Nairobi, despite a valiant fight put up by Indian negotiators, in the final moments of the drafting of the ministerial declaration, the political leadership caved in and refused to seek amendments to it, or block it, as they could have done. Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharamans’ predecessors Murasoli Maran and Kamal Nath had done precisely this in past ministerial summits, protecting India’s interests at the WTO. But with little support from the political leadership at the highest level, Sitharaman, invited into the select group of five countries (with the US, EU, Brazil and China) to negotiate the final text of the Nairobi agreement, let the rich countries have their way. In the end, she merely expressed her “disappointment” at India’s red lines being breached with no reaffirmation of the Doha Development Agenda in the final ministerial, no permanent solution on the public stockholding issue and just a promise to negotiate an unspecified safeguard mechanism for developing countries. The price that India will pay for this in the years to come will be far higher than what the government is willing to concede now, as future generation of negotiators will discover.

Originally published by Global Post on 10/23/2013 Images of advanced seed chipping machines inside Monsanto agribusiness headquarters in St Louis, Missouri. These machines are designed and built in-house and they allow the technicians to chip off tiny portions of seeds, which are scanned instantly for the perfect DNA of an elite corn seed. Credit: Brent Stirton DES MOINES, Iowa — This year’s World Food Prize went to three biotech engineers, all of whom have been instrumental in bringing genetically modified foods to your table. Inside the Marriott Hotel in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, where the prize’s four-day program took place October 15-18, the message was clear: Technology is the answer to the world’s looming food shortages, and anyone who gets in the way isn’t putting farmers and the hungry first. And you have to admire the laureates for their candor. In their prepared press statements, they couldn’t have been clearer about what the prize means to them. “The committee’s decision to award the World Food Prize to biotechnology researchers,” said Mary-Dell Chilton of Syngenta in a press release, “will help convey to consumers the value, utility and safety of genetically modified crops.” The other winners, Marc Van Montagu — one of the pioneers of genetically modified (GM) technology — and Robert Fraley —Monsanto’s chief technology officer — offered similar statements. “I hope that this recognition will pave the way for Europe to embrace the benefits of this technology, an essential condition for global acceptance of transgenic plants,” said Montagu. Fraley was less direct but equally unambiguous. “The World Food Prize provides us an important platform to engage in a new global dialogue,” he said. The other side of the dialogue came not from the World Food Prize conference, but from the street. Down the road from the Marriott, in front of the World Food Prize building, former Texas agriculture commissioner Jim Hightower held an open-air press conference to denounce Big Ag’s influence over our food and our government. The organizers called the protest Occupy the World Food Prize. Hightower called it the “upchuck rebellion” by the “good food” movement against corporate agriculture. On questions of public health and the environment, the debate is still open. But evidence is mounting, both of public health concerns (see the recent open letter from scientists) and environmental impacts, such as the rise of “super weeds” resistant to herbicides. So too on the persistent failure of GM crops to increase yields. Jim Hightower struck a chord with his call to resist monopoly control of agriculture. The World Food Prize committee received a citizen petition of more than 340,000 people protesting the biotech awards. At the prize ceremony, an elaborate invitation-only affair in the Iowa Capitol building, Fraley accepted the prize “on behalf of all his colleagues at Monsanto,” a company that underwrites the World Food Prize Foundation. He said GM crops were needed as we face the challenge “to double food production” to feed a growing population. As my recent report shows, such alarmist calls have no empirical basis. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization projects a manageable demand increase of 60 percent by 2050. And we can start by cutting the loss and waste of food from its current level of 30 percent, and the 13 percent of cereals projected to go toward producing biofuels instead of food. But the warnings sure boost sales, and feed the panic that biotech companies hope will spur us to embrace their controversial technologies. Outside of the Iowa Capitol building, a small group of protesters denounced the selection of biotech scientists for the food prize. Among them were three farmers, two from Haiti and one from Brazil. Two days earlier, they had been in New York to receive the Food Sovereignty Prize, a grassroots alternative to the increasingly corporate World Food Prize, created by the US Food Sovereignty Alliance in 2009. In Haiti, the protests are larger and the stakes are higher. After the catastrophic Port au Prince earthquake in 2010, 10,000 Haitian farmers marched to reject a $4 million donation of seeds from Monsanto, arguing that the company was trying to hook peasants on seeds they couldn’t share or replant. In a dramatic show of defiance in the face of widespread hunger, the farmers publicly burned the seeds. They argued that people have the right to food and the right to choose where their food comes from and what’s in it. This call to “democratize the food system” got no hearing at the World Food Prize. “We need to make sure everyone benefits from this technology,” said a closing speaker, “the companies, the scientists, the poor who are hungry….” Who came first on that list, and who came last, was lost on most of the crowd.

This is the third of a five-part, weekly series celebrating Earth Day. Earth Day is really People Day, isn’t it ? The fate of Earth is now in human hands. And, recognizing this truth, some have named our era the Anthropocene. So it’s high time that we get a grip on what makes this era-making species tick... don’t you think? Speaking as an environmentalist, I admit that so far our tactics haven’t been as successful as we know they have to be — after all, until the recent global recession carbon emissions continued a pretty steady climb . And in January, a Princeton Survey Research Associates International poll found that only 39 percent of Americans believe that fossil fuels are causing our climate to warm. So maybe we’ve not yet grasped well enough how to reach our species, the giants of Anthropocene. Sometimes it can feel that humans just don’t want to “get it.” If you’re already stressed by two jobs and drowning in debt, why would you add another thing to worry about? So my hunch is that as long as we pursue an environmental “agenda” with our fingers wagging in disapproval or our arms waving in wild alarm, we’re bound to fail. In a recent TV interview with environmental luminaries, a fellow panelist declared that people just aren’t afraid enough. We have to increase the fear to get action on the environment. My heart sank. We know too well that fear, particularly of our own death, typically brings out terrible things in human beings. Psychologists Tom Crompton and Tim Kasser report that most of us humans, when confronted with a survival threat, try to enhance our self-esteem through material gratification and by denigrating the out-group. And in this case, the “out group” might well be environmentalists or even nonhuman nature itself. Many also try to avoid exposure to the bad news and to appear not to care. So, environmental messages that trigger guilt and fear might enable the messengers to feel as if we’re being tough realists. But are such messages actually tough? Not if they fail to challenge us to dig deep, to dig to the system roots of our crises. It’s easy to bewail our lack of environmental progress and call for a string of desirable policies — from pricing carbon to upgrading public transportation — but then stop short. We too often fail to name, for example, an essential prerequisite — removing the power of private wealth over public decision making — so that our elected representatives are free from dependency on the very industries blocking the policies we advocate. Imagine that! And check out www.Represent.us to take action. And are messages that evoke fear and guilt realistic? Not if they end up backfiring because they don’t incorporate what we now know about human nature — including how we typically react to threats. So the trick is learning to tell the truth but drop the scare tactics. It is not only embracing but strategically using our deeply social nature. For one, we can emphasize stories about what is working with confidence that most of us are more likely to support an action if we know the approach has already proven to make a difference. Respondents in one survey were more apt to support climate-change laws, for example, if they were told a similar approach worked to confront acid rain. And a take-away? Why not vow every week to seek out and to share at least one example of environmental sanity bursting out somewhere? Psychologists are also helpfully documenting that because our social nature encourages us to want to be like others, we’re motivated by messages that seem to offer us a way to meet that need. In an experiment comparing the effectiveness of messages to encourage hotel guests to help save water and energy by reusing towels, psychologist Robert B. Cialdini found that imploring guests to save the planet wasn’t too effective. And what message did the trick? Join your fellow guests in helping to save the environment, followed by a note explaining that almost 75 percent of guests who were asked to reuse their towels did so. Since it seems we’re more likely to act when we believe others are, another easy take-away for me is to emphasize the role everyday people in the stories of progress I share. Even more broadly, Cialdini warns that we make a big messaging mistake if we mainly scold those causing environmental harm — driving their SUVs, failing to recycle, leaving lights ablaze in empty rooms, and so on. The trouble is, what the public takes in is a message about what others around us are doing, he says, and our desire to be with the group responds. His advice? Heap attention on those people who are doing the behavior we seek. Cialdini tested his theories using a public service announcement in Arizona communities that combined these three messages: The majority of Arizonans approve of recycling, the majority of Arizonans do recycle, and they disapprove of the few who don’t. These messages resulted in what Cialdini called an impact unheard of for public service announcements: a 25 percent increase in the tonnage of recycled material in communities exposed to the ads. Finally, we can shed the assumption that in any simple sense humans don’t like change. Knowing how much change must happen, and really fast, that thought is a killer. Sure, we do typically experience change in part as loss, but a striking feature of our species is our attraction to the new. Virtually from birth, humans are learners, testers, explorers. Even very young babies get bored with a repeated sound and, when hearing something new, become attentive and start listening, says cognitive scientist Alison Gopnik. So we can avoid any hint that environmental progress means return to a bygone era and celebrate humanity’s fascination with the new. I’m sure these findings only scratch the surface of how we can use our understanding of our social nature to become more effective communicators. Most broadly, though, is this single key: We humans respond more powerfully to emotional than reason-based appeals, as psychologist Drew Westen underscores in Political Brain . Taking Westin to heart, we can deliberately speak to and seek to evoke — whether with the public, among friends, or in our own inner dialogue — a range of positive emotions about facing our global challenges. What about these five? Exhilaration in feeling powerful as a contributor to something truly historic. Dignity and self-respect , for don’t we all secretly want to be heroes, at least to ourselves? Camaraderie in knowing that we’re walking shoulder to shoulder with others in common work. Excitement in novel experiences as we try out new ways of living. Anger at the needlessness of deepening suffering around us — a positive, too, if we have a framework for putting our anger to work. So maybe it’s time to resist cajoling others to be better people, for the challenge is not instilling empathy or the need for a larger meaning in life or other pro-social qualities. They are in us. Our challenge is making this century’s planetary turnaround an epic struggle for life so vivid and compelling that it will satisfy these deep needs in billions of us. Adapted from EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want , new April 23, 2013 in paperback from Nation Books. Photo: Kids gardening in Denver, Colorado. Image from Creative Commons Originally published by Huffington Post on 04/22/2013

Go here to view the above image and watch Frances’ panel, “Stakeholder Synergies: Socio-Economic Dimensions of Sustainable Agriculture,” at approximately 1:33:00 and Straight Talk on GMOs: Fact, Fiction, and Food Security panel at approximately 2:40:00. I spoke in Des Moines, Iowa, last Friday at the World Food Prize, where the day before three biotech scientists and executives, including a Monsanto executive vice-president, received the 2013 honor. Not exactly where you’d expect to see me? I was there because the courageous, sustainable agriculture leader, Dr. Hans Herren — 1995 World Food Prize Laureate — invited me to join his panel. I knew that in the five minutes allotted each panelist, I couldn’t change minds. But, maybe, I thought, I could create a moment of dissonance for a few. I chose not to focus on the seed, but on the system it powers. Not only do GMOs not help end hunger, I argued, but they reinforce the extreme power imbalances at the root of hunger. Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, deflected criticism that the award is honoring the biotech industry, stating that it is instead “recognizing... basic science.” He also assured us that the point of the Borlaug Dialogue, which included our panel, was indeed to engage in real dialogue. You can watch my presentation here . Joining me in talking about sustainable agriculture and how to end hunger were four distinguished colleagues: Hans Herren , Yemi Akinbamijo , M. Jahi Chappell , and Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Our presentations strove to be informative and respectful. We then sat down to listen to the next panel: “Straight Talk on GMOs: Facts, Fiction and Food Security.” It was anything but. The panel included: Greg Jaffe , Gilbert Arap Bor , Anne Glover , Sir Brian Heap , and Mark Lynas . Their gist: Anyone who raises questions about GMOs is deluded, having fallen for what Anne Glover called “unfounded propaganda.” She went so far as to equate the certainty of scientific evidence about climate change with the certainty about GMO safety. In his opening statement Mark Lynas dismissed Dr. Gilles-Éric Seralini’s peer-reviewed study showing worse tumor growth in GMO-fed rats as “utterly fraudulent.” Doesn’t that qualify as slander? The audience loved it. (More accurately, most did, for a number of audience members later thanked our panel members for our comments.) I sat in the first row steaming, aware that sitting next to me was one of the world’s most esteemed scientists, Hans Herren, who is precisely the type of GMO critic that the panel seemed to imply does not exist! Later, privately, I told Ambassador Quinn that the tenor of his “Straight Talk” panel, which he publicly called “extremely valuable,” was not dialogic but insulting. Leaving Des Moines Saturday, I worked to keep my spirits up. Little did I know that, on Monday, my first morning email would announce the release of a statement — signed by 85 scientists, academics, and others knowledgeable about GMOs — from the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility ( ENSSER ). It stresses: “As scientists, physicians, academics, and experts from disciplines relevant to the scientific, legal, social and safety assessment aspects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we strongly reject claims by GM seed developers and some scientists, commentators, and journalists that there is a “scientific consensus” on GMO safety and that the debate on this topic is “over.” ...[A] review... found that most studies concluding that GM foods were as safe and nutritious as those obtained by conventional breeding were ‘performed by biotechnology companies or associates, which are also responsible [for] commercializing these GM plants.’ ...[S]ome [independent studies] have revealed toxic effects or signs of toxicity in the GM-fed animals. The concerns raised by these studies have not been followed up by targeted research that could confirm or refute the initial findings.” If I had known last week what I know now, I would still have focused my five minutes on power, but I would have also said clearly: It is the extreme power imbalances in our world — exactly what generates hunger amid plenty — that enables some to ridicule legitimate scientists with impunity. Given this year’s award, please join me in asking the World Food Prize Foundation to make three critical improvements to its process — with the goal of ensuring that such a violation of the Foundation’s own vision of nutritious and sustainable food for all could never happen again. And please share with friends and colleagues our GMO factsheet , based on peer-reviewed studies and other authoritative sources — fully cited on our website. We use rigor not ridicule to make our case. As I stress in my panel remarks, the root of hunger is not inadequate quantities of food but the inevitable outcome of certain qualities of human relationships: specifically, whether they reflect concentrated power and secrecy or inclusive power and transparency. It is the latter that make human dignity, including the right to food, possible. Photo courtesy of Tim Wise Originally published by Huffington Post on 10/23/2013

Originally published by Triple Crisis Blog on 10/03/2013 Was Thomas Malthus right after all? In 1798, Malthus postulated that exponential population growth would outstrip our ability to feed ourselves, dooming civilization. This early attempt at global economic modeling has since been widely discredited. But if you’ve been listening to policy-makers and pundits since food prices spiked in 2008, you’ve likely heard the eerie echoes of Malthusian thinking. “With almost 80 million more people to feed each year, agriculture can’t keep up with the escalating food demand,” warned Frank Rijsberman, head of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). “FAO estimates that we have to double food production by 2050 to feed the expected 9 billion people, knowing that one billion people are already going to bed hungry every day.” Well, not so fast. Yes, resource constraints, exacerbated by uncertainties over climate change and the unsustainable consumption of non-renewable resources have introduced new threats to our ability to feed a growing population. The issues are indeed serious, but the specter of looming food shortages is a bit overblown. The policy prescriptions that follow these dire forecasts typically call for the expansion of industrial-scale agricultural development while ignoring the obvious threats to our global food supply: biofuels expansion, inadequate investment in climate-resilient agriculture, lagging support for small-scale and women food producers, and the massive loss of food to spoilage and waste. Add to those the need for more equitable distribution of the food we currently produce, and there is no doubt we can feed the world in 2050 – if we change course. Our new report, “ Rising to the Challenge: Changing Course to Feed the World in 2050 ,” shows that many of the public pronouncements calling for a doubling of global food production by 2050 are based on outdated or flawed economic forecasting and misleading characterizations of this research. Recent research at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute , makes it clear that reliable estimates of current supply, productivity, and demand trends – assuming business-as-usual policies – instead suggest the need and the capacity to increase agricultural production by just 60% over 2005-7 levels by 2050. The distinction between food and agricultural production in the statistics cited above is both essential and frequently overlooked. In fact, the failure to distinguish food production from agricultural production obscures the largest single contributor to recent food price spikes: the massive expansion of agricultural biofuel production. This dramatic increase in food, feed, land, and water use for non-food products is a relatively recent phenomenon that has been poorly captured by most economic modeling to date. Few models adequately account for current trends. Even fewer offer policymakers the information they need to understand the food-security impacts of policies such as the US Renewable Fuel Standard, which contains national mandates that drive biofuels expansion. Those policies are a major cause of rising and volatile food prices, with up to 40% of recent price increases in agricultural commodities attributable to biofuels expansion. Looking ahead, such policies are projected to divert as much 13% of cereal production from needed food production by 2030. As our report points out , recent economic forecasting and analysis fails to adequately reflect several other key variables: Inadequate and poorly targeted agricultural investment – Agricultural investment is critical to increasing food production. Whereas many projections stress the importance of agricultural productivity growth, few models assess the range of possible priorities for agricultural research and investment. A growing consensus supports increased investment in climate-resilient food production, focusing on small-scale producers in food-insecure parts of the world. Yet most research, private and public, focuses on large-scale, input-intensive agricultural development. So too does most investment, driven by private sector-led projects, such as the “ New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition ,” initiated by the G8. Food waste and spoilage – One-third of global food production fails to nourish anyone. In industrialized countries, wasteful consumption patterns result in tremendous losses, while in developing countries poor infrastructure means high rates of spoilage before food makes it to market. Most current forecasts ignore the possibility that measures could be taken to address this problem, assuming continued waste of food at current rates. Climate change – We are only just beginning to understand the implications of climate change for agriculture and food security. These impacts, plagued by multiple layers of uncertainty, are poorly incorporated into most economic forecasts. With the outcome of international climate negotiations uncertain, urgent attention is needed to mitigate industrial agriculture’s tremendous contribution to global warming and help developing country food producers adapt to a changing climate. A growing body of experience at the local and regional levels demonstrates the lasting value of investments in smallholder farming and sustainable agricultural methods. Strategic policy changes and investments in this area can scale-up successful approaches and expand them to regions where they are most appropriate and most needed, especially in regions where food security is tenuous despite high agricultural potential. While policymakers talk about how global agriculture will feed the world, we must remember that food insecurity is local and that 70% of the world’s hungry are small-scale farmers or agricultural workers. In the end, there is no “we” who feeds “the world.” As our report makes clear: hunger, now and in the future, is less a matter of inadequate production than inequitable access to food and food-producing resources. The developed world’s myopic focus on increasing production is obviously misguided as we simultaneously waste one-third of the food that is produced and pursue a course to devote another 13% of cereals to feeding our cars instead of our people.