Living Democracy, Feeding Hope

World leaders in Paris are in the midst of critical climate negotiations toward the first enforceable agreement in two decades. We hope that two giant questions—too often missed or downplayed—will be a focus: Can our food system—now speeding climate change while leaving a quarter of humanity suffering nutritional deprivation—reverse course? Instead of a climate curse, can our food system become part of the climate cure, while at the same time producing nutritious food that’s accessible to the world’s poorest people? Big changes! But evidence of their possibility mounts. First, however, the big obstacles. Our industrializing food system—from land to landfill—has become a big climate troublemaker, estimated to account for up to 29 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Most startling, these emissions are growing so fast that, if they continue at current rates, in thirty-five years those from our food system alone could nearly reach the safe target set for all greenhouse gas emissions. To get a fix on how big the problem is, take in these fast facts: Agriculture alone contributes nearly a fifth of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions; and industrial agriculture (that using manufactured inputs) releases two to three times more carbon dioxide per unit of land than does organic farming. Since the industrial era began, humans have removed a third of the Earth’s carbon-absorbing forest cover largely to grow crops, a shift that can reduce soil carbon per unit of land by more than 40 percent . That’s an area roughly the size of South America. Increasingly, that land is growing feed or fuel, not the basic foods of the planet’s poor majorities. Soils treated with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers hold about 30 percent less organic carbon compared to organically managed soils. The current model of industrial agriculture—only about 70 years old—has already proven to be a dead end. But, by adopting ecological practices, farming would emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions and store more carbon. And now to my second question—food accessibility for those who most need it? Ecological practices free farmers from expensive corporate-controlled inputs, so they especially benefit small-scale farmers and farmworkers, who also are the majority of hungry people . Some of these beneficial practices are: Composting—returning to the soil decaying organic material from plant and animal wastes. Just one ton of organic material can result in storing almost 600 pounds of carbon dioxide. Agroforestry —integrating trees on farms. It improves crop productivity and yields additional food and fodder from the trees . Globally, says the World Bank , among a range of ecological farming practices, “agroforestry by far has the highest sequestration potentials.” One study found that this approach in the EU, combined with other ecological farming practices, has the technical potential to sequester GHGs equivalent to 37 percent of its 2007 emissions. Biochar —a form of charcoal generated by controlled smoldering of organic material, including waste, such as common weeds. Its efficacy varies widely, but biochar can increase the soil’s capacity to store carbon and enhance crop yields. Its estimated long-term carbon-sequestering capacity is huge . Holistic livestock management —careful movement of herds to prevent overgrazing avoids carbon loss from bare soils. In Namibia , herders shifting to this method reduced soil degradation, improved soil-surface cover, and conserved water, concludes a report co-sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Planting multiple types of crops in the same field is another climate-saving farming practice . Together, and combined with afforestation and other earth-healing practices, these approaches could potentially sequester carbon equal to a fifth of global carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions annually, reports a leading world authority, Professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State University. Lal describes this big-picture possibility not just as technically feasible but as “attainable.” Farmers helping to meet the climate challenge are also those addressing the roots of hunger. In the West African country of Niger, small farmers have nurtured the regrowth of 200 million trees on 12.5 million acres, securing the food supply for 2.5 million people. Most of us don’t think “trees” when we think of food and hunger. But Trees help conquer hunger as they reduce soil loss, retain soil water content, and often provide fruit, nuts, and fodder. In China, where many see only unmitigated ecological disaster, the government has worked with poor farmers on its north-central Loess Plateau to transform“moonscape”-like erosion in an area two-thirds the size of Massachusetts. In an area known for widespread hunger, small farmers limited destructive grazing, built wider terraces, and planted new fruit trees. Not only did the orchards flourish and crop yields increase by 60 percent, but incomes also more than doubled, all improving diets and spurring new schools, roads, and local enterprises. In Rwanda, since independence in 1962 almost two-thirds of its forests have been wiped out. But visiting China’s Loess Project, Rwandan forestry officials were inspired. Rwanda has since committed to increasing its current forested area 50 percent by 2020. The country connects its fight to conquer hunger and poverty with its goal of reversing completely the degradation of the country’s soil, water, land, and forest resources by 2035. In southern India, the state of Kerala, home to thirty million people, in 2010 officially declaredthe goal of becoming 100 percent organic within ten years. By 2013, fifteen thousand farmers were in the process of securing organic certification. Elsewhere in southern India, 5,000 women of the Deccan Development Society have created food security in 75 villages. Overall, in two southern India states, two million farmers are moving toward ecological practices. These farmers—and others like them around the world—are both our real climate heroes as well as hunger-conquerors. May global climate talks embrace the immense contributions toward solutions to be found in remaking our food system. The result could be the inseparable advancement of food security, ecological health, and climate mitigation. Originally published by Huffington Post on 12/02/15

Originally published by Civil Eats on 12/15/2014 In 2010, when I was on tour promoting my book Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It , I felt lonely. Not because no one was showing up for my book talks, they were. And not because I was alone; with my nine-month-old daughter in tow, I was never by myself. I felt lonely because, back then, there were very few of us talking about the connections between food and climate change, despite the fact that the global food system—from field to plate to landfill—is responsible for as much as one third of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). In just a few years that has changed. Somewhat. Today, many serious “big green” environmental groups are looking at how the food system can reduce its emissions and how agriculture can be harnessed for the cause. Many food-focused groups are also increasingly seeing the work they do–to promote organic farming, to fight petrochemicals and synthetic fertilizer, to protect biodiversity–as part of promoting climate solutions. More ordinary people are drawing these connections, too. I witnessed this firsthand at the People’s Climate March in September, when I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with 410,000 eaters, food activists, and farmers proudly waving signs with sentiments like “cook organic, not the planet!” Still, there’s much awareness-raising to be done, as a new report out recently from the London-based think tank, Chatham House, tells us. The report is based on a first-ever poll of 1,000 people from 12 countries—including Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Africa, the UK, and the U.S.—on their attitudes about climate and food. The folks at Chatham were especially curious to learn just how aware people are about the climate impact of meat production, since the livestock industry is a key culprit in emissions. Responsible for 14.5 percent of the total global GHGs , the livestock sector is responsible for as much emissions as every single train, plane, and car on the planet, combined. The survey also tested people’s awareness specifically about beef and dairy, since these products account for “65 percent of the GHGs emitted by livestock,” reports Chatham . Based on average global assessments, Chatham notes, emissions from beef are “around 150 times those of soy products, by volume, and even the least emissions-intensive meat products–pork and chicken–produce 20–25 times more GHGs.” Certain countries are particularly critical to this conversation, especially China, a country expected to grow its demand for meat and dairy in the coming decades “over four times that of the next fastest-growing consumer, Brazil,” according to Chatham. So, what did the researchers hear in their interviews? Eighty-three percent of respondents agreed that “human activities contribute to climate change.” But among believers, only one-third see the meat industry as a significant contributor. By comparison, two-thirds pointed the finger at transportation, even though “the contribution to overall emissions is almost equal between the two sectors,” says Chatham. The Chatham poll also explored whether learning the facts would shift food choices. What they found was a clear and resounding yes in countries like Brazil,Italy, India, and France. While in the U. S., only 26 percent indicated that it would impact their choices. It was particularly encouraging that people in Brazil and India–countries slated to see big growth in meat and dairy consumption in the coming years–showed high levels of accepting both the reality of climate change and the willingness to consider the climate in reducing meat consumption. One reason consumer change is so key is because we’re in a major “policy vacuum” regarding this issue. The industry is largely unchecked by national regulators and absent from scrutiny in climate negotiations, the report notes. What’s more the food industry is heavily subsidized: Chatham estimates livestock subsidies in OECD countries added up to a whopping $53 billion in 2013, which has the effect of incentivizing more meat production. It also notes national governments have by and large excluded livestock from emissions reductions targets. (The U.S. is no exception: agriculture is exempt from many Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations regarding emissions). Chatham makes a strong case that consumer action is critical, but as groups and governments consider a focus on food, there are two important caveats. First, the messaging must be sophisticated. Cutting back on carbon-intensive foods—like feedlot beef—does no good if we don’t simultaneously talk about better choices. If you replace your burger with processed food filled with palm oil from Indonesia and high-fructose corn syrup from the chemical-intensive American cornbelt, you may have not reduced carbon “foodprint” at all. We can also stress not all beef is created equally. Scientific literature is mixed on the relative benefits of grassfed beef versus feedlot cattle, but some recent studies suggest that grazing can offset the climate impact of pasture-raised beef, for example. Of course, this potential needs to be put in context of the planet’s carrying capacity for grassfed cattle and the simple fact that in most countries pastured beef is largely unavailable. Second, as we focus on consumers, we must not let industry and government off the hook. Agribusiness companies driving rainforest destruction to grow animal feed need to be in the hot seat alongside energy giants like Chevron and BP, while meat producers, like Tyson and Smithfield, must also be held accountable for their climate impacts. And we should speak up to ensure that governments monitor and regulate the worst climate-change culprits in the food sector, not subsidize them. “It’s encouraging that people in emerging economies are open to changing how they eat once they know about the meat-climate connection,” Mia MacDonald, executive director of Brighter Green , said in an email about the Chatham survey. “But in these places, policies that would create more sustainable, humane food systems—and not replicate the U.S. model—are really lacking. And agribusinesses are very powerful. As a result, people, local and global environments, and animals (both domesticated and wild) are all losing out.” This report is an important step in raising awareness about food-sector emissions—especially important because, as Chatham notes, emissions from this sector will increase by 30 percent by 2050 if we don’t change these trends. But as we sharpen our focus on our plates, let’s keep our eyes on politics, too.

Drawn from World Hunger: 10 Myths, coauthored by Joseph Collins. The billionaire Koch brothers chose the Libre [Free] Initiative as the name of their political outreach efforts in the Latino community. Some of the most conservative House Republicans call themselves the Freedom Caucus . And last month, Pope Francis enjoyed a standing ovation from Congress with the words “land of the free and the home of the brave.” Hearing the refrain, most Americans leap to our feet with hand on heart and pride inside. But what do we mean by “free”? Unless we together grapple with the meaning of “free” and “brave,” might we end up singing this refrain ever more fervently while losing the actual experience of freedom? Two strains in our understanding of freedom seem to run deep in our culture, but rarely do we spell out their very powerfully different implications. So, with the hope of triggering rich debate, let me try. Freedom for me involves having choice, in the richest sense, including the capacity to choose how we develop our unique gifts and passions. Political philosopher Harry Boyte captures its essence as the “liberation of talents.” This understanding of freedom lies at the heart of my life’s message about hunger, as laid out in World Hunger: 10 Myths , the book I’ve coauthored with Joseph Collins. From this perspective, it becomes clear that where people go hungry, freedom has been drastically curtailed, while societies making real the right to eat are on the path to freedom. But many in American culture hold a different view: Freedom, in its core economic expression, means unlimited material accumulation. By that definition, of course, freedom for some will continue at the cost of hunger for many. Such an understanding misses the insight of Yale University economics philosopher Charles Lindblom, who in his classic Politics and Markets coolly reminds us that “income-producing property is the bulwark of liberty only for those who have it.” In the Global South just a tiny minority have such a bulwark to their liberty. And, most Americans don’t have it either. About half of Americans have zero or near-zero net wealth ; much less possess income-producing assets. Fortunately, this understanding of economic freedom was not the vision of many whose philosophy shaped the birth of our nation. Some perceived that a link between property and freedom could be positive only when ownership of socially productive property is widely dispersed. In 1785, after a conversation on a country road with a desperately poor single mother trying to support two children with no land of her own, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison, “Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.” The misery of Europe, he concluded, was caused by the enormous inequality in landholding. Many of our nation’s founders also understood that being able to think and speak for oneself without fear is foundational to the culture of a free republic. So “independence” carried the meaning of being free from dependency on others for survival — the kind of dependency characteristic of the aristocracies our founders had rejected: another key reason for our founders’ passion for ensuring a wide dispersion of wealth. Americans today might think such views vanished with the powdered wig. But no. In 2014, two professors surprised a lot of people with research revealing that Americans’ ideal level of economic inequality would be a society in which an average CEO’s pay is no more than seven times that of an unskilled worker’s. The reality? U.S. CEOs receive on average more than 350 times what the unskilled worker receives. Security: Not a Threat but a Ground of Freedom Economic insecurity constrains our freedom, as Franklin Roosevelt summed up, declaring, “Necessitous men are not free men.” More recently, University of Maryland philosopher Henry Shue offers a helpful exploration of precisely why the right to that which is essential to life itself — particularly the right to an adequate diet and health care — is basic to freedom: No one can fully, if at all, enjoy any right that is supposedly protected by society if he or she lacks the essentials for a reasonably healthy and active life. Deficiencies in the means of subsistence can be just as fatal, incapacitating, or painful as violations of physical security. The resulting damage or death can at least as decisively prevent the enjoyment of any right as can the effects of security violations. Moreover, freedom so understood is not finite. My artistic development need not detract from yours. Your intellectual advances need not reduce my ability to develop my own intellectual powers. And assurances of my protection from physical assault, including my right to nutritious food, need not prevent you from enjoying equal protection. This is true because sufficient resources exist to guarantee the fulfillment of food rights for everyone. Despite vast waste of food resources, the world produces nearly 2,900 calories a day for each of us. Not only does your freedom to develop your unique gifts not have to limit my expression, but my development in part depends on your freedom. The failure of our society to protect the right to basic security means that all of its members are deprived of the intellectual breakthroughs, artistic gifts, and athletic achievements of those whose development has been blocked by poverty and hunger. When we are denied the potential inspiration, knowledge, example, and leadership of those who are directly deprived, all of us experience a diminution of our freedom to realize our own fullest potential. In all, I see a positive link between economic security and freedom. Freedom as Participation in Power Another vein in many Americans’ understanding of freedom is that it means being free from interference, especially from government. The gist is the absence of something negative. But I believe we need a stronger, more active, understanding of freedom to end hunger and enable the “liberation of talents.” Freedom must include the freedom to participate with a meaningful voice, to have a say creating our common destiny. And this realization brings me to the “Home of the Brave” refrain with which I began. Bravery today involves citizens willing to forego despair about our democracy. To reject cynicism. To stop simple finger pointing. Bravery today means the boldness of citizens stepping up — no matter what the odds — to expand this active understanding of freedom by removing the grip of money over public decision making so that government becomes accountable to them. This is what freedom means to me. Originally published by Huffington Post on 10/27/2015

Originally published by Live Mint on 09/08/2015 The tenth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), to be held in Nairobi on 15-18 December, is already mired in discord, with negotiators unable to agree on a mandated post-Bali work programme. At issue are US and European Union (EU) proposals to scrap the texts agreed to thus far in this interminable round of trade negotiations. Yet again, the developed world led by the US and the EU are pitched against developing countries led by India, China and Indonesia, who have over the past two years tried unsuccessfully to move towards the promise—made at the ninth ministerial conference in Bali in 2013—of a permanent solution to the public stock-holding issue in food security, while advancing the stalled Doha development round. The irony that a country such as India, which witnessed more than a quarter of a million farm suicides between 1996 and 2014, has to fight to retain its farm subsidies, which are a fraction of what the US and the EU provide their farmers, is not lost on most observers. Nor is US intransigence in refusing to consider a proposal from the group of 33 countries (G-33) to resolve the stockholding issue simply by bringing the WTO agreement into line with 21st century prices. The 2014 US farm bill is one of the main reasons the US government is walking away from the post-Bali agriculture negotiations. Studies show that the US is likely to exceed the subsidy limits agreed in Doha negotiations in 2008, and it will probably exceed even current WTO limits. US Congress thumbs its nose at WTO The 2014 farm bill, which takes effect this crop year and will be in effect for five years, is decidedly more trade-distorting than its predecessor. It eliminates direct payments to producers, which were considered less trade-distorting than price or production-based programmes. It replaces them with production and price-based programmes that offer producers of supported commodities a choice between payments to compensate for low prices (price loss coverage or PLC) or payments to compensate for revenues lower than the recent five-year revenue average (agricultural risk coverage or ARC). On top of that, producers get subsidized crop insurance from the federal government, and special or different programmes support dairy, cotton and other crops. How do these programmes work? Producers opt in to one of the programmes for each crop for the five-year terms of the farm bill. The price-based coverage is much like the US’s previous countercyclical payments (CCP), setting a price trigger and compensating producers when prices fall below that level, up to a fairly high limit. Wheat producers, for example, would be covered for prices below the PLC price of $202 per tonne. The revenue-based programme, ARC, pays producers if their crop revenues fall below historic averages for their area based on yields and prices. The programme uses the previous five years as the baseline, years in which prices and yields have been unusually high. That makes producers eligible for an almost absurdly high level of support, levels that will, however, evaporate if there is a long run of low prices. In the early years of this farm bill, though, ARC coverage is high, particularly for corn and soybean, with effective support prices of $179 per tonne and $388 per tonne compared with PLC support prices in 2014 of $146 per tonne and $309 per tonne. Not surprisingly, most corn and soybean farmers opted for ARC over PLC. Why does the 2014 farm bill limit the US government’s negotiating room in the WTO? According to projections from researchers at the University of Missouri, farm supports are likely to remain at or above current levels, leaving the US little room to agree to proposed cuts. Projected outlays for 2014 crops are around $12 billion. More important, virtually none of the US support under these new programmes would fall in the Green Box, exempted from limits based on the assumption that they are minimally trade distorting. Both programmes are, indeed, tied to specific crops, prices, or levels of production, so they will be disciplined as Amber Box support subject to reductions under the current WTO agreement. Under the proposed Doha agreement, based on the texts agreed in 2008, the new programmes will likely fall in the Blue Box, which will be subject to new caps. The US limit will be $4.7 billion. They will also contribute to the new limits on overall trade distorting support (OTDS), which for the US will be $14.5 billion. And with the so-called de minimis exemption reduced from 5% to 2.5% of the value of each crop, more of that trade-distorting support will count against the US limits. The University of Missouri researchers ran a series of 500 simulations for the next 10 years comparing the results to the proposed Doha limits as if the agreement were in effect as of 2014. They found that in 34% of those simulations, the US exceeds its reduced Amber Box allowance in at least one year. Worse, nearly 99% of the simulations showed Blue Box caps being surpassed in at least one year. OTDS limits were nearly 100% likely to be breached in at least one year, with a 40% probability that they would be exceeded in any given year. In other words, if the US agrees to the 2008 Doha text on agriculture, it is virtually assured to be in violation of its commitments because of the 2014 farm bill. US loses credibility in Doha negotiations US intransigence in following through on the commitment in Bali to negotiate a permanent outcome on India’s programme of administered prices and stockholding for food security looks all the more hypocritical in light of the 2014 farm bill. University of California professor Colin A. Carter wrote in a 2014 commentary, “The provisions of the 2014 Farm Bill... may well have cost the United States any credibility in future agricultural trade negotiations in the Doha round.” The US government was already hypocritical in calling out India for a programme that uses all the same policy measures the US used in its earlier history. It was hypocrisy as well to call for close disciplines on payments to some of the poorest farmers in the world in order to feed some of the hungriest people in the world when US farmers are far better off and recipients of US government food assistance get four times the amount of food. And it was further hypocrisy to call India’s programme highly trade-distorting when very little of the procured food finds its way into export markets while, by contrast, the US exports a significant portion of nearly every supported crop. But the 2014 farm bill adds a new layer of hypocrisy to US claims. Consider that the new legislation increases support prices by one-third or more. And consider what that means for US maize. The support price under the PLC programme is up 41% and at $146 per tonne is now higher than the current market price for maize by $2 per tonne. That would trigger payments if applied to 2014 prices and production. But most maize farmers opted for revenue insurance, which has a 2014 supported price of $179 a tonne, a $35 per tonne subsidy. Projections suggest that payments to maize farmers for the 2014-15 crop year will be more than $6 billion. Now, imagine if payments to US maize farmers were subject to the same archaic WTO discipline the US is insisting on for India, calculating the supposed subsidy not on the basis of current market prices but compared with the stipulated 1986-88 reference price, with no adjustment for inflation. That already high US subsidy, when compared to the reference price of $92 per tonne, would appear to be $87 a tonne and a ridiculous $32 billion, just for the US maize crop. Of course, the US subsidy is not that large. Neither is India’s for rice or wheat. But the US hypocritically holds India to that archaic calculation of its subsidies while not having to do the same for its far larger and more trade-distorting farm supports. Will the Doha round survive Nairobi? The Barack Obama administration is relentlessly pursuing two large trade agreements—the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These allow for far greater trade liberalization in market access and investment rules than what the Doha round offers while excluding US agricultural subsidies from the discussion. The US is simultaneously pushing the WTO to move beyond the Doha round to the so-called Singapore issues of government procurement, trade and competition and trade and investment. The Narendra Modi government successfully called the bluff of the developed world after Bali by threatening not to ratify the trade facilitation agreement unless the “constructive ambiguity” of the peace clause, which left India and other developing countries vulnerable to being dragged to the dispute settlement mechanism at the WTO, was clarified. India rightly recognizes the temporary gains from the Bali agreement and is clear-eyed that the DDA can only be concluded by addressing all issues of the 2008 Doha Framework. Since Bali, India has gained strong allies, with backing from China and Indonesia. Brazil, too, is insisting on respect for the 2008 negotiated texts. Despite the unity of the developing world, the road to Nairobi remains uphill. Kenya, which is projecting the Nairobi ministerial conference as the first African one, wants to make it successful, and that could mean settling on a less ambitious outcome. Even though many African countries are united behind the G-33 proposal, it is possible that the US and EU may (again) drive a wedge, like they did by pushing a minimalist package for least developed countries (LDC) at Bali, unless India and China step up the diplomatic effort. The India-Africa summit in New Delhi in October may offer India another chance at making a decisive push to get African countries to close ranks at Nairobi. In the meantime, India must not succumb to US pressure to reduce domestic support to farmers or replace the public distribution system with cash transfers in order to be WTO-compliant. India’s national food security law promotes security not only by providing subsidized food to the poor but by supporting poor farmers with stable and profitable prices, just as the US did in its early farm programmes when it had a large and poor farm population. The developed world certainly dominates the global market for hypocrisy, and the US Farm Bill, passed by a Congress unconcerned with the rest of the world, is a case in point. Hopefully, the developing world can hold firm to join India in defending public stockholding programs for food security and in reviving the promise of development embodied in the Doha development round.

I’ll be in Mexico City September 3-5th for the first Global Conference on Money in Politics. Knowing that almost $400 million has already been raised for our presidential election that’s still a year away, I’ll be all ears. Spending in the U.S. presidential race alone almost doubled from 2000 to 2012 and is predicted to double again next year, reaching over $4 billion. So I want to find out how other countries are fighting for democracy against its corruption by powerful private interests. My learning began in a conversation with Secretary General Yves Leterme of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA ), a Stockholm-based organization of 28 member states. It is a co-sponsor of this historic conference with the Mexican Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary, OECD and others. From your global perch, in what recent breakthroughs do you see significant democratic progress? The balance between citizens and leaders is going in a positive direction. People just don’t accept cheating with the rules anymore! Social media is playing a big role in creating more transparency. Consider Tunisia. It is a difficult time for this new democracy—bordered by Libya, Algeria and challenged by terrorists—but despite a backlash, the country is trying to give rights to women and to stabilize its democracy after successful electoral processes . Tunisia is a true democratic breakthrough to emerge from the “Arab Spring.” Also, a number of countries are experiencing the peaceful transition of leadership as a normal part of life for the first time. Think of Nigeria and Senegal. And in Burkina Faso citizens stood up against an unconstitutional extension of mandate. Next may be Myanmar, where we’re working with both citizens and the government to make possible a smooth, peaceful transition. And in the opposite direction, what are the biggest democracy setbacks you see? Terrorism, clearly, is undermining democracy by forcing too many democracies to focus on security rather than furthering democratic development. But in the US and Europe, it is disengagement and disenchantment with the political process that threaten democracy. Democracy loses legitimacy because of money in politics. US election spending per capita is estimated to be 20 to 30 times more than in Germany, for example. Campaign spending is increasing in other countries, too. In the UK, political spending has increased three fold since 2010. Yet, the US is still the outlier. Another problem is that citizens are no longer engaging in democracy through traditional institutions. Lower voter turnout is a sign of disenchantment. Even among Croatians, voter turnout was only 20 percent in the first European Parliamentary election after the county joined the European Union in 2013. Also worrying is the trend of lower voter turnout among younger voters. I have learned from International IDEA that, unlike the US, there are rules democracies are enforcing to remove, or at least blunt, the influence of private wealth. What are these means? Many countries use a range of measures to ensure that private wealth and corporations do not determine electoral outcomes. However, private contributions also play a positive role and therefore, IDEA promotes enforceable rules that set maximum limits or enhance transparency. For example, most European countries ban anonymous donations, and worldwide almost half of countries limit the amount that can be donated to political parties and candidates. Two-thirds of countries also provide direct public funding to political parties. Of course, there are many ways to have a democracy, and IDEA is a non-prescriptive organization, meaning that we do not tell people how to do democracy in their countries. What do you think of the approach of governments offering citizens vouchers or tax credits to encourage citizens to contribute? Might this approach help to reconnect citizens to the electoral process? In our House of Representatives, a bill with a provision for citizen tax credits has 150 co-sponsors. Yes, the approach you mention can work. In general, public funding is effective if there are limits on what citizens and companies can donate. That way individuals can know they have real influence. However, such measures are only effective as part of comprehensive reform addressing other aspects of electoral democracy. I know International IDEA works primarily with governments, particularly emerging democracies. You also work with citizens, but how? An example is our work with citizens using IDEA’s democracy-assessment tools . Our Assessment of the State of Democracy enables citizens to evaluate the quality of their democracy, from service delivery—such as child care or sanitation—to avenues for citizens to hold elected officials accountable. Some governments are themselves encouraging citizen engagement. I was just in Mongolia where government is working to raise awareness that democracy is more than elections and has encouraged citizens to put these tools to work. Malawi is another example. Municipalities are also using these tools. Paris, for example, involves citizens in “participatory budgeting” where citizen assemblies can decide on how a share of the municipal budget is spent . The goal is inclusion and involvement in the administration of democracy. I am impressed by IDEA’s emphasis on gender equity as a key element of democratic equality and your encouragement of gender quotas as a means. It’s striking to me that the US Congress is only 20 percent female, which is below the world average of women in national legislatures and only half the share of many established democracies. What specific actions are enabling the move toward greater gender equity? No nation can thrive while putting aside 50 percent of the capabilities of its population. The under-representation of women in politics is a result of multiple forms of discrimination, often implicit, that women encounter in private and public spheres. Quota systems are very important. Also, in parliamentary systems, where candidates appear on lists for voters, a “zipper list” system mandates that every other person on the candidate list is a woman. In Tunisia, citizen pressure has produced a program for gender equality for the first time. While in some countries it can take a long time before these efforts see results, quota systems help to accelerate the change. In Bolivia and Rwanda already about half of elected politicians are female, partly thanks to this system. Please tell me more about how you see the role of civil society in helping to build and support true democracy? The quality of democracy depends on civil society not just standing outside and criticizing government. Civil society organizations need to truly interconnect with government. Citizens’ use of our assessment tools is an example. In some countries trade unions representing workers interconnect well with governments. Also, social movements sometimes become political parties. In India, for example, in Delhi state a social movement became the Aam Aadmi (Common man) Party and gave voice to a lot people for the first time. It turned out the established party. In Spain, Podemos, a movement against inequality, became a political party last year and already has the second largest membership among parties . These are positive developments. Finally, Secretary General, what is the most urgent message about money in politics that you believe the world needs to hear right now? That the equality of citizens is the essence of democracy and the role of money undermines that equality. Money in politics is endangering the legitimacy of democracy. Interested in learning more? Visit the Small Planet Institute for a helpful infographic from International IDEA and an SPI-made fact sheet which provides fascinating info from IDEA’s many publications on global democracy . Images courtesy of International IDEA and the UN Originally published by Huffington Post on 09/02/2015

On our first Earth Day in 1970, I was burrowed in the stacks at the U.C. Berkeley agricultural library writing Diet for a Small Planet . Never could I have imagined that on this Earth Day Ibe celebrating at the EPA, enjoying a cafeteria-featured lunch of Texas Vegan BBQ. For this girl from Fort Worth — nicknamed “cow town” — it felt a bit surreal. Asked to speak in honor of Earth Day, I was delighted. I couldn’t wait to share the big ah-ha‘s I’d been saving up during two years of writing, with Joseph Collins, World Hunger: 10 Myths, to be released in the fall. In 1970, what triggered Diet for a Small Planet was the shock of learning that we smart Homo sapiens were actively shrinking our food supply by feeding a third of the world’s grain to livestock that return to us only a small fraction of what they eat. We are creating scarcity from plenty. I was dumbfounded. And here we are today. In the same place — but worse, much worse. Worldwide, livestock use three-quarters of all agricultural land but supply us with only 17 percent of our calories. Cattle are the least efficient converters of feed to food: From calories in the feed that cattle eat, we humans get only three percent in the animal flesh we eat. Only by letting these numbers sink in, does the following comparison become believable: Because the United States eats the most meat per capita (with one exception: Luxembourg), and uses more than half of our cropped land for feed and fuel, our agriculture feeds fewer people per acre than Chinese or Indian agriculture. What a stunner, given the widespread view of U.S agriculture as the model of efficiency. In 1970, no one was listening to the handful of scientists warning us that we might be wrecking the climate. So of course I had no idea that our grain-fed meat diet would become not only a grain-disappearing act but a climate curse as well. Producing a pound of lamb or beef averages from about 20 to almost 50 times greater climate impact than does producing high-protein plant foods. Overall, livestock are responsible for at least 14.5 percent of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, reports the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization — not only in their raising, but also via transport, processing, refrigeration, and more. That’s as much as the transportation sector. And, while climate change makes water more and more precious, livestock are huge water guzzlers. In drought-plagued California, for example, meat and dairy account for almost half of the entire state’s water footprint. A fifth of its irrigation water goes to a single feed crop, alfalfa . So even as water scarcity worsens, every year 100 billion gallons of California water in the form of alfalfa go to China for meat production there. From Curse to Climate Cure At the same, transforming the way we farm and eat can be a key part of the climate cure. And the especially good news? This change directly engages and benefits some of the world’s poorest people — smallholders in the Global South and their families who produce most of the world’s food. Organic farming per unit of land releases just a third as much carbon dioxide as industrial farming. And small producers, learning ecological farming — and freeing themselves from costly chemical inputs — find their net incomes improving. Not only does agroecology mean fewer emissions, it is also a big plus for sequestering carbon. One study of the EU found that, if agroecology spread, it would have the technical potential to sequester 37 percent of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that contribution to storing carbon would come from agroforestry — the mixing of trees and crops, which can enhance productivity as well. It’s already happening in West Africa. In one of the world’s poorest countries, Niger, farmers nurturing trees in their fields have “regreened” 12.5 million acres with 200 million trees. The result is both more carbon sequestered and food security for about 2.5 million people. For so many reasons, profound policy changes are in order to support ecological farming of the Niger variety, and to encourage climate-friendly, plant-centered diets. And take note, if Americans ate even the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables, we’d save ourselves in medical costs alone $17 billion yearly, the Union of Concerned Scientists reports . I’ve been eating “with the Earth” since 1970. I love it. True, my eating habits won’t change the world. But long ago I discovered something. They change me. The more I align with the Earth, the stronger and more convincing I feel I become. So on Earth Day 2015, that vegan burger tastes really good. Originally published by the Huffington Post on April 22, 2015

Originally published on GDAE in February 2015 Download the working paper Download the related ActionAid Report Read the Executive Summary Expanding demand for biofuels, fed significantly by government policies mandating rising levels of consumption in transportation fuel, has been strongly implicated in food price increases and food price volatility most recently seen in 2008 and 2011-2012. First-generation biofuels, made from agricultural crops, divert food directly to fuel markets and divert land, water and other food-producing resources from their current or potential uses for production of feed for animals and food for human consumption. A key policy driver of biofuel consumption is government mandates to increase or maintain rates or levels of biofuel blends in transportation fuel, the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard and the E.U. Renewable Energy Directive being the most prominent cases. Mandates prop up demand for biofuels, particularly at times when oil prices are relatively low. In a GDAE Working Paper, Timothy A. Wise and Emily Cole assess the spread of such mandates and targets, finding that at least 64 countries now have such policies. A related policy report from Action Aid USA calls for immediate policy reform. The authors estimate the consumption increases implied by full implementation of such mandates in the seven countries/regions with the highest biofuel consumption, suggesting a 43% increase in first-generation biofuel consumption in 2025 over current levels. A 43% increase over current levels would likely require 13-17 million hectares more land than we are currently already devoting to biofuel production and approximately 145 billion more liters of water. Some international agencies anticipate even higher levels of biofuel consumption. The authors assess the likelihood of implementation in key countries and regions, which suggests that with reform, particularly in OECD countries, consumption growth could be slowed. The European Union is considering reforms that would reduce further growth in demand for first-generation biofuels by 50%. The United States would do well to consider similar reforms that recognize the food-versus-fuel conflict. The United States is expected to remain by far the largest global consumer of first-generation biofuels in 2025, contribute the most to global consumption, and do so using the feedstock – corn – that provides the fewest environmental benefits and most directly competes with food and feed markets. Even a modest reform, such as that proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2013 to scale back the Renewable Fuel Standard, would reduce projected consumption growth in 2022 by one-third. More ambitious proposals in Congress to eliminate consumption mandates for first-generation biofuels go even further. Mandates must be scaled back, and strict sustainability criteria must be applied to mandates for both first and second-generation biofuels. Otherwise, governments are mandating not just biofuel consumption but hunger and unsustainable resource use. Download the Working Paper Download the related ActionAid Report, “ Mandating Hunger ”

Originally published by Food Tank on 08/17/2015 As the vitriol intensifies in what passes for debate over the safety of genetically modified foods, scientific inquiry, thankfully, continues. A Tufts researcher, Sheldon Krimsky, recently published his assessment of the last seven years of peer-reviewed evidence, finding 26 studies that “reported adverse effects or uncertainties of GMOs fed to animals.” If recent history is any indication, Sheldon Krimsky should expect to be slammed as a “science denier.” The current vehemence is the product of a well-funded campaign to “depolarize” the GMO debate through “improved agricultural biotechnology communication,” in the words of the Gates Foundation-funded Cornell Alliance for Science. And it is reaching a crescendo because of the march of the Orwellian “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015” (code-named “SAFE” for easy and confusing reference) through the U.S. House of Representatives on July 23 on its way to a Senate showdown in the fall. In an April New York Times op-ed , Alliance for Science affiliate Mark Lynas follows the party line, accusing environmentalists of “undermining public understanding of science,” even more than climate deniers and vaccine opponents. Slate’s William Saletan goes further in his July feature , calling those who want GM labeling “an army of quacks and pseudo-environmentalists waging a leftist war on science.” Who would have known that depolarization could feel so polarizing—and so stifling of scientific inquiry. Precaution and the Public’s Right to Know What We Eat The SAFE law sounds like it promises what polls suggest 99 percent of Americans want, accurate labeling of foods with GM ingredients. It likely guarantees that no such thing will ever happen. Backed by biotech and food industry associations, SAFE would make it illegal for states to enact mandatory GM labeling laws. It would instead establish a “voluntary” GM labeling program that pretty well eviscerates the demand for the right to know what’s in our food. It would undercut the many state level efforts. Vermont now has a labeling law that survived industry opposition, threats, and a court challenge, which may explain why the industry got busy in Congress. If you can’t beat democracy, change it. The Senate is expected to take up the bill after its August recess. As written, SAFE is truly the labeling law to end all labeling laws. The biotech industry is acting desperate for a reason. It’s seen Europe and most of the world close its regulatory doors to GM crops, for now, insisting on the same “precautionary principle” enshrined in the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. That principle calls for a relatively high level of precaution before the introduction of a new technology, to avoid the kinds of unintended consequences that have caused such harm in the past: tobacco, thalidomide, DDT, PCBs, and other cases of industry-backed claims of safety that, in retrospect, proved deadly. Not SAFE for Science In a sane world that respects scientific inquiry, we would be engaged in a debate about the appropriate levels of precaution that we as a society want for a technology as novel as genetic engineering. That would be constructive, not to mention depolarizing. Instead, we get pundits like Lynas and Saletan tarring anyone who dares call for precaution with the stain of being another science-denying zealot who ignores the scientific evidence that no one has been harmed by all the GM foods consumed in the United States. To reinforce how duped or dumb the American public is, they point to a Pew Institute poll indicating that 88 percent of scientists think GM foods are safe, while just 37 percent of the public thinks so. The gap is repeatedly cited as a measure of how science-deniers are winning the public relations battle, and how ignorant the U.S. people are on the issue. Maybe not. Is it really a surprise that nearly nine in ten scientists think a new invention is good for society? Not really. As Joel Achenbach explained in his otherwise good piece on science denial in National Geographic , we all suffer from “confirmation bias,” the tendency to interpret information in ways that confirm our existing beliefs. True enough, and guess what group scores high for confirmation bias in favor of new technology? Scientists. Honestly, I’m shocked that 12 percent of scientists think GM food isn’t safe. What about that skeptical public? Are they really just ignorant and brainwashed? Or is their confirmation bias perhaps informed by their repeated experiences with big corporations telling them something is safe or good for them and finding out it’s deadly. Who in the United States has not lost a family member or friend to smoking-related disease? Given the negligence of U.S. regulatory authorities in accepting industry claims of safety, is the public really so foolish to be skeptical, of both industry and government? Washington University’s Glenn Stone drove the scientific point home nicely about how long the process of scientific discovery of hazards can be. He documents how DDT was suspected as a cause of breast cancer but studies kept failing to find a link. This is, until 2007, when an intrepid researcher thought to ask if girls exposed to DDT during puberty had a higher risk of breast cancer. More than half a century after they were exposed, she found what no one else had: a five times greater risk in such girls, and a significant additional risk in their female children. On GMOs and labeling, Stone asks if all the evidence is really in just 20 years into this experiment. Are there comparable studies of GM effects on pregnant or lactating women and developing infants and children? No, there are not. No Consensus on Food Safety For those still willing to look past the campaign slogans and slurs, science is still happening. My colleague at Tufts University, Sheldon Krimsky, examined peer-reviewed journal articles from 2008-2014. Contrary to the claims of consensus, he found 26 studies that showed significant cause for concern in animal studies, among many studies that showed no harm. He identified clear evidence that proteins transferred into the genome of another plant species can generate allergic reactions even when the original transgene did not, a scientific finding that undermines industry claims that the transgenic process creates no instability in the genome. (Scientists even have a name for such a gene: an “intrinsically disordered protein.”) Krimsky found eight reviews of the literature and they showed anything but consensus. Three cited cause for concern from existing animal studies. Two found inadequate evidence of harm that could affect humans, justifying the U.S. government’s principle that if GM crops are “substantially equivalent” to their non-GM counterparts, this is adequate to guarantee safety. Three reviews suggested that the evidence base is limited, the types of studies that have been done are inadequate to guarantee safety even if they show no harm, and further study and improved testing is warranted. What about the much-cited consensus among medical and scientific associations? Krimsky found no such agreement, just the same kind of wide variation in opinion, which he usefully ascribes to differing standards, methods, and goals, not ignorance or brainwashing. Krimsky goes out of his way, however, to document the industry-backed campaigns to discredit two scientific studies that found cause for concern, and he warns of the anti-science impact such campaigns can have. “When there is a controversy about the risk of a consumer product, instead of denying the existence of certain studies, the negative results should be replicated to see if they hold up to rigorous testing.” That would have been a refreshing, and depolarizing, industry response to the recent World Health Organization finding that Roundup Ready herbicides are a “probable human carcinogen.” Instead of calling for further study to determine safe exposure levels, the industry called out its attack dogs to discredit the study. Who here is really anti-science?

Originally published by Food Tank on 05/19/2015 In late April 2015, the Mozambican government began a process of community consultations on the grand ProSAVANA land project in the country’s coastal Nacala Corridor, widely denounced as a “land grab” by opponents. Those consultations were immediately repudiated by community members, who said the meetings violated a host of Mozambican laws on access to information and consultation with affected communities. Most egregiously, perhaps, the consultations came, not in advance of the project, but fully six years after Brazilian investors first heard the plan’s pitch, two years after the project leaked to the general public, and at a time when land conflicts are erupting across the Nacala Corridor. Now, ProSAVANA’s controversial history is repeating itself as farce. The Mozambique Council of Ministers is considering a massive project along the Lurio River in northern Mozambique without consulting the estimated 500,000 affected people in the project area. Lurio River Valley: the next ProSAVANA? I’d been told about the Lurio River Valley project by an official at the Agriculture Ministry last December. (See my previous article for more.) He had just finished telling me that ProSAVANA was largely a failure, that investors weren’t interested, and that the launch of the project had been badly handled. I hoped that this indicated a change of heart on the part of the government in terms of its commitment to these controversial large-scale land projects, but no—the official then brought out the detailed Lurio River Valley Project proposal and proudly sang its praises. The project remains shrouded in secrecy—even now, as the Council of Ministers considers approving it. The only public information is a brief PowerPoint presentation given in January 2014 to a select group of investors, development agencies, and government officials. The two-inch-thick project proposal I saw at the Ministry of Agriculture has not been made public. The Lurio River project is enormous, as large as any ProSAVANA initiative. With a budget of US$4.2 billion, it includes two dam projects and a series of agricultural development schemes covering more than 240,000 hectares (some 600,000 acres). Plans include building irrigation infrastructure to support a mix of large, medium, and smaller farms growing a wide variety of crops—cotton, corn, sugar, ethanol, and livestock. According to an analysis by the Mozambican research group Acção Académica para o Desenvolvimento das Comunidades Rurais (ADECRU) and the international social-movement organization GRAIN , the proposed project area would affect some 500,000 people across nine districts in three northern provinces. The report estimates the Lurio River project would displace 100,000 people, as it crosses some of the most densely populated regions of rural Mozambique. ADECRU researchers visited eight of the affected districts in early May. Residents and community leaders reported that not only had they not been consulted about the project, they had never heard of it. ADECRU asked the government for a copy of the project proposal, in accordance with Mozambique’s information laws, but they had not received a reply by May 13, 2015. The group issued a joint press release that day with GRAIN denouncing the secrecy of the project and the lack of consultation, and calling on the Council of Ministers not to approve the project. Is history repeating itself? Wasn’t one of the fatal flaws of ProSAVANA the project’s secrecy and belated consultations with affected communities? Mozambique’s progressive land laws call for public access to information and prior consultation with the populations most impacted by the project. Some investors have followed those laws, and many have found communities willing to work with them. Many have not. In my December visit to the northern Nampula Province, I saw repeated cases of villagers losing their land to an outsider with no warning. In some cases, they simply found fences constructed across their land, even on land to which they had legal title. Others could not find any documentation to indicate the identity or nationality of the farmer threatening their land nor the mapping of the land he or she had been given. With the Lurio River project, ADECRU’s investigations could not even identify the investors involved, though they uncovered a consortium created to manage the project, the Companhia do Vale do Rio Lurio (CVRL). Two of the principals are the Mozambican company TurConsult, with a history of hotel and tourism development, and AgriCane, a South African sugar company that also consults on large-scale projects in Africa. No one has yet identified any other foreign investors or the sources of any possible development funding from international donors, though one of the dam projects may involve the World Bank. Consent critical Free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) is a sacred principle in international human rights. Affected parties must be informed prior to the initiation of a project, and they must give their consent in a process free of coercion or intimidation. The principle is enshrined in nearly all the guidelines and standards developed in recent years, such as the Committee on World Food Security’s “ Guidelines on Responsible Agricultural Investment ” and the “ Nairobi Action Plan on Large-Scale Land-Based Investments. ” Many were under discussion at the International Land Coalition conference I attended in Dakar, Senegal. What makes a large-scale agricultural development project a land grab is the lack of consent. On the Lurio River project, the Mozambican government has chosen not to provide information in advance of approving a large-scale project, and it has failed to consult or inform the affected communities—never mind get their consent. The belated consultations on ProSAVANA are scarcely any better. ADECRU and the Nampula Episcopal Commission on Justice and Peace denounced the recent consultation process as manipulated and in violation of the country’s information laws. The two groups monitored 24 of 38 scheduled consultations and found community members excluded and intimidated, meetings stacked with government officials, and information on the new Master Plan not readily available. The consultations did not involve the many affected communities envisaged in the project plan. Large-scale foreign land projects remain controversial even when they are introduced in accordance with the law. When these projects ignore the principle of free, prior, and informed consent, they are bound to generate serious conflict. Look for more such clashes in northern Mozambique if the Council of Ministers approves the Lurio River Valley Project.

Originally published by Food Tank on 02/27/2015 Since when is the safety of genetically modified food considered “settled science” on a par with the reality of evolution? That was the question that jumped to mind when I saw the cover of the March 2015 National Geographic and the lead article, “Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?” The cover title: “The War on Science.” The image: a movie set of a fake moon landing. Superimposed: a list of irrational battles being waged by “science doubters” against an implied scientific consensus: “Climate change does not exist.” “Evolution never happened.” “The moon landing was faked.” “Vaccinations can lead to autism.” “Genetically modified food is evil.” WHAT? Genetically modified food is evil? First of all, what business does “evil” have in an article about scientific consensus? Sure, some people think GMOs are evil. But isn’t the controversy about whether genetically modified food is safe? More important, what was such an item doing on a list of issues on which the vast majority of scientists would indeed have consensus? How in the world does author Joel Achenbach define “scientific consensus?” How about 95 percent of the peer-reviewed literature, as in the case of climate change? Near 100 percent, as in the case of the lack of any link between autism and vaccines, or on evolution, or the reality of the moon landing? There is no such consensus on the safety of GM food. A peer-reviewed study of the research, from peer-reviewed journals, found that about half of the animal-feeding studies conducted in recent years found cause for concern. The other half didn’t, and as the researchers noted, “most of these studies have been conducted by biotechnology companies responsible of commercializing these GM plants.” In other words, those studies are tainted by the same conflict of interest that the article itself denounced in the case of anti-climate-change research commissioned by oil companies. The only consensus that GM food is safe is among industry-funded researchers. So why would the respected National Geographic make such a scientific error? And why would respected Washington Post science writer Joel Achenbach include GM safety on his list of “settled” science? Product placement for GMOs Call it product placement. You know, the nearly subliminal advertising technique in which Coca Cola pays a movie producer to have the characters all drink Coke. Biotechnology companies and their powerful advocates, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are succeeding in a well-planned campaign to get GM safety declared “settled science.” The article itself hardly touches the GM controversy or the science. It focuses on the interesting and important question of how people, including scientists, interpret scientific evidence in a way tainted by “confirmation bias,” the tendency to more readily believe evidence that confirms one’s existing beliefs. Achenbach could have added science writers to the list. And magazine editors. Achenbach focuses on climate change and evolution and vaccines, mainly. GMOs? In what amounts to a throw-away paragraph, after he’s made justifiable fun of anti-fluoride scare-mongering, he writes: “We’re asked to accept, for example, that it’s safe to eat food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) because, the experts point out, there’s no evidence that it isn’t and no reason to believe that altering genes precisely in a lab is more dangerous than altering them wholesale through traditional breeding. But to some people the very idea of transferring genes between species conjures up mad scientists running amok—and so, two centuries after Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, they talk about Frankenfood.” What? “The experts point out?” Some do, some don’t. “There’s no evidence that it isn’t” safe to eat GMOs? What kind of science is that? Many experts would disagree, and they would certainly object to a safety standard for a new technology that is content with the epidemiologically shabby construct that if there’s no evidence something isn’t safe, it must be safe. Thalidomide, anyone, with a pinch of DDT? What’s going on here? Are we “depolarized” yet? What we’re seeing is a concerted campaign to do exactly what National Geographic has knowingly or unknowingly done: paint GMO critics as anti-science while offering no serious discussion of the scientific controversy that still rages. An indicator was a quiet announcement in the press last summer that the Gates Foundation had awarded a US$5.6 million grant to Cornell University to “depolarize” the debate over GM foods. That’s their word. The grant founded a new institute, the Cornell Alliance for Science. “Our goal is to depolarize the GMO debate and engage with potential partners who may share common values around poverty reduction and sustainable agriculture, but may not be well informed about the potential biotechnology has for solving major agricultural challenges,” said project leader Sarah Evanega, senior associate director of International Programs in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). Got it? The Gates Foundation is paying biotech scientists and advocates at Cornell to help them convince the ignorant and brainwashed public, who “may not be well informed,” that they are ignorant and brainwashed. “Improving agricultural biotechnology communications is a challenge that must be met if innovations developed in public sector institutions like Cornell are ever to reach farmers in their fields,” added Kathryn J. Boor, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of CALS. It’s kind of like depolarizing an armed conflict by giving one side more weapons. So what you’re seeing in National Geographic is the product of improved “agricultural biotechnology communications.” And not just there. In the last year we’ve seen the New Yorker’s slimy takedown of anti-GMO campaigner Vandana Shiva, and prominent opinion pieces by scientists, researchers, and journalists painting GMO critics as anti-science, the food policy equivalents of climate deniers and creationists. I saw the PR machine in action in Des Moines in 2013 at the World Food Prize awards, which went that year to three biotech scientists, one from Monsanto. (It was of course pure coincidence that Monsanto had underwritten the renovation of the beautiful old building that houses the World Food Prize empire.) At a panel discussion there the audience got heavily depolarized. Ann Glover, a European Science Advisor and designated GM bulldog, actually called anyone who still questioned the safety of GM crops “brainwashed.” Journalist Mark Lynas, who has made a career of such demonization, added his own insults. I was sitting next to former World Food Prize winner Hans Herren, who won the prize in the 1990s for his innovative, cost-effective biological pest-control campaign that saved the African cassava crop. Brainwashed? The consensus: There is no consensus The consensus on the safety of GM food is perfectly clear: there is no consensus. That’s what the independent peer-reviewed literature says. And that’s what the National Geographic’s beautiful exhibit on its food series, in its Washington headquarters, says: the “long-term health and ecological consequences are unknown.“ And that is an accurate statement of the consensus, or the lack of it. The paid shills for the petroleum industry undermined a growing consensus on climate change that was inconvenient for industry, backed by a well-funded PR campaign sowing doubt about that scientific consensus. In this case, the biotechnology industry and its allies are declaring a consensus where there is none in order to silence their critics. The debate is over what level of precaution we should apply before allowing the large-scale commercialization of this new technology. And anyone stating that there is a scientific consensus on GM safety is coming down squarely against precaution. Reasonable people disagree, and that does not make them “science doubters.” Are you feeling depolarized yet?

Originally published by Dollars & Sense on 03/03/2015 I introduced myself to Luis Sitoe, economic adviser to Mozambique’s minister of agriculture, and explained that I’d spent the last two weeks in his country researching the ProSAVANA project, decried as the largest land grab in Africa. This ambitious Brazil-Japan-Mozambique development project was slated to turn 35 million hectares (over 85 million acres) of Mozambique’s supposedly unoccupied savannah lands into industrial-scale soybean farms modeled on—and with capital from—Brazil’s savannah lands in its own southern Cerrado region. Mr. Sitoe smirked. “Did you see ProSAVANA?” I hadn’t, in fact. “So far there is no investment in Pro-Savana,” he said, with surprising satisfaction considering that the project’s most ardent supporter had been his boss, agriculture minister José Pacheco. A firestorm of controversy had dogged the project since its “Master Plan” had been unceremoniously leaked in 2013. Farmers were actively resisting efforts by foreign investors and the government to take away their land. And Brazilian investment was almost nowhere to be found. Had the land-grab boom gone bust? Was ProSAVANA’s stuttering start a sign that African farmland had lost its luster? No, but it turns out to be easier to get a government to give away a farmer’s land than it is to actually farm it. Reality Asserts Itself Data from the Land Matrix project suggest that economic realities have begun to assert themselves. Commodity prices are down, speculative capital has returned to rebounding stock markets, low oil prices have cut the profit margins on biofuels. Oil and gas discoveries in some developing countries, meanwhile, have taken the wind out of the sails of domestic alternative energy projects which were fueling some land-grabbing. As a result, the pace of large-scale land acquisitions has slowed, many projects have failed, and those underway often operate on a fraction of the land handed over to them. National governments—perhaps the most willing negotiating partners in this often-ugly process—have ceded the rights to large tracts of land to foreign investors. As of mid-September 2014, Land Matrix had recorded 956 transnational land deals completed globally since 2000, with another 187 under negotiation. The completed agreements, most of which have taken place since 2007, cover 61 million hectares (about 150 million acres), with about half of that land under formal contract. Interestingly, of the 37 million hectares under contract, only 4.1 million (just 11%) are confirmed to be in production. The much lower acreage contracted for production reflects how hard it can be to turn vague intentions, and government concessions into concrete business plans. Hardest of all is putting those plans into operation, which involves dealing with weak regional markets, poor infrastructure, and—most importantly—resistance from local residents currently using the land. By all accounts, ProSAVANA stalled before it could even register as a productive project in the Land Matrix database. Mozambique is fifth among all target countries in the project’s ranking by amount of land given away (behind Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo), with 99 concluded projects covering 2.2 million hectares. Three-quarters of that is for forestry projects. Of the agriculture projects, one finds just a few comparatively small soybean projects in the Nacala Corridor, ProSAVANA’s target region. Tucked in the database, one finds a grand “intended but not concluded” 700,000-hectare project that lists Brazilians as the investors and the Brazilian, Japanese, and Mozambican governments as partners. ProSAVANA. What happened to the 35 million hectares? That was the press release, the sales pitch to Brazilian investors. Only a fraction of that land is even suitable for agriculture; much is forested or degraded. Or occupied. Fundamentally Flawed Frankly, I was surprised to find ProSAVANA to be such a bust. This wasn’t some fly-by-night venture capitalist looking to grow a biofuel crop he’d never produced for a market that barely existed. That’s what I saw in Tanzania, and such failed biofuel land grabs litter the African landscape. ProSAVANA at least knew its investors: Brazil’s agribusiness giants. The planners knew their technology: soybeans adapted to the tropical conditions of Brazil’s Cerrado. And they knew their market: Japan’s and China’s hog farms and their insatiable appetite for feed, generally made with soybeans. That was already more than a lot of these grand schemes had going for them. But ProSAVANA foundered because its premise was fundamentally flawed. The Grand Idea was that the soil and climate in the Nacala Corridor were similar to those found in the Cerrado, so Brazilian technology could be easily adapted to tame an uninhabited region inhospitable to agriculture. It turns out that the two regions differ dramatically. The Cerrado had poor soils, which is why it had few farmers. Technology was available, however, to address soil quality. The Nacala Corridor, by contrast, has good soils, which is precisely why the region is the most densely populated part of rural Mozambique. If there are good lands, you can pretty well bet people have discovered them and are farming them. Democracy and Resistance Mozambique has one other thing Brazil didn’t have when it tamed the Cerrado: a democratic government forged in an independence movement rooted in peasant farmers’ struggle for land rights. At the time of Brazil’s soybean expansion in the mid-1980s, a military dictatorship could impose its Cerrado project. Mozambique has one of the stronger land laws in Africa, which prevents private ownership of land and grants use rights to farmers who have been farming land for ten years or more—whether they have a formal title or not. Even if the government is now siding with foreign investors, it has laws through which an increasingly restive citizenry can hold it accountable. What may end up dooming ProSAVANA is farmers’ growing awareness of the threat to their land, and their capacity to resist. Spearheaded by União Nacional de Camponeses (UNAC), Mozambique’s national farmers’ union, the campaign to stop the project formed quickly, fueled by a Mozambican tour of the Cerrado organized with Brazilian farmer groups. The images of unending expanses of soybeans, without a small farmer in sight, and the tales of environmental destruction spread quickly through Mozambique. Within months of the release of the Master Plan, a tri-national campaign in Japan, Brazil, and Mozambique formed. An open letter to the heads of government of the three countries caused a stir, particularly in Japan where the country’s international development agency was accused of violating the long-standing separation of development assistance from commercial interests. Last year, the campaign adopted a firm “No to ProSAVANA” stance until farmers and local communities are consulted on development plans for the region. Local resistance to specific land deals may have had an even greater impact. That certainly scared off some of the largest Brazilian investors, who complained not only that they couldn’t own the land outright, but that it took a negotiation with the national government and then further negotiations with local governments just to get a lease. Even then, that lease was for land that was anything but unoccupied. Most packed up their giant combines and went home. No End to Land Grabbing I asked Mr. Sitoe in the Ministry of Agriculture if the lesson of ProSAVANA was that agricultural development needed to be based on Mozambique’s three million small-scale food producers. He smirked again. No, he assured me, the government is committed to foreign investment, with its capital and technology, as the path to agricultural development. He pulled out a two-inch-thick project proposal for a 200,000-hectare foreign-funded scheme for irrigated agriculture along the Lurio River, on the northern edge of the Nacala Corridor. Was this part of ProSAVANA? No, he reassured me with another smile. That brand was clearly tarnished. Had farmers and communities in the region been consulted about the Lurio River project? “Absolutely not,” said Vicente Adriano of UNAC. In the words of the Mozambican independence movement, La Luta Continua—the struggle continues.

Originally published by Food Tank on 03/25/2015 The World Health Organization (WHO) apparently has not gotten the memo about the supposed consensus on GMOs being safe. On March 20, 2015 the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a new analysis of the evidence on five organophosphate pesticides, including glyphosate, the herbicide in Monsanto’s Roundup weed-killer. The international scientific body concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The WHO analysis puts the lie to the supposed “scientific consensus” on the safety of GM crops, declared but not proven by National Geographic, the Gates Foundation, and the Cornell Center for Science, among others. (See my previous article, “ The War on Genetically-Modified-Food Critics .”) The WHO findings, summarized in an accessible two-page monograph and in The Lancet Oncology , raise alarms. Glyphosate is by far the most widely used herbicide because it is the weed-killer that genetically modified corn and soybeans are engineered to “tolerate.” With GM varieties now accounting for 90 percent or more of the U.S. market for corn and soybeans, glyphosate is being liberally sprayed over ever-more-vast tracts of farmland with farmers secure in the knowledge that their crops won’t be harmed by the herbicide. Apparently humans may not be so tolerant, and animals in feeding trials certainly aren’t. The WHO found, “For the herbicide glyphosate, there was limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.” By WHO protocols, “limited evidence” means some evidence but not conclusive evidence. The expert panel cited studies that glyphosate “caused DNA and chromosomal damage in human cells, although it gave negative results in tests using bacteria. One study in community residents reported increases in blood markers of chromosomal damage (micronuclei) after glyphosate formulations were sprayed nearby.” Because there have been no long-term human feeding trials, the evidence is limited, mainly to studies of agricultural exposures. Human feeding trials are considered unethical, so the gold standard for epidemiological research is the animal study. WHO found, in its year-long expert scientific review of the evidence from government and peer-reviewed studies, that “there is convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.” That finding makes glyphosate a “probable carcinogen” for humans, according to accepted WHO standards. That probably will not quiet the consensus campaigners, but it should. Will the Gates-funded Cornell Center for Science declare the members of WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer to be “science doubters” on GM food safety? Probably. That’s what the center is funded to do. Et tu, National Geographic? How about a correction or a retraction of your assertion that such scientists are no more credible than creationists? The first retractions came from investors: Monsanto stock was down sharply on the news.