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October 15, 2010
· Wal-Mart pledges focus on sustainability
· Fertilizer trees and the future of global ag
· Goal: Healthier, disease resistant tomatoes
· New health benefits found in watermelon
· Analysis: Do EU farmers have basic rights?
Wal-Mart pledges focus on sustainability
(The New York Times) – Wal-Mart Stores announced a program on Thursday that would focus on sustainable agriculture among its suppliers, as the retail giant tries to expand its efforts to improve environmental efficiency among its suppliers.
The program is intended to put more locally grown food in Wal-Mart stores in the United States, invest in training and infrastructure for small and medium-sized farmers particularly in emerging markets and begin to measure the efficiently of large suppliers in growing and getting their produce to market.
Given that Wal-Mart is the world’s largest grocer, with one of the biggest food supply chains, any changes that it makes would have wide implications. Wal-Mart’s decision five years ago to set sustainability goals that, among other things, increased its reliance on renewable energy and reduced packaging waste among its supplies, sent broad ripples through product manufacturers. Large companies like Procter & Gamble redesigned packages that are now also carried by other retailers, while Wal-Mart’s measurements of environmental efficiency among its suppliers helped define how they needed to change.
“No other retailer has the ability to make more of a difference than Wal-Mart,” Wal-Mart’s president and chief executive Michael T. Duke, said at a meeting Thursday morning, according to prepared remarks. “Grocery is more than half of Wal-Mart’s business. Yet only four of our 39 public sustainability goals address food.”
The new goals fall into a few categories, and Wal-Mart said it expected to meet them all by the end of 2015.
In the
In emerging markets, Wal-Mart has pledged to sell $1 billion of food from small and medium farmers (which it defines as farmers with fewer than 20 hectares or about 50 acres). It will also provide training for the farmers and their laborers on how to choose crops that are in demand as well as the proper application of water and pesticides.
Both in the
As it did in the environmental arena, it will begin creating an agriculture-specific index to figure out how to measure waste and efficiency among produce suppliers. It will be asking its biggest producers to answer questions about water, fertilizer and chemical use. The eventual goal is to include that information in a sustainability rating that customers would see, so they could decide whether to choose one avocado over another based on how much waste it had created. Wal-Mart would also use the information when it decides from whom to buy.
Finally, it announced specific sourcing guidelines, including that sustainably sourced palm oil be used in all its private-label products (the Wal-Mart house brands) and that any beef it sells not contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon because of cattle-ranching expansion.
“When we do this on Wal-Mart’s scale, we can deliver a global food supply that improves health and livelihoods around the world,” Leslie A. Dach, executive vice president for corporate affairs, said, according to prepared remarks.
While the over all goals include Sam’s Club, the warehouse-store wing of Wal-Mart, that division also has goals specific to it: It will increase sales of fair-trade certified produce and flowers by 15 percent, require all seafood suppliers to become certified as sustainable, and reduce food waste in clubs and distribution centers by 11 percent annually.
Environmental and agricultural specialists who had worked with Wal-Mart on the program said a few items stood out.
Beginning to measure how farms produced food, with the sustainability index, was a big step, they said.
“The impact of not just Wal-Mart but the entire food and agricultural sector starting to define what is acceptable practice in their supply chain, and then what is unacceptable practice, will move agricultural producers en masse,” said Marty Matlock, a professor of ecological engineering at the University of Arkansas. “The index represents a real number that will mean improvement on the ground: improving ecosystem health, soil health and food quality.”
“This is huge,” said Michelle Mauthe Harvey, project manager for the corporate partnerships program at Environmental Defense Fund. “Once people are asked those questions, if they haven’t been measuring, they measure more.”
“Knowing what’s embedded in the food before it ever leaves the farm is really significant, because then you can begin to embrace better practices, you can begin to identify opportunities for improvement.”
Ms. Harvey said the investment into infrastructure was also a big step forward.
“The majority of efforts have tended toward some local sourcing, and you had a fairly active effort around organics” among other grocers, Ms. Harvey said, but there was a gap between support for local farmers and how those farmers would find transportation or warehouses for their food.
“Our agricultural system over the last three to four
decades, as we’ve moved to reliance on key locations like
Fertilizer trees and the future of global ag
(EurekaAlert.org) – Des Moines, Iowa USA: World renowned scientists speaking at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue have called for a radical transformation in the agriculture sector to cope with climate change, food security and to transition towards sustainability.
Dr Dennis Garrity, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre and Professor MS Swaminathan, 1987 World Food Prize Laureate and founder of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, have teamed up to promote what they call a 'fresh out of the box solution' which is already dramatically improving crop yields while storing significant carbon.
"Doubling food production by mid-century when so many of the world's soils are depleted and we are faced with a changing climate cannot be achieved with business-as-usual conventional agriculture," Garrity said. "We need to reinvent agriculture in a sustainable and affordable way so that it can adapt to climate change and reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases."
Swaminathan added that "novel solutions and technological advances must be married with ecological thinking to drive a truly sustainable agricultural revolution".
The concept of Evergreen Agriculture, where fertilizer trees are integrated into annual food crop and livestock systems, sustains a green cover on the land throughout the year. It bolsters nutrient supply through nitrogen fixation and nutrient cycling, increases direct production of food, fodder, fuel, and fibre, and provides additional income to farmers from tree products.
In a recent article in the Journal of Food Security, Garrity and co-authors highlight how evergreen agriculture
has already provided benefits to hundreds of thousands of farmers in
Farmers in
In
Such trees greatly enhance carbon storage both above and below ground compared to conventional agriculture. While estimates of the carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry systems vary greatly - from under 100 Mt CO2e per year to over 2000 Mt CO2e per year over a 30 year period – the IPCC recognizes that the 'transformation of degraded agricultural lands to agroforestry has far greater potential to sequester carbon than any other managed land use change'.
A broad alliance is now emerging of governments, research
institutions, and international and local development partners committed to
expanding evergreen agriculture. IFAD, the EU,
"We are already working with 18 countries across the African continent to develop national plans for implementation of evergreen agriculture," Garrity explained.
The next step is to further refine and adapt the technologies to a wider range of smallholder farming systems in diverse agricultural environments, so that millions of other farmers can benefit for many years, and for generations to come, from such sustainable solutions to their food production challenges.
Swaminathan emphasized the
particular need of
"Successful examples of evergreen agriculture from
"Evergreen agriculture allows us to glimpse a future of more environmentally sound farming where much of our annual food crop production occurs under a full canopy of trees," says Garrity.
Goal: Healthier, disease resistant tomatoes
(farmonline.com.au) –
Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Rural and
Regional Queensland Tim Mulherin said
“Pathology and horticulture researchers from the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) are constantly improving tomato varieties by breeding new lines,” he said.
“The new varieties are tastier, firmer, have longer shelf lives, better colour and improved health benefits.
“The tomato breeding program is all about improving health properties through science and better crop yields through disease resistance and superior fruit quality.
“They are isolating specific attributes such as resistance to powdery mildew and virus strains in better yielding lines.
“Once these attributes are isolated, they’re developing tomatoes
that are well adapted to
“Scientists now have the ability to develop new lines and hybrids more rapidly, thanks to molecular marker technology.
“This allows for a quick assessment of the key features of tomato breeding lines, and what is needed to improve them.”
Mr Mulherin said the breeding program included the development of a new tomato with a high content of lycopene.
“Lycopene is the pigment that makes the tomato red and may be associated with a lower incidence of cancer, particularly prostate cancer,” Mr Mulherin said.
“DEEDI researchers are introducing two tomato genes for increased lycopene content into the best breeding lines.
“They’ve been able to increase lycopene concentration in tomatoes to about three times the standard levels, which could potentially produce excellent health benefits.”
Mr Mulherin said tomatoes were intensively cultivated and susceptible to a wide range of pathogens.
“Tomatoes are affected by several diseases, so developing greater disease-resistance will help reduce the threat to the state’s $180 million tomato industry,” he said.
“Researchers are breeding varieties to help combat new and damaging diseases, such as Tomato yellow leaf curl virus.
“This virus is relatively new to
“Because DEEDI virologists see this virus as a major threat
to
“Powdery mildew, which is very aggressive and difficult to
control, is currently the major disease affecting tomato crops in
“It causes crop losses of at least 10 per cent during epidemics, leading to smaller fruit size, reduced yields and financial losses.
“Our pathology and breeding teams are transferring
high-quality genetic resistance to tomato varieties suited to
“By developing new breeds with greater health benefits and more resistance to disease, we’re securing a great future for the industry.”
The Agri-Science Queensland tomato breeding program is supported by collaboration with Syngenta Seeds and Horticulture Australia Limited.
New health benefits found in watermelon
(The
It is the first investigation of its kind in humans. FSU Assistant Professor Arturo Figueroa and Professor Bahram H. Arjmandi found that six grams of watermelon extract a day for six weeks increased aortic blood flow and consequently lowered blood pressure in all nine of their prehypertensive subjects (four men and five postmenopausal women, ages 51-57).
“We are the first to document improved aortic hemodynamics in prehypertensive but otherwise healthy middle-aged men and women on therapeutic doses of watermelon,” Figueroa said. “These findings suggest that this ‘functional food’ has a vasodilatory effect, and one that may prevent prehypertension from progressing to full-blown hypertension, a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes.
“Given the encouraging evidence generated by this preliminary study, we hope to continue the research and include a much larger group of participants in the next round,” he said.
Analysis: Do EU farmers have basic rights?
(Truth about Trade & Technology) – Late last month, European farm ministers gathered to discuss the possibility of letting national governments set individual policies for growing genetically modified crops.
It remains to be seen what they’ll do, though anything that
allows farmers to break through the anti-GMO gridlock that dominates
It’s not a hard principle to understand: Farmers should have the freedom to choose the technology and tools that are best suited for their farm, allowing them to safely increase their yields, productivity and profitability.And that includes the millions of women who operate smallholder farms in developing countries.
Unfortunately, the European Union doesn’t afford us this
basic right even as farmers in many other countries enjoy it. Throughout North
and
In
I’m doing my best to stay in the present. I started to plant
GM corn in 2006. Ever since, I’ve been growing it with my sisters on our family
farmin
This makes no sense. Governments should empower farmers to do their best, not deny them the ability to produce as much food as possible.
If the enemies of biotechnology prevail, humanity will pay a dear price. The challenges of feeding the planet’s people are swelling, not shrinking. World population is expected to expand by 50 percent between now and the middle of the century. That’s about 3 billion new people.
Global warming may make the task of feeding these extra
mouths evenmore difficult. That’s especially true for
farmers in my part of the world:The
International Panel for Climate Change has forecast increasing dryness for the
Mediterranean region. Some areas of
Biotechnology offers one of the most promising solutions to this emerging problem. Scientists can generate crops that make more efficient use of water, which allows them to tolerate drought conditions. Glyphosate resistance is another characteristic that allow us to fight off the weeds that suck water and nutrients from the soil. Nitrogen efficiency is also on myand European policy makers wish list of biotech traits. I practice no-tilland Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on my farm today. That practice will become even more sustainable when biotech crops can be planted, providing additional environmental benefits
Yet these innovations will remain fantasies as long as misinformed activists and journalists dominate the European debate over biotechnology and crowd out the responsible views of scientists, Nobel Prize winners and farmers.
Perhaps it’s time to turn agricultural biotechnology into an issue of women’s rights. My sisters and I know from personal experience how GM crops have improved our quality of life. We want more of it for ourselves and more of it for women who farm in other countries.
Around the world, women involved in agriculture outnumber
men. Yet many of them can’t take advantage of biotechnology.
The fact that EU regulators are responding to unfounded fears rather than actual science is beside the point. The reality is that European marketsremain closed to many biotech products. The trickle-down effect is to deny economic opportunity and stifle innovation among some of the planet’s poorest people, including women who would benefit from even a small amount of uplift.
This is ironic because so many Europeans treasure their
worldly sophistication. The EU’s policies on agricultural biotechnology,
however, are just plain backwards. They deny opportunities to me and my sisters
here in
Policies that keep women destitute are the opposite of enlightened progressivism. They are downright illiberal.
Maria Gabriela Cruz
manages a 700 hectare farm that has been in their family for over 100 years.
Growing maize, wheat, barley and green peas, they use no-till or reduced till
methods on the full farm. She has grown biotech maize since 2006. Ms. Cruz will
receive the Kleckner Trade and Technology Advancement
Award in
End Transmission