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	Why aren"t climate negotiators listening to 1.4 billion farmers? by Robert Carlson World Farmers Organisation   Nov 2013   The cold and misty weather we are experiencing at the UN climate talks in Warsaw this year reminds me of the 2009 negotiations in Copenhagen. And just like four years ago, the farmers of the world have come to speak with a single voice to negotiators, calling for agriculture to play a more important role in future climate change mitigation and adaptation while also ensuring future food security for us all.   Sadly, our efforts in Warsaw have proved just as futile as they were in Copenhagen and each year since. Already by the middle of this first week of talks, some negotiators had began expressing reluctance to engage in further substantive discussions on agriculture, a decision which effectively delays any further progress on this important issue for yet another year.   Why is it that farmers as diverse as our members – from smallholder subsistence farmers to large scale farmers, those planting crops, raising trees, keeping livestock, practicing aquaculture – can come together year after year and ask for a clear way forward for agriculture in the climate change negotiations, yet our leaders do not listen?   We farmers represent the majority of the people in some of our countries, in some as much as 70 percent of the population, so we demand that our voice is heard and our concerns addressed.   We will not give up on asking governments to include farmers and our organizations in discussions on agriculture. We farmers suffer the direct impacts of climate change, and our adaptive capacity is becoming more and more limited. And yet we still have the responsibility for producing food, feed and timber for the entire population.   Whose interests is this meeting addressing if clear and specific demands from those who feed the world are shunned? Policy makers’ as well as society’s awareness of the importance of the issue is critical to worldwide food security.   The majority of our constituency is made up of 1.4 billion smallholder farmers with less than two hectares of land. They earn less than $400 each year. Over 500 million of them are food insecure and yet, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, smallholders produce 80 percent of the food in developing countries.   These farmers are the most vulnerable to increasing extreme weather events such as droughts and floods and also to changing temperatures and rainfall patterns, which are worsened by climate change. At the same time, we farmers also present a huge potential solution for fighting future climate change if only we can be supported in doing so.   Having a work program on agriculture approved at the climate talks would allow scientific and technical experts to do a comprehensive review of how agriculture can contribute to future solutions, both in terms of adaptation and mitigation.   This work program would deliver the scientific basis we need to move forward on agriculture in the climate change talks. It is needed before any further discussions about including agriculture in a future framework can take place.   Consequently, we strongly urge policy makers to approve a science-based work program on agriculture as their key priority. Once acknowledged, the way ahead to discussions will be better paved.   To omit farmers from the table at the international climate talks, as has already happened here in Warsaw, is an error that needs to be remedied. We may be too late in Warsaw to say we listened to farmers, but we must not let this happen again. It is more than time to act.   * Robert Carlson is president of the World Farmers Organisation.   http://www.landcoalition.org/en/news/international-year-family-farming-iyff-2014 Visit the related web page
	Right to food: the impacts of bad diets by Olivier De Schutter UN independent expert on the right to food   “One in seven people are undernourished, while more than one billion people worldwide are overweight and at least 300 million are obese,” said Olivier De Schutter, the UN independent expert on the right to food in his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council.   De Schutter reminded States that the right to food “cannot be reduced to a right not to starve.” It is an inclusive right to an “adequate diet providing all the nutritional elements an individual requires to live a healthy and active life, and the means to access them.”   In his report, he stressed that a large number of people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies.   Vitamin A deficiency affects at least 100 million children, limiting their growth, weakening their immunity and, in cases of acute deficiency, leading to blindness and increased mortality. Between four and five billion people suffer from iron deficiency, including half of the pregnant women and children under 5 in developing countries, and an estimated two billion are anaemic. Iron deficiency leads children to perform less well in schools and adults to be less productive. In addition, about 30 per cent of households in the developing world do not have access to iodized salt, and children born to highly iodine-deficient mothers are likely to experience learning disabilities.   “The health impacts of bad diets are well known,” said De Schutter. Diets rich in salt and alcohol, combined with a lack of exercise, often results in high blood pressure, which in turn increases the risks of stroke and heart diseases, while diets rich in saturated fats can increase cholesterol levels.   “Urbanization, supermarketization, and the global spread of Western lifestyles have shaken up traditional food habits. The result is a public health disaster,” said the expert. “Governments have been focusing on increasing calorie availability, but they have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what prices, to whom they are accessible, and how they are marketed.”   The accessibility and abundance of highly-processed foods are major factors in nutrition-related illnesses as they tend to be richer in saturated and trans-fatty acids, salt and sugars.   De Schutter said that children, in particular, frequently become addicted to the junk foods marketed to them. Furthermore, most advertisements promote foods high in sugar and fats and low in nutrients. A recent study covering television advertising in Australia, Asia, Western Europe, and North and South America found that children were exposed to high volumes of television advertising for unhealthy foods, featuring child-oriented persuasive techniques.   He noted that it is the poorest population groups in wealthy countries that are most negatively affected by processed foods, which are often more affordable than healthy diets. “In high-income countries,” he said “healthy diets including a wide range of fruits and vegetables are more expensive than diets rich in oil, sugar and fat.”   According to the report, the globalization of the food chain has led to the export of high-quality food, like tropical fruits and vegetables, to rich countries, while developing countries import processed food. “The export of such Western dietary habits,” he said “has brought diabetes and heart diseases to the developing world.”   In his report, De Schutter identified five priority actions for putting nutrition back at the heart of food systems in both the developed and developing world. They are: imposing taxes on unhealthy products; regulating foods high in saturated fats, salt and sugar; cracking down on junk food advertising; overhauling “wrong-headed” agricultural subsidies making unhealthy ingredients cheaper than others; and supporting local food production.   “Ambitious, targeted nutrition strategies can work,” he added, “but only if the food systems underpinning them are put right.”   Feb 2014   WHO study finds deregulation fuelling obesity epidemic. (Reuters)   Governments could slow or even reverse the growing obesity epidemic if they introduced more regulation into the global market for fast foods such as burgers, chips and fizzy drinks, researchers said this week.   A study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggested that if governments took firmer action, they could start to prevent people becoming overweight and obese - conditions with serious long-term consequences such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancer.   "Unless governments take steps to regulate their economies, the invisible hand of the market will continue to promote obesity worldwide with disastrous consequences for future public health and economic productivity," said Roberto De Vogli of the University of California, Davis, in the United States, who led the study.   The WHO is urging governments to do more to try to prevent obesity happening in the first place, rather than risking the high human and economic costs when it does.   Suggested policies include economic incentives for growers to sell healthy, fresh foods; disincentives for industries to sell ultra-processed foods and soft drinks; cutting subsidies to growers and companies who use large amounts of fertilisers, pesticides, chemicals and antibiotics; and tighter regulation of fast-food advertising, especially to children.   The research analysed the effect on obesity of deregulation in the economy over time, including in the agriculture and food sectors, and the resulting increase in so-called "fast food transactions" - in other words, the number of times people bought fast food.   The researchers compared the number of fast food transactions with body mass index (BMI) in 25 high-income countries between 1999 and 2008.   They found that, as the average number of annual fast food transactions increased from 26.61 to 32.76 per person, average BMI increased from 25.8 to 26.4.   Someone with a BMI of 25 or more is overweight, while a BMI of 30 or more is considered obese.   Vogli said that, while the research was based on data from wealthy countries, its findings were also relevant to developing countries.   "Virtually all nations have undergone a process of market deregulation and globalisation - especially in the last three decades," he said.   The average number of fast food transactions per person increased in all 25 countries. The sharpest gains were in Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, while the lowest were in countries with more stringent market regulation - such as Italy, the Netherlands, Greece and Belgium.   Francesco Branca, director of the WHO''s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, said the findings showed how important public policies were in addressing obesity.   "Policies targeting food and nutrition are needed across several sectors including agriculture, industry, health, social welfare and education," he said.   "Countries where the diet is transitioning from one that is high in cereals to one that is high in fat, sugar and processed foods need to take action to align the food supply with the health needs of the population." Visit the related web page
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