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	Rio+20 and Beyond by La Via Campesina Rio+20 "Peoples Summit"   Governments from all over the world will meet in Río de Janeiro, Brasil from June 20-22 2012, to supposedly commemorate 20 years since the “Earth Summit”, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, that established for the first time a global agenda for “sustainable development”.   During this summit, in 1992, three international conventions were adopted: the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention to Fight Desertification. Each of these promised to initiate a series of actions destined to protect the planet and all of the life on it, and to allow all human beings to enjoy a life of dignity.   At that time, many social organizations congratulated and supported these new conventions with hope. Twenty years later, we see the real causes of environmental, economic, and social deterioration continuing without being confronted. Worse still, we are alarmed that the next meeting in June will serve to deepen policies and processes of economic concentration and exclusion that today have enveloped us in an environmental, economic, and social crisis of serious proportions.   Beneath the term “green economy”, new forms of environmental contamination and destruction are now rolled out along with new waves of privatization, monopolization, and expulsion from our lands and territories.   La Via Campesina, representing the voice of the peasant in the global debate and defending a different path to development that is based on the well being of all, that seeks to guarantee food for all, that protects and guarantees that the commons and natural resources are put to use to provide a good life for everyone and not to meet the needs for accumulation of a few.   20 years after the Earth Summit, life on the planet has become dramatically difficult. The number of hungry people has increased to almost a billion, which means that one out of every six people is going hungry, mostly children and women in the countryside.   Expulsion from our lands and territories is accelerating, no longer only due to conditions of disadvantage imposed upon us by trade agreements and the industrial sector, but by new forms of monopoly control over land and water, by the global imposition of intellectual property regimes that steal our seeds, by the invasion of transgenic seeds, and by the advance of monoculture plantations, mega-projects, and mines.   The grand promises of Río ’92 have not been met. The Convention on Biodiversity has not stopped the destruction of biodiversity and has strengthened and generated new mechanisms destined to privatize it and turn it into merchandise. Desertification continues to accelerate due to the industrial agriculture and the expansion of agribusiness and monoculture plantations. Global warming —with all of the dramatic suffering—has not slowed, but has accelerated and become more severe.   The great facade of 1992 was “sustainable development”, which social organizations initially saw as a possibility to confront the root of the problems. However, it was nothing more than a cover-up for the search for new forms of accumulation. Today economic elites look to legitimize this under the name “green economy”.   The “green economy” is a new assault on the people and their territories.   Profit-seeking has generated the biggest systemic crisis since 1929. Since 2008, the free market economic system has looked for ways out of its crisis, searching for new possibilities for accumulation that support its logic. It is in this context that the corporate takeover of agreements on biodiversity and climate change have occurred, and consequently, the development of this new financial engineering called Green Capitalism. They present it as a new possibility to bring together environmental stewardship and business, but it is in fact the vehicle to obtain new advances for capitalism, putting the entire planet under the control of big capital.   There are various mechanisms that will be advanced by the green economy:   1. The green economy does not seek to reduce climate change or environmental deterioration, but to generalize the principle that those who have money can continue polluting. Up to now, they have used purchasing carbon bonds to continue emitting greenhouse gases. They are now inventing biodiversity bonds. This is to say, businesses can continue destroying forests and ecosystems, as long as they pay someone to supposedly conserve biodiversity somewhere else. Tomorrow they may invent bonds for water, natural “views”, or clean air.   2. These systems of buying environmental services are being used to take lands and territories away from indigenous peoples and peasants. They say these are systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by deforestation and degradation of the forests, but they are being used to impose, for a high price, management plans that deny families and rural communities access to their own lands, forests, and water sources.   In addition, they guarantee businesses unrestricted access to collective forest areas, enabling biopiracy. They also impose contracts that tie communities to these management plans for 20 years or more and that leave indigenous and peasant territories with mortgage liens, that increases the likelihood that these communities will lose their lands. The objectives of these environmental services are to take control of nature reserves and of the territories that are under the control of these communities.   3. Another initiative of the green economy is to convert plants, algae, and all other organic material into a source of energy to substitute for petroleum; what is called “use of biomass”.   With agrofuels, this has meant that thousands of hectares that should be covered in forests or producing food are being used to feed machines. If the use of biomass energy is effectively expanded, we will see life in the seas reduced still more because an important segment of marine species will go without food.   Our soils will not recuperate the organic material that is essential to conserve fertility and guard against erosion and drought. It will be impossible to feed our animals because the food they need is ever more scarce and expensive.   Also, the water shortage will worsen, either directly through the cultivation of agrofuels or because our soils no longer have the capacity to absorb and retain water due to a lack of organic matter.   4. Then, they speak to us of “climate smart agriculture”, the goal of which is to convince us to accept a new Green Revolution—possibly with transgenics—and that instead of demanding effective support to defend us from the effects of climate change, we accept laughable payments. They also seek to impose systems that are highly dependent on large quantities of agrotoxins—like direct seeding that depends on aerial sprayings of Round Up—that they would call “low carbon agriculture”. That is to say, we are obliged to accept a certain type of agriculture that will jeopardize control of our territories, our ecosystems, and our water.   5. One of the most perverse aspects of the false solutions that are promoted in international negotiations is the restriction of access to and use of water for irrigation. Using the pretext that water for irrigation is scarce, it is suggested that water be concentrated in “high value crops”; meaning that export crops, agrofuels and other industrial crops are irrigated while food crops are left without water.   6. The promotion of technological solutions that are not solutions at all is also part of the agenda. Among the most dangerous are geoengineering. Up until now, none of the solutions proposed by geoengineering have demonstrated any real capacity to solve climate problems.   On the contrary, some forms of geoengineering (like the fertilization of the seas) are so dangerous that there has been an international moratorium declared aginst them. To accept Genetically modified organism (GMOs), we are told that crops resistant to drought and heat will be created, but the only thing new in GMOs are more herbicide-resistant varieties, which are bringing back to the market highly toxic herbicides like 2,4-D.   7. The most ambitious plan and the one that some governments identify as “the major challenge” is to put a price on all the goods of nature (like water, biodiversity, the countryside, wildlife, seeds) to then privatize them (arguing that conservation requires money) and charge us for their use. This is called the Economy of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). It is the final assault on nature and life, but also on the means of work and the lives of the people whose livelihoods are based on agriculture, hunting, and fishing.   This “green” capitalism has the rural commons, agriculture, land and water particularly in its sights. We are already suffering from its effects in the form of land grabs or monopolization of land, privatization of water, the oceans, of indigenous territories, the national parks and nature reserves; all these processes are being accompanied by the forced expulsions of peasant and indigenous communities.   The real solution: put peasant and indigenous farmers at the center.   We, peasants and indigenous peoples, are the ones who are concentrated in the highest levels of poverty because we have been deprived of land and we have been constrained by law or by force so that we cannot cultivate and exchange freely.   Nonetheless, we are people who have been resisting expulsion from the countryside, and still we are more than 90% of the rural population. Our forms of agriculture cool the planet, care for ecosystems and secure the food supply for the poorest.   Every real solution happens to impinge upon the unbridled profits of capital, put an end to the complicity of governments and supports forms of production that effectively care for the planet. Food Sovereignty is at the heart of the necessary changes, and is the only real path that can possibly feed all of humanity. Our proposals are clear and introduce real solutions:   1. We should exchange the industrial agro-export food system for a system based on food sovereignty, that returns the land to its social function as the producer of food and sustainer of life, that puts local production of food at the center, as well as the local markets and local processing.   Food sovereignty allows us to put an end to monocultures and agribusiness, to foster systems of peasant production that are characterized by greater intensity and productivity, that provide jobs, care for the soil and produce in a way that is healing and diversified. Peasant and indigenous agriculture also has the ability to cool the planet, with the capacity to absorb or prevent almost 2/3 of the greenhouses gases that are emitted every year.   2. The land currently in the hands of peasants and indigenous peoples is around 20% of all agricultural land in the world. And yet, on this land the peasant and indigenous families and communities produce slightly less than half of the world’s food. The most secure and efficient way to overcome hunger around the world is in our hands.   3. To secure food for all and restore the earth’s normal climate, it is necessary to return agriculture to the hands of peasant communities and indigenous peoples. To do this, we must have urgent, integrated, sweeping agrarian reform that ends the extreme and growing concentration of land that affects all of humanity today.   These agrarian reforms will provide the material conditions for agriculture to benefit all of humanity and thus, the defense and protection of peasant and indigenous agriculture is up to all of us. In the short run, it is necessary to halt all transactions, concessions, and transfers that result in concentration or monopoly control of land and/or the displacement of rural communities.   4. Peasant and indigenous systems of agriculture, hunting, fishing, and shepherding that care for the land and the food supply should be supported adequately with public resources that are not subject to conditionalities. Market mechanisms—like the sale of carbon and environmental services-should be eliminated and replaced with real measures like those mentioned above. Ending pollution is a duty that no one should be able to avoid by paying for the rights to continue the destruction.   5. The legitimate use of what international organizations and enterprises now call biomass is to feed every living being, and then to be returned to the earth to restore its fertility. The emissions that come from wasted energy should be reduced through saving and eliminating waste. We need renewable, decentralized sources of energy, within reach of the people.   We, peasants, family farmers, landless peasants, indigenous peoples and migrants, men and women, decidedly oppose the commercialization of the earth, our territories, water, seeds, food, nature, and human life. We reiterate what was said at the People’s Summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia: “Humanity faces a grand dilemma: to continue the path of predation, and death, or undertake the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.”   We repudiate the green economy as a mask to hide increasing levels of corporate greed and food imperialism in the world, and as “green washing” that only implements false solutions, like geoengineering, agrofuels, bio-char, and all of the market-based solutions to the environmental crisis.   Our goal is to bring back another way of relating to nature and other people. We call for the construction of food sovereignty, for comprehensive agrarian reform and the restoration of indigenous territories, for restoring peasant and indigenous systems of production based on agroecology.   * La Via Campesina is the international movement which brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. The organization opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that it perceives as destroying people and nature.   (Respecting free expression and availing the opportunity for a diversity viewpoints are fundamental values. The views expressed are those of the author organization) Visit the related web page
	The U.S. administration should aim to target food aid at meeting key nutritional goals by Megan Rowling Reuters Alertnet   15 February 2012   As U.S. Senate hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill get underway, aid groups are calling for Washington to get more bang for its food aid bucks - especially amid today"s tight fiscal climate and high food prices.   Food aid from the United States accounts for about half of the world"s total. But what"s wrong with it?   Quite a lot, say non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Under the longstanding system of "tied" food aid, large amounts of cereals, pulses and vegetable oil are purchased from big American corporations - around 40 percent of it from just three firms.   The food is transported overseas on U.S.-flagged ships, accounting for 60 percent of the aid"s total cost and taking from three to six months to arrive.   Even after reaching its destination, it"s not all handed out to hungry people. A chunk of the food is sold by aid agencies on local markets, generating cash to fund their development programmes on the ground in a process called "monetisation".   "It"s just craziness," says Paul O"Brien, vice-president for policy and campaigns at Oxfam America.   Aid groups argue that regulations on the food aid programme in the Farm Bill, legislation which oversees U.S. food policy, protect special interests - mainly large agricultural corporations - at the expense of the world"s hungry, and mean that more than a third of every dollar the United States spends on food aid goes to waste.   "In this very difficult budget environment, it is absolutely critical that we don"t waste money, and not least because the world is so far off meeting targets on reducing hunger," says O"Brien.   Citing the prospect of a rapidly developing food emergency in border areas of Sudan and South Sudan, where clashes have displaced more than 400,000 people, "there"s just no way we could respond effectively if we wanted to ship food from the United States," he adds.   An analysis of a $60-million pilot project to buy U.S. food aid in the countries and regions where it"s needed showed that, on average, local purchases were at least 60 percent - 14 weeks - faster than shipments from the United States. And for cereals and some pulses, cost savings amounted to 50 percent or more, although little or nothing was saved on processed products and some varieties of beans.   NGOs want to see this test project at the very least maintained, but ideally expanded and allocated regular funding in the Farm Bill.   They also want as much food aid cash as possible to be "untied", so it can be used to fund more effective and innovative ways of tackling hunger, including cash transfers and vouchers for people to buy their own supplies, local procurement, and strengthening sustainable agriculture.   "Our food aid dollars should be flexible enough so that we can choose the best way of delivery".   Other desirable reforms include an end to the practice of monetisation - which floods developing-country markets with imported U.S. food - and the preference for using U.S.-flagged ships, says Oxfam"s O"Brien.   "In this tough economic climate, we do need to think about U.S. interests, but the business case (for the current food aid model) doesn"t hold," he argues.   Asma Lateef, director of the Bread for the World Institute, says the U.S. administration should also aim to target food aid at meeting key nutritional goals, especially for pregnant women and children under the age of two.   Widespread recognition of the long-term ramifications of inadequate food in the first 1,000 days of a child"s existence has pushed Washington to focus on nutrition as part of new agricultural development and health initiatives.   "At a minimum, we should begin to include goals on nutrition as a measure of the impact of U.S. food aid," says Lateef. "It"s really important to have a discussion on how food aid can be better aligned with broader development goals."   Later this week, a coalition of aid groups plan to send a letter to Capitol Hill requesting an additional hearing on the international implications of the Farm Bill, including food aid. Some 80 percent of the annual $2 billion or so spent on food aid by the U.S. falls inside the bill"s remit.   But how likely is it that efforts to reform food aid will be successful? If past attempts are anything to go by, perhaps not very.   A push by the Bush administration, launched in 2005, to persuade Congress to let U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) purchase a quarter of food aid locally failed, for example.   In 2012, O"Brien admits there is a "significant risk" that the pilot project on local procurement will be dropped from the Farm Bill altogether due to resistance among the agricultural lobby, let alone made part of core funding.   But if Congress does dig in its heels on tied food aid, it will be rowing against the international tide, which is shifting towards cash-based aid and buying from producers in developing countries.   "The whole aid-effectiveness world has converged around the idea that we want local leadership up and running, and anything that stops that is problematic," O"Brien says. "The practice of importing food aid is an anachronism that is increasingly unpopular for all global donors."   * Editors Note: Food Aid should never be delivered with "terminator seeds". Visit the related web page
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