Subsections

Global Food Safety


Global food safety and global food trade

Introduction

Agriculture: The agriculture, the domestication of animals and the abandonment of nomadic life made the formation of cities possible. Trade and interchange between one region and another started. With rising productivity time was left to develope the arts, science and other mankind activities. All great civilizations have rested on a food base, usually a single key staple crop like rice, wheat, corn or meat.

Industralization:

Depending on one single key staple foood such as rice, wheat, corn or meat the control over food became more and more concentrated in organized trade busines. Foods had to stored, transported and distribuited in a retailing system, this gave rise to industrialization.

Fears concerning safety matters:

Industrialized food gave rise to fears about. Responding to the rising control of food by corporations, the consumer became increasingly afraid of loosing the control over his basic needs. Concerns about food safety resulted in sofisticated safety systems.

Disenchantment of food:

As meals are more and more no longer prepared and consumed at home, their symbolic, religious and cultural importance are lost. They merely serve as a mean of sustaining life and are a source of pleasure. Powerful corporations are taking over world production of almost every food.

In order to coordinate the global trade the WTO was founded.


Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was founded in 1945 with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to better the condition of rural populations.

Today, FAO is one of the largest specialized agencies in the United Nations system and the lead agency for agriculture forestry, fisheries and rural development. An intergovernmental organization, FAO has 187 member countries plus one member organization, the European Community.

FAO works to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition and the pursuit of food security, defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life.


Convention on Biological Diversity

Biological diversity is the variety of life on Earth, from the simplest bacterial gene to the vast, complex rainforests of the Amazon. Human beings are an integral part of this diversity, as is the food, medicine, clothing and other biological resources that sustain us.

Recognizing the importance of biodiversity to our daily lives and the pressure that human activities are placing on our living world, governments adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 as an activity of the UN Environmental Program. From the start it was understood that scientific knowledge and technological know-how would have a vital role to play.

The curse of overspecialization: Many developing countries rely on exports of a small number of agricultural commodities for a large share of their export revenues. In many cases, they even depend on one single commodity. As many as 43 developing countries rely on a single agricultural commodity for more than 20 percent of their total export revenues and more than half their revenue from agricultural exports.

Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America and the Caribbean, and depend on exports of coffee, bananas, cotton lint or cocoa beans.


FAO Anti-Hunger Program:

The program develops measures to increase the productivity and improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and landless labourers. At the same time, it proposes immediate action to give hungry people access to the food they need. The Anti-Hunger Program paper sets out priorities and budgets for action in five areas: The FAO paper also proposes costs to be divided equally between the governments of countries where hunger is a problem and international donors. Ultimately the success of anti-hunger programs will depend on winning support and commitment at both the national and international levels.

The International Alliance against Hunger: The International Alliance against Hunger was created by FAO. It should unite national governments, the international community and all civil society organizations to reduce the number of hungry by at least half by 2015.

A specific priority of the Organization is encouraging sustainable agriculture and rural development, a long-term strategy for increasing food production and food security while conserving and managing natural resources. The aim is to meet the needs of both present and future generations by promoting development that does not degrade the environment and is technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.

Famines

Historical famines are always related to droughts and mismanagements. Centralizing control in modern form of government, mismanagement and their increased dramatically. The British mismanagement in its Empire, was responsible for the death of hungger of 10 to 30 million of Indians in the 19.th century. They liberalized trade in grain, forcing the producers to sell on an open market. Basic social and redistributive supports were destroyed. Grain traders and elite groups made profits on the international liberal market, leaving the poor people starving.

Great famines

Activities of the Third World

Third World governments trying to repaire the mismanagements of colonialism, founded the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the 1976. in its meeting in Nairobi. A system of price controls for sixteen major commodities, to balance the price instability of an unregulated global market was introduced. According to this paper, domestic investors ought to have more rights than foreign ones. The U.S. and Europe, used the next UNCTAD meeting in 1980 to conter the liberalization of the Third World using the debt of the Third World to restruct the Third World economies using structural adjustment programs.
The inclusion of agriculture in the Uruguay round of the GATT by the U.S. turned the UNCTAD irrelevant to protect the interests of the Third World in 1992.

To develop the principle of global solidarity of the UN, the FAO and the WTO, it is necessary to hear international farmers movement like Via Campesina, and many other organizations of small farmers, FIAN, the international human rights organisation for the right to food, the global network of small peasants and landless people's movements. Jose Bové has precious knowledge about sustainability which should be used in order to get a balance between new agrarian techniques and old inherited sustainable knowledge.

UN, FAO and WTO have the obligation to make pressure on governments of countries making wealth with monocropping to sustain their small peasants. Brazil, on its way to become world exporter number one of soy beans is one example where the poor rural population should profit from such national gain. There are a lot of people which can say how the "gente sem terra " could be helped. These activities must be local, driven by the inhabitants of the region and will depend on local specific solutions.



Wealthy nations     Poor nations    
  2000 1999   2000 1999
Luxenburg 42.060 44.640 Chad 200 200
Switzerland 38.140 38.350 Tadschikistan 180 280
Japan 35.620 32.230 Niger 180 190
Norway 34.530 32.880 Guinea-Bissau 180 160
USA 34.100 30.600 Eritrea 170 200
Denmark 32.280 32.030 Malawi 170 190
Iceland 30.390 29.280 Sierra Leone 130 130
Sweden 27.140 26.750 Burundi 110 120
Austria 25.220 25.970 Zaire 100 100
Finland 25.130 24.730 Ethiopia 100 100



Food sovereignty

Food Sovereignty is a guiding principle adopted by the NGO Via Campesina demanding the right of the communities to decide the food policies that are ecologically, socially, politically and economically appropriate for them.
Land: People need equitable and just access to land. Great monocropping agriculture should be controlled in order not to deprive poor peasants of their land. This is happening in Brazil where rural poverty is extreme.
Social costs: They need subsidies for education, health care, agricultural extension and support services.
Seeds: It should be guaranteed that local seeds of ancient agricultural habits should be preserved and be given in sufficient amount to small peasants.
Prices: Stable pricing and support mechanisms are necessary to ensure that farmers and consumers are in control of the food system, not corporations. As globalization takes over in agrarian business, a central organization like the WTO, must protect small regions from the influence of dumping prices.

Such as happened in Columbia where a global milk giant switched from domestic supplies of fresh milk to imported milk powder from overproduction in Argentina which has generated misery for small and medium dairy farmers and for peasants. The same corporation benefits from the depressed market in coffee prices, which has been wreaking havoc in the coffee growing areas.

Food sovereigntyr fom Via Campesina includes fair trade. Fair trade must be granted a new framework, under the responsibility of the United Nations ensuring: One united front against hunger: Via Campesina wants WTO out of agriculture forgetting that it could become a valuable aid to support local agriculture by sponsoring sustainable small farms with their surplus.

The rapidly increasing world population demands intensive agriculture, but also demands sustainability of regions where conventional agriculture is not practicable. Only surplus can open the door to funds for help. For the future we have only one united front against hunger: The union of all technological, ecological and sociological know-how to come to global solutions where all interests are observed.
To start with it, all meetings of all organizations should be attended by representatives of the important governments and NGOs.

The AoA (Agreement on Agriculture) demands that countries open up their economies to agricultural products, whose flood of heavily subsidized imports wipes out rural economies. Mexico has experienced precisely this dynamic as a result of the agriculture provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The opening of the Mexican market to US corn led to a massive influx of subsidized, and hence cheaper, US corn. Corn prices are currently US$ 1.74 a bushel and the latest figures of the US department of agriculture show production costs at about US$2.66 a bushel, the difference being attributable to direct and indirect subsidy. What Mexico is experiencing is termed dumping when the international price is lower than the domestic cost of production.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD:) The OECD has been active in the development of rules for international investment, capital movements, and trade in services. OECD member governments have established "ground rules" for themselves and for multinational enterprises based on their economies by means of legal instruments to which Members must adhere.

Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights TRIPS: The TRIPS Council made WTO member governments decide on intellectual property protection and public health agreeing on legal changes that will make it easier for poorer countries to import cheaper generics made under compulsory licensing if they are unable to manufacture the medicines themselves.


WTO and the conference in Cancun

The Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Cancun, Mexico from 10 to 14 September 2003. The main task was to take stock of progress in negotiations and other work under the Doha Development Agenda.

In the end the ministers could not summon the necessary flexibility and political will to solve the pending problems. Failing of the conference was due to the emergence of the G20 coalition, which demanded curbs on farm subsidies in exchange for a broader agreement on free trade rules.

The future of WTO

Agricultural production worldwide is an economically, geographically and culturally diverse affair. To protect this diversity, a one-size fits all policy of international trade cannot work. Even when food production is not so efficient as heavy monoculture cropping it generates work avoiding unemployment in local community and secures their subsistence.
The solution is to let WTO manage huge agriculture, but at the same time this organization must support local small peasants practicing sustainable agriculture in the areas where monocropping is not successful. This would support diversity of cropping.


North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

NAFTA was negotiated between Canada, the United States and Mexico and came into effect on January 1, 1994. It was an expansion of the idea of FTA (Canada-US Free Trade Agreement) of 1989.

Some negative effects of global trade agreements will always be used by some corporations to protect their activities or to consolidate their monopolistic worldwide enterprises. Regional agreements and worldwide organizations like the WTO need time to develop the spirit of community to avoid such pitfalls. However, one should not forget the wonderful possibility to regulate profits of Green Revolution and monocropping, protecting the diversification of agriculture by sponsoring small peasants.

Misuses of NAFTA:

Gasoline additive MTB and MMT: California decided to phase out MTBE from gasoline because of its threat to groundwater. Taking advantage of NAFTA provisions Methanex Corporation sued the US government in September 2000 to lift the ban or to pay nearly US$ 1 billion in compensation.
In 1998, Canada was forced to settle a NAFTA complaint filed by Virginia-based Ethyl Corporation over Canada's ban on MMT,that may cause brain damage. Canada was forced to end its ban on MMT and had to paid US $13 million to Ethyl, and declared publicly that MMT is safe, despite the known risks.

PCBs waste import/export: In 2002 Canada had to pay US $ 50 million to S.D. Myers, an Ohio-based toxic waste disposal company, which claims it was denied the right to import hazardous PCBs from Canada for incineration in the United States.
US Metalclad corporation hazardous waste landfill: Mexico had to pay in 2002 US $ 19 million to Metalclad in response to damages caused by environmental officials in the state of San Luis Potosi blocking a planned hazardous waste landfill that threatened to pollute the region's water supply.

The NAFTA is to be claimed for this. The culprit resides in the philosophy of these corporations which do not place ethics higher than their economic interests.

Standards Weakened: To increase international food trade, the WTO pressures countries to lower their strong food safety standards to comply with weaker international standards. The WTO ordered Europe to lift its ban on American beef treated with growth hormones which are believed to cause breast cancer.

Under WTO rules, however, food safety officials must prove conclusively that a food product is risky before they take action to protect the public. They can no longer take precautionary measures based on preliminary scientific evidence to prevent an emerging risk.

Growth hormones and other chemicals in beef may be the link between male fertility and high beef consumption during pregnancy

[1510]
Shanna H. Swan and colleagues looked at possible long-term risks from anabolic steroids and other xenobiotics in beef. They examined mens' semen quality in relation to their mother's self-reported beef consumption during pregnancy.

The authors in a study published in March 2007, found that sperm concentration was inversely related to mothers' beef meals per week . In sons of "high beef consumers" ($>$7 beef meals/week), sperm concentration was 24.3% lower than in men whose mothers ate less beef. A history of previous subfertility was also more frequent among sons of "high beef consumers". Sperm concentration was not significantly related to mother's consumption of other meat (pork, veal or lamb), fish, chicken, soy or vegetables, or to the man's consumption of any meat.

The authors conclude that maternal beef consumption, and possibly xenobiotics in beef, may alter a man's testicular development in utero and adversely affect his reproductive capacity.

According to the authors, there were several possible explanations for the findings, including pesticides and other contaminants in cattle feed and lifestyle factors during pregnancy. Therefore they call to be cautious in the interpretation of the data because other factors like pesticides and other contaminants in cattle feed and lifestyle factors during pregnancy could influence results.

The authors say that in the period of 1949 and 1983 numerous chemical additives were used in meat in the US, and it would have been difficult for women to avoid hormone residues. Dr. Swan call to repeat the study in men born in Europe after 1988 (after the hormone ban in Europe) to determine if prenatal exposure to anabolic steroids is responsible for a change in sperm count.

Anabolic steroids as growth promoters are still used in cattle-breeding in the USA. Six hormones are commonly used in cattle. The use of diethylstilberstrol was banned in 1979 and in 1988 all growth promoters in cattle were banned in the EU.

Comment of the American Meat Institute (AMI): AMI strongly criticises the methodology and conclusions, saying that the association of the observed effect with chemical compounds in meat is purely speculative, noting that the study did not include any laboratory analysis of compounds suggested to be contained in beef - nor of the actual beef reportedly consumed decades ago. AMI questions that mother can tell what they have eaten 30 to 40 years back. [1511]


Mercosur and the South American Free Trade Area (SAFTA)

Mercosur has its origins in the political accord in 1985 which brought together Brazil and Argentina united their merkets in 1985 under MERCOSUR. In 1991 Paraguay and Uruguay joined the market forming the Common Market of the South with a combined population of over 200 million becoming a Custom Union in January 1995.

There are now moves towards links between Mercosur and the European Union and between Mercosur and other South American countries for a South American Free Trade Area (SAFTA).

The American Free Trade Area (AFTA)

According to the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, Brazil's view is that AFTA, launched by 34 American countries at the Miami Summit in December 1994, will result from the gradual convergence of all the integrationist processes in the hemisphere: Mercosur, the Andean Pact, the Group of Three, the Central American Common Market, CARICOM and NAFTA.

This focus on building blocks, is the only way in our view to respect the proper pace of integrationist plans which have already been successfully put into practice on the continent


textbfConclusion related to trade agreements: The formation of economic groups such as the European Union, the Mercosur, the NAFTA and all the others have a great importance for a better understanding between the countries. Europe had been shaken by so many wars. It now comes together in deep friendship. Participating in a community brings the countries to abandon their aggression toward their neighbour and opens the way to a better understanding of FAO of the UN and the WTO. The way toward a global fair trade must go through these regional groups which can present the problems and interests of their region in global decisions levels such as the WTO and FAO.

It should be the job of a future WTO together with the FAO through its Agrarian Agreements to determine the regions where heavy monocropping can be done and to protect the diversified agriculture of smaller units.

Agriculture and plant protection

The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) is an international treaty whose purpose is to secure a common and effective action to prevent the spread and introduction of pests of plants and plant products, and to promote appropriate measures for their control.

The Convention extends to the protection of natural flora and plant products. It also includes both direct and indirect damage by pests, thus including weeds. The provisions extend to cover conveyances, containers, storage places, soil and other objects or material capable of harbouring plant pests.


Monocultures

Monocultures require increases in the use of pesticides and fertilizers, but the efficiency of applied inputs is decreasing and crop yields in most key crops are leveling off. According to a theory, the decline of yields in some regions is caused by the maximum yield potential of current varieties. Genetic engineering should redesign seeds. According to another theory, which is backed by the agroecologists, unsustainable practices are eroding the productive base of agriculture. Excessive monoculture farming and agrochemicals inputs, pesticides and fertilizers are the main cause of such a decline


Agroecology

Agroecology sees two groups of effects of excessive monocropping:
According to Agroecology, the first wave of environmental problems is deeply related to monocultures, being an eological, a social and political-economic process.

The emerging biotechnology agriculture with products based on environmentally friendly agrochemicals and more profit for the farmer promises an improved agriculture. New developed plants resistant to pests and adverser environmental conditions have been successful.

The present orientation and control by multinational corporations, further industrialization of agriculture and the intrusion of private interests into public interest sector make it urgently necessary global agrarian structure to be influenced by the WTO through its Agreement on Agriculture as a steering advice, as well as the activities of the FAO and the Convention on Biological Diversity of the UN.

Old alternative sources of nutrients such as manures, sewage sludge and other organic wastes, and legumes in cropping sequences to maintain soil fertility must be used. Rotation benefits are due to biologically fixed nitrogen and from the interruption of weed, disease and insect cycles.

Advantages of Agroecology: Agroecology is founded on local farming knowledge and techniques adjusted to different local conditions, differing from the one solution for the whole world from plants of the Green Revolution. It restores degradaded agricultural lands, offering an environmentally sound, and affordable way, for smallholders.

Principles of Agroecology: Agroecology is a scientific discipline that defines, classifies, and studies agricultural systems from an ecological and socioeconomic perspective, integrating indigenous knowledge with modern technical knowledge. In contrast to the conventional agronomic approach that focuses on the spread of packaged uniform technologies, agroecology emphasizes vital principles such as biodiversity, recycling of nutrients, synergy and interaction among crops, animals, soil, etc., and regeneration and conservation of resources.


Integrated Production Systems

Diversified farms in the Andenian Region use 0.5 ha model farms, which consist of a spatial and temporal rotational sequence of forage and row crops, vegetables, forest and fruit trees, and animals. Most vegetables are grown in heavily composted raised beds located in the garden section. The rest of the 200-square meter area surrounding the house is used as an orchard, and for animals.
Vegetables, cereals, legumes and forage plants are produced in a six-year rotational system within a small area adjacent to the garden, dividing the land into as many small fields of fairly equal productive capacity as there are years in the rotation.

Cuba agroecological example

In 1990 the trade relations of Cuba with the socialist bloc collapsed. Pesticide imports dropped by more than 60 percent. The Cuban government was forced to introduce an IPM program which focused on biological control (Rosset and Benjamin, 1994). Key components of their strategy are the Centers for the Production of Entomophagae and Entomopathogens (CREEs), where the centralised, "artesanal" production of biocontrol agents takes place. By the end of 1992, 218 CREEs had been built throughout Cuba and were providing services to the State, cooperatives, and individual farmers.

CREEs produce a number of entomopathogens (Bacillus thuringiensis, Beauvaria bassiana, Metarhizium anisoplae, and Verticillium lecanaii), as well as one or more species of Trichogramma wasps. Their production depends on what crops are being grown in the area.

Phillipines: Similar results were obtained in integrated rice-based systems with livestock, aquaculture, tree and vegetable components have proven to be productive, efficient and profitable.

Africa: In Senegal, for example, the Senegal Regenerative Agriculture Center is working to promote sustainable agriculture based on soil regeneration for small-scale farmers who have suffered from soil degradation. The cropping system is a millet-groundnut rotation, and legumes and intercropped with cereals. Compost is also being used to restore soil fertility. Cows, goats, and sheep are usually kept by each household, and their manure is collected for the compost mixture.


Intelligent Pest Management (IPM Systems)

As long as the simplified structure of monocultures is maintained, pest problems will continue because the process of ecological simplification that has been set in motion. Some IPM projects withdrawing pesticides allowed beneficial fauna to recover.

Cases of insecticide-induced ecological disruption Peru: In the mid 1950s the Canete Valley, organochlorinated insecticides were used with declining results in cotton fiels. Pest resistence developed and new pest settled in the fields. Banning of synthetic organic pesticide, the reintroduction of beneficial insects, crop diversification schemes, the planting of early maturing varieties and the destruction of cotton crop residue was able to solve the problem.(Hansen, 1987)

Costa Rica: In 1954 United Fruit Company banana plantations were treated dieldrin granules against banana weevil and rust thrips, killing natural enemies of banana stalk borer, Castiomera humbolti. In 1958 outbreak of six Lepidptera pests, Ceramidia moth, owleye and the West Indian bag worm became a great problem despite increasing use of pesticides. Due to the oil crisis in 1973 the use of pesticides was stopped. Stopping the use of pesticides sprays the natural enemies of pests to take over reducing pests to neglectic number of cases.(Stephens, 1984).

Nicaragua: In 1971, a programme started by UN-FAO to solve the problem of boll weevil and boll worm in cotton farms. Planting the cotton at seasons differing from the seasons where natural enimeis were most abundant together with "trap cropping" and killing the trapped pests with selective insecticides solved the problems in Nicaragua.(Swezey et al., 1986).

Brazil: In 1974, Brazil adopted an IPM programme that relied primarily on monitoring pest damage and application of specific insecticides, reducing pesticides by 80-90%. In the 1980s the Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus against the velvetbean caterpillar was introduced in soybean farms using macerated sick larvae, containing the virus.(Campanhola et al., 1995).

Colombia: An IPM programme in the Cauca Valley implemented in 1985 in a tomato area microbial insecticide derived from Bacillus thuringiensis combined with the release of natural enemies such as Trichogramma spp., and the encouragement of natural populations of the parasite Apanteles spp., were particularly in order to control Scrobipalpula absoluta, a leaf miner/fruit borer (Belloti et al., 1990).

Chile: In 1976, several aphidophagous insects and parasitoids were introduced in an IPM program against two aphid species (Sitobium avenae and Metopolophium dirhodum) and the Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus they transmit menacing wheat crops. Predators were introduced from South Africa, Canada and Israel, and parasitoids of the families Aphidiidae and Aphelinidae rom Europe, California, Israel and Iran were introduced in the fields of wheat in 1975. This controlled the aphid population. (Zu�ga, 1986).

Precision Farming Project

An important technical development in conventional agriculture is precision farming. Precision farming is based on the combination of satellite-supported navigation systems (e.g. GPS - Global Positioning System), geographical information systems (GIS), computerised control of agricultural machinery, and corresponding software for farm management.

Precision farming is expected to result particularly in a reduction in inputs of production factors (fertiliser, pesticides/plant protection agents).

A joint project promoted by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research initiated in 2002 Based on the present work, the TA project "Potential of modern agricultural technology and production methods" will probably cover the following key points: Traditional farming
Despite the increasing industrialization of agriculture, the great majority of the farmers in the developing world are peasants, or small produce

Many of these agroecosystems are small-scale, geographically discontinuous, and located on a multitude of slopes, aspects, microclimates, elevational zones, and soil types. They also are surrounded by many different vegetation associations.

Many of the systems are surrounded by physical barriers (e.g. forests, rivers, mountains) and therefore are relatively isolated from other areas where the same crops are grown in large scale. This makes them so important and it is why they must be included in the new global information systems like Precision Farming. In many areas, traditional farmers have developed and/or inherited complex farming systems, adapted to the local conditions.

Some examples of these traditional farming methodes are:
Mixtures of cabbage and tomato reduce colonization by the diamond-back moth, while mixtures of maize, beans, and squash have the same effect on chrysomelid beetles.

The odors of some plants can also disrupt the searching behavior of pests. Grass borders repel leafhoppers from beans and the chemical stimuli from onions prevent carrot fly from finding carrots (Altieri, 1994).

OurFood (c) 1998 - 2008 by Karl Heinz Wilm - Imprint (Impressum)