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Los desafíos invisibles de una agricultura verde en Europa

La pandemia nos ha enseñado que el medio ambiente tiene un papel fundamental en la salud mundial. La biodiversidad y el buen estado de los ecosistemas no solo son un seguro para la sostenibilidad y habitabilidad del planeta. Ambos protegen nuestra nuestra salud, poniendo barreras naturales a los virusLa agricultura es medio ambiente, forma agroecosistemas, y las prácticas sostenibles en agricultura sirven tanto a la salud de la población como a la del planeta.

Los agroecosistemas producen mucho más que alimentos. Cuando están bien mantenidos y en armonía con la naturaleza, sus diversas funciones sirven al bienestar humano, generan servicios ecosistémicos. Por ejemplo:

  • filtran el agua en los suelos y fijan el propio suelo en su lugar,
  • disminuyen inundaciones y coladas de barro,
  • atraen polinizadores,
  • retienen carbono en suelos y vegetación, que no se incorpora a la atmósfera disminuyendo los gases de efecto invernadero,
  • y albergan paisajes que son herencias culturales de territorios, preservando su memoria colectiva.

La agricultura dentro del Pacto Verde europeo

El Pacto Verde europeo, que propone conseguir una Europa climáticamente neutra en 2050, y ser el primer continente climáticamente neutro, pone uno de sus focos en la agricultura. Pretende cambiar progresivamente la forma en que se practica hoy en día. Actualmente, es el segundo sector en emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (11 %) de la Unión Europea (UE), por delante del sector industrial.

El sistema agroindustrial intensivo actual de producción de alimentos y consumo no es sostenible. Es, en gran parte, responsable de desastres ambientales como la degradación de suelos sobreexplotados y formas de paisaje artificiales que propician inundaciones. Flujos cargados de nutrientes que contaminan ríos, lagunas interiores, acuíferos subterráneos y el mar.

Para poder realizar esta transición hacia una agricultura más verde y sostenible, en un plazo de tiempo corto, se ha diseñado dentro del Pacto Verde la estrategia “De la granja a la mesa”. Se trata de una amplia declaración de intenciones que abarca todo el sistema alimentario, desde la producción de alimentos, a la distribución y el consumo.

Esta estrategia quiere respetar los límites del planeta tanto al producir como al consumir; alimentos sanos en un mundo sano. La agricultura es, asimismo, un elemento clave en otro gran pilar del Pacto Verde: la estrategia de Biodiversidad, que entiende que un planeta sano pasa por una agricultura sostenible.

Plantación de tomillos alternando entre filas de almendros en campos de secano, extremadamente áridos y con suelos pobres, en el sureste español. La diversificación de cultivos con aromáticas es una alternativa de manejo de agroecosistemas de secano con potenciales beneficios medioambientales: mejora de los suelos, control de la erosión, secuestro de carbono atmosférico en suelos y vegetación, que contribuye a mitigar el cambio climático. Además, favorece el aumento de polinizadores y de la biodiversidad, con potenciales beneficios económicos. Ejemplo del proyecto Diverfarming. Carolina Boix FayosAuthor provided

La estrategia “De la granja a la mesa” propone alcanzar un mínimo de un 25 % de agricultura ecológica en territorio europeo, reducir un 50 % el uso de pesticidas y un 20 % el uso de fertilizantes, todo ello en menos de una década (2030). Estos cambios son un importante reto para nuestra sociedad.

Pero, dada la complejidad de los sistemas de producción y distribución de alimentos y sus efectos, nos preguntamos:

Los desafíos de la estrategia europea

Una cosa parece clara: una transición viable hacia una agricultura más verde no puede basarse solo en la producción sostenible, sino también en el consumo responsable. Los cambios, frecuentemente, no son tan fáciles y directos. Bajo la estrategia “De la granja a la mesa” subyacen una serie de desafíos invisibles:

¿La producción será suficiente?

No existe consenso científico sobre si un aumento importante de la producción en ecológico podrá alimentar a la población mundial. Según la cumbre de la FAO de 2008 en Roma sobre Seguridad Alimentaria Mundial, la producción de alimentos debe aumentar un 50 % para 2030, y duplicarse para 2050 para alimentar a 9 mil millones de personas en el planeta. Pero no toda la comunidad científica está completamente de acuerdo en estas previsiones.

En este contexto, la UE pretende convertir un mínimo del 25 % del terreno agrícola a agricultura ecológica, a pesar de que algunos estudios indicaron una disminución de la producción entre el 20 % y el 35 % en agricultura ecológica comparada con la agricultura convencional. La clave podría estar en combinar esta medida con otras.

¿Qué ocurre con las restricciones de fertilizantes?

La adición limitada de fertilizantes minerales en agricultura ecológica, como por ejemplo nitrógeno, provoca su búsqueda en otras fuentes alternativas, como la plantación de leguminosas. Para compensar este déficit de nitrógeno sintético, se debe utilizar más superficie para plantar leguminosas, que fijan biológicamente el nitrógeno, y sirve para suministrar nitrógeno a cultivos no leguminosos. Esto implica menor superficie disponible para otros cultivos. La fijación de nitrógeno por leguminosas propuesta por la agricultura ecológica necesitaría 2,6 unidades de tierra más para producir el mismo rendimiento que la agricultura convencional.

Monocultivo de mandarinos diversificado con cebada y veza. Tanto la cebada como la veza son fijadoras de nitrógeno en el suelo. Su cultivo en calles anteriormente desnudas, aumenta la biodiversidad y mejora la calidad del suelo: favorece la infiltración y previene la erosión, al mismo tiempo que mejora su estructura y potencialmente el secuestro de carbono. Ejemplo del proyecto Diverfarming. Carolina Boix FayosAuthor provided

¿Cambiaremos nuestra dieta?

La agricultura ecológica combinada con una reducción de la ganadería es una solución prometedora para avanzar en sistemas alimentarios sostenibles. La reducción de la ganadería implicaría una reducción de la demanda de tierra para alimentar al ganado.

Esta solución pasa necesariamente por un cambio en la dieta, reduciendo el consumo de productos animales, con implicaciones positivas para el medio ambiente y la salud de la población. Aquí desempeñan un papel importante, de nuevo, las leguminosas. Además de fijar nitrógeno en el suelo, necesario para los cultivos, el consumo de legumbres como fuente de proteínas compensaría el descenso del consumo de proteínas de origen animal.

¿Reduciremos el desperdicio alimentario?

Junto con la reducción de la ganadería y el aumento de la agricultura ecológica, la reducción del desperdicio alimentario es clave. Hay varias causas de desperdicio de alimentos: problemas de procesamiento y falta de planificación adecuada, pérdidas tras las cosechas para control de precios, y el desperdicio que hacemos en nuestras propias casas. Por ejemplo, un consumidor estadounidense medio desperdicia una cuarta parte de la comida diaria disponible para el consumo y un 7 % de la tierra de cultivo anual.

De aproximadamente un tercio de los alimentos producidos a nivel mundial que no se consumen, alrededor de un 14 % corresponde a pérdidas tras las cosechas. Esta es una práctica principalmente utilizada en países relativamente ricos para controlar los precios de mercado, evitando que los precios bajen por debajo de los costes de producción. Tiene un elevado impacto ambiental, y además consume recursos naturales que finalmente no aportan alimentos al mercado.

¿Externalizaremos los impactos negativos?

El riesgo de externalizar el daño de la agricultura intensiva a otros países que no ponen limitaciones al uso de pesticidas, herbicidas, fertilizantes y deforestación para uso agrícola, pero suministran alimentos a la UE, es uno de los peligros de esta estrategia. La misma estrategia reconoce que el sistema alimentario de la UE debe acompañarse de políticas similares a nivel mundial, para evitar que Europa importe alimentos producidos en otros países en condiciones no sostenibles.

Respetar la naturaleza y los derechos sociales

La estrategia deja abiertas diferentes vías para la consecución de sus objetivos, sin concretar de momento más allá. Prevé utilizar algunos instrumentos legales, entre ellos:

  • El Fondo Europeo Agrario de Desarrollo Rural (FEADER).
  • Diferentes directivas y planes de acción (Plan de Acción para la Economía Circular, Gestión Integrada de Plagas, etc.).
  • La Política Agraria Común (PAC) adaptada a cada estado miembro.

La estrategia da especial importancia a los derechos sociales, con foco en los trabajadores precarios, estacionales y no declarados, mano de obra demasiado frecuente en la agricultura intensiva. Y apoya el impulso de diferentes estrategias de manejo agrícola sostenible. Actualmente, conviven, y se solapan, variadas prácticas agrícolas verdes. Buscan compatibilizar la producción de alimentos, modos de vida sostenible y dignos con:

Paisaje con almendros y cubierta verde

Cubierta verde en almendro de secano en Almería, Sierra María-Los Vélez. El manejo de cubiertas verdes en monocultivos de secano aporta variados servicios ecosistémicos: mantiene la humedad del suelo y la fijación de nutrientes, aumenta la biodiversidad dentro del suelo y sobre el mismo, aumenta la infiltración de agua en el suelo, reduciendo la erosión, y mejora la calidad del paisaje. Este paisaje es ejemplo de inspiración para iniciativas pioneras que promocionan los valores del entorno rural, a través de personas y asociaciones dedicadas como Dietmar Roth y la asociación Alvelal. Joris de VenteAuthor provided

Algunas de estas prácticas pueden ser similares, aunque con diferentes matices. Distintos sistemas agrícolas, con enfoques desde más intensivos a más extensivos. Algunos poniendo el acento en la productividad, optimizando recursos (agricultura de precisión, vertical) hasta los que tienen como finalidad dejar una herencia medioambiental y cultural limpia y en buenas condiciones a futuras generaciones (agricultura regenerativa).

Generalizando, podemos agruparlos en dos grandes modelos. Ambos coinciden en algunos aspectos y discrepan en otros:

  1. La intensificación sostenible. Se centra en optimizar la agricultura a gran escala mientras se reducen sus impactos medioambientales negativos. Su lema podría resumirse en “alimenta al mundo de forma sostenible”.
  2. La agroecología. Aplica principios ecológicos y de sostenibilidad a todo el sistema alimentario, poniendo el foco en promover los procesos naturales del ecosistema para producir alimentos, basándose en el conocimiento tradicional y local. Busca la justicia social y la soberanía alimentaria, empoderando a los productores. Su lema podría resumirse en “ayuda al mundo a alimentarse de forma sostenible”.

La polémica y los conflictos entre enfoques están servidos, desde los que acusan al primer modelo de seguir sometido al sistema neoliberal y realizar green washing hasta los que acusan al segundo de ser poco realista y no poder aplicarse a gran escala.

El foco en la agricultura del Pacto Verde es enormemente ambicioso, pero necesario. Nos saca de la inacción. Es probablemente mejorable, pero puede significar un cambio en la concepción de los sistemas alimentarios y en la utilización de la naturaleza al servicio de la humanidad. Aprovechemos esta oportunidad, busquemos la equidad y trabajemos con la naturaleza, no contra ella.

Publicado con permiso de The Conversation

Nature Funding Must Triple by 2030 to Protect Land, Wildlife and Climate

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Global annual spending to protect and restore nature needs to triple this decade to about $350 billion by 2030 and rise to $536 billion by 2050, a U.N. report said on Thursday, urging a shift in mindset among financiers, businesses and governments.

The inaugural State of Finance for Nature report looked at how to tackle the planet’s climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises, estimating about $8 trillion in investment would be needed by mid-century to safeguard natural systems.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told the report launch the amounts required may sound large but “it’s peanuts when we are frankly talking about securing the planet and our very own future”.

“Our health, the quality of our lives, our jobs, temperature regulation, the housing we build and of course the food we eat, the water we drink” all depend on well-functioning natural systems, she said.

Report co-author Ivo Mulder, who heads UNEP’s climate finance unit, said financial flows should work with nature rather than against it.

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Farm Policy Agenda for Regenerative Farming

Regenerative agriculture has become the new “buzzword” among critics of today’s large-scale, industrial agricultural operations. Its advocates claim that regenerative agriculture could sequester sufficient carbon in soil organic matter to mitigate and potentially reverse global climate change. They point to research and on-farm experience to support their claims. Farm policies proposing to pay farmers to sequester carbon have heightened interest in regenerative farming among farmers as well as agribusinesses. Claims that regenerative agriculture can increase productivity and profitability obviously add to the enthusiasm of farmers.

However, regenerative agriculture is not without its critics. Some soil scientists challenge claims that regenerative farming can capture or retain enough carbon in the soil to mitigate climate change. Others claim the focus should be on selecting, promoting, and perhaps genetic engineering specific crops to sequester carbon, rather than promoting some vaguely defined farming system. The “industrial agricultural establishment” seems to have bought into the concept of “agricultural intensification. They claim that producing more while using less land with fewer polluting inputs is the most effective means of meeting the ecological and food security challenges of the 21st century.

Regenerative agriculture is also being challenged with defensive tactics similar to those faced earlier by organic and sustainable agriculture. The “Real Organic Project” was established in defiance of compromises made by USDA to accommodate industrial production methods in certification of organic production. The concept of sustainable agriculture has been co-opted, redefined, and misused to the extent that some early advocates believe it has become useless. The term regenerative is already being used to promote specific carbon sequestering crops and production practices that can be accommodated without significant changes in industrial farming operations.

Like organic and sustainable farming, regenerative farming does not have a single, precise definition. Carbon Underground defines regenerative agriculture as “an integrated set of land management practices that utilizes plant photosynthesis to sequester carbon, restore soil health, increase crop resilience, and restore the nutrient density of foods.” Lists of regenerative practices typically include reduced reliance on tillage and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, increased adoption of cover crops, crop rotation and diversification, and management intensive grazing systems.

Internationally, regenerative farming is more likely to be defined as a system of production guided by common principles rather than practices. Rather than focusing on single objectives, such as carbon sequestration, regenerative agriculture has multiple social, economic, and ecological objectives. For example, Terra Genesis International defines regenerative agriculture as “a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services. . .  Regenerative Agriculture aims to reverse global climate change. At the same time, it offers increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming communities.”

Using this more comprehensive definition, regenerative agriculture must be economically viable as well as ecologically regenerative and socially responsible. However, markets will never provide adequate economic incentives to create sustainable regenerative systems of farming. The upfront economic costs of establishing regenerative farming operations are too high relative to the long-run economic payoff. Markets place heavy discounts on long-run future values relative to upfront present costs. Thus, a transition from industrial to regenerative agriculture will require fundamental changes in farm policies to make it economically feasible for existing, and beginning, farmers to justify the upfront costs of transitioning to, or establishing, regenerative farming systems.

The 2020 presidential campaigns provided compelling evidence of growing political support for such fundamental changes in farm policy. Virtually all of the Democratic candidates promised to address the challenge of climate change and other environmental problems associated with today’s industrial agriculture through farm policies framed in the language of the Green New Deal–a 2019 congressional resolution.  As with the more inclusive definition of regenerative farming, the Green New Deal recognizes that environmental problems are inseparable from the social and economic problems associated with industrial agriculture.

In addition to presidential candidates, various nonprofit organizations and think-tanks have developed political agendas around the principles in the Green New Deal. One such think-tank is Data for Progress, which has developed a Green New Deal Policy Series, that includes Regenerative Farming and the Green New Deal that we co-authored. The following is a brief outline of the farm policies included in this proposal.

1. Reform and eventually phase out current government subsidies of crop and livestock insurance for yields, prices, or gross revenues from specific crops and livestock species.

a. Limit producers’ eligibility for government subsidized crop insurance to commodities produced using approved practices to limit soil erosion, sequester soil carbon, and control pollution of air and water from agricultural chemical or biological wastes.

b. Place limits of total acreage and insurance coverage of all insured crops eligible for government subsidized crop insurance at $250,000 gross farm income or $50,000 net farm revenue per insured farm or insured farm family.

c. Over time, phase out government subsidized crop insurance programs for single crops and all other commodity-based programs, unless accompanied by supply management programs that eliminate incentives for production in excess of needs for domestic food security.

2. Replace current crop and livestock insurance programs with a Whole-Farm Net Revenue Insurance program, implemented through a special tax credit that shares the risks of transitioning from industrial agriculture to regenerative farming systems.

a. The new whole-farm net revenue protection program would reestablish the original concept of “parity” by ensuring a level of net farm revenue sufficient to guarantee farm family incomes on par or at parity with medium non-farm family income in the geographic area of the farm. The current USDA Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) program only ensures a percentage of anticipated “gross” farm revenue based on historic farm tax records for insured farms. Insuring a percentage of historic gross farm revenue would not ensure that a farm family could survive a transition to regenerative farming.

b. The new net revenue protection program might be called the Family Farm Transition Program (FFTP) and could be financed through guaranteed “tax credits,” similar to those in current “Earned Income Tax Credits” for low-income taxpayers. If a farm family’s total income falls below the insured level, farmers would get a tax credit from the government to make up the shortfall.

c. The objective of the FFTP would be to ensure long-run domestic food security by absorbing the risks inherent in establishing regenerative family farming operations or transitioning from unsustainable commercial farming operations to sustainable, regenerative full-time family farms. To apply for FFTP protection, farmers would be required to submit a whole-farm plan for establishing or transitioning to sustainable, regenerative whole-farm systems.

d. The primary role of the USDA and state Cooperative Research and Extension Service programs would be to conduct appropriate applied research and to facilitate the development and implementation of regenerative whole-farm plans needed by farmers to qualify for the program.

e. Farm plans would include farming practices similar to the current USDA Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), but all farming practices would be integrated into an approved regenerative whole-farm plan capable of sequestering carbon, rebuilding soil organic, restoring natural productivity and evolving to long-run economic viability. Families would be guaranteed a reasonable time to make the transition and would be assisted by other government programs.

3. Redirect USDA farm programs that currently incentivize and support industrial agriculture to incentivize, support, and prepare current farmers to transition from industrial farming practices to regenerative farming systems.

a. Reward farmers for undertaking practices that enhance ecological functions through government programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program.

b. Pay farmers to transition marginal croplands to pastures and retire marginal pastures to native prairie, particularly in historic prairie areas.

c. Incentivize pasture intercropping/rotational pasture crop systems in areas of lower yields croplands to reinvigorate them and add income streams.

d. Transition USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Cooperative Research and Extension programs from supporting industrial farming practices to facilitating the development of regenerative whole-farm systems.

e. Increase funding to the USDA Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and redirect these programs to incentivize and support the transition from industrial agriculture to regenerative farming systems.

f. Establish a joint incentive and education program through the USDA Agricultural Research Center (ARS) and NRCS for the agricultural production and use of compost, biochar, mulch and other organic amendments that improve soil health.

g. Grow the USDA research and development budget for carbon sequestration, soil health, and other regenerative practices as components of regenerative whole-farm systems.

 

The success or failure of the current regenerative agriculture movement will depend on whether U.S. farm policies are transformed from supporting industrial agriculture to making it economically possible for thoughtful, caring farmers to create and sustain regenerative farming systems. It’s important for consumers to vote with their dollars but it’s essential for citizens to vote and become involved in the processes of governance. The farm and food policies that currently support industrial agriculture can, and eventually must, be shifted to support and sustain regenerative agriculture. Here are a couple of action items we will leave you with so you can make a change:

 

A Green New Deal Must Offer Farmers a Way to Transition to Regenerative Agriculture

Last year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a resolution to Congress calling for an ambitious re-imagining of the U.S. economy―one that would tackle both climate change and inequality.

Now with broad support among democratic presidential hopefuls, the Green New Deal resolution highlights the transformation of energy, transportation, health care and employment systems in our country, while briefly mentioning food and agriculture.

We believe, however, that since agriculture is both a major contributor to climate change and one of the key solutions, it should be a major part of the Green New Deal. In a new report by Data for Progress, titled “Regenerative Farming and the Green New Deal,” we propose addressing climate change, and the economic hardship faced by small farmers, by providing a supportive transition from unhealthy soil practices to regenerative farming systems.

Right now, soil health is declining because intensive farming practices, including monocultures, deplete soil organic matter, destroy the biological health of soil, and increase the soil’s vulnerability to erosion.

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Regeneration International lanza Agricultores y ganaderos de EE.UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde

“Hoy, decenas de miles de jóvenes con el Movimiento Sunrise están uniendo las armas con las decenas de miles de agricultores y ganaderos en esta coalición histórica para exigir un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde que reinvierta en nuestras granjas familiares y les permitan ser los héroes que necesitamos para detener la crisis climática “. – Garrett Blad, Movimiento Sunrise, 18 de septiembre de 2019

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – El 18 de septiembre, Regeneration International, con la Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos (OCA) y Movimiento Sunrise, lanzó oficialmente la coalición nacional de agricultores y rancheros de EE. UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde.

Cinco miembros del Congreso de los Estados Unidos se unieron a la conferencia de prensa frente al Capitolio de los EE.UU. en Washington, D.C., para pedir un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde para los agricultores y ganaderos. (Lea el comunicado de prensa en inglés aquí).

Más temprano en el día, la coalición entregó una carta a cada miembro del Congreso, firmada por más de 500 granjas individuales y 50 organizaciones que representan a más de 10.000 agricultores y ganaderos, pidiéndole al Congreso que apoye la Resolución del Nuevo Acuerdo Verde y prometiendo trabajar con el Congreso para reformar la política alimentaria y agrícola de los Estados Unidos.

Representantes de Women, Food & Agriculture Network, Indiana Farmers Union y American Sustainable Business Council se unieron a la conferencia de prensa, que fue cubierta por varios medios de comunicación, incluidos Politico, The Hill, Civil Eats y FERN AgInsider.

 

La coalición se centrará en una reforma de políticas muy necesaria

Como el agricultor y escritor de Ohio, Gene Logdson, escribió en su artículo, “El mito del pequeño terrateniente hecho a sí mismo:”

Ninguna figura es más entrañable y duradera en la agricultura que el labrador solitario que se encuentra en el horizonte y que se alza con sus propias botas para el éxito financiero. El único problema es que no hay ocupación más dependiente de la cooperación de la sociedad y la naturaleza para lograr el éxito que la agricultura.

La “cooperación de la sociedad” debe incluir el apoyo político. Sin embargo, es difícil obtener apoyo político en los EE. UU. para los agricultores y ganaderos orgánicos y regenerativos, cuando la gran industria agrícola gasta más en hacer presión para conseguir políticas que apoyan sus prácticas degenerativas de monocultivos y fábricas de OGM que los grupos de presión para el sector de defensa, según informa Truthout .

Los esfuerzos de presión de los agronegocios generan subsidios por valor de miles de millones de dólares, que se destinan principalmente a los agricultores más grandes y ricos, cuyas prácticas contaminan nuestras vías fluviales, producen comida chatarra y destruyen la salud del suelo. De hecho, el 15% más grande de las empresas agrícolas recibe el 85% de los 25 mil millones de dólares gastados anualmente en subsidios agrícolas.

Como dijo el representante Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) en la conferencia de prensa de lanzamiento de los agricultores y rancheros de EE. UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde:

“Estamos pagando demasiado a las personas equivocadas para que cultiven los alimentos equivocados en los lugares equivocados”.

 

Empoderar a los agricultores para que trabajen para todos nosotros

¿Cómo compiten los agricultores y ganaderos regenerativos y orgánicos independientes con los grandes bolsillos de la gran industria agrícola por políticas que los ayuden y, por extensión, nos ayuden a todos? ¿Políticas que los capaciten para la transición a prácticas que mantengan limpia nuestra agua? ¿Políticas que nos den a más de nosotros un mejor acceso a alimentos más saludables? ¿Y políticas que restablezcan la estabilidad climática?

Esperamos que sea mediante la formación de una coalición de pressión de base que trabaje junto con, no solo en paralelo con, los movimientos de alimentos y salud natural, los movimientos de justicia social y económica, los ambientalistas y los activistas climáticos para presionar al Congreso para que apruebe un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde para los agricultores y ganaderos.

La semana pasada fue solo el comienzo. Ahora comienza el trabajo. La coalición trabajará para hacerse más grande y poderosa: desde su lanzamiento en septiembre, la coalición ha crecido para incluir 600 agricultores / ganaderos individuales y 52 organizaciones que representan un total de aproximadamente 20.000 agricultores.

Los miembros de la coalición ahora están organizando actividades de divulgación de agricultor a agricultor. Se desplegarán en sus comunidades para conectarse con consumidores, ambientalistas, grupos eclesiásticos y activistas climáticos, cualquiera que se preocupe por el futuro de nuestra comida y nuestro medio ambiente.

En última instancia, la coalición utilizará el poder de base que construye para trabajar con el Congreso, especialmente el Comité Asesor del Congreso de la coalición, para ampliar rápidamente el cambio en las políticas alimentarias y agrícolas de Estados Unidos. Los planes incluyen organizar sesiones informativas y audiencias del Congreso e invitar a los miembros del Congreso a visitar granjas regenerativas para ver por sí mismos cómo la agricultura regenerativa restaura la salud del suelo, incluyendo el potencial del suelo para secuestrar carbono y revitalizar las economías locales.

Siga estos enlaces (en inglés) para obtener más información sobre los agricultores y ganaderos de EE. UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde:

Cobertura de la prensa de los agricultores y ganaderos de EE. UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde

¿Qué son los agricultores y ganaderos de EE. UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde?

¿Cuáles son los objetivos políticos de la coalición?

¿Cómo puedo apoyar a los agricultores y ganaderos de EE. UU. para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde?

Los agricultores y ganaderos estadounidenses pueden unirse a la coalición firmando esta carta.

 

Katherine Paul es directora de comunicaciones de Regeneration International. Para mantenerse al día con Regeneration International, suscríbase a nuestro boletín.

 

$1M a Minute: The Farming Subsidies Destroying the World – Report

The public is providing more than $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, much of which is driving the climate crisis and destruction of wildlife, according to a new report.

Just 1% of the $700bn (£560bn) a year given to farmers is used to benefit the environment, the analysis found. Much of the total instead promotes high-emission cattle production, forest destruction and pollution from the overuse of fertiliser.

The security of humanity is at risk without reform to these subsidies, a big reduction in meat eating in rich nations and other damaging uses of land, the report says. But redirecting the subsidies to storing carbon in soil, producing healthier food, cutting waste and growing trees is a huge opportunity, it says.

The report rejects the idea that subsidies are needed to supply cheap food. It found that the cost of the damage currently caused by agriculture is greater than the value of the food produced. New assessments in the report found producing healthy, sustainable food would actually cut food prices, as the condition of the land improves.

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The Green New Deal Wants Farmers to Restore the Land, Not Keep Wrecking It

By the time California rancher Doniga Markegard picks up the phone around lunchtime, she has already moved the chickens, fed the chickens, fed the pigs, cared for a new litter of 11 piglets, moved the sheep, tended to the horses, milked the cow, and completed a business advising session about the future of her family’s 10,000-acre operation. Overall, a pretty typical Monday.

“We’re good at working with the land and working with the animals, but then all of a sudden you have to add marketing and sales and inventory management,” says Markegard. Based 50 miles south of San Francisco in Half Moon Bay, Markegard and her family produce grass-fed beef and lamb and pastured pork and chicken for customers in the Bay Area. If they operated in a more traditional way, they would specialize in a single product and plug neatly into the industrial agriculture system. Instead, in order to break even, they have to run the equivalent of a consumer-facing small business with a farm attached.

“We’d love to just be out on the land with the livestock, doing what we do, but that’s not practical when you really want to be fully regenerative,” she says.

Regenerative agriculture might sound at first like a subtle variation on organic. But if the term “organic” highlights what’s absent—no chemical fertilizers, no pesticides—”regenerative” goes a step further, advocating for practices like adaptive multi-paddock grazing, in which ruminants like cows and sheep are slowly rotated across a property, so they graze on and fertilize one section of the farm at a time while allowing the rest to naturally regrow and replenish. Methods like this require more hands-on planning involvement from the farmers, but they’ve been found to restore soil health, capture carbon, and help ranches thrive over the long term.

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Why the Food and Regeneration Movement Should Support a Green New Deal

“The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan… Half measures will not work… The time for slow and incremental efforts has long past [sic].” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then-candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, Huffington Post, June 26, 2018

“Just transitioning 10 percent of agricultural production to best-practice regenerative systems will sequester enough CO2 to reverse climate change and restore the global climate. Regenerative Agriculture can change agriculture from being a major contributor to climate change to becoming a major solution.” – Andre Leu, international director, Regeneration International, “Reversing Climate Change with Regenerative Agriculture,” October 9, 2018

Photo credit: Pixabay

The ‘Great Climate Awakening’ of 2018

The final months of 2018 will likely be remembered as the decisive moment when the global grassroots awakened to the life-or-death threat posed by global warming. With violent weather and climate disasters becoming the norm, and international scientists finally shedding their customary caution to report that we must drastically slash (by at least 45 percent) global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, hundreds of millions of ordinary people across the world seemed to simultaneously wake up.

Young climate activists under the banner of the Sunrise Movement in the U.S. and the Extinction Rebellion in the UK and other countries, sat in at politicians’ offices. They blocked streets and roadways. They demanded immediate and bold action.

The Green New Deal is born

In the U.S., an insurgent slate of newly elected members of Congress, inspired by the Sunrise Movement and led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have generated headlines and popular support by calling for a Green New Deal (GND), a 21st Century upgrade of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal carried out during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Given the severity of the climate crisis, and the deterioration of the U.S. and global status quo (economic, political, health and environment), it’s no exaggeration to state that the GND is perhaps the most significant blueprint for system change in 100 years.

The GND’s call for a mass conversion to renewable energy and zero emissions of greenhouse gases in the U.S. by 2030, is in line with what most scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.

But what’s new, and long overdue in this  evolving manifesto is that the GND also calls for the greening, “just transition” and elimination of greenhouse gas emissions from our multi-trillion-dollar food and farming system as well. That call is long overdue, especially given that our degenerative food system generates 44-57 percent  of all global greenhouse gases.

The GND draft statement calls for “eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries, including by investing in local-scale agriculture in communities across the country.” It also calls for funding “massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases.”

Beyond offering comprehensive energy and agricultural solutions for our climate emergency, what is truly game-changing and revolutionary about the GND is that it calls for system-wide economic regeneration as well: full employment, $15/hr. minimum wage, universal health care, free public education, and economic justice for all—policies extremely popular with the overwhelming majority of the body politic, including students, working class communities and low-income groups.

By bringing together the concerns of youth, food, farmer, environmental and climate activists, with the bread-and-butter concerns of workers and frontline communities, the GND offers nothing less than a contemporary roadmap for survival and regeneration.

As Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association, pointed out in a recent email urging groups to sign on to the GND, it is economic injustice, the lack of money in the pockets of workers and consumers, the 80 percent of ordinary people who live from paycheck to paycheck, that has, in large part, held back the greening of America:

Who wouldn’t drive a Tesla, put up solar panels, or buy an energy efficient home in a walkable neighborhood with great public transportation? Everyone wants these things. We all want to enjoy good health, breathe clean air and drink pure water. There aren’t many families who would have to be convinced to eat locally grown organic health food if it were available and they could afford it. The problem is we’ve got student debt. Our mortgages are under water. We’ve got medical bills and childcare to pay for. And many of us have been too poor to go to college, buy a house or start a family. Our country’s struggling family farmers have the same problem. Sure, they’d love to go organic and pay their workers fairly. They want to do what’s best for their families, their communities and their environment. They just have to figure out how to avoid foreclosure and bankruptcy first.

Support grows quickly for the GND, but so do attacks

With unprecedented speed, Ocasio-Cortez, insurgent Democrats and the Sunrise Movement have stimulated massive media coverage and generated significant public support for the GND, putting radical change on the national agenda. 84 members of Congress, and 11 U.S. Senators, leading 2020 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, hundreds of local officials, and over 600 activist organizations have already endorsed the GND.

In late-2018, polls indicated that 81 percent of Americans support full employment, economic justice and renewable energy, as outlined in the GND.

Yet despite initial strong support for the GND among activists and the general public, establishment politicians (both Democrats and Republicans) and the corporate media have launched a massive counter-attack, denouncing the GND (and Ocasio-Cortez and her allies) as “utopian,” “radical,” “impractical” and even “dangerous.”

The unfortunate truth is that Congress and the mass media are infected and dominated by powerful climate emergency deniers and establishment politicians taking money from fossil fuel companies, climate-destructive industrial agribusiness and Wall Street. Yet with global scientists sounding the alarm that the onset of runaway global warming (with atmospheric CO2 levels of 450 ppm or higher) is not 80 years away or even 50 years away, but more like a dozen years away unless we drastically change course, it can hardly be called “utopian” to organize around a bold emissions-reduction, drawdown and economic development plan that can avert catastrophe, and improve the lives of everyday people at the same time.

Painting Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement as “radical” is not likely to derail the growing insurgency. Because a radical emergency more serious than anything humans have ever faced in our 200,000-year evolution demands a radical solution. As Cortez said in an interview on “60 Minutes” on January 6 (watched by 11 million people), she admits to being a “radical”—not unlike previous “radicals” in American history, including Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who likewise confronted severe crises demanding radical solutions.

Is it possible to achieve zero emissions in the U.S. by 2030?

On the same “60 Minutes” show, Ocasio-Cortez was pressed on the practicality of zero fossil fuel emissions by 2030. The host tried to trip her up by asking if zero emissions meant that all of us would be driving electric cars within a decade. She responded by saying that there are technological breakthroughs on the horizon that we can’t even imagine yet.

Although it’s undoubtedly true that there are technical breakthroughs in renewable energy and electric cars on the horizon, I wasn’t fully satisfied with Ocasio-Cortez’s answer (even though I admit she’s my favorite political leader of all time). Here’s how I would have answered that question:

“Millions of Americans are going to be driving electric cars in 2030. But you’re right, a lot of us will still be driving our old gasoline-powered vehicles. If you read the details of our proposed Green New Deal carefully, you’ll see that we’re not just talking about rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions, the CO2 and other greenhouse gases we put up into the sky by burning fossil fuels. We’re also talking about drawing down these same greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, utilizing climate-friendly farming practices that qualitatively increase plant photosynthesis, soil fertility and natural carbon sequestration. These regenerative practices include farming organically, holistic grazing, improving soil health, and restoring our forests, grasslands and wetlands. In other words, we can and must reach zero net emissions in 2030 by drawing down as much atmospheric carbon as we’re still putting up.

“The Green New Deal aims to change not only our climate-destructive energy, manufacturing and transportation systems, but also our degenerative food and farming systems. The Green New Deal is designed to raise the living standards for all Americans, including low-income workers in both rural and urban communities, so that all of us can choose and afford healthier and more climate-friendly lifestyles. In the next decade we must facilitate a just transition away from climate-destabilizing factory farms and fossil fuel-intensive agriculture, at the same time as we switch, as rapidly possible, to 100-percent renewable energy. With renewable energy and regenerative food, farming and land use working in synergy, there is no doubt that we can reach zero net emissions by 2030, significant negative net emissions by 2050, and literally, along with the rest of the world, reverse global warming and avert climate catastrophe.”

We know what to do. The best practices and practitioners in alternative energy, infrastructure rebuilding and regenerative food and farming are already visible in or near our local communities. We simply need to mobilize politically to scale up these practices utilizing the power of a GND. But we’re running out of time unless we can quickly build a massive united front, elect new GND supporters to Congress and the White House in 2020, and pass federal legislation for a GND starting in 2021, as Ocasio-Cortez puts it, “similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan.”

The time to join the GND revolution is now. For more information on the Sunrise Movement’s upcoming activities, click here.

Ronnie Cummins is international director of the Organic Consumers Association and a member of theRegeneration International steering committee.

Reposted with permission from Common Dreams

Soil Biodiversity and Soil Organic Carbon: Why Should Nations Invest in It to Keep Drylands Alive?

Author: Graciela Metternicht | Published: June 18, 2018

The 2018 World Day to Combat Desertification calls to reflect on the true value of land and the need to invest in it; healthy soils are central to sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development increases the demand on soils to provide food, water and energy security, protect biodiversity, and mitigate climate change, increasing the centrality of soils in global environmental and development politics. SDG target 15.3, on Land Degradation Neutrality, reflects the growing awareness that land, and by extension soil biodiversity and soil organic carbon, is both a natural resource and a public good that underpins wider sustainable development.

Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) and soil biodiversity are key to the multifunctionality of a landscape, and the reason why strengthening investment and legislation in sustainable land management is considered to be central to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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Soil Candidates Running for the Climate

Authors: Karl Thidemann, Seth Itzkan and Bill McKibben | Published: May 30, 2018

Across the nation, the first wave of a political movement rooted in agriculture’s role as a climate solution is gathering momentum. Unseen by most city dwellers and suburbanites, a carbon farming revolution is sweeping over the land. Driven by a mix of economic and ecological reasons, a growing number of farmers and ranchers are adopting practices to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where it overheats the planet, into soil, where it boosts fertility. Plants have performed this pollution-to-nutrition alchemy nearly forever, with the deep, dark loam found in the world’s breadbaskets attesting to soil’s ability to keep carbon out of the air for thousands of years. Research suggests photosynthesis could “lock up” enough carbon to help civilization avert a climate catastrophe – assuming, of course, emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas are swiftly reduced through the deployment of renewable energy technologies.

Converting agriculture, from a net source of greenhouse gases to a net sink, flips the climate imperative from “do less harm” to “do more good,” a proactive planetary healing that recognizes ecological restoration is climate mitigation. As one sign that so-called regenerative agriculture is going mainstream, Kiss The Ground, a California-based advocacy organization, will soon release a soil documentary featuring cameos by a celebrity couple not known for farm activism: Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen.

The right policies, of course, will be key to hastening a transition to climate-friendly agriculture, and democracy is answering the call. Healthy soil has risen from an obscure topic to a key issue for a small but swelling cadre of candidates able to think beyond the next election cycle.

Audrey Denney, candidate for Congress in California’s 1st District, encourages voters to send her to Washington, D.C. to “fight for the health of our soils, our planet, and our future.” Denney, raised in a farming family, studied Agricultural Education then learned agro-ecology by assisting with projects in El Salvador and Ghana. “At a federal level, I’d work for more funding to increase the staff of the Natural Resource Conservation Service, which does a great job providing technical assistance on stewarding and building our soil health. I’m also committed to an outcome-based system rather than a practice-based system, empowering farmers to find creative and economically viable climate mitigation solutions,” said Denney.

Bob Massie, a social justice activist, ordained minister, and former head of Ceres, an organization working to green the world’s largest companies, is campaigning to be the next governor of Massachusetts on a platform supporting agriculture’s unique role in reversing global warming. “Farmers, businesses, government agencies – even backyard gardeners – can manage land to capture carbon dioxide in soil and improve soil health,” said Massie.

Also in Massachusetts, PhD physicist Gary Rucinski, Northeast Regional Coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby, is hoping to unseat U.S. Representative Joe Kennedy III in the 4th Congressional District. According to the challenger, the incumbent doesn’t support the bold action needed to address the climate crisis, such as a transition to farming practices that mitigate climate change. “I am encouraged by draft Massachusetts legislation seeking to advance the practice of regenerative agriculture in the Commonwealth. Agriculture that improves soil carbon content is both a climate and a food security measure. As a representative in the U.S. Congress, I would advocate for changes to the federal Farm Bill to promote soil health,” said Rucinski.

Nate Kleinman, well known Occupy activist and co-founder of the Experimental Farm Network, is running for U.S. Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd district. Equal parts organizer and farmer, Kleinman’s nonprofit is devoted to the collaborative breeding of plants resilient to a changing climate, with a focus on long-rooted perennial food crops that sequester carbon in soil. Kleinman promises to “Incentivize regenerative organic agriculture and small family farms, and support farmers who choose to transition to sustainable methods.”

Arden Andersen, a physician, farmer, and regenerative agriculture educator running for governor of Kansas, recently tweeted, “Appropriate farm technology can make Kansas carbon neutral in 5 years due to carbon sequestration into soil humus.” Andersen is credited with coining the term “nutrient-dense,” used to describe food high in minerals and vitamins. Crops raised in carbon-rich soils derive all the nutrition they require for vigorous growth from bacteria and fungi working symbiotically with a plant’s root system, with no need for costly fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides.

Billy Garrett, running for lieutenant governor of New Mexico, wrote recently in the Santa Fe New Mexican that, “Regenerative agriculture and ranching practices – such as shifting from inorganic to organic fertilizer, planting cover crops and applying compost to rangeland – have the potential to substantially increase the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil while increasing yields and enhancing water retention.” Economic revitalization is also promised. “A revolution in regenerative agriculture could mean a new source of income for New Mexico’s rural communities, allowing farmers and ranchers to generate carbon offsets,” said Garrett.

Regenerative agriculture candidates have found a home on social media in the Twitter feed of Citizens Regeneration Lobby (CRL), the political lobbying arm of the 850,000-member strong Organic Consumers Association. Alexis Baden-Mayer, director of CRL, notes that the roster of traditional farm issues, such as the regulation of pesticides and fertilizer runoff, has expanded this political season to include recognition of agriculture’s role as the only sector of the economy poised to reverse climate change. “One of the most exciting aspects of regenerative agriculture is how quickly this climate mitigation tool can be ‘switched on.’ Farmers and ranchers can, within a few years, transition to land management practices that make their farms not just carbon-neutral but carbon-negative, sequestering more CO2 than is emitted. The remarkable potential of agriculture to sequester literally billions of tons of carbon annually offers a much needed glimmer of hope on the climate front,” said Baden-Mayer.

Elizabeth Kucinich, Board Policy Chair for the Rodale Institute, the oldest organic research organization in America, observes that improving degraded land offers economic and health benefits. “Returning carbon to soil boosts the natural capital of farms by helping farmers become more profitable and, by decreasing nutrient runoff, prevents algal blooms linked to human illness and harm to wildlife,” said Kucinich.

Heralded by California’s pioneering Healthy Soils Program, paying farmers to return carbon to soil, and France’s aspirational “4 per 1000” international initiative, encouraging farmers worldwide to enrich soil organic matter by 0.4% each year to stabilize the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, the regenerative agriculture transformation is well underway. It must accelerate, lest the planet bake for millennia.

Seth Itzkan and Karl Thidemann are co-founders of Soil4Climate, a Vermont-based nonprofit advocating for soil restoration to reverse global warming. Bill McKibben is the Schumann distinguished scholar at Middlebury College and founder of the anti-climate change campaign group 350.org.

Reposted with permission from Soil4Climate.