O. De Schutter, world agricultural model is running out!

[Christophe]

An interview of the day by the successor of Jean Ziegler: https://www.econologie.com/forums/destructio ... 12239.html

Olivier De Schutter: "Our world agricultural model is out of breath"

A food price crisis, discussions on biofuels or the "land grab" in a duel with barbed Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) until 2013: the six years that 'spent the Belgian lawyer Olivier de Schutter as Special rapporteur of the United Nations for the right to food have been fulfilled. When its mandate expires Wednesday April 30 and the Turkish Hilal Elver should succeed him in a few weeks, he says the agribusiness model is outdated and that the solution to the current food challenges will not come from states but citizens.

(...)

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2 ... _3244.html

[Christophe]

The conclusion sums up "everything" ...

What have you learned during your six years in office?

I believed in the omnipotence of the state, I now believe in the omnipotence of democracy. I no longer think that flaw passively wait for governments to act for themselves. The blockages are too many; the pressures on them, too real; and actors impeding change, too powerful.

I think the food processing systems will operate from local initiatives. Everywhere I go in the world, I see people who are tired of being seen as consumers or voters and want to be real agents of change by trying to invent ways more responsible production and consumption.

The final message that I give to governments is the need to democratize the food systems. This means they must admit that they do not hold all the answers and to be given a large place to the citizens in decision making. I now believe more to a transition imposed by the bottom-up initiatives that by regulations imposed from above.

https://www.econologie.com/agriculture-m ... -4453.html

[paysan.bio]

I see Olivier de SCHUTTER making lectures everywhere.
I think we have to be wary of the elites who say that LAND GRABBING is a chance for the poor.
Instead of fighting against the scam of land theft, we accompany him.
When one is able to think of it at a moment, can one become a theorist of agriculture of the future?

The UN wants to control the road to farmland,

Le Monde, 15 / 06 / 09
Jean-Pierre Stroobants (with Antoine Le Bozec), Brussels correspondent

Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, is concerned about the rapid expansion of land acquisitions and leases in developing countries by wealthy states and investment funds.

This practice of land grabbing accelerated thanks to the food crisis of 2008.
Mr De Schutter said that the issue should be on the agenda of the G8 agricultural talks, the summit of the eight most industrialized countries, in July.

He puts forward eleven human rights principles which he believes should serve as a basis for future contracts and a multilateral approach in order to avoid threats to local populations.

It is estimated that from 15 to 20 million ha (ha) - the equivalent of French arable land - has been the subject of transactions for three years, mainly in Africa.
China has bought 2,8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo to develop the world's largest palm oil production.
South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt acquired a total of more than 1,5 million ha in Sudan. Saudi Arabia would like to rent half a million ha in Tanzania.

Experts estimate that by 2030, 120 million hectares of additional agricultural land will have to be found to meet the demand for food products."These investments can represent an opportunity for development, create infrastructure and employment, allow farmers to access technology and credit, notes Mr. De Schutter.
They can also have very negative consequences and threaten both the right to food and the other rights of the populations concerned. "

In the absence of negotiated rules, farmers are, and will be, expelled and deprived of access to the resources indispensable to their survival.

The paradox, noted the special representative, is that among the people most exposed to food risk are 500 million men and women on whom the future of the planet largely depends: they are wage workers in the agricultural sector. "Providing them with adequate protection would be a major contribution," he said.
Mr De Schutter also called for investments to be coupled with labor-intensive projects, which would give employment and income to local groups. They should, moreover, have to reserve part of the crops, to be put up for sale on the local markets. The Special Representative further requested that the principles of sustainable development and an agro-ecological approach be respected everywhere.
Only a multilateral approach, he concludes, will help to avoid competition between poor countries that want to attract capital.

http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/planete/artic ... _3244.html

[Did67]

Far be it from me to compare myself with O. de Schutter.

But I prefer to talk about what I know.

I have, for many years of my professional life, made the choice of "entryism". That is to say the choice to put your hands in the sludge of various "things" ...

For someone who wants to be an honest man, this is not always easy. We inevitably arrive at the limits of the system. We "stretch a rubber band" which we do not know where it will break ...

Even when you try to think, the "conceptual environment" rubs off on you. It is illusory, I think, to be in a "thing" and not be subject to this influence.

I still felt that it is better to be in the big things to "improve" them, since they are there. Rather than giving way to "idiots" ...

But I understand that this can be criticized.

I see today the happiness that it is to be able to express oneself freely and to make only to his head. But I am also aware that the influence we have is not measurable [it is not the 5 000 subscribers that I have on Youtube that will change the world of gardening! It is with Botanic, Jardina, Geolia, etc that I would have to cobble together to weigh ...].

[paysan.bio]

What irritates me is that people like O. de SCHUTTER have no idea of ​​the techniques of agronomy that must be put in place to restore a new meaning to agriculture.
They feel that the current model does not work but apart from setting out broad lines, there is nothing concrete.
There is nothing concrete when young people are ready for a new economic model that works.
Apart from the hellouin beak, there is little concrete on this new model.

Apart from subsidizing expensive industrial bio will only work for a while.

Didier,
The goal is not to rally against all those who enter the system,
The aim is to remember that decisions must be made in agreement with the people concerned and not only between people who consider themselves experts but who will not have to suffer the consequences of bad decisions.
I find that they do everything precisely so as not to put their hands in the sludge, not to tire to get to the end of things.

As far as phenoculture is concerned, you have already seen the journalists arrive, soon, sooner or later, the commercial channels will contact you.
Will it make progress through their influence? I doubt it because there is not much to sell. It will just be good for their image.

It is not the number of subscribers that I find revolutionary, it is the SHARING of information.
It is the fact that people start even when they are told that they may sometimes have nasty surprises ...

You often warn that the model is not transferable to farmers, yet I think the opposite.
It is not directly transposable with the technique you use but the principle is good.
The real problem is always to prevent this model from industrializing and losing its values ​​(such as industrial bio).

I would have the balls to see these techniques used with chemistry when there is no need.

[Did67]

Didier,
The goal is not to rally against all those who enter the system,
The aim is to remember that decisions must be made in agreement with the people concerned and not only between people who consider themselves experts but who will not have to suffer the consequences of bad decisions.
I find that they do everything precisely so as not to put their hands in the sludge, not to tire to get to the end of things.

As far as phenoculture is concerned, you have already seen the journalists arrive, soon, sooner or later, the commercial channels will contact you.
Will it make progress through their influence? I doubt it because there is not much to sell. It will just be good for their image.

It is not the number of subscribers that I find revolutionary, it is the SHARING of information.
It is the fact that people start even when they are told that they may sometimes have nasty surprises ...

You often warn that the model is not transferable to farmers, yet I think the opposite.
It is not directly transposable with the technique you use but the principle is good.
The real problem is always to prevent this model from industrializing and losing its values ​​(such as industrial bio).

I would have the balls to see these techniques used with chemistry when there is no need.

Mine was not to defend enterism. Just to say that one can be led, in a course, to find there a certain interest (I do not speak finances, but there is that too). And that it inevitably sticks.

For me, and the little that I know of, O. de Schutter is only a macro-agro-economist.

I reassure you: it is I who uses contacts that I still have in certain media, from my previous life. It allows me to talk about what I do, to announce the conferences. I very much doubt that any "group" will contact me!

What interests me is that as many people as possible are just confronted with the idea that I call "Lazy Potager". That they then choose freely. I insist, in my lectures, only on one thing: if possible to make a small test at least.

My introductory dia says, in 3 parts:

a) 1) Don't believe me "stupidly"!
But, from tomorrow, try anyway !!!!

b) 2) “In this world, nothing is ever perfect! "
… Not even the “Lazy Garden” !!!

c) 3) To each "HIS" vegetable garden of the sloth!
Yours will be like:
- what you are
- the environment and the environment in which
you set it up: soil, climate,
constraints "...
- what the natural mechanisms will do with it!

What also interests me, and I am delighted that it is taking shape, is that networks are born, with real exchanges ... There is also behind that the idea that, tomorrow, my heartbeat may stop ... The more existing, organized and functional these networks are, the better the future of "phenoculture" will be ...

My reservation on transposability to agriculture is understood "as is" (or as I do). For a simple reason: there will never be enough hay! But you know that I am working with a few people on an adaptation to a form of commercial gardening. Agriculture, in the broadest sense, will involve sowing under living cover, in the manner of Manfred Wenz, in my opinion. What I also direct my research towards, while keeping the objective of "maximizing laziness" ...

[lilian07]

For me the key is there: Maximizing laziness.

Behind this assertion lies a complex model for man because what works well is simplicity.
However, simplicity is very difficult for us to achieve because it implies knowledge of the micro-mechanism accessible only to "geniuses" or "disinterested".
Did67 pursues this path by observation (and sharing which is a multiple observation) and disinterested you as much as you can do as you already do.
Lilian.

[paysan.bio]

My reservation on transposability to agriculture is understood "as is" (or as I do). For a simple reason: there will never be enough hay! But you know that I am working with a few people on an adaptation to a form of commercial gardening. Agriculture, in the broadest sense, will involve sowing under living cover, in the manner of Manfred Wenz, in my opinion. What I also direct my research towards, while keeping the objective of "maximizing laziness" ...

The hay is grass.
Of the grass, there are everywhere.
The question is to invent how to harvest it without it becoming a galley or that it costs more than other techniques.
I believe that there are immense reserves of renewable biomass in particular in all that one calls the "bad grounds".

It is funny, because by having almost identical knowledge, I believe that agriculture in the broad sense will pass through the Transplantation on canopy vegetal.
Maybe my thoughts are distorted by the idea that technology must be able to limit the possibilities of gigantism.
The desire for gigantism is a default that almost all farmers have.

In any case, it is nature that will decide.
The new method will be more interesting than the chemical or will not.

I agree with Lilian07, which always works in the end, after having complexified things, it is SIMPLICITY.

[Did67]

For me the key is there: Maximizing laziness.

Your remark makes me clarify a point: maximization of laziness physical, but not intellectual !

I keep repeating that the "way to do it is ultra-simple", but "the understanding of the natural mechanisms behind it is very complicated" ...

What I sometimes summarize in the formula: "Less active ingredients, more gray matter!" [for those unfamiliar with technical jargon, an "active ingredient" is the active ingredient in a pesticide, which has a more well-known trademark and contains other substances - wetting agents, dyes, bitters ... Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the famous Roundup]

[Did67]

The hay is grass.
Of the grass, there are everywhere.
The question is to invent how to harvest it without it becoming a galley or that it costs more than other techniques.
I believe that there are immense reserves of renewable biomass in particular in all that one calls the "bad grounds".

At home, the ratio "natural grassland producing hay / cultivated area in the garden" would seem to be 3 or 4 [I always have to "count" the number of rolls produced by a farmer on a given area, in Natural grasslands ; curiously, I have not really found reliable data on this subject in the literature; this "3 or 4" therefore remains a pifometric estimate with a ladle].

This is where a "macro" approach sometimes has virtues: if we generalized "phenoculture", that would mean that we would need 3 or 4 times more UAA (useful agricultural area) ... That poses a question to me ... Or rather, I think for my part, that this is not feasible!

The "bad lands" have other functions. Sometimes ecological. There are other uses for biomass: energy, wood, anaerobic digestion, etc.

I therefore think that if we can develop a form of phenoculture for private gardens, for collective gardens or even for "small commercial gardening" with high biological value, it seems to me more difficult to generalize to agriculture as a whole.

Not to mention the areas where biomass is essentially rare: zones of Sahelian climate!