*Agro-ecology agendas are trapping African farmers in poverty* New study reveals: "That’s the finding of the first continent-wide meta-analysis of conservation agriculture experiments in Africa, and it threatens to completely up-end the dominant paradigm around agro-ecology. In recent years, agro-ecology has come to be seen as a virtual panacea in sub-Saharan Africa. Aid agencies, churches, development NGOs and United Nations agencies all now tie their support for resource-poor farmers to an explicitly agro-ecological agenda. NGOs are keen to offer anecdotal evidence for how these approaches can help smallholder farmers in Africa. Yet scientifically rigorous empirical evidence for the benefits of agro-ecology - also termed “conservation agriculture” - has so far been lacking. Until now, with the publication of a paper titled “Limits of conservation agriculture to overcome low crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa” in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Food. Scientists, who analyzed 933 observations across 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa comparing conservation agriculture with conventional cropping, found that agro-ecological approaches do not substantially improve productivity and do not therefore help address the food insecurity of smallholder farmers. This is not because conventional tillage-based farming is better than conservation agriculture - in fact, as these results show, they are equally bad - but because the advocates for agro-ecology also tend push an ideological agenda that rejects scientific innovations such as biotechnology, hybrid seeds, mechanization, irrigation and other tools that might more reliably increase productivity for smallholder farmers in Africa. The study authors, led by Marc Corbeels, a specialist in sustainable intensification based at CIMMYT in Nairobi, Kenya, found that conservation agriculture did not improve yields in cotton, cowpea, rice, sorghum or soybean. Maize yields did show a 4 percent increase, but only if glyphosate pre-emergence herbicide treatments were applied, something which is strictly forbidden by agro-ecology advocates. In practice therefore, agro-ecology is likely to have no benefits at all to most farmers in Africa. In fact, it could even have negative effects. This is primarily because soil improvements from conservation agriculture require the use of crop residues as mulches. In dry conditions these can help retain moisture in the ground by reducing evaporation. However, crop residues are much more valuable to smallholder farmers as fodder for cattle and other livestock animals, which produce meat, milk and manure and are therefore much more important for safeguarding food security than a slight increase in maize yield. In the arid conditions of much of sub-Saharan Africa, there is simply no spare biomass to use in conservation agriculture. This is not to say that no-till systems have no benefits anywhere in the world. In fact, reduced or conservation tillage approaches have been widely adopted across North and South America, where they help to reduce soil erosion, conserve moisture and sequester carbon. Indeed, most of the carbon benefits of genetically modified crops - which removed 24 million tonnes of CO2 in 2016 - arise because herbicide tolerance traits allow farmers to adopt no-till practices. geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/08/03/viewpoint-agro-ecology-agendas-are-trapping-african-farmers-in-poverty/
Conservation agriculture is not the same as agroecology at all. CIMMYT receives tons of funding from the biotech sector, and so does the University of Nairobi. The genetic literacy project is a biotech front and offers an incredibly one-sided view of the issue. The studies you mention focus on productivity as the only metric, while it could be argued that household income and food security are more important ones. Farmers don't want to grow massive harvests, they want to make money - and the first doesn't always lead to the second, especially if the costs of production are high. Farmers also don't want to get cancer but weak policies, or at least their weak implementation, have made Africa a dumping ground for the agrochemical sector to sell products that are banned throughout the rest of the world. Anyone working in the sector in Africa can testify how Corteva, Bayer , Syngenta and the likes throw money at politicians and local scientists to win their hearts and to allow them to push for policies that the public and the farmers don't want and are usually kept in the dark about. It's also interesting to find someone referencing the GLP on an agroecology video like this one. Why are you even here?
@@AB-wl8kr Your lies make you part of the problem. The GLP is strictly non-profit and is not funded by industry, I send them a small donation every year. You can not honestly devalue citations they offer. Farmers do want to make money of course and that has nothing to do with your resentful myths you try to sneak in about "massive harvests". Science studies also debunk your attempted activist lie about cancer risks: *A new study on the increase in the heath of farmers since GMO crop science has become wide spread: * Peer reviewed and published 27 September 2019 "GM crops, particularly Bt cotton, has resulted in significant reductions in pesticide poisoning cases due to reduced applications and reduced levels of insecticide exposure. Reductions in farmer pesticide poisonings have been quantified in China, India, Pakistan and South Africa. Often cases of pesticide poisoning are not formally reported to health centers and the results on pesticide poisoning may be underestimated due to the lack of reporting. In South Africa, farmers reduced pesticide applications from 11.2 per year to 3.8, with reported cases of pesticide poisoning declining from over 50 per year to less than 10 over the first four years of Bt cotton adoption (Bennet et al. 2003). One-third of non-Bt cotton farmers in China reported cases of pesticide poisoning, compared to 9% of Bt cotton producing farmers (Hossain et al. 2004). Assessing the health impacts in India, reveals a reduction in cases of pesticide poisoning of 2.4 - 9 million cases per year (Kouser and Qaim 2011). Cumulatively, since 2003, when Bt cotton was first commercialized in India, a minimum of 38 million fewer instances of pesticide poisoning have occurred, with an upper potential of 144 million. Farmers in Pakistan growing non-Bt cotton reported up to seven instances of pesticide poisoning in the growing season with 35% reporting no instances, versus Bt cotton farmers reporting up to six poisonings with 45% reporting none (Kouser and Qaim 2013). A medical assessment of 246 Chinese farmers, involving 35 health indicators, found that fungicides associated with the production of non-Bt cotton had linkages to damaged liver function, while the insecticides used in non-Bt cotton production may be associated with severe nerve damage (Zhang et al. 2016). The use of non-glyphosate tolerant crops was found to likely reduce renal function and decrease serum folic acid. CHANGES IN FARMER SUICIDES Mental health challenges and issues affect all walks of life and economic sectors, with agriculture being no different. Access to sufficient mental health resources can be problematic within the agriculture sector due to rural areas, remote locations and lack of access to mental health support systems. Unfortunately, suicide is a concern in agriculture. India has one of the highest suicide ratesin the world and research has examined the relationship between farmer suicide and the adoption of GM cotton. Research examining the relationship between farm suicide and Bt cotton adoption revealed a plateauing of the suicide rate following the commercialization of Bt cotton (Gruère and Sengupta 2011). Farmer suicides were trending upward from 15,000 per year, peaking in 2004, the year after Bt cotton was first commercialized in India. By 2007, the actual suicide rate was 25% below the extrapolated suicide rate. Cumulatively, the reduced rate of suicide associated with the adoption of Bt cotton represents the prevention of a minimum of 75,000 farmer suicides. LOWERING CANCER INCIDENCES The development of insect resistant crop varieties has begun to have a noticeable potential to improve human health through the reduction of cancer rates. Prior to the commercialization of Bt crops, maize in particular, insect damage to the harvested crop increased the potential for the development of harmful health effects. A study of 21 years of maize production quantified that Bt maize contained lower concentrations of mycotoxins (29%), fumonisins (31%) and thricotecens (37%) (Pellegrino et al. 2018). Mycotoxins are both toxic and carcinogenic to humans and animals and are considerably more concerning in developing economy food systems where access to food safety toxicity tests are less prevalent. Fumonisins are correlated to being the cause of higher rates of neural tube defects in high maize-based diets (Missmer et al. 2006). With food security challenges existing in many developing countries corn containing mycotoxins are consumed as part of the household diet due the lack of any other option. NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS GM crops have made significant contributions to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular goals one (reducing poverty) and two (reducing hunger). While increased yields have contributed to higher household incomes, which reduces poverty, the increased yields have also enhanced household food security. Biofortified GM crops have been adopted, increasing micronutrient availability (Hefferon 2014). Nutritionally enhanced foods improve an individual’s nutrient intake, preventing and/or treating leading causes of death such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension. Improving the nutritional content of daily food consumption certainly has day to day effects, but of significant importance are the long term effects that extend for decades over the course of an individual’s lifetime. In many instances, improving macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, fiber) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, functional metabolites) has significant childhood health improvements, such as reducing blindness due to the lack of vitamin availability. Improved food nutrient content, especially the increase in mineral availability, contributes to improved immunity systems and reduces stunting. In many developing countries, plant-based nutrient intake accounts for one hundred per cent of an individual’s nutrient diet, further highlighting the importance of nutritionally enhanced crop derived foods. As the later in life benefits from improved childhood nutrition are better understood, the full value of nutritionally enhanced GM crops and foods, may not be realized for several decades." see the full paper at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/pbi.13261
@@AB-wl8kr I am here because I truly respect modern crop science and the millions of farmers who practice it. I debunk myths and lies mostly spread by organic farming lobbyists. EU organic lobbyists have invaded African nations as they spread lies about modern agriculture because Africa exports food to them and they try to enforce protectionist practices. You have been directly influenced by them or you are one of them. I reject all attempts to play the shill card here. READERS NOTE - HIS BLANK CHANNEL PAGE WITH NO SUBSCRIBERS IS A RED FLAG!! When seeing nasty false conspiracy theories being posted in the comments about crop science, go to the channel page of the offender. If their channel page is blank that raises a red flag for a troll attack from professional propaganda trolls. US congress has declared social media a threat to national security. This is the front line of a malicious propaganda war. Whether they be organic lobbyists, Greenpeace operatives or Russian trolls, the goal is the same - an all out attack on modern agriculture. Readers - don't let liars with secret agendas influence your thinking. If you actually want to learn about modern crop science, RUclips is a horrible choice for information. Go to ground zero for unbiased factual information about genetics, the non-profit GeneticLiteracyProject.org education site.
@@popeyegordon Nice copy pasting. I see you were prepared for reactions to your plain bait. You're wrong though. The genetic literacy project has been criticised many times before for their partial transparency, hiding certain donors and the background of its founder. You're a fool if you think they're independent. Organic lobbyists boohoo. They are dwarfed by the biotechnology lobby in almost all African countries. Just try to find out how much each of them spends on it. The EU doesn't need this protectionism at all, high quality standards already do the trick. It's the US aggressively pushing for GM because they want to dump their agricultural products on the African market (EU also practices dumping though). Anyway, it's easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled, so it's likely you'll keep looking for information from dubious websites such as the GLP that filter the scientific literature, offering a selective and distorted reading that make GMOs look like the miracle cure for all our problems. I've worked in the agricultural sector in Africa for over fifteen years, mostly agribusiness, marketing and value chain development. I've never seen GMO bring significant benefits to the farmer and they never justify the increased costs. The fact that you have the audacity to bring up a study which you think disproves the fact that agrochemical companies sell harmful pesticides in Africa that are banned all over the world, and if not banned, then at least heavily regulated, shows that you don't give a damn about the people who are affected by it. I see this stuff with my own eyes on a daily. Workers spraying the craziest junk without any proper safety training or gear. Merchants selling it as ''safe''. And European, Chinese and American companies importing stuff they're not allowed to sell at home. I wash all my vegetables with soap before I cook them. They are covered with all types of pesticides in the markets here. Especially the fungicides stand out as a white powder. You wouldn't know that of course. You'll probably deny it. You're quoting all the would-be benefits of the biotech sector rolling into Africa? Well, I've seen their doing from up close and I can tell you nothing good will come of it.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Informative !
This encourages me to seek out an Agreocology class for next semester in my Environmental Sustainably undergrad!! Where was this based out of??
That's great! This video is from Stone Barns Center's Young Farmers Conference in New York: www.stonebarnscenter.org/engage/for-farmers/yfc/
*Agro-ecology agendas are trapping African farmers in poverty* New study reveals:
"That’s the finding of the first continent-wide meta-analysis of conservation agriculture experiments in Africa, and it threatens to completely up-end the dominant paradigm around agro-ecology.
In recent years, agro-ecology has come to be seen as a virtual panacea in sub-Saharan Africa. Aid agencies, churches, development NGOs and United Nations agencies all now tie their support for resource-poor farmers to an explicitly agro-ecological agenda.
NGOs are keen to offer anecdotal evidence for how these approaches can help smallholder farmers in Africa. Yet scientifically rigorous empirical evidence for the benefits of agro-ecology - also termed “conservation agriculture” - has so far been lacking.
Until now, with the publication of a paper titled “Limits of conservation agriculture to overcome low crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa” in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Food.
Scientists, who analyzed 933 observations across 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa comparing conservation agriculture with conventional cropping, found that agro-ecological approaches do not substantially improve productivity and do not therefore help address the food insecurity of smallholder farmers.
This is not because conventional tillage-based farming is better than conservation agriculture - in fact, as these results show, they are equally bad - but because the advocates for agro-ecology also tend push an ideological agenda that rejects scientific innovations such as biotechnology, hybrid seeds, mechanization, irrigation and other tools that might more reliably increase productivity for smallholder farmers in Africa.
The study authors, led by Marc Corbeels, a specialist in sustainable intensification based at CIMMYT in Nairobi, Kenya, found that conservation agriculture did not improve yields in cotton, cowpea, rice, sorghum or soybean. Maize yields did show a 4 percent increase, but only if glyphosate pre-emergence herbicide treatments were applied, something which is strictly forbidden by agro-ecology advocates.
In practice therefore, agro-ecology is likely to have no benefits at all to most farmers in Africa.
In fact, it could even have negative effects. This is primarily because soil improvements from conservation agriculture require the use of crop residues as mulches. In dry conditions these can help retain moisture in the ground by reducing evaporation. However, crop residues are much more valuable to smallholder farmers as fodder for cattle and other livestock animals, which produce meat, milk and manure and are therefore much more important for safeguarding food security than a slight increase in maize yield. In the arid conditions of much of sub-Saharan Africa, there is simply no spare biomass to use in conservation agriculture.
This is not to say that no-till systems have no benefits anywhere in the world. In fact, reduced or conservation tillage approaches have been widely adopted across North and South America, where they help to reduce soil erosion, conserve moisture and sequester carbon. Indeed, most of the carbon benefits of genetically modified crops - which removed 24 million tonnes of CO2 in 2016 - arise because herbicide tolerance traits allow farmers to adopt no-till practices.
geneticliteracyproject.org/2020/08/03/viewpoint-agro-ecology-agendas-are-trapping-african-farmers-in-poverty/
Conservation agriculture is not the same as agroecology at all. CIMMYT receives tons of funding from the biotech sector, and so does the University of Nairobi. The genetic literacy project is a biotech front and offers an incredibly one-sided view of the issue. The studies you mention focus on productivity as the only metric, while it could be argued that household income and food security are more important ones. Farmers don't want to grow massive harvests, they want to make money - and the first doesn't always lead to the second, especially if the costs of production are high. Farmers also don't want to get cancer but weak policies, or at least their weak implementation, have made Africa a dumping ground for the agrochemical sector to sell products that are banned throughout the rest of the world. Anyone working in the sector in Africa can testify how Corteva, Bayer , Syngenta and the likes throw money at politicians and local scientists to win their hearts and to allow them to push for policies that the public and the farmers don't want and are usually kept in the dark about. It's also interesting to find someone referencing the GLP on an agroecology video like this one. Why are you even here?
@@AB-wl8kr Your lies make you part of the problem. The GLP is strictly non-profit and is not funded by industry, I send them a small donation every year. You can not honestly devalue citations they offer. Farmers do want to make money of course and that has nothing to do with your resentful myths you try to sneak in about "massive harvests". Science studies also debunk your attempted activist lie about cancer risks: *A new study on the increase in the heath of farmers since GMO crop science has become wide spread:
*
Peer reviewed and published 27 September 2019
"GM crops, particularly Bt cotton, has resulted in significant reductions in pesticide poisoning cases due to reduced applications and reduced levels of insecticide exposure. Reductions in farmer pesticide poisonings have been quantified in China, India, Pakistan and South Africa. Often cases of pesticide poisoning are not formally reported to health centers and the results on pesticide poisoning may be underestimated due to the lack of reporting. In South Africa, farmers reduced pesticide applications from 11.2 per year to 3.8, with reported cases of pesticide poisoning declining from over 50 per year to less than 10 over the first four years of Bt cotton adoption (Bennet et al. 2003). One-third of non-Bt cotton farmers in China reported cases of pesticide poisoning, compared to 9% of Bt cotton producing farmers (Hossain et al. 2004). Assessing the health impacts in India, reveals a reduction in cases of pesticide poisoning of 2.4 - 9 million cases per year (Kouser and Qaim 2011). Cumulatively, since 2003, when Bt cotton was first commercialized in India, a minimum of 38 million fewer instances of pesticide poisoning have occurred, with an upper potential of 144 million. Farmers in Pakistan growing non-Bt cotton reported up to seven instances of pesticide poisoning in the growing season with 35% reporting no instances, versus Bt cotton farmers reporting up to six poisonings with 45% reporting none (Kouser and Qaim 2013). A medical assessment of 246 Chinese farmers, involving 35 health indicators, found that fungicides associated with the production of non-Bt cotton had linkages to damaged liver function, while the insecticides used in non-Bt cotton production may be associated with severe nerve damage (Zhang et al. 2016). The use of non-glyphosate tolerant crops was found to likely reduce renal function and decrease serum folic acid.
CHANGES IN FARMER SUICIDES
Mental health challenges and issues affect all walks of life and economic sectors, with agriculture being no different. Access to sufficient mental health resources can be problematic within the agriculture sector due to rural areas, remote locations and lack of access to mental health support systems. Unfortunately, suicide is a concern in agriculture. India has one of the highest suicide ratesin the world and research has examined the relationship between farmer suicide and the adoption of GM cotton. Research examining the relationship between farm suicide and Bt cotton adoption revealed a plateauing of the suicide rate following the commercialization of Bt cotton (Gruère and Sengupta 2011). Farmer suicides were trending upward from 15,000 per year, peaking in 2004, the year after Bt cotton
was first commercialized in India. By 2007, the actual suicide rate was 25% below the extrapolated suicide rate. Cumulatively, the reduced rate of suicide associated with the adoption of Bt cotton represents the prevention of a minimum of 75,000 farmer suicides.
LOWERING CANCER INCIDENCES
The development of insect resistant crop varieties has begun to have a noticeable potential to improve human health through the reduction of cancer rates. Prior to the commercialization of Bt crops, maize in particular, insect damage to the harvested crop increased the potential for the development of harmful health effects. A study of 21 years of maize production quantified that Bt maize contained lower concentrations of mycotoxins (29%), fumonisins (31%) and thricotecens (37%) (Pellegrino et al. 2018). Mycotoxins are both toxic and carcinogenic to humans and animals and are considerably more concerning in developing economy food systems where access to food safety toxicity tests are less prevalent. Fumonisins are correlated to being the cause of higher rates of neural tube defects in high maize-based diets (Missmer et al. 2006). With food security challenges existing in many developing countries corn containing mycotoxins are consumed as part of the household diet due the lack of any other option.
NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS
GM crops have made significant contributions to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular goals one (reducing poverty) and two (reducing hunger). While increased yields have contributed to higher household incomes, which reduces poverty, the increased yields have also enhanced household food security. Biofortified GM crops have been adopted, increasing micronutrient availability (Hefferon 2014). Nutritionally enhanced foods improve an individual’s nutrient intake, preventing and/or treating leading causes of death such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension. Improving the nutritional content of daily food consumption certainly has day to day effects, but of significant importance are the long term effects that extend for decades over the course of an individual’s lifetime. In many instances, improving macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, fiber) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, functional metabolites) has significant childhood health improvements, such as reducing blindness due to the lack of vitamin availability. Improved food nutrient content, especially the increase in mineral availability, contributes to improved immunity systems and reduces stunting. In many developing countries, plant-based nutrient intake accounts for one hundred per cent of an individual’s nutrient diet, further highlighting the importance of nutritionally enhanced crop derived foods. As the later in life benefits from improved childhood nutrition are better understood, the full value of nutritionally enhanced GM crops and foods, may not be realized for several decades." see the full paper at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/pbi.13261
@@AB-wl8kr I am here because I truly respect modern crop science and the millions of farmers who practice it. I debunk myths and lies mostly spread by organic farming lobbyists. EU organic lobbyists have invaded African nations as they spread lies about modern agriculture because Africa exports food to them and they try to enforce protectionist practices. You have been directly influenced by them or you are one of them. I reject all attempts to play the shill card here. READERS NOTE - HIS BLANK CHANNEL PAGE WITH NO SUBSCRIBERS IS A RED FLAG!! When seeing nasty false conspiracy theories being posted in the comments about crop science, go to the channel page of the offender. If their channel page is blank that raises a red flag for a troll attack from professional propaganda trolls. US congress has declared social media a threat to national security. This is the front line of a malicious propaganda war. Whether they be organic lobbyists, Greenpeace operatives or Russian trolls, the goal is the same - an all out attack on modern agriculture. Readers - don't let liars with secret agendas influence your thinking. If you actually want to learn about modern crop science, RUclips is a horrible choice for information. Go to ground zero for unbiased factual information about genetics, the non-profit GeneticLiteracyProject.org education site.
@@popeyegordon Nice copy pasting. I see you were prepared for reactions to your plain bait. You're wrong though. The genetic literacy project has been criticised many times before for their partial transparency, hiding certain donors and the background of its founder. You're a fool if you think they're independent. Organic lobbyists boohoo. They are dwarfed by the biotechnology lobby in almost all African countries. Just try to find out how much each of them spends on it. The EU doesn't need this protectionism at all, high quality standards already do the trick. It's the US aggressively pushing for GM because they want to dump their agricultural products on the African market (EU also practices dumping though). Anyway, it's easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled, so it's likely you'll keep looking for information from dubious websites such as the GLP that filter the scientific literature, offering a selective and distorted reading that make GMOs look like the miracle cure for all our problems. I've worked in the agricultural sector in Africa for over fifteen years, mostly agribusiness, marketing and value chain development. I've never seen GMO bring significant benefits to the farmer and they never justify the increased costs. The fact that you have the audacity to bring up a study which you think disproves the fact that agrochemical companies sell harmful pesticides in Africa that are banned all over the world, and if not banned, then at least heavily regulated, shows that you don't give a damn about the people who are affected by it. I see this stuff with my own eyes on a daily. Workers spraying the craziest junk without any proper safety training or gear. Merchants selling it as ''safe''. And European, Chinese and American companies importing stuff they're not allowed to sell at home. I wash all my vegetables with soap before I cook them. They are covered with all types of pesticides in the markets here. Especially the fungicides stand out as a white powder. You wouldn't know that of course. You'll probably deny it. You're quoting all the would-be benefits of the biotech sector rolling into Africa? Well, I've seen their doing from up close and I can tell you nothing good will come of it.
@@popeyegordon Agroecology and organic agriculture are also not the same thing.