The future of food

The future of food and farming: UN debate concludes in Johannesburg

Johannesburg, South Africa - On April 12, 2008, 57 world governments agreed on a final report of the UN’s International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)...

The IAASTD report concludes that small-scale, agro-ecological farming will be more effective at meeting today’s challenges than the old energy- and chemical-intensive paradigm of industrial agricultural production....

The report notes that the most widespread forms of industrial agriculture have degraded the natural resource base on which human survival depends, and contribute daily to worsening water and climate crises.

According to this report, Canada joined the US and Australia in voting against the final report which was produced by over 400 scientists from around the world over a 3-year period. The report is an indictment of the food industry's failure to deliver on its own promises to solve world hunger with gmos and chemicals.

It acknowledges that GM crops are highly controversial. IAASTD director, Robert Watson, chief scientist at the UK food and farming department DEFRA, said much more research was needed to prove whether GM crops offer any benefits and do not harm human health and the environment.

Biotech companies Monsanto, Syngenta, and BASF withdrew from IAASTD because it did not back GMOs as a solution to reduce poverty and hunger.

Maybe they took the Canadians, Americans & Australians out to eat.