By Food First, December 2007 [edited]

A number of initiatives from multinational companies, foundations and politicians are pushing a “new green revolution” in Africa. One of them is Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In 2006, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a joint $150 million Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to save Africa from hunger. AGRA is actually breaking ground for a larger network of chemical, seed, fertilizer companies and Green Revolution institutions seeking to industrialize African agriculture as they have already done in the U.S. and in large parts of Latin America and Asia. AGRA’s high-profile campaign for a new Green Revolution, headed by Kofi Annan, is designed to attract private investment, enroll African governments, and convince African farmers to buy hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers. AGRA is laying the foundation for researchers, institutions, and African farmers to introduce GMO crops—not only for rice, wheat and maize, but also for cassava, plantain and other African food crops.

The first Green Revolution introduced by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in 1960-1990 deepened the divide between rich and poor farmers and degraded tropical agro-ecosystems, exposing already vulnerable farmers to increased environmental risk. It led to loss of seed/plant varieties and agro-biodiversity, which is the basis for smallholder livelihood, security and regional environmental sustainability. While production per capita increased in Asia and Latin America, the percentage of hungry people increased even more. Because the Green Revolution responds to corporate interests, rather than the needs of African farmers, the new green revolution, based on an industrial model, is likely to worsen—not improve—the condition of Africa’s small farmers and to increase the number of hungry Africans.
The AGRA-led Green Revolution not only threatens the richness of African traditional agriculture, it ignores (and is attempting to co-opt) the many successful African agricultural alternatives including sustainable agriculture, agro-forestry, pastoralism, integrated pest management, farmer-led plant breeding, sustainable watershed management and many other agroecological approaches. Because AGRA is but one—highly visible component of a wider industrial push, attendees realized that they need to decide where to put their energies, and be prepared for the divisive nature of involvement with AGRA.

At its core, the Green Revolution undermines Africa’s food systems and food sovereignty: people’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1807

By The Guardian, January 21, 2008 

The environmental damage caused to developing nations by the world's richest countries amounts to more than the entire third world debt of $1.8 trillion, according to the first systematic global analysis of the ecological damage imposed by rich countries.

The study found that there are huge disparities in the ecological footprint inflicted by rich and poor countries on the rest of the world because of differences in consumption. The authors say that the west's high living standards are maintained in part through the huge unrecognised ecological debts it has built up with developing countries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jan/21/environmental.debt1 

By World Watch Institute, January 19, 2008 [edited]

A recent report from Greenpeace details the direct and indirect effects of agriculture on climate change and suggests how the sector can move from being a major greenhouse gas emitter to being a carbon sink. “As a key contributor to climate change, the environmental impact of industrial farming has reached critical levels,” said Jan van Aken, Greenpeace Sustainable Agriculture Campaigner. “Governments must support a farming future that works with nature, not against it.”

Agriculture, including land-use changes for farming, is responsible for an estimated 17 to 32 percent of all human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the report notes. And massive overuse of fertilizers is the biggest contributor to these emissions within the industry. More than half of all fertilizer applied to fields ends up in the atmosphere or local waterways, according to Greenpeace, and each year, the equivalent of 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the form of nitrous oxide, a GHG some 300 times more potent, is emitted because of fertilizer use.

http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/29597

By Felicity Barringer, New York Times, January 3, 2008

California sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, challenging its recent decision to block California rules curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from new cars and trucks.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California has the right to set its own standards on air pollutants, but must receive a waiver from the E.P.A. to do so. The environmental agency broke with decades of precedent last month and denied California a waiver to move forward with its proposed limits on vehicular emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/us/03suit.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin