What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Can greater transparency help people hold big corporations to account? Some new tools that may help, From Poverty to Power

S&T Committee Urges Change to EU Rules for GM Crops, ISAAA

New Project Announced – Global Food Security by the Numbers, Global Food for Thought

Public procurement in Africa benefitting family farmers and schools, FAO

Eight Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture, Union of Concerned Scientists

Biodiversity or GMOs: Will The Future of Nutrition Be in Women’s Hands or Under Corporate Control?, Institute of Science in Society

Will Food Sovereignty Starve the Poor and Punish the Planet?, Independent Science News

Limits Sought on GMO Corn as Pest Resistance Grows, The Wall Street Journal

Farmers Put Down the Plow for More Productive Soil, The New York Times

ONE 2013 DATA Report: Financing the Fight for Africa’s Transformation

Content for this blog is taken from here, authored by Ben Leo, Global Policy Director at ONE.

Ahead of the G8 summit on the 17th and 18th June, the ONE campaign published their 2013 Data Report, which focuses on tracking how developing countries are progressing on the Millennium Development Goal targets using the ‘MDG Progress Index’.   The report also measures how sub-Saharan African governments are faring against their own spending commitments in three poverty-busting sectors: health, agriculture and education. Finally, it offers recommendations for how the global community can intensify its efforts in a sprint to the MDG finish line.

The report shows that some significant progress is happening.

• There are 10 sub-Saharan African MDG ‘trailblazers’ and dozens of countries have improved their performance.
• Sub-Saharan African resource flows have quadrupled since 2000, including domestic government expenditures, which account for almost 80% of all available finance. Domestic revenues, foreign investment, donor assistance and remittances are all playing an important role in boosting growth and development.
• Countries that allocate more of their budget to health, agriculture and education are, on average, progressing faster on the MDGs. For example, over the last decade, Burkina Faso spent a whopping 52% of its national budget on these three sectors and is currently on track to achieve four MDG targets (out of eight) and partially on track for another two.

But also areas that need considerable work.

• Some countries are falling behind on the MDG targets and slowing down regional progress. Nine of the fourteen global ‘laggard’ countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
• African governments are falling far short of their own spending targets, and this has very real consequences. Take a large country such as Nigeria, which alone accounts for 11% of annual child deaths – if it were to meet its health spending commitment over the next three years, the additional resources could amount to $22.5 billion. This could pay for vaccinations for every single child, anti-malarial bed nets for every citizen, and treatment for every HIV-positive person, saving millions of lives.
• Many donors are also off track in delivering on their promises, such as reaching aid levels of 0.7% of GNI by 2015 and delivering half of those increases to Africa. While aid flows rose dramatically from 2000 to 2010, we have now seen two consecutive years of decline, and, shockingly, sub-Saharan Africa is bearing the brunt of these cuts.

Antiobiotic use on organic apples and pears

Think organic farming doesn’t use harmful compounds, think again. As the expiry date for the use of the antibiotics, Streptomycin and Oxytetracycline, on organic apple and pear farming in the US approaches, much debate has arisen over the standards for organic farming and food labelling.

Apples and pears are subject to an infection called Fire Blight, which can devastate entire orchards For that reason organic farmers have received an exemption allowing them to spray certain antibiotics to tackle this disease. In 2002 when the US Department of Agriculture’s national organic labelling standards went into effect the two antibiotics were included in a list of ‘allowed’ compounds subject to periodic review. This exemption is set to expire in October 2014, which supposedly allowed time to develop new, non-antibiotic, methods of control. But as 2014 approaches and a viable alternative is still lacking, some groups are battling for an extension on this expiry date.

Last week the National Organic Standards Board met to discuss a petition from organic farmers to extend the exemption. They rejected this petition and use of the antibiotic Oxytetracyline will not be allowed beyond the existing expiration date. In six months’ time the Board will meet again to discuss the use of Streptomycin.

Enough food for everyone IF….

Originally posted on the Agriculture for Impact blog.

One in eight women, men and children go to bed hungry every night and by 2025 nearly a billion young people will face poverty because of the damage done to them now through hunger and malnutrition. These are just some of the startling statistics that have led over 100 organisations to combine under a new campaign.

“Enough food for everyone if…” is the slogan of this UK campaign launched on the 23^rd January 2013. Backed by Desmond Tutu and Bill Gates, the campaign aims to reach 20 million people in the UK and get 5 million people involved with the ultimate goal of petitioning David Cameron to lead on hunger at the G8, which the UK have presidency over for 2013. With his leadership, the campaign hopes to ensure global leaders, meeting at the G8 summit in June, act on the underlying causes of hunger.

Namely that there can be ENOUGH FOOD FOR EVERYONE:

• IF we give enough aid to stop children dying from hunger and help the poorest families feed themselves
• IF governments stop big companies dodging tax in poor countries, so that millions of people can free themselves from hunger
• IF we stop poor farmers being forced off their land and we grow crops to feed people not fuel cars
• IF governments and big companies are honest and open about their actions that stop people getting enough food