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Michael
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Michael


Nombre de messages : 182
Localisation : Verdun, métro LaSalle
Date d'inscription : 29/04/2005

Le bio pour tous ? Empty
MessageSujet: Le bio pour tous ?   Le bio pour tous ? EmptyLun 7 Aoû à 4:40

L’agriculture biologique peut-elle nous nourrir tous ?

Voici un article de par Brian Halweil
traduit de World Watch

sur le potentiel d'une conversion planetaire au biologique:

http://www.delaplanete.org/L-agriculture-biologique-peut-elle.html

Bonne lecture !

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Michael
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Michael


Nombre de messages : 182
Localisation : Verdun, métro LaSalle
Date d'inscription : 29/04/2005

Le bio pour tous ? Empty
MessageSujet: Re: Le bio pour tous ?   Le bio pour tous ? EmptyVen 15 Déc à 15:04

Articles parus dans The Economist du 9 décembre 2006
(Copyright 2006 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.)

If you think you can make the planet better by clever shopping, think again. You might make it worse

"You don't have to wait for government to move... the really fantastic thing about Fairtrade is that you can go shopping!" So said a representative of the Fairtrade movement in a British newspaper this year. Similarly Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University, argues that "when you choose organics, you are voting for a planet with fewer pesticides, richer soil and cleaner water supplies."

The idea that shopping is the new politics is certainly seductive. Never mind the ballot box: vote with your supermarket trolley instead. Elections occur relatively rarely, but you probably go shopping several times a month, providing yourself with lots of opportunities to express your opinions. If you are worried about the environment, you might buy organic food; if you want to help poor farmers, you can do your bit by buying Fairtrade products; or you can express a dislike of evil multinational companies and rampant globalisation by buying only local produce. And the best bit is that shopping, unlike voting, is fun; so you can do good and enjoy yourself at the same time.

Sadly, it's not that easy. There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of "ethical" food: organic food, Fairtrade food and local food (see pages 81-83). People who want to make the world a better place cannot do so by shifting their shopping habits: transforming the planet requires duller disciplines, like politics.

Buy organic, destroy the rainforest

Organic food, which is grown without man-made pesticides and fertilisers, is generally assumed to be more environmentally friendly than conventional intensive farming, which is heavily reliant on chemical inputs. But it all depends what you mean by "environmentally friendly".

Farming is inherently bad for the environment: since humans took it up around 11,000 years ago, the result has been deforestation on a massive scale. But following the "green revolution" of the 1960s greater use of chemical fertiliser has tripled grain yields with very little increase in the area of land under cultivation. Organic methods, which rely on crop rotation, manure and compost in place of fertiliser, are far less intensive. So producing the world's current agricultural output organically would require several times as much land as is currently cultivated. There wouldn't be much room left for the rainforest.

Fairtrade food is designed to raise poor farmers' incomes. It is sold at a higher price than ordinary food, with a subsidy passed back to the farmer. But prices of agricultural commodities are low because of overproduction. By propping up the price, the Fairtrade system encourages farmers to produce more of these commodities rather than diversifying into other crops and so depresses prices--thus achieving, for most farmers, exactly the opposite of what the initiative is intended to do. And since only a small fraction of the mark-up on Fairtrade foods actually goes to the farmer--most goes to the retailer--the system gives rich consumers an inflated impression of their largesse and makes alleviating poverty seem too easy.

Surely the case for local food, produced as close as possible to the consumer in order to minimise "food miles" and, by extension, carbon emissions, is clear? Surprisingly, it is not. A study of Britain's food system found that nearly half of food-vehicle miles (ie, miles travelled by vehicles carrying food) were driven by cars going to and from the shops. Most people live closer to a supermarket than a farmer's market, so more local food could mean more food-vehicle miles. Moving food around in big, carefully packed lorries, as supermarkets do, may in fact be the most efficient way to transport the stuff.

What's more, once the energy used in production as well as transport is taken into account, local food may turn out to be even less green. Producing lamb in New Zealand and shipping it to Britain uses less energy than producing British lamb, because farming in New Zealand is less energy-intensive. And the local-food movement's aims, of course, contradict those of the Fairtrade movement, by discouraging rich-country consumers from buying poor-country produce. But since the local-food movement looks suspiciously like old-fashioned protectionism masquerading as concern for the environment, helping poor countries is presumably not the point.

Appetite for change

The aims of much of the ethical-food movement--to protect the environment, to encourage development and to redress the distortions in global trade--are admirable. The problems lie in the means, not the ends. No amount of Fairtrade coffee will eliminate poverty, and all the organic asparagus in the world will not save the planet. Some of the stuff sold under an ethical label may even leave the world in a worse state and its poor farmers poorer than they otherwise would be.

So what should the ethically minded consumer do? Things that are less fun than shopping, alas. Real change will require action by governments, in the form of a global carbon tax; reform of the world trade system; and the abolition of agricultural tariffs and subsidies, notably Europe's monstrous common agricultural policy, which coddles rich farmers and prices those in the poor world out of the European market. Proper free trade would be by far the best way to help poor farmers. Taxing carbon would price the cost of emissions into the price of goods, and retailers would then have an incentive to source locally if it saved energy. But these changes will come about only through difficult, international, political deals that the world's governments have so far failed to do.

The best thing about the spread of the ethical-food movement is that it offers grounds for hope. It sends a signal that there is an enormous appetite for change and widespread frustration that governments are not doing enough to preserve the environment, reform world trade or encourage development.

Which suggests that, if politicians put these options on the political menu, people might support them. The idea of changing the world by voting with your trolley may be beguiling. But if consumers really want to make a difference, it is at the ballot box that they need to vote.


Food politics
Voting with your trolley
Dec 7th 2006

From The Economist print edition

Can you really change the world just by buying certain foods?

HAS the supermarket trolley dethroned the ballot box? Voter turnout in most developed countries has fallen in recent decades, but sales of organic, Fairtrade and local food—each with its own political agenda—are growing fast. Such food allows shoppers to express their political opinions, from concern for the environment to support for poor farmers, every time they buy groceries. And shoppers are jumping at the opportunity, says Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University and the author of "Food Politics" (2002) and "What to Eat" (2006). "What I hear as I talk to people is this phenomenal sense of despair about their inability to do anything about climate change, or the disparity between rich and poor," she says. "But when they go into a grocery store they can do something—they can make decisions about what they are buying and send a very clear message."

Those in the food-activism movement agree. "It definitely has a positive effect," says Ian Bretman of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations (FLO) International, the Fairtrade umbrella group. Before the advent of ethical and organic labels, he notes, the usual way to express political views using food was to impose boycotts. But such labels make a political act out of consumption, rather than non-consumption—which is far more likely to produce results, he suggests. "That's how you build effective, constructive engagement with companies. If you try to do a boycott or slag them off as unfair or evil, you won't be able to get them round the table."
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Michael
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Michael


Nombre de messages : 182
Localisation : Verdun, métro LaSalle
Date d'inscription : 29/04/2005

Le bio pour tous ? Empty
MessageSujet: Re: Le bio pour tous ?   Le bio pour tous ? EmptyMar 6 Fév à 10:02

C'est pas nouveau, leurs idées que les supermarchés, le non-bio et le transport d'animaux de Nouvelle-Zélande par avion sont plus écologiques que des aliments locaux et bio achetés chez le fermier.
Oui, The Economist soulèvent quelques points
intéressants à prendre en compte dans nos choix de modes d'approvisionnement.

Mais c'est le même vieux discours misant sur quelques exceptions pour discréditer un mouvement (ex: un tel
fermier bio prend plus de carburant que tel
industriel, par hectare...je l'ai vu à la TV : genre
d'argument qu'un gars pro -OGM et chimique m'avait sorti).

Le pire est que la suite dans l'article consiste à
utiliser ces supposées "contradictions" pour proposer à leur tour des alternatives "meilleures pour tout le monde et plus réalistes": couper le soutien public aux agriculteurs, augmenter le "libre-échange" - donc le transport illimité des aliments - et tout ça pour aider les pauvres comme ils disent toujours depuis qu'ils les écrasent !
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