Fwd: [Food-news] Can Organic Farming Feed Us All?

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> [Food-news] Can Organic Farming Feed Us

> All?

>

> *www.foodnews.ca

> *

>

> *Editor's Note: Increasingly experts are de-bunking

> long-held myths that

> organic agriculture cannot produce yields on par

> with conventional

> agriculture. Studies of organic agriculture and

> modeling to predict

> potential future scenarios suggest that organic

> agriculture in the North

> does produce on average lower yields than

> conventional approaches.

> However, the opposite appears to be true for the

> South where cover

> crops, compost, manure etc. associated with organic

> agriculture improve

> soil health and retain water. The result is that

> yield increases are

> greatest in the poorest, driest, hungriest regions

> and could therefore

> make a significant contribution to food security in

> sub-Saharan Africa

> and elsewhere.*

>

> *Excerpted from the May/June 2006 WORLD WATCH

> magazine*

>

> *www.worldwatch.org*

>

> *Volume 19, Number 3 Vision for a Sustainable World

> May/June 2006*

>

> Can Organic Farming Feed Us All? By Brian Halweil

>

> May/June 2006

>

> The only people who think organic farming can feed

> the world are

> delusional hippies, hysterical moms, and

> self-righteous organic farmers.

> Right?

>

> Actually, no. A fair number of agribusiness

> executives, agricultural and

> ecological scientists, and international agriculture

> experts believe

> that a large-scale shift to organic farming would

> not only /increase

> /the world's food supply, but might be the only way

> to eradicate hunger.

>

> This probably comes as a surprise. After all,

> organic farmers scorn the

> pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and other tools

> that have become

> synonymous with high-yield agriculture. Instead,

> organic farmers depend

> on raising animals for manure, growing beans,

> clover, or other

> nitrogen-fixing legumes, or making compost and other

> sources of

> fertilizer that cannot be manufactured in a chemical

> plant but are

> instead grown--which consumes land, water, and other

> resources. (In

> contrast, producing synthetic fertilizers consumes

> massive amounts of

> petroleum.) Since organic farmers can't use

> synthetic pesticides, one

> can imagine that their fields suffer from a scourge

> of crop-munching

> bugs, fruitrotting blights, and plant-choking weeds.

> And because organic

> farmers depend on rotating crops to help control

> pest problems, the same

> field won't grow corn or wheat or some other staple

> as often.

>

> As a result, the argument goes, a world dependent on

> organic farming

> would have to farm more land than it does

> today--even if it meant less

> pollution, fewer abused farm animals, and fewer

> carcinogenic residues on

> our vegetables. " We aren't going to feed 6 billion

> people with organic

> fertilizer, " said Nobel Prize-winning plant breeder

> Norman Borlaug at a

> 2002 conference. " If we tried to do it, we would

> level most of our

> forest and many of those lands would be productive

> only for a short

> period of time. " Cambridge chemist John Emsley put

> it more bluntly: " The

> greatest catastrophe that the human race could face

> this century is not

> global warming but a global conversion to 'organic

> farming'--an

> estimated 2 billion people would perish. "

>

> In recent years, organic farming has attracted new

> scrutiny, not just

> from critics who fear that a large-scale shift in

> its direction would

> cause billions to starve, but also from farmers and

> development agencies

> who actually suspect that such a shift could /better

> /satisfy hungry

> populations. Unfortunately, no one had ever

> systematically analyzed

> whether in fact a widespread shift to organic

> farming would run up

> against a shortage of nutrients and a lack of

> yields--until recently.

>

> The results are striking. There are actually myriad

> studies from around

> the world showing that organic farms can produce

> about as much, and in

> some settings much more, than conventional farms.

> Where there is a yield

> gap, it tends to be widest in wealthy nations, where

> farmers use copious

> amounts of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in a

> perennial attempt

> to maximize yields. It is true that farmers

> converting to organic

> production often encounter lower yields in the first

> few years, as the

> soil and surrounding biodiversity recover from years

> of assault with

> chemicals. And it may take several seasons for

> farmers to refine the new

> approach.

>

> But the long-standing argument that organic farming

> would yield just

> one-third or one-half of conventional farming was

> based on biased

> assumptions and lack of data. For example, the

> often-cited statistic

> that switching to organic farming in the United

> States would only yield

> one-quarter of the food currently produced there is

> based on a U.S.

> Department of Agriculture study showing that all the

> manure in the

> United States could only meet one-quarter of the

> nation's fertilizer

> needs--even though organic farmers depend on much

> more than just manure.

>

> More up-to-date research refutes these arguments.

> For example, a recent

> study by scientists at the Research Institute for

> Organic Agriculture in

> Switzerland showed that organic farms were only 20

> percent less

> productive than conventional plots over a 21-year

> period. Looking at

> more than 200 studies in North America and Europe,

> Per Pinstrup Andersen

> (a Cornell professor and winner of the World Food

> Prize) and colleagues

> recently concluded that organic yields were about 80

> percent of

> conventional yields. And many studies show an even

> narrower gap.

> Reviewing 154 growing seasons' worth of data on

> various crops grown on

> rain-fed and irrigated land in the United States,

> University of

> California-Davis agricultural scientist Bill

> Liebhardt found that

> organic corn yields were 94 percent of conventional

> yields, organic

> wheat yields were 97 percent, and organic soybean

> yields were 94

> percent. Organic tomatoes showed no yield

> difference.

>

> More importantly, in the world's poorer nations

> where most of the

> world's hungry live, the yield gaps completely

> disappear. University of

> Essex researchers Jules Pretty and

>

> Rachel Hine looked at over 200 agricultural projects

> in the developing

> world that converted to organic and ecological

> approaches, and found

> that for all the projects--involving 9 million farms

> on nearly 30

> million hectares--yields increased an average of 93

> percent. A

> seven-year study from Maikaal District in central

> India involving 1,000

> farmers cultivating 3,200 hectares found that

> average yields for cotton,

> wheat, chili, and soy were as much as 20 percent

> higher on the organic

> farms than on nearby conventionally managed ones.

> Farmers and

> agricultural scientists attributed the higher yields

> in this dry region

> to the emphasis on cover crops, compost, manure, and

> other practices

> that increased organic matter (which helps retain

> water) in the soils. A

> study from Kenya found that while organic farmers in

> " high-potential

> areas " (those with above average rainfall and high

> soil quality) had

> lower maize yields than nonorganic farmers, organic

> farmers in areas

> with poorer resource endowments consistently

> outyielded conventional

> growers. (In both regions, organic farmers had

> higher net profits,

> return on capital, and return on labor.)

>

> Contrary to critics who jibe that it's going back to

> farming like our

> grandfathers did or that most of Africa already

> farms organically and it

> can't do the job, organic farming is a sophisticated

> combination of old

> wisdom and modern ecological innovations that help

> harness the

> yield-boosting effects of nutrient cycles,

> beneficial insects, and crop

> synergies. It's heavily dependent on

> technology--just not the technology

> that comes out of a chemical plant.

>

> So could we make do without the chemical plants?

> Inspired by a field

> trip to a nearby organic farm where the farmer

> reported that he raised

> an amazing 27 tons of vegetables on six-tenths of a

> hectare in a

> relatively short growing season, a team of

> scientists from the

> University of Michigan tried to estimate how much

> food could be raised

> following a global shift to organic farming. The

> team combed through the

> literature for any and all studies comparing crop

> yields on organic

> farms with those on nonorganic farms. Based on 293

> examples, they came

> up with a global dataset of yield ratios for the

> world's major crops for

> the developed and the developing world. As expected,

> organic farming

> yielded less than conventional farming in the

> developed world for most

> food categories, while studies from the developing

> world showed organic

> farming boosting yields. The team then ran two

> models. The first was

> conservative in the sense that it applied the yield

> ratio for the

> developed world to the entire planet, i.e., they

> assumed that every farm

> regardless of location would get only the lower

> developed-country

> yields. The second applied the yield ratio for the

> developed world to

> wealthy nations and the yield ratio for the

> developing world to those

> countries.

>

> " We were all surprised by what we found, " said

> Catherine Badgley, a

> Michigan paleoecologist who was one of the lead

> researchers. The first

> model yielded 2,641 kilocalories ( " calories " ) per

> person per day, just

> under the world's current production of 2,786

> calories but significantly

> higher than the average caloric requirement for a

> healthy person of

> between 2,200 and 2,500.The second model yielded

> 4,381 calories per

> person per day, 75 percent greater than current

> availability-- and a

> quantity that could theoretically sustain a much

> larger human population

> than is currently supported on the world's farmland.

>

> The team's interest in this subject was partly

> inspired by the concern

> that a large scale shift to organic farming would

> require clearing

> additional wild areas to compensate for lower

> yields--an obvious worry

> for scientists like Badgley, who studies present and

> past biodiversity.

> The only problem with the argument, she said, is

> that much of the

> world's biodiversity exists in close proximity to

> farmland, and that's

> not likely to change anytime soon. " If we simply try

> to maintain

> biodiversity in islands around the world, we will

> lose most of it, " she

> said. " It's very important to make areas between

> those islands friendly

> to biodiversity. The idea of those areas being

> pesticide-drenched fields

> is just going to be a disaster for biodiversity,

> especially in the

> tropics. The world would be able to sustain high

> levels of biodiversity

> much better if we could change agriculture on a

> large scale. "

>

> Badgley's team went out of the way to make its

> assumptions as

> conservative as possible: most of the studies they

> used looked at the

> yields of a single crop, even though many organic

> farms grow more than

> one crop in a field at the same time, yielding more

> total food even if

> the yield of any given crop may be lower. Skeptics

> may doubt the team's

> conclusions--as ecologists, they are likely to be

> sympathetic to organic

> farming--but a second recent study of the potential

> of a global shift to

> organic farming, led by Niels Halberg of the Danish

> Institute of

> Agricultural Sciences, came to very similar

> conclusions, even though the

> authors were economists, agronomists, and

> international development experts.

>

> Like the Michigan team, Halberg's group made an

> assumption about the

> differences in yields with organic farming for a

> range of crops and then

> plugged those numbers into a model developed by the

> World Bank's

> International Food Policy Research Institute

> (IFPRI). This model is

> considered the definitive algorithm for predicting

> food output, farm

> income, and the number of hungry people throughout

> the world. Given the

> growing interest in organic farming among consumers,

> government

> officials, and agricultural scientists, the

> researchers wanted to assess

> whether a large-scale conversion to organic farming

> in Europe and North

> America (the world's primary food exporting regions)

> would reduce

> yields, increase world food prices, or worsen hunger

> in poorer nations

> that depend on imports, particularly those people

> living in the Third

> World's swelling megacities. Although the group

> found that total food

> production declined in Europe and North America, the

> model didn't show a

> substantial impact on world food prices. And because

> the model assumed,

> like the Michigan study, that organic farming would

> boost yields in

> Africa,Asia, and Latin America, the most optimistic

> scenario even had

> hunger-plagued sub-Saharan Africa exporting food

> surpluses.

>

> " Modern non-certified organic farming is a

> potentially sustainable

> approach to agricultural development in areas with

> low yields due to

> poor access to inputs or low yield potential because

> it involves lower

> economic risk than comparative interventions based

> on purchased inputs

> and may increase farm level resilience against

> climatic fluctuations, "

> Halberg's team concluded. In other words, studies

> from the field show

> that the yield increases from shifting to organic

> farming are highest

> and most consistent in exactly those poor, dry,

> remote areas where

> hunger is most severe. " Organic agriculture could be

> an important part

> of increased food security in sub-Saharan Africa, "

> says Halberg.

>

> That is, if other problems can be overcome. " A lot

> of research is to try

> to kill prejudices, " Halberg says--like the notion

> that organic farming

> is only a luxury, and one that poorer nations cannot

> afford. " I'd like

> to kill this once and for all. The two sides are

> simply too far from

> each other and they ignore the realities of the

> global food system. "

> Even if a shift toward organic farming boosted

> yields in hungry African

> and Asian nations, the model found that nearly a

> billion people remained

> hungry, because any surpluses were simply exported

> to areas that could

> best afford it.

>

> These conclusions about yields won't come as a

> surprise to many organic

> farmers. They have seen with their own eyes and felt

> with their own

> hands how productive they can be. But some

> supporters of organic farming

> shy away from even asking whether it can feed the

> world, simply because

> they don't think it's the most useful question.

> There is good reason to

> believe that a global conversion to organic farming

> would not proceed as

> seamlessly as plugging some yield ratios into a

> spreadsheet.

>

> To begin with, organic farming isn't as easy as

> farming with chemicals.

> Instead of choosing a pesticide to prevent a pest

> outbreak, for example,

> a particular organic farmer might consider altering

> his crop rotation,

> planting a crop that will repel the pest or one that

> will attract its

> predators--decisions that require some

> experimentation and long-term

> planning. Moreover, the IFPRI study suggested that a

> large-scale

> conversion to organic farming might require that

> most dairy and beef

> production eventually " be better integrated in

> cereal and other cash

> crop rotations " to optimize use of the manure.

> Bringing cows back to one

> or two farms to build up soil fertility may seem

> like a no-brainer, but

> doing it wholesale would be a challenge--and dumping

> ammonia on depleted

> soils still makes for a quicker fix.

>

> Again, these are just theoretical assumptions, since

> a global shift to

> organic farming could take decades. But farmers are

> ingenious and

> industrious people and they tend to cope with

> whatever problems are at

> hand. Eliminate nitrogen fertilizer and many farmers

> will probably graze

> cows on their fields to compensate. Eliminate

> fungicides and farmers

> will look for fungus-resistant crop varieties. As

> more and more farmers

> begin to farm organically, everyone will get better

> at it. Agricultural

> research centers, universities, and agriculture

> ministries will throw

> their resources into this type of farming--in sharp

> contrast to their

> current neglect of organic agriculture, which partly

> stems from the

> assumption that organic farmers will never play a

> major role in the

> global food supply.

>

> So the problems of adopting organic techniques do

> not seem

> insurmountable. But those problems may not deserve

> most of our

> attention; even if a mass conversion over, say, the

> next two decades,

> dramatically increased food production, there's

> little guarantee it

> would eradicate hunger. The global food system can

> be a complex and

> unpredictable beast. It's hard to anticipate how

> China's rise as a major

> importer of soybeans for its feedlots, for instance,

> might affect food

> supplies elsewhere. (It's likely to drive up food

> prices.) Or how

> elimination of agricultural subsidies in wealthy

> nations might affect

> poorer countries. (It's likely to boost farm incomes

> and reduce hunger.)

> And would less meat eating around the world free up

> food for the hungry?

> (It would, but could the hungry afford it?) In other

> words, " Can organic

> farming feed the world? " is probably not even the

> right question, since

> feeding the world depends more on politics and

> economics than any

> technological innovations.

>

> " 'Can organic farming feed the world' is indeed a

> bogus question, " says

> Gene Kahn, a long-time organic farmer who founded

> Cascadian Farms

> organic foods and is now vice president of

> sustainable development for

> General Mills. " The real question is, can we feed the

> world? Period. Can

> we fix the disparities in human nutrition? " Kahn

> notes that the marginal

> difference in today's organic yields and the yields

> of conventional

> agriculture wouldn't matter if food surpluses were

> redistributed.

>

> But organic farming will yield other benefits that

> are too numerous to

> name. Studies have shown, for example, that the

> " external " costs of

> organic farming-- erosion, chemical pollution to

> drinking water, death

> of birds and other wildlife--are just one-third

> those of conventional

> farming. Surveys from every continent show that

> organic farms support

> many more species of birds, wild plants, insects,

> and other wildlife

> than conventional farms. And tests by several

> governments have shown

> that organic foods carry just a tiny fraction of the

> pesticide residues

> of the nonorganic alternatives, while completely

> banning growth

> hormones, antibiotics, and many additives allowed in

> many conventional

> foods. There is even some evidence that crops grown

> organically have

> considerably higher levels of health-promoting

> antioxidants.

>

> There are social benefits as well. Because organic

> farming doesn't

> depend on expensive

>

> inputs, it might help shift the balance towards

> smaller farmers in

> hungry nations. A 2002 report from the UN Food and

> Agriculture

> Organization noted that " organic systems can double

> or triple the

> productivity of traditional systems " in developing

> nations but suggested

> that yield comparisons offer a " limited, narrow, and

> often misleading

> picture " since farmers in these countries often

> adopt organic farming

> techniques to save water, save money, and reduce the

> variability of

> yields in extreme conditions. A more recent study by

> the International

> Fund for Agricultural Development found that the

> higher labor

> requirements often mean that " organic agriculture

> can prove particularly

> effective in bringing redistribution of resources in

> areas where the

> labour force is underemployed. This can help

> contribute to rural stability. "

>

> These benefits will come even without a complete

> conversion to a sort of

> organic utopia. In fact, some experts think that a

> more hopeful, and

> reasonable, way forward is a sort of middle ground,

> where more and more

> farmers adopt the principles of organic farming even

> if they don't

> follow the approach religiously. In this scenario,

> both poor farmers and

> the environment come out way ahead. " Organic

> agriculture is /not/ going

> to do the trick, " says Roland Bunch, an agricultural

> extensionist who

> has worked for decades in Africa and the Americas

> and is now with

> COSECHA (Association of Consultants for a

> Sustainable, Ecological, and

> People-Centered Agriculture) in Honduras. Bunch

> knows first-hand that

> organic agriculture can produce more than

> conventional farming among

> poorer farmers. But he also knows that these farmers

> cannot get the

> premium prices paid for organic produce elsewhere,

> and that they are

> often unable, and unwilling, to shoulder some of the

> costs and risks

> associated with going completely organic.

>

> Instead, Bunch points to " a middle path, " of

> eco-agriculture, or

> low-input agriculture that uses many of the

> principles of organic

> farming and depends on just a small fraction of the

> chemicals. " These

> systems can immediately produce two or three times

> what smallholder

> farmers are presently producing, " Bunch says. " And

> furthermore, it is

> attractive to smallholder farmers because it is less

> costly per unit

> produced. " In addition to the immediate gains in

> food production, Bunch

> suggests that the benefits for the environment of

> this middle path will

> be far greater than going " totally organic, " because

> " something like

> five to ten times as many smallholder farmers will

> adopt it per unit of

> extension and training expense, because it behooves

> them economically.

> They aren't taking food out of their kids' mouths.

> If five farmers

> eliminate half their use of chemicals, the effect on

> the environment

> will be two and one-half times as great as if one

> farmer goes totally

> organic. "

>

> And farmers who focus on building their soils,

> increasing biodiversity,

> or bringing livestock into their rotation aren't

> precluded from

> occasionally turning to biotech crops or synthetic

> nitrogen or any other

> yield-enhancing innovations in the future,

> particularly in places where

> the soils are heavily depleted. " In the end, if we

> do things right,

> we'll build a lot of organic into conventional

> systems, " says Don

> Lotter, the agricultural consultant. Like Bunch,

> Lotter notes that such

> an " integrated " approach often out-performs both a

> strictly organic and

> chemical-intensive approach in terms of yield,

> economics, and

> environmental benefits. Still, Lotter's not sure

> we'll get there

> tomorrow, since the world's farming is hardly

> pointed in the organic

> direction--which could be the real problem for the

> world's poor and

> hungry. " There is such a huge area in sub-Saharan

> Africa and South

> America where the Green Revolution has never made an

> impact and it's

> unlikely that it will for the next generation of

> poor farmers, " argues

> Niels Halberg, the Danish scientist who lead the

> IFPRI study. " It seems

> that agro-ecological measures for some of these

> areas have a beneficial

> impact on yields and food insecurity. So why not

> seriously try it out? "

>

> Brian Halweil /is a Senior Researcher at Worldwatch

> and the author of

> /Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a/

> /Global Supermarket.//

>

> For more information about issues raised in this

> story, visit

>

> *www.worldwatch.org/ww/organic*.

>

> © Clemens Kalischer

>

> Inserts from original article:

>

> ENOUGH NITROGEN TO GO AROUND?

>

> In addition to looking at raw yields, the University

> of Michigan

> scientists also examined the common concern that

> there aren't enough

> available sources of non-synthetic

> nitrogen--compost, manure, and plant

> residues--in the world to support large-scale

> organic farming. For

> instance, in his book /Enriching the Earth: Fritz

> Haber, Carl Bosch, and

> the/ /Transformation of World Food Production/,

> Vaclav Smil argues that

> roughly two-thirds of the world's food harvest

> depends on the

> Haber-Bosch process, the technique developed in the

> early 20th century

> to synthesize ammonia fertilizer from fossil fuels.

> (Smil admits that he

> largely ignored the contribution of nitrogen-fixing

> crops and assumed

> that some of them, like soybeans, are net users of

> nitrogen, although he

> himself points out that on average half of all the

> fertilizer applied

> globally is wasted and not taken up by plants.) Most

> critics of organic

> farming as a means to feed the world focus on how

> much manure--and how

> much related pastureland and how many head of

> livestock--would be needed

> to fertilize the world's organic farms. " The issue

> of nitrogen is

> different in different regions, " says Don Lotter, an

> agricultural

> consultant who has published widely on organic

> farming and nutrient

> requirements. " But lots more nitrogen comes in as

> green manure than

> animal manure. "

>

> Looking at 77 studies from the temperate areas and

> tropics, the Michigan

> team found that greater use of nitrogen-fixing crops

> in the world's

> major agricultural regions could result in 58

> million metric tons more

> nitrogen than the amount of synthetic nitrogen

> currently used every year.

>

> Research at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania

> showed that red clover

> used as a winter cover in an oat/wheat-corn-soy

> rotation, with no

> additional fertilizer inputs, achieved yields

> comparable to those in

> conventional control fields. Even in arid and

> semi-arid tropical regions

> like East Africa, where water availability is

> limited between periods of

> crop production, drought-resistant green manures

> such as pigeon peas or

> groundnuts could be used to fix nitrogen. In

> Washington state, organic

> wheat growers have matched their non-organic

> neighbor's wheat yields

> using the same field pea rotation for nitrogen. In

> Kenya, farmers using

> leguminous tree crops have doubled or tripled corn

> yields as well as

> suppressing certain stubborn weeds and generating

> additional animal fodder.

>

> The Michigan results imply that no additional land

> area is required to

> obtain enough biologically available nitrogen, even

> without including

> the potential for intercropping (several crops grown

> in the same field

> at the same time), rotation of livestock with annual

> crops, and

> inoculation of soil with /Azobacter, Azospirillum/,

> and other

> free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

>

> FOOD VERSUS FUEL

>

> Sometimes, when humans try to solve one problem,

> they end up creating

> another. The global food supply is already under

> serious strain: more

> than 800 million people go hungry every day, the

> world's population

> continues to expand, and a growing number of people

> in the developing

> world are changing to a more Western, meat-intensive

> diet that requires

> more grain and water per calorie than traditional

> diets do. Now comes

> another potential stressor: concern about climate

> change means that more

> nations are interested in converting crops into

> biofuels as an

> alternative to fossil fuels.

>

> But could this transition remove land from food

> production and further

> intensify problems of world hunger? For several

> reasons, some analysts

> say no, at least not in the near future. First, they

> emphasize that

> nearly 40 percent of global cereal crops are fed to

> livestock, not

> humans, and that global prices of grains and oil

> seeds do not always

> affect the cost of food for the hungry, who

> generally

>

> cannot participate in formal markets anyway.

>

> Second, at least to date, hunger has been due

> primarily to inadequate

> income and distribution rather than absolute food

> scarcity. In this

> regard, a biofuels economy may actually help to

> reduce hunger and

> poverty. A recent UN Food and Agriculture

> Organization report argued

> that increased use of biofuels could diversify

> agricultural and forestry

> activities, attract investment in new small and

> medium-sized

> enterprises, and increase investment in agricultural

> production, thereby

> increasing the incomes of the world's poorest

> people.

>

> Third, biofuel refineries in the future will depend

> less on food crops

> and increasingly on organic wastes and residues.

> Producing biofuels from

> corn stalks, rice hulls, sawdust, or waste paper is

> unlikely to affect

> food production directly. And there are

> drought-resistant grasses,

> fast-growing trees, and other energy crops that will

> grow on marginal

> lands unsuitable for raising food.

>

> Nonetheless, with growing human appetites for both

> food and fuel,

> biofuels' long-run potential may be limited by the

> priority given to

> food production if bioenergy systems are not

> harmonized with food

> systems. The most optimistic assessments of the

> long-term potential of

> biofuels have assumed that agricultural yields will

> continue to improve

> and that world population growth and food

> consumption will stabilize.

> But the assumption about population may prove to be

> wrong. And yields,

> organic or otherwise, may not improve enough if

> agriculture in the

> future is threatened by declining water tables or

> poor soil maintenance.

>

>

> --

>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> WHO WE ARE: This e-mail service shares information

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> discuss crucial policy issues affecting global food

> security.

> The service is managed by Amber McNair of the

> University of Toronto

> in partnership with the Centre for Urban Health

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> Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council, in

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> the Community Food Security Coalition, World Hunger

> Year, and

> International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture.

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I did the 2006 CN Tower Climb for

World Wildlife Fund. I raised $1,010. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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