The UN Report dated 20 December 2010 Click here is on the merits of sustainable agricutlure based on small farms in overcoming many of today's agrarian challenges in the developing world. Its recommendations appear to match the agricultural profiles of both China and Africa perfectly.
Many of China's agronomical hurdles resonate with Sub-Sahara Africa's litany of problems: fragmented small-holder plots, lack of proper tenure, want of affordable fertilizers and technology, backward infrastructure, subsistence-level competition with animal husbandry, soil erosion, drought and dearth of water management, prevalence of pests, disease and weeds, dearth of improved crop variety, workers in quest of higher urban wages, diminishing arable acreage, and inadequate financial support and R & D. The UN model of sustainable yet productive farming should provide a holistic solution to many of these problems.
To cope with the huge food demands of her massive population, China has reasonably been successful in raising her agricultural productivity, mainly through adotpion of better seeds and fertilizers. In 2008, China enacted a law to promote a 'Cirular Economy' which covers such practices as recylcing of nutrients in the agrarian economy. With mounting water scarcity and ecological contraints, there is much the UN can do in helping China and Africa to overcome their agricultural challenges.
China has been very active in agricultural aid in Africa. China has also actively participated in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Special Program on Food Security in a number of
African countries. Such engagement is timely as funding for agriculture in international aid agencies like the World Bank has plummeted from 23% of loans in the early 1980s to 5% just before the millennium. Some donors, such as the United States, have channeled funding more into food aid. So China should do well in Africa by working more closely with the UN to promote sustainable farming.
The Earth Institute has also launched a series of Tropical Agriculture and China 2049 programs, which is beginning to attract private sector strategic partners - see
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/08/09/...
With a looming global food crisis, there is much to be said for China, as the country with the largest population, and Africa, as a potential Food Basket of the world, to work with the UN and indeed other national, corporate and civil society stakeholders to help bring more food for the world in a way that not only improves farmers' income but spreads good sustainable farming practices across the globe.
The success of an experimental farm in Shandong conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Click here should give ample cause for hope that eco-farming will prove to be the key to increasing agricultural productivity, profitabilility, sustainability, as well as long-term food security for China and the rest of the world.
Andrew
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