United Nations Day Highlights Opportunities for Agriculture
October 24th marks the anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter, which occurred in 1945. Every year the UN chooses a topic to highlight on this occasion; during 2016, the Millennium Development Goals are at the forefront of the commemoration. This article explores how food and agriculture relate to this year’s UN Day.
United Nations Day Highlights Opportunities for Agriculture
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) include avoiding food, energy and water wastage, increasing recycling programs worldwide, promoting reforestation initiatives, keeping ocean habitats clean, and reducing fossil fuel dependency, amongst others. Many of the concrete challenges brought forth as part of the MDG are related to or affect the worldwide agriculture industry. The international mandate of the UN is to serve as a forum to coordinate policy amongst governments and foster cooperation in order to ensure world peace. One of the main threats to world peace today is the scarcity of natural resources and competition for access to them. In fact, many of today’s zones of global tension are tied to issues of access to basic resources. For example, the so-called Arab Spring and the prevailing chaos in the Middle East region can be traced back to the increasing desertification of this region, which has prompted economic hardships.
Issues such as severe climate variations and desertification represent a threat to the sustenance of a peaceful societal order because they limit the access to basic needs for the general population. In this regard, it is estimated that a temperature increase of one degree Celsius (1°C) can reduce overall agricultural production by 10% worldwide. Likewise, the current trend of climate variations could lead the Middle East to lose up to 50% of its water resources within the next century. This stark reality is particularly relevant in countries where large sectors of the population depend upon sustenance agriculture.
A major worry that exists within the agricultural and scientific community is the decrease in crop productivity because of higher temperatures and soils that are becoming more arid. Similarly, just as some animal species are threatened because their habitats are being destroyed, plant species also face the threat of extinction. This is due to dynamics such as accelerated genetic modification, extensive monoculture crop farming, and the destruction of unique habitat environments. Because of this threat, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other non-governmental organizations (NGO) joined forces to create Crop Trust, which is an environmental NGO in charge of defending agricultural diversity and protecting the world’s genetic pool. In 2008, Crop Trust inaugurated the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the Spitsbergen archipelago in the Norwegian Artic. The Global Seed Vault serves as the world’s seed storage, and backup, to protect our agriculture’s genetic pool in case of a major global crisis, be it natural or of any other nature.
Agriculture and innovation in biotechnology are a driving force in the achievement of the UN-MDG. The global challenges highlighted during this UN Day can be addressed by implementing agricultural technologies and practices that are less reliant on heavy irrigation and consume moderate amounts of water. Likewise, the driving force behind the threat of climate variation patterns, which is fossil fuel consumption, can be countered by the utilization of wind, solar, and biofuel energy sources. In fact, during the last environment meetings hosted by the UN, such as the COP 21 in Paris (2015), the use of ethanol and other biofuels has been an important topic of discussion.
(Read more about As the Desert threatens Agriculture, African Nations try to stop the Sahara)