The video, produced by the Canadian Biotech Action Network (CBAN) can be viewed here, or embedded below.

People's Food Policy launch on Parliament Hill, April 18, 2011. Starting from left: Cathleen Kneen, chair of Food Secure Canada; Amanda Sheedy, national coordinator PFP; Anna Paskal, policy lead PFP.

“A global movement is cresting in Canada”.

That’s what Globe and Mail reporter Jessica Leeder says in her story triggered by the release of the People’s Food Policy during the recent election campaign. She reports that Canadians have “ lost touch with the value of food” and beings with a reflection that indicates why this subject is rising on the public agenda right now:

“Contrary to what it says on the stock ticker, food is not just any old commodity. As its more holistic advocates say, it’s the subject of humankind’s most intimate relationship: Food can give life and, through absence or extreme overindulgence, it can take life away.”

Read the whole story here.

At the same time, the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business features several comments from some key leaders and opinion makers in food and agriculture. We encourage you to take a look.

During the election campaign the federal NDP party announced their support of a national food policy as did the Green Party. In response to the Peoples’ Food Policy, commentator Robin Sears said on the CBC’s Cross Country Check-Up election program that “ a leader with vision would run with a policy like this”. We encourage you to read it!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: The People’s Food Policy is an excellent and clear summary of key food issues in Canada. Download it here.

The first article – from which the following table is taken – is an in-depth report titled Saving Rice, about India’s current debate.

The second story – The Custodian of Indigenous Rice – suggests that food solutions are not all about yields. As this article suggests, resilience and long-term sustainability are also key.

At the end of a 5-year case, Germany’s highest court has re-affirmed that the long-term risks of GMOs are still unknown and could have irreversible effects. The court’s decision obliges the German government to act cautiously to preserve nature for future generations.

This decision comes less than two weeks after the signing of an international biosafety agreement in Nagoya, Japan. Greenpeace International provides more information here, including a direct link to the decision.

In a recent article by Andrew Pollack in the New York Times about biotechnology giant Monsanto, we see evidence of what can happen with a quick-fix technological approach to farming. When all efforts are concentrated on just one trait, like herbicide resistance, one shock to the system – in the absence of diverse coping strategies – can have major negative consequences. That situation is only exacerbated by the fact that corporations control so much of the seed supply and the price of farming inputs.

But read on to the end of this story and you’ll learn of another report, released by Friends of the Earth on the same day. This second report challenges these claims of success and offers its own data. Read the full article here.

The next day the focus was on two magic crops: one genetically engineered (Golden Rice) and the other biologically engineered (the orange sweet potato). The story about Golden Rice as a brilliant biotech solution to the Vitamin-A-deficiency that causes blindness among millions of the world’s poorest children prompted this response from USC Executive Director Susan Walsh. Definitely worth reading!

Wednesday November 18, 2009, Ottawa – We applaud The Current’s work to raise awareness among Canadians about the Rome Food Summit and about efforts to address the shameful fact that over one billion people on this planet head to bed with empty stomachs. We especially appreciated Monday’s interview with Olivier de Shutter, UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

On today’s program, however, we would have liked coverage that looks beyond the silver-bullet approach to curbing this shameful state of affairs. Why do we in the West keep insisting on one, or a few, magic products to solve the problem? Can we not learn from the mistakes of farming systems that have focussed on a narrow base of food crops – single variety crops in need of expensive input packages or with foreign genes that may, or may not, have lasting or welcomed benefits?

We urgently need to take a hard look at the broader food system. Might it be our Western logic that is undermining more sustainable and affordable food production? While Vandana’s Shiva’s response to the Golden Rice debate was an angry one – bred, no doubt, from years of work with farmers harmed by one-size-fits-all approaches – she raised some very good points about the challenges to lasting food security around the world.

Into the Hands of the Hungry
There are, for example, plenty of food plants with vitamin A – domesticated and wild foods – that are, or could easily be, accessible to families in need, if only we would redirect our energies and resources to that end. These foods are not in the hands of the hungry now, as The Current‘s host rightly suggested. That’s because we have promoted high-yielding, single-variety crops that undermine such diversity. Nutrient-rich alternatives are dismissed, called minor crops simply because they don’t have high commercial value. But they are the foods that could feed the majority of people on this planet well. Just ask the experts on the World Bank-funded International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), whose recent report linked the “organic and biodiverse practices of small-scale producers to sustainable and impressive yields.”

A system based primarily on local, natural, and affordable materials is feeding people who were once the poorest of the poor, and could feed more people. I returned last week from a two-week visit with Honduran farmers who have successfully cut the number of annual hungry days – called los Junios – down from more than five weeks to just over one! How? Within farmer researcher teams (CIALs), they crossed their hardier criolla (or local) varieties with higher yielding ones – hybrids can be very helpful. But as well as raising yields, they diversified both the types of food they grew and the varieties within each crop. They then selected the best seeds to deal with a broad range of needs, including characteristics to deal with increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather. CIAL members also become important local leaders and organizers, breaking the isolation and taking greater control of their local food system.

Complex Solutions
And that, finally, is the point we would like to stress most. The food system is an incredibly complex one, with lots of messy politics and international bullying thrown in. In Ghana, for example, it is cheaper to buy a frozen chicken from the EU than a local fresh one. How can the most marginal in this system ever feed themselves when the odds are so stacked against them? Even if Golden Rice were a magic bullet and could play an important part in alleviating blindness, on such an uneven playing field, could the hungry really expect its fair and needed share?

What’s needed? A redirection of the billions the world now spends on laboratory seeds and single new technologies toward farming systems that consider the role of small-scale producers, the ecosystems they farm within, and broader global structures, such as prohibitive trade regimes. Until this happens, claims of the superiority of any biotech approach will remain untested.

Susan Walsh
Executive Director, USC Canada

Their argument balances the right to intellectual property with the right to free inquiry. At stake are future directions for global agriculture, as well as food safety, the environment, and the basic principles of the scientific method. Read the full article here.