Well, we just witnessed what is probably the most ineffective outcome from the Copenhagen summit possible. Nothing binding, no real deadlines and no new commitments. Julieanne has a pretty good analysis on her gardening blog Gwenfar’s Lottie.
When are countries going to include agriculture in these discussions anyway!
The EU has also just finalized their budget next year, with roughly 45% earmarked for agriculture. As is usual for these kinds of things, there seems to be little concrete information online, but indications are this too was a total failure by most accounts. No big overhaul that we’ve been promised for years, no new money for small and family run farms, no new money for organic agriculture, no caps on the largest recipients of farm aid and no obvious cuts for the environmentally damaging factory farm industry that provides most of our food.
What we have is a promise for next year, a total overhaul of the budget. There doesn’t seem like a lot to look forward to here either. France, Ireland and Poland are promoting business as usual, and other countries are supporting “a shift in spending away from agriculture towards innovation, energy and tackling climate change.” We’ll have to wait a while anyway for whatever gains are made on these policies, because they don’t come into effect until 2014.
While no one is going to stand up against innovation, without reforms in patent and other intellectual property rights laws, all that’s going to happen is we find ourselves in the middle of another GMO fiasco. That is we’ll end up with technology and innovation that doesn’t offer any particular benefit to consumers, isn’t wanted, is potentially dangerous and is forced on us regardless.
Who knows what it means to increase spending in ‘energy and tackling climate change’ in the context of all of this. Important topics for sure, but what exactly does it mean?
