Osnir da Silva Rubez prepares the furrows that will take water from the São Francisco river to irrigate his crops in the Brazilian Semi-arid ecoregion. He refuses to join the local drip or micro-sprinkler irrigation system, which is more efficient in water use, fertilisation and soil protection. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

By Mario Osava
JUAZEIRO, Brazil , Jun 12 2024 (IPS)

Osmir da Silva Rubez refuses to join the drip system, and is the only one among the 51 families living in the Mandacaru Public Irrigation Project in Juazeiro, a municipality in the state of Bahia, in the Northeast region of Brazil, to maintain the furrows that carry water to their crops.

The São Francisco River, which rises in the state of Minas Gerais, near the centre of Brazil, and flows northeast, has boosted irrigated agriculture in its 2,863 kilometres, much of it in semi-arid territory, with rainfall averaging between 200 and 800 millimetres per year.

It is a privileged basin, located in a region that suffers from water scarcity, especially in the increasingly recurrent droughts, when small rivers and streams dry up.

Water availability, immense due to the river’s large flow, was increased by the construction of two hydroelectric dams North and South of Juazeiro, a city of 238,000 people, which has developed a fruit-growing industry, mainly for export.

Mangoes and grapes are the main local crops, grown on large private farms and in the irrigation projects of the state-owned São Francisco and Parnaíba Valley Development Company (Codevasf). Export activity highlights the contrasts and inequalities of the so-called Semi-arid ecoregion.

Drip irrigation hoses on an Agrodan farm on an island in the São Francisco River, in Brazil’s arid Northeast. The company claims to be the country’s largest mango producer and exporter. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Flood irrigation

“The ditches that were initially used for irrigation are wasteful in their use of water. Drip irrigation is mostly used nowadays, since it uses only the necessary water, is monitored by computers and measures of soil humidity,” explained Humberto Miranda, chair of the Bahia Federation of Agriculture.

“Before, only 30 per cent of the water was used, today more than 90 per cent is used, which means that little is lost,” he said during an IPS tour of various localities in Juazeiro to visit farms and organisations involved in the irrigation project.

In Mandacaru, the system that enabled the switch to drip irrigation, with ponds and pumping, was implemented in 2011, explained Manoel Vicente dos Santos, one of the first settlers in the project launched in 1973. “Irrigation by furrows was unstable, bringing more water to one plant than to others, a waste,” he recalled.

But Rubez resists the change. In addition to the investment required in pumps and hoses, the drip system uses a lot of electricity, about 1,000 reais (200 dollars) a month. “And I have no heirs to leave the system to,” the 60-year-old single man joked with IPS.

Suemi Koshiyama, a Japanese immigrant who became a large producer of grapes and mangoes in the São Francisco river valley, in arid lands in the municipality of Juazeiro, in northeastern Brazil, shows the hose that irrigates his vineyard, drip-fed from above and not on the ground. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

The drip system is a step forward in these irrigation projects. Apart from saving water, it improves soil management, reducing erosion and controlling chemical fertilisation by directing it to the roots through the water, says José Moacir dos Santos, general coordinator of the non-governmental Regional Institute for Appropriate Small Farming (Irpaa).

But irrigation projects, whether Codevasf or private, do not favour local development, concentrate income, nor offer seasonal jobs during harvests, and they promote inequality, Dos Santos criticised.

Prosperity for the few

The wealth amassed by export fruit farming stays in the hands of a few, but creates a perception of prosperity that attracts many poor people to Juazeiro and neighbouring Petrolina, a city of 387,000 people separated by the São Francisco river and linked by a bridge.

Migration to these two fruit-growing capitals of the Brazilian Northeast “swells their populations, especially their poor and infrastructure-poor peripheries, while emptying nearby cities,” said the activist, son of Manoel Vicente, one of the project’s settlers.

In his opinion, an “injustice” has been done, because the river supplies the fruit-growing industry that exports its water contained in the fruit to Europe, the United States and Japan. But it does not do the same for the entire riverside population, which also has to resort to other, more distant springs.

Water pumping station from the São Francisco river to irrigate fruit farming at a project near Juazeiro, a production and export hub for fruit, especially mangoes and grapes, in Brazil’s arid northeast. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

In addition, most of the farmers have no irrigation. Communities encouraged by the government many years ago and traditional farmers in the basin have no access to water from the river, nor to the financing or other public project perks.

The dominant monoculture of fruit trees forces food imports. Juazeiro and Petrolina, with a combined population of 625,000, produce less food for local consumption than Campo Alegre de Lourdes, a municipality 350 kilometres away with only 31,000 inhabitants, compared Dos Santos, an agricultural technician.

The flow of goods, with fruits leaving and other products arriving from various parts of Brazil, has transformed the Juazeiro Producer Market into Brazil’s second largest agricultural trade hub, surpassed only by São Paulo, a metropolis of 12 million inhabitants – 22 million if its large metropolitan area is added.

“The fruit-growing hub is an artificial system that concentrates the best soils and water of São Francisco on islands and generates the illusion of growth in Greater Juazeiro and Petrolina, where only 5 per cent of the land is suitable for irrigation, with water for only 2 per cent,” said Roberto Malvezzi, an activist with the Catholic Pastoral Land Commission.

Maciela de Oliveira Silva in the shop where she sells products from the Mossoroca and Region Family Farming Cooperative, such as sweets, jellies and liqueurs made from native fruits from the so-called “grassland fund”, a collective area where farmers extract fruit, produce honey and raise goats and sheep. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Suitable alternatives

For Malvezzi, who has a degree in philosophy and theology, the Semi-arid region’s main economic and productive vocation is small livestock, such as goats and sheep, rather than agriculture.

A mistake that has cost it multiple crises and impoverishment, as well as the environmental destruction of the Semi-arid region, was the historical expansion of cattle in Northeastern Brazil, whose interior is mostly semi-arid.

The industrial and commercial chain for goats should be developed, including slaughterhouses and services such as technical assistance and health surveillance, said Malvezzi, who was born in the state of São Paulo, studied philosophy and theology there, but lives in the Northeast since 1979.

The Semi-arid is a region of family farming, and for nearly three decades has seen a transformation process seeking to adapt its development to local conditions, including the climate. “Living with the Semi-arid”, which means rejecting colonial influences and impositions of the past, is the goal.

Main canal supplying an irrigation project with water from the São Francisco river in the Semi-arid region. Secondary canals and local pumps in the fruit orchards complete the system that replaced irrigation by flood furrows, practically abolished because of the waste of water. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Small animal husbandry, instead of water-intensive cattle farming, and rainwater harvesting, both for human and animal consumption and for agricultural production, are some of the proven and effective ways.

In the state of Bahia, a traditional agrarian singularity has been institutionalised, the “grassland fund”, a large collective land, managed for the extraction of native products, such as fruits, and the raising of goats and sheep. Horticulture is expanding strongly throughout the Semi-arid region.

The Family Agricultural Cooperative of Massaroca and Region (Coofama), in the municipality of Juazeiro, is an example of a grassland fund, whose jellies, liqueurs and other native fruit products, such as umbu, and honey, are sold on the nearby highway and in cities.

‘Quiosco da Umbuzada’ is the name given to the roadside shop in the village of Massaroca, and ‘Central da Caatinga’, a shop in the city of Juazeiro, sell the products of Coofama and other family farming cooperatives.

“Goats survive better in prolonged droughts, they eat leaves even from tall trees,” Coofama farmer Maciela de Oliveira Silva, who runs the roadside shop, where she works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a minimum wage, equal to 280 dollars, told IPS.

Eggs are another viable and promising food production in the Semi-arid, according to the Association of Small Producers of Canoa and Oliveira, led by Gilmar Nogueira Lino, owner of some 1,000 hens, also in the south of Juazeiro.

The association’s 60 families produced 17,444 dozen eggs in 2023, said Lino. “The hens are faster than goats, start providing income in a few months and don’t require large spaces,” he told IPS.

On his half-hectare property, the farmer has chicken coops and a shop that sells food, drinks and cooking gas. He also donated the land for the association’s headquarters. He only had to overcome the prejudice that “raising chickens is a woman’s business.”

One of the most significant aspects of the international conference on climate change, concluded in Paris on December 12, is that food security and ending hunger feature in the global agenda of the climate change debate.

The text of the final agreement adopted by the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recognizes “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger and the special vulnerability of food systems production to the impacts of climate change.”

Indeed, of the 186 countries that presented voluntary plans to reduce emissions, around a hundred include measures related to land use and agriculture.

The approved programme of measures constitutes a sector-by-sector program to be implemented by 2020, which implies there will be ongoing focus on agricultural issues and not just about energy, mitigation or transportation, which drew so much of the attention in Paris.

In the next years the commitments must be implemented, which will require helping developing countries make necessary adaptations through technology transfer and capacity building.

The Green Climate Fund, comprising 100,000 million per year provided by the industrialized countries, will be a key contributor to this process. Contributions of additional resources to the Fund for the Least Developed Countries and the Adaptation Fund, among others, have also been announced.

The issue of future food production, long saddled with a low profile in the media, is increasingly a major concern and poses a challenge to governments.

A recent World Bank report estimated that 100 million people could fall into poverty in the next 15 years due to climate change. Agricultural productivity will suffer, in turn causing higher food prices.

According to Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “climate change affects especially countries that have not contributed to causing the problem” and “particularly harms developing countries and the poorer classes.”

The facts speak for themselves. The world’s 50 poorest countries combined, are responsible for only one per cent of global greenhouse emissions, yet these nations are the ones most affected by climate change.

Approximately 75 per cent of poor people suffering from food insecurity depend on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods. Under current projections, it will be necessary to increase food production by 60 per cent to feed the world’s population in 2050.

Yet crop yields will, if current trends continue, fall by 10 to 20 per cent in the same period, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and higher ocean temperatures will slash fishing yields by 40 per cent.

One of the least-mentioned problems associated with climate change are the effects of droughts and floods, which have become a near constant reality. On top of the destruction of resources and huge losses brought by these phenomena, they also cause increases in food prices which in turn affects mainly the poor and most vulnerable.

Rising food prices have a direct relation to “climate migrants”, as the drop in production and income is one of the factors that triggers displacement from rural areas to cities, as well as from the poorest countries to those where there are potentially more opportunities to work and have a dignified life.

For example, migration in Syria and Somalia are not driven by political conflicts or security issues alone, but also by drought and the consequent food shortages.

This is why FAO argues that we must simultaneously solve climate change and the great challenges of development and hunger. These two scenarios go hand-in-hand. The dilemma is to make sure that measures adopted to address the former do not generate a constraint on the latter. Production capacity, particularly of developing countries, must not be jeopardized.

This is why developing countries argue that, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they need technologies and support that they cannot fund with their own resources without hobbling their own development plans.

And since the most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are the industrialized nations, the countries of the South insist, and have done so long before the COP21, that richer nations contribute to funding the changes needed to preserve the environment.

It was therefore natural that this dilemma was at the center of discussions in Paris and that efforts were made to find an agreement.

The creation of the Green Climate Fund was one of the keystones for an agreement that practically binds the whole world to the goal of keeping average temperatures at the end of the century from rising more than two degrees Celsius. The agreement will enter into force in 2020 and will be reviewed every five years. In that period, many problems will arise and need to be resolved.

Yet beyond the difficulties we will face on the way, it now seems legitimate to expect that the big problem will be addressed and the future of the planet will be preserved.

(End)

Strong markets for agricultural production can help drive rural development. Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS

By Valentina Ieri
UNITED NATIONS, May 8 2015 (IPS)

Despite a minimal reduction in global production, the world food import bill is about to reach a five-year low in 2015, pushing international prices for agricultural commodities down even further, the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) forecast on May 7.

According to FAO’s biannual Food Outlook report released on Thursday, given large supplies, low freight rates, a strong U.S. dollar, and changes in the volume of food import commodities, international food prices continued declining during April, and are likely to stay as such for the next season.

The report estimated that cereal production for 2015, which is five percent above the average of the past five years, may decline by 1.5 percent from last year’s recorded production –  around 2,500 billion tonnes. Nonetheless, negative effects on food consumption will be balanced by the presence of large quantities of cereal stockpiles.

Broadly speaking, the decline of food prices should benefit food importing countries, and likely lower income ones, but it may have impacts on certain sectors, such as commodity farmers, said an FAO spokesperson.

“Farmers engaged in producing those commodities, such as palm oil and rice, stand to earn less. FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva has several times emphasised that strong markets for agricultural production can help drive rural development, but also that prices remain fairly high by historical standards today.”

Food prices are declining from historical high levels, especially since the severe price rises of the 2007-2012 period.

FAO’s Food Price Index, a trade-weighted monthly index which tracks prices of cereals, meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and sugar on international markets, has registered a 1.2 percent decline from March, the lowest level since June 2010 (reaching 171 points), and 19.2 percent less than in 2014.

The FAO spokesperson added, “While [lower food prices] could improve poorer people’s access to food, much depends on local food and distribution systems. Wholesale prices measured by the food price index do not necessarily correlate to retail prices in individual countries or regions.”

International prices have declined mostly for dairy products, due to the abolition of the European Union milk quota system (about 6.7 percent), but also for sugar, cereals and vegetable oils. Only meat values rose in April, the first increase since August 2014.

Fish is gaining wide popularity, said the report. Fishery production, supported by a fast growing aquaculture sector, is expected to rise by five percent in the year ahead.

Finally, the report highlighted how some currencies have weakened against the U.S. dollar, “So the benefit from lower international food prices may be reduced,” concluded the spokesperson.

The strategy for defeating global hunger, said FAO, is “to shift the focus from food growth – enough to supply all food needs – to reduce loss and waste of food at all levels, from the farmer to the final consumer.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

To mark World Health Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on governments around the world and all sectors involved in the food business to introduce food safety policies into their political agendas.

Speaking at the United Nations headquarters in New York, WHO’s Executive Director, Jacob Kumaresan, said, “(Governments) should have comprehensive food safety policies which are matched with appropriate legislation. (This means) robust food safety strategies which include good storage, transportation, retail and good restaurant practices.”

Kumaresan also called for a “multi-sectoral collaboration, as food passes through multiple hands, from farm to plates. This is a test for governmental ability to foster dialogue and coordination between the health sectors, along with agriculture, trade, environment and tourism sectors.”

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon remarked, “Changes to the way food is produced, distributed and consumed, the emergence of resistant bacteria, and increases in travel and trade make it difficult to manage pathogens and contaminants once they are in our food supply.”

This year, WHO’s slogan “from farm to plate: make food safe” has been chosen because of its impact on public health and upon the global economy, explained Kumaresan.

Today access to direct food supply is widespread, said Kumaresan. “However, food also contains harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites and sometimes chemicals substance, which are responsible for 200 diseases,” such as diarrhoea, heart diseases and cancer, he added.

“Unsafe food is a largely under-reported and an often overlooked global problem,” said Ban, adding that, “With the food supply chain stretching around the world, the need to strengthen food safety systems within and among countries is becoming more critical.”

According to WHO, food and waterborne diseases are linked to approximately 2 million deaths per year. The top offender bacteria are Salmonella Typhi and E.Coli, and the two most problematic areas for food safety are Africa and South Asia.

Environmental problems are a threat to food security, highlighted Kumaresan.

“Climate change offers difficulties in food production and distributions, biological and environmental contaminations, and anti-microbial resistance.”

Increases in travel and trade can pose challenges to food safety, as a local issue can easily become an international emergency, which requires a lot of money to contain, with consequences for the reputations of farms or countries where the food was produced, he added.

Germany’s 2011 E.coli outbreak, for example, caused 1.3 billion dollars in losses for farmers and industries, said Kumaresan.

“For the consumer, we need to handle food properly and we need to use basic hygiene,” concluded Kumaresan.

The WHO has developed five keys for people to handle food in a safer way. First, maintain hygiene practices – wash hands before eating, wash vegetable and fruits – second, separate raw food from cooked food. Thirdly, cook food thoroughly, so the heat can kill the germs. Fourthly, keep food in a safe temperature. Finally, use safe water while preparing food.

Follow Valentina Ieri on Twitter @Valeieri

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Fish cages on the Nile River. Experts are calling for a more holistic approach to aquaculture. Credit: Cam Mcgrath/IPS

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Jul 26 2014 (IPS)

Less than four percent of Egypt’s land mass is suitable for agriculture, and most of it confined to the densely populated Nile River Valley and Delta. With the nation’s population of 85 million expected to double by 2050, government officials are grappling with ways of ensuring food security and raising nutritional standards.

“With the drive toward increasing food production and efficiency, Egypt is going to have to become smarter in how it uses water and land for food production,” says aquaculture expert Malcolm Beveridge. “It would make sense to bring aquaculture together with agriculture in order to increase food production per unit of land and water.”“Why are we using water first for agriculture then taking the drainage for aquaculture? Surely it should be the opposite – use water first for aquaculture and after that to irrigate fields” – Sherif Sadek, general manager of the Cairo-based Aquaculture Consultant Office

One possibility under study is to adopt integrated aquaculture, a holistic approach to food production in which the wastes of one commercially cultured species are recycled as food or fertiliser for another. Projects typically co-culture several aquatic species, but the synergistic approach also encourages the broader integration of fish production, livestock rearing and agriculture.

“An integrated approach would seem the logical next step for Egypt’s aquaculture industry in that it can significantly reduce water requirements while increasing fish farmers’ revenues,” Beveridge told IPS.

Egypt’s aquaculture sector has witnessed explosive growth in recent decades. Annual production of farmed fish climbed from 50,000 tonnes in the late 1990s to over one million tonnes last year – exceeding the combined output of all other Middle East and African nations.

But fish farming as it is predominantly practised in Egypt – by simply digging a pit and filling it with water and fish – has a major drawback. A decades-old government decree requires that drinking water and crop irrigation be given first call on Nile water, leaving aquaculture projects to operate in downstream filth, contaminating fish and limiting productivity.

“Over 90 percent of the aquaculture in Egypt is based on agricultural drainage water, with plenty of pesticides, sewage and industrial effluents,” says Sherif Sadek, general manager of the Cairo-based Aquaculture Consultant Office.

“Why are we using water first for agriculture then taking the drainage for aquaculture? Surely it should be the opposite – use water first for aquaculture and after that to irrigate fields.”

Integrated aquaculture reverses the water-use paradigm, with tangible benefits to both fish farms and farmers’ crops. While the practice is still in its infancy in Egypt, several projects have demonstrated its commercial viability.

At the El Keram farm in the desert northwest of Cairo, farmers use pumped water for tilapia culture, recycling the water into ponds where catfish are raised. The drainage from the catfish ponds, rich in organic nutrients, is then used to irrigate and fertilise clover fields. Sheep and goats that graze on these fields generate manure that is used to produce biogas to heat the tanks where fish fry are raised, or to warm the fish ponds in the winter.

“The project has demonstrated how farmers who switched to aquaculture after salinity rendered their fields infertile can increase their productivity and profits using the same volume of water,” says Sadek.

Other integrated projects on reclaimed desert land culture marine aquatic species such as sea bass and sea bream, directing the downstream wastewater to pools of red tilapia, a table fish able to tolerate high salinity. According to Sadek, the brine from these ponds can be used to grow salicornia, a halophyte in demand as a biofuel input, livestock fodder and as a gourmet salad ingredient.

“Salicornia can be irrigated with extremely salty water and produces seeds and oil, as well as fodder for camels and sheep,” says Sadek.

According to development experts, integrated aquaculture delivers greater efficiencies, requiring up to 70 percent less water than comparable non-integrated production systems. It is also a cost-effective method of disposing of wastes and saves resource-poor farmers from having to purchase fertilisers.

Beveridge says small-scale Egyptian aquaculture ventures unable to afford the complex closed-loop system employed at El Keram could still benefit from integrated practices that would allow them to harvest commercial food products year-round.

“Egypt’s aquaculture industry has a problem in that the growing season is relatively short,” he notes. “During the months of December to February temperatures are too low to sustain much (fish) growth. And during that period, farmers who try to overwinter their fish often lose substantial numbers to stress and disease.”

Pilot studies have shown that fish farmers are able to capitalise on the nutrients locked up in the mud at the bottom of their earthen fish ponds.

“The idea is that you drain down your ponds in November, harvest your fish, then plant a crop of wheat in your pond bottom that you would harvest in March before flooding the stubble area with water and reintroducing young fish,” Beveridge explains.