During
7 to 18 December, 2009, the world leaders from 192 countries will meet
in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate an agreement at the COP 15 of the
UNFCCC to keep global temperatures below catastrophic levels. The
Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992 as the basis
for a ‘global’ response to the problem. The COP 15 conference claims
that the ultimate objective of the Convention is to stabilise greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent
disastrous human interference with the climate system.

Various studies have already shown that a rise of 2 degrees Celsius
in global temperatures would probably destroy 30 percent to 40 percent
of all known species, generate bigger, fiercer and more frequent heat
waves and droughts, more intense weather events like floods and
cyclones, and would raise the sea level by at least a meter, displacing
millions. Needless to mention, such studies have always been bad news
for the peoples of Bangladesh. It is now taking much worse turn with the
politics associated with games of powerful countries and the
‘civilization’ built on fossil fuel and non-renewable energy. The future
of this ‘civilisation’ is now tied with mighty energy companies, who
must gain command over the global energy resources, a situation that is
structurally determined by the very idea and conception of
‘civilization’, ‘growth’ and ‘development’. Such ideas and the ‘world’
proper to these notions have been realized and could be maintained only
through religious belief in technology, war industry and massive
violence.
This is the reason why climate
change negotiation is fundamentally premised on quick technological
fixing of the problem, creating level playing field for powerful global
actors for trade in technologies in the name of ‘mitigation’ and impose
technological ‘adaptation’ on weak countries totally undermining the
resilience and capacity of the vulnerable communities to deal with
climatic variability. In their efforts to ‘help’ vulnerable countries
for climatic disasters, ‘global experts’ are replacing local knowledge
and local institutions. Multilateral and bilateral donors are busy
creating new investment sector for big investment so that ‘credit’ is
provided to create ‘effective demand’ for technologies to solve problems
created by green house gases (GHG), so that transnational companies
find a new ‘sector’ to invest for profit. This is very obvious if we
follow the debates and positions of various countries in negotiations.
Climate change negotiation are tied to the trade negotiations, creating
level playing field in technological competitiveness in the global
market and for least developed countries it is ending up how the weak
states can receive funds to purchase experts and technologies from rich
countries opening a new window for ‘aid’.

The ‘facts’ on climate change and the urgent necessity of taking
positive steps are clouded by the new games in the global arena in
association with few so called climate change ‘NGOs’. Now few global
actors decide how to interpret climate crisis to fit into the politics
of their game. In other words, they decide how to ‘shock’ the world to
ensure the continuity of the present unsustainable global system and
reversely how to globalize the local struggle of the people against such
games in order to tame and dismantle the peoples’ resistance against
the crime, being committed against the most vulnerable and the most
desperate people; no matter where people are geographically located in
search of a livelihood. The climate change is not a North-South or
West-East issue – it is the issue between the peoples of the world
against few powerful global actors organized as state, multinational
corporations and private societies.

In a new projection by the US-based Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), published in the American Meteorological Society’s
Journal of Climate (2 June, 2009), the mean global temperature could
increase by as much as 5.2 degrees Celsius this century if “rapid and
massive action” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is not taken.
Previous studies have indicated an increase of 2.4 degrees Celsius. A 90
percent chance of the temperature increasing by 3.5 degrees to 7.4
degrees Celsius during the next 100 years, is obviously shocking news
for Bangladesh. Even before this disaster happens, at present the
problem is to deal with the global actors who decide about the fate of
the planet. The peoples of Bangladesh will have to face both with the
facts and the politics of climate change.

There are many issues that must be taken up by the people’s movement
around the globe keeping the Copenhagen theatre in mind. In our first
take on the conference, we may discuss agriculture. We need to
critically discuss the way global actors talk about ‘mitigation’,
‘adaptation’ and similar terms in order to understand various goals,
objectives and projects consistent with the politics of power.

Participating countries at the UNFCCC are now working on a draft text
that is broken down into sections, which are being negotiated by
sub-groups on the topics signaled within the Bali Action Plan. Bali
event was depressing, therefore, Bangladesh can hardly anticipate any
positive outcome from Copenhagen. However, Bali decision initiated new
negotiations and outlined certain areas that the new agreement would
include. This is the background of the cooperative sectoral approaches
sub-group text, that we are concerned here. The text is currently
riddled with brackets and alternative paragraphs and contains a specific
section on the agricultural sector in the context of mitigating the
adverse effects of climate change phrased by “cooperative sectoral
approaches and sector-specific actions.” Since agriculture has received
particular attention in these negotiations some basic information is
necessary before we can read the text critically before the Copenhagen
event. Even, before we start reading such text, we need to ask, what
exactly ‘agriculture’ is. What should we look into the text?

2

Agriculture by definition can not be any other art except the ‘art of
inclusion” of those species, varieties and knowledge practices in the
practical sense that if any species, varieties and knowledge practices
are ‘excluded’ temporarily to produce food now and create a food system
and food culture using the ‘space’ available now in the nature, could
also be conserved, regenerated and maintained for the future use.
Agriculture, therefore, is an art of creating space within space. Since
we always confuse between ‘space’ and ‘place’ the debate on the relation
between population and land resurfaces with questions like how certain
amount of land could sustain so many people. Such questions can arise
only in a perverse consumer society where peoples are seen only as
‘consumers’, as if they are created only with a hole in their face to be
fed without any ability to reorder or reorganize the ‘space’ they
inhabit assigning new ‘place’ for different entities to produce their
needs using themselves as means of production. Communities also redirect
their desire and need as a life affirming livelihood strategy that
appears to others as distinct ‘culture’, ‘rituals’ ‘moral values’ etc.
Food, ecology and culture stands on the same plain, and a truth that is
lost in discussion of agriculture and food production as stated in the
SANFEC South Asian Statement of Concern on Food, Ecology and Culture, in
1996. ¹

In the art of food production and life affirming livelihood
strategies, peoples and their knowledge are constantly evolving. There
is nothing called ‘advanced’ formal science’ or informal ‘indigenous
knowledge’ – a distinction made to ensure the authority and power of
corporate science and not to assess the performance of different
knowledge practices. Farmer’s science is ‘science’ and follows all
formal procedures to produce anticipated results, just like laboratory
science is ‘science’ despite the fact that Thomas Kuhn reminded us that
science is equally informal and intuitive just like working in a
farmers’ field. In this dichotomy of formal and informal knowledge,
farmers stand at the receiving end of technology as a ‘commodity’
bearing profit for the corporations.

Before we critically read the UNFCCC document on Agriculture from
peoples’ perspective in contrast to corporate propaganda, we must keep
sharp distinction between agriculture and industrial food production.
They are completely opposite ideas. Agriculture is not industry that
receives ‘inputs’ to produce ‘outputs’ for the market to make profit and
‘wastes’ to dump on the environment without internalizing the cost of
environmental and ecological damages. Corporate policy paradigm is
incapable to asses the performance of different agricultural systems,
including their own ‘food factories’. The dominance of corporate
paradigm forces us to engage with the global policy debates and we are
often forced to take tactical position, rather than spelling the primal
principle or the strategic stand: life is threatened not now or not
today by climate change but by the very ideas of progress, development,
growth, science, technology and lifestyle. While we keep this primal
principle in mind, we also need to prepare for the Copenhagen conference
in order to make us visible and heard on behalf of the peoples of the
world demanding support for life affirming activities such as
agriculture instead of industrial food production.

By the model of agriculture as capitalist factory, yield is
calculated by inputs consumed by the factory as labour, raw materials
and machines to make profit in the market; therefore, except consumers
with money capable to purchase food from the market; rest of the global
population is disposable. They are not ‘workers’ and do not contribute
to make profit or unable to purchase the food as commodity from the
capitalist market. In the neo-liberal economy it is more so since the
role of the state in ensuring distribution of food outside the market
mechanism is seen as a kind of ‘sin’. The idea is propagated that if
fossil-fuel based capitalist factories of industrial food production,
touted as ‘agriculture’, can not sustain people who are not ‘consumers’
or ‘workers’ we need to terminate the disposable population. Fascinating
to see that population control is resurfacing with the so called
mitigation strategies in the coming conference. Not a surprise at all.

Life affirming agricultural activities do not necessarily need the
mediation of money, capital or state to ensure food ‘security’ at the
household or at the community level, particularly in countries like
Bangladesh endowed with profound knowledge of agriculture. Food
consumption at the household and the community level in rural areas is
dependent on agriculture. It is not always mediated through the market
but the ability of the biodiverse-households to directly consume what
they could generate in terms of systemic yield, not in terms of any
particular commercial crops or even ‘staples’. In contrast to industry,
agriculture is by definition biodiverse, organic and is based on plural
knowledge practices associated with various intuitive insights, rituals,
cultures and practices creating diverse conditions and opportunities
for innovations and artistic explorations, i.e. science and
technological practices; each and every peasant household is literally a
scientific laboratory; in the sense science claims procedural proof and
demonstration of truth by showing the same results if same methods,
procedures or rules are followed.

3

Copenhagen conference is seen as working towards a new agreement that
will convince powerful actors the urgent need to enhance the
implementation of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). The Convention, together with its Kyoto Protocol, includes
commitments that addresses climate mitigation and adaptation globally,
but has to take place since implementation has historically been weak.
From Bangladesh perspective perhaps it is a public relations effort with
the global actors to convince the people that they are indeed serious
about the rapid destruction of the world we all live.

The new agreement intends to include more meaningfully the US – which
is a signatory to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol but notoriously
succeeded in never ratifying the later. Developing countries also have
no fixed mitigation commitments under the Convention or its Protocol.
Official policy of the US expressed by George Bush that the lifestyle of
US citizens is not negotiable, has hardly been changed even under Obama
administration. The idea of level playing field for trade is also a
stumbling block since reducing the emission of green house gases is
contradictory with the idea of trade, growth and industrial development.
The ecstasy of the Earth Summit of 1992 is by now over, and the peoples
are also exhausted to see that hardly anything has been achieved in
concrete terms except rhetoric or at best the recognition that
environment, ecology, biodiversity and lifestyle are indeed critical
areas that must be addressed today or tomorrow before it is too late.
Nevertheless, the damage such as ‘global’ rhetoric and the behind the
scene strategy cause is dismantling local efforts and resistance against
destructive development and technological policies. In the name of
solving the problems by ‘experts’ and global institutions, resistance
and initiative of the local people is undermined and killed. This is
very much true for the peoples of Bangladesh who had to live with flood,
river erosion, droughts and climatic variability all year round and
traditionally have been brilliant in ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’ are
now observing experts and specialised NGOs on climate change to teach
them how to survive in flood, drought, oceanic surges and river
erosions. Farmers saw in a span of few years how their seed systems have
been destroyed in the name of the need for ‘higher productivity’ with
high yielding and hybrid varieties of rice as well as genetically
modified varieties of rice, vegetables and fish. With the excuse of
climate change, the transnational companies are desperately offering
farming communities of Bangladesh genetically modified salt resistant,
drought resistance or flood resistance varieties of rice and vegetables,
but of course through deceptive and coercive micro-credit programmes.
The rhetoric of ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’ has literally been
translated in Bangladesh as creating market for GMOs forcibly and
allowing international corporations and research organisations to use
Bangladesh as a trial field and experimental ground for their products
that could be potentially hazardous for biological life cycles and may
cause irreversible biological pollution. It is obvious that the farming
communities, who have developed nearly 15,000 varieties of rice, till
now have local varieties to deal with flood, drought, salinity and
various climatic problems including various forms of natural disasters.
In the name of climate change these varieties are disappearing soon only
to reappear as the proprietary technology of some companies with minor
changes at the genetic level.

These are not the areas where agriculture in the Copenhagen will
receive attention but on the official rhetoric known by now as
“cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions”.
Agriculture here appears only as a sector and the issue of ‘food
security’ has not been explicitly mentioned in the text. The present
text provides two options. In the first option, it instructs Parties to
make efforts to enhance mitigation in the agriculture sector. In the
second option, it instructs Parties to promote and cooperate in the
research, development, application, and diffusion of technologies,
practices and processes, as a means to enhance sector-specific
mitigation.

Some people read the first option as containing an important
reference to the efficiency and productivity of agricultural production
systems. They read the text as an entry point to negotiate with the
powerful actors to address global ‘food security’ over the long term in a
sustainable manner. However, the text does not provide any hint to
structural, technological or economic issues that are at the heart of
the problem, including the increasing control of food chains by few
powerful corporations. It also contains a number of references – there
are some bracketed considerations that some people assume could be
important for developing countries, such as the need not to harm the
interests of small and marginal farmers; the need to take into account
traditional knowledge and processes; the need to acknowledge linkages
between mitigation and adaptation; the need for agricultural production
systems to be improved in a sustainable manner; and the need to promote
and cooperate on technologies, practices, processes and methodologies.
However, all these elements are bracketed, and one can hardly expect any
ground breaking compromise even on such very liberal propositions.

But in the second option, a cooperative approach at the heart of
mitigation strategies is placed in a way that measures taken should not
result in barriers to, or distortion of, the international agricultural
trading system. It also calls on the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and
Technological Advice (SBSTA) to develop a mitigation work programme, and
invites Parties to submit their views on this.

According to Alexander Mueller, Assistant Director-General, Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)Agriculture is a
sector where mitigation action has strong potential co-benefits for
sustainable development (food security, poverty reduction among the 70%
of the poor living in rural areas, environmental services) and climate
change adaptation (improving agro-ecosystem resilience). Most of the
mitigation potential from agriculture could be achieved through soil
carbon sequestration (89%) and roughly 70% could be realized in
developing countries. In addition, there is also potential to decrease
emissions of other non-carbon greenhouse gases (N2O and CH4 ) through
more efficient use of fertilizers and improved rice and livestock
systems. By this time, it is evident that climate change has an adverse
affect on agricultural productivity and on the marginal and poor
farmers. Crop productivity is declining, especially in the seasonally
dry and tropical regions due to drought, change in seasonal rain and by
changes in winter season.

However, the arguments are crooked and unfair. It is important to
keep a watch on how the paradigm of disaster caused by industrial
civilization is now being shifted to the agrarian communities. The fact
that is now often highlighted is that agriculture contributes to GHG
emissions. Industrial countries in their research passionately point to
the fact that agriculture also releases a significant amount of carbon
dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, amounting to
around 10-12 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions
annually. If indirect contributions (e.g. land conversion, fertilizer
production and distribution and farm operations) are factored in, the
contribution of agriculture could be as high as 17-32 percent of global
anthropogenic emissions. The implicit logic is to establish that we, the
developed countries, are not the only culprits in making a hole in the
sky; it is you, the farmers around the world are also responsible. In
this trick what remains unsung is the massive contribution of industrial
food production to GHG emissions and not the biodiversity based
agriculture, such as Nayakrishi Andolon of Bangladesh. In contrast the
strategy in biodiversity-based agriculture is also to produce greens as
car sink.

As we mentioned earlier, facts and politics are not the same issue.
The ‘fact’ that agriculture also emits green house gas is not the issue
to argue, bringing the fact the forefront is mainly to push the burden
of mitigation on the farming communities around the world. Interestingly
not much to restructure industrial food production into agriculture but
to do the opposite, such as we saw during the military regime with
civilian façade of Caretaker government in recent times (2007-2008) in
Bangladesh. We saw how the Army chief himself was keenly interested to
transform our rice fields into hybrid rice production and advised us to
eat ‘potatoes’ instead of rice.

While industrial civilization can not be structurally ‘readjusted’ to
mitigate GHG hazards and when United States rather insists that the
life style in highly industrialized societies is not negotiable, poor
farming communities must ‘adopt’ technologies to solve the global
problem which is hardly a fault of their own or the livelihood
strategies for sheer survival. It is rather critical that the agrarian
lifestyles are re-investigated to understand how to reconstruct the
future of the world. The stance of non-negotiation over lifestyle still
stands in global negotiations despite the fact that the International
Assessment on Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development (IAASTD), which is the most comprehensive assessment of
agriculture to date²

said the future of agriculture lies in biodiverse, agroecologically
based farming (including organic agriculture) that can meet social,
economic and environmental goals. Bangladesh is rich in this area and
there is strong movement of farming communities known as Nayakrishi
Andolon – an innovative biodiversity-based ecological agriculture that
has proved how agricultural productivity can be enhanced by integrating
the advances in biological sciences with the historically rich knowledge
practices of the farmers of this delta.

According to IAASTD reliance on resource-extractive industrial
agriculture is unsustainable, particularly in the face of worsening
climate, energy and water crises. Short-term technical fixes, including
genetically engineered crops, cannot adequately address the complex
challenges facing agriculture, and often exacerbate social and
environmental harms. Nayakrishi farming communities maintains nearly
2,500 varieties of rice and there are many varieties that they use to
meet the challenge of climatic variability such as oceanic surge, flood,
drought, disruption in hydrological cycles and other man-made
disasters. IAASTD adds that achieving food security and sustainable
livelihoods requires ensuring access to and control of resources by
small-scale farmers, especially women. Needless to mention, indigenous
knowledge and community-based innovations are an invaluable part of the
solution.

Why it is so? Nayakrishi type agrarian knowledge increases resilience
within the agroecosystem; its biodiverse agro-ecology increases the
ability to continue functioning when faced with unexpected events of
climate change. Resiliency to climate disasters is closely linked to
farm biodiversity; practices that enhance biodiversity allow farms to
mimic natural ecological processes, enabling them to better respond to
change and reduce risk. Scope to build up this resilience is much more
easier because of the profound contribution of biological sciences both
at macro and molecular level. One can be physicist to make our life
easier with innovations that are now part of our life, or the same
physical science can be used to produce nuclear bombs or weapon of mass
destruction. The promise of the biological science is enormous in taking
up the challenge of climate change if we strictly adhere to the
principles of ecosystemic approach to agriculture to promote bio-diverse
production system. Thus, farmers who increase intra-specific diversity
suffer less damage compared to conventional farmers planting
monocultures. Moreover, the use of intra-specific diversity (different
cultivars of the same crop) is insurance against future environmental
change.

Biodiversity based ecological agriculture preserves soil fertility
and maintain or increase organic matter and therefore is capable to
reduce the negative effects of drought while increasing productivity.
Water holding capacity of soil is enhanced since maintenance of the top
soil become the priority instead of destroying the soil to cultivate HYV
varieties with water pumps extracting ground water for irrigation. By
Nayakrishi type agricultural practice builds organic matter, helping
farmers withstand drought. In addition, water-harvesting practices allow
farmers to rely on stored water during droughts. Crop residue
retention, mulching, and agro-forestry conserve soil moisture and
protect crops against microclimate extremes. Conversely, organic matter
also enhances water capture in soils, significantly reducing the risk of
floods. In short what IAASTD is arguing has been proved over and over
again in biodiversity-based ecological agricultural practices. If policy
makers are indeed serious in ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’ to face the
challenges of climate change in their sectoral approach to agriculture,
biodiversity-based ecological agriculture must receive appropriate
attention and resources.

Since the opening days of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC)
meeting in Accra, the discussion that took place last year (2008) during
21-22 August at a workshop as part of 3rd session of the Ad Hoc Working
Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) significant differences
emerged on how one is to interpret “sectoral approaches. Luiz Machado
of Brazil, Chair of the AWG-LCA, opened the meeting pointing at Article
4.1(c) that states, “all Parties, taking into account their common but
differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional
development priorities, objectives and circumstances, shall:

“Promote and cooperate in the development, application
and diffusion, including transfer, of technologies, practices and
processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of
greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in all relevant
sectors, including the energy, transport, industry, agriculture,
forestry and waste management sectors.”

He also informed that some discussions of sectoral approaches have
already taken place at the Bangkok and Bonn meetings of the UNFCCC, and
that various Parties have emphasized that ‘sectoral approaches” should
not replace ‘national commitments” to reduce GHG emission. However, the
issue remains to be negotiated is how this is complemented with efforts
to ‘transfer technology”. This is where the crucial issue lies that will
come up in the coming Copenhagen theatre.

Position of the European Union can be clearly read from the arguments
put forward in the Accra workshop. They would like to use the term
‘sectoral approach’ to include ‘technology and policy co-operation’, and
similar approaches that is linked with carbon market. According to the
EU, one major type of sectoral approaches includes technology and policy
cooperation, and other such approaches not linked directly with the
carbon market. The target is national policies and measures for emission
reduction and therefore ‘technology agreements’. For European Union,
and equally for all industrial countries this interpretation of
‘sectoral approach’ offers the advantage of targeting specific barriers,
enhancing private investment, and supporting technology diffusion,
deployment and transfer in various sectors. From such workshops, policy
papers and documents from various conferences, one can easily foresee
that the Copenhagen will become a negotiating table for powerful actors
to create a new sector for investment and profit in the climatic
disaster, they have essentially created making all life forms in the
planet vulnerable and now using the ‘shocking facts’ to further enhance
concentration and accumulation of capital at a time when global economy
is showing symptoms of increasing tendencies of limited scopes for
investment and profit.

On behalf of LDCs, position of Bangladesh remained critical of
‘sectoral approach’. Diplomatically Bangladesh can not undermine the
negotiation as a means of powerful countries to sell their technologies
and experts. Systematic campaigns against Bangladesh as a ‘failed state’
and the ‘haven of Islamic militants’ become more obvious in such
negotiating arena where the concern of the country is bullied down even
when the fundamental questions are asked such as why we need the
‘sectoral approach’ and what exactly this approach would like to
address? Needless to mention, that if total emissions are critical to
addressing global warming, then sectoral approaches are not a substitute
for national emissions targets. So called ‘sectoral approaches’ that
cut across different nations are also problematic since national
contexts are different and their relation within the international
division of labour constantly undermines their struggle to survive
economically is the unequal and unbalanced global scenario. It is more
so since in most of the countries like Bangladesh efforts to mitigate
within the framework of UNFCCC so far, implies reliance or dependence on
investment and proprietary technologies of powerful countries and
remaining at the end of ‘consumption” of these technologies. .

However, Bangladesh echoes what the powerful countries would like to
hear. Sweet words such as ‘sectoral approaches” can, despite the
concerns expressed explicitly, can contribute to technology development
and transfer. Like industrialized countries, Bangladesh also argues that
such approach can help to develop tools, methodologies and technologies
to identify emission reductions that can be realized cost effectively;
barriers in specific national sectors can be identified. However,
sectors that are global and all countries have a role – such as marine
and aviation, should also be addressed immediately.

So at the end of the day, Bangladesh ends by begging sector specific
technologies and the so called ‘best practices’ taught by transnational
corporations to make them available to LDCs on a priority basis. The
same rhetoric is used only with change in syntax, verbs and nouns asking
to develop mechanisms for technology transfer without challenging the
paradigm of intellectual property rights as a barrier to development and
progress for LDCs. Begging for technology transfer, where intellectual
property rights are involved, becomes a farce. More so, when the
position of Bangladesh ultimately is to deny and ignore the resilience,
capacity and knowledge of its peoples to face the challenges of natural
and anthropogenic disasters, it has no meaning.

In summary two issues prevailing in the discussion, (a) so called
‘sectoral approach” should not replace national overall targets (for
Annex I countries) and (b) it should not be a barrier to free trade – it
should not become an alibi for trade restrictions. However, sectors
such as coal-fired power generation, iron and steel, cement and road
transport, the emissions or energy per unit of production could be
evaluated, and compared between countries. A method should be in place
to measure the mitigation actions taken by different countries.

True that developing countries, including Philippines for the G77,
India, China, Brazil, Bangladesh (for LDCs), Grenada (for small island
states) and Saudi Arabia were critical of ‘sectoral approach’. They were
concerned that the approach to set sectoral standards or benchmarks
could be used unfairly against developing countries. The “sectoral
efforts” to combat climate change at the national level should not be
confused with international “sectoral agreements” involving targets,
standards and comparisons between countries. The position that now
stands is “cooperative sectoral approaches and sector-specific actions,
in order to enhance implementation of Article 4, paragraph 1(c), of the
Convention” and on “the effectiveness of mechanisms and tools for
technology cooperation in specific sectors”.

4

At least for the time being, until conditions are created for positive
outcomes in global negotiation, the priority of Bangladesh should focus
on national capacity building without begging from countries who are
culprits of making the hole in the sky by emitting GHGs. Peoples of
developed countries are not the ‘culprits’; they are equally victims of
the paradigm of development, growth and technology. Peoples of
Bangladesh must develop alliances at the peoples level by all means to
face the global challenge. Third worldism is an old game and ultimately
provides an ideology for the elite of our countries to become more
intelligent, efficient and parasitic beggars reinforcing the global
tendencies to destroy our own capacity and resilience against the
culture of consumption, destruction and profiteering. What kind of
paradigm could guide us to develop our own strategies to combat climate
change?

As we mentioned earlier, Nayakrishi Andolon does not make artificial
distinction between ‘indigenous and traditional knowledge’ and the so
called ‘formal’ knowledge or ‘science & technology’. Either
knowledge practice is ‘science and technology’ in the true sense of the
knowledge and wisdom to solve real problem on earth or they are simply
corporate propaganda and lies in the name of ‘science and technology’.
There is no reason to un-necesessarily romanticize ‘traditional’ life
styles. The issue is much simpler: do we stand for life affirming
activities or do we contribute to the destruction of life, diversity and
the joy in living. as we do now. In this sense traditional knowledge
practices are immensely valuable and must be the key source of
information on adaptive capacity, as these knowledge practices are
centered on the selective, experimental and resilient capabilities of
farmers. There is no one type of knowledge practice when we say
indigenous knowledge. It is diverse and farmers cope with climate
change, in different ways. Strategies are numerous and farmers are
always inventing while farming in the field. Crop failure are managed
through a mix of increased use of local varieties depending on the
nature of the problem, water-harvesting, extensive planting, mixed
cropping, agroforestry, and intelligently integrating non-crop species
and varieties including management of uncultivated space. In
Nayakrishi, notion of ‘pest’ or ‘weed’ is literally absent, since the
challenge is to transform the ‘pest’ into biological resources and
‘weeds’ into uncultivated food, medicine, fibers, or biomass for green
manure. Traditional knowledge, coupled with the right investments in
plant breeding, could yield new varieties with climate adaptation
potential.

Farmers are also breeders and they constantly ‘select’ the varieties
they need for their system to make it resilient. Biodiversity-based
ecological approach to agriculture is centered around the real people
and the real farming communities and not on plants, animals, fish or any
other species or varieties as if they exist only as ‘raw’ materials for
food factory without any organic and integral connection or relation
with the community.

Scientists are now convinced that biodiverse ecological agriculture
considerably enhance the sequestration of carbon dioxide through the use
of techniques that build up soil organic matter, as well as diminish
nitrous oxide emissions by two-thirds due to no external mineral
nitrogen input and more efficient nitrogen use. Organic systems have
been found to sequester more carbon dioxide than conventional farms,
while techniques that reduce soil erosion convert carbon losses into
gains. Nayakrishi type agriculture is also self-sufficient in nitrogen
due to recycling of manures from livestock and crop residues via
composting, as well as planting of leguminous crops.

In Bangladesh, farmers have demonstrated their resilience during the
Cyclone SIDR – a major natural disaster in 2007, by cultivating local
variety crops as opposed to HYV and Hybrid, facing the challenges of
late monsoon during 2009 and planting late varieties of local variety
Aman. Dr Ahsan Uddin of Campaign for Sustainable and Rural Livelihood
(CSRL) of Oxfam-GB in a keynote paper at a discussion held on 23
November, 2009 emphasised cultivation of HYV varieties, including BRRI
40, 41, BRRI 47, BRRI 33 and Sharna Sub-1, in the country accordingly as
those are salinity-, drought-and flood-tolerant varieties and
successful in monga-hit area. He suggested BRRI 33 for monga-hit area
while BRRI 40 and 41 are for drought-prone area and BRRI 47 for area
with salinity (The Daily Star, 24 November, 2009). This is an example
how agricultural experts in Bangladesh promote varieties developed by
scientists in the so called ‘formal’ systems ignoring the knowledge and
resilience of the farming communities. Scientists in National
Agricultural Systems now work closely with agro-business corporations.
Climate Change is used as an excuse to promote genetically engineered
stress resistant varieties, which are potentially harmful for the
agriculture and particularly for the farmers.

In 2009, the monsoon was delayed missing its early June deadline. A
senior agriculture official told Reuters (25 June, 2009) “Lack of rain
and high temperatures with little moisture in the air signal the monsoon
is being delayed this year, and may lead to a poor yield of rice, the
country’s main staple, in the new fiscal year. “During monsoon Aman rice
is planted which accounts for nearly a third of Bangladesh’s annual
rice output. The other main rice variety is Boro, which largely depends
on irrigation. The monsoon lasts in Bangladesh until the end of
September, but sees heavy showers in its initial month (June) when
average rainfall is nearly 460 millimeters. But this year (2009) the
rain was delayed by three weeks. According to the Bangladesh
Meteorological Department the total rainfall of June, 2009 was less than
half the average. However, there was belated but ample rains in
July-August helped recover the losses. Projection of the poor yield from
aman season implicitly contributes to a policy that favours import of
rice and promotion of ‘hybrid’ varieties in the boro season. Under these
circumstances, efforts were directed towards commercialization of seed
sector against the farmer’s seed system more towards promoting corporate
seeds and not directed towards promoting local varieties and towards
preserving genetic diversity that have developed over thousands of years
in diverse eco-systems.

Examples show that farmers applied their own knowledge to face the
effects of Climate Change, or change in weather conditions in the Aman
season which is their major rice crop. In Nayakrishi areas such as
Tangail and Sirajganj, farmers were worried about delayed rain. The
seedbeds dried out and could not be transplanted, specially those of HYV
varieties. But then they relied on local varieties both broadcast and
transplanted such as Horinga digha, Lakhmidigha, Chamara Digha, Lal
Dhepa, Bhawail digha, Shada Dhepa, Patishail, Patjag, Bokjhol, Bhasha
manik, Dudh kolom, Tulshi mala and others. Most of them performed very
well about 3.5 to 4 tons per hectare. Performance of local varieties
depending more on water such as Horinga digha & Lakhmi digha did not
perform at the same level compared to the high yielding local
varieties. In those cases yield was about 2 to 3 tons (compared to its
normal productivity of 3.5 to 4 tons) but there were no crop loss. But
the HYV variety faced a crop loss. This is the key point in
understanding the so called ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’ demonstrated
by the farming communities.

On the other hand, HYV varieties such as BR 11 and BR 39 could not
perform and in many cases, the plants dried up. The local varieties
performed very well in the low lying areas. The Financial Express
projection on 30 October, 2009 showed that “in all likelihood the
country is headed to be blessed by a bumper harvest of aman paddy,
barring any unforeseen calamity. The projected output of aman rice in
the current season is 140 million tons which is higher than the
projected output of such rice in the previous season”. In the drought
prone areas in Pabna and Chapainabganj, farmers planted oil crop sesame
in the dried Aman fields and recovered losses from Aman seedling losses,
and planted rice when there was rain. The farmers planted crops not
only as human food crops but also as fodder for livestock. But they did
not wait for some experts who hardly knows anything about the history of
Bangladesh agriculture, hardly any expertise in biodiversity-based
production systems or at least knowledge of the farming practices and
the resilience of the farmers to advise them on ‘mitigation’ and
‘adaptation’. The training in industrial food production is of little
value in mitigation and adaptation in countries like Bangladesh.

Copenhagen may end up being marketing and investment strategies for
green technologies. The UN says the world needs an investment of US $
200 billion to fight climate change The present regime in Bangladesh is
promise bound to take a leap to ‘Digital Bangladesh” and committed to
‘green’ Bangladesh with technologies from ‘second green revolution’
i.e., biotechnology and genetic engineering. This will not help the
farming communities or the people of Bangladesh, but certainly help the
corporations. Before taking a leap to hi-tech in agriculture, it must be
realized that Green Revolution is mostly responsible for making climate
crisis more disastrous.