Eldorado/Estadão - “If we do what was stated in the Declaration from the Ministers of Agriculture of the G20, we will restore the Paradise on Earth – We just need to do it”
Publicado em 19/09/2024
Divulgação
G20 Agro
Published on 09/16/2024- Eldorado/Estadão
*Dr.José Luiz Tejon
Disclosure by G20 - International Agricultural Forum.
"Building a Just World on a Sustainable Planet
The document issued in Mato Grosso, Brazil, during the G20 Brazil 2024, is entitled: “Building a Fair World on a Sustainable Planet”, where 84% of the extreme poverty in the world is in rural areas; (UNGA2023) – and I´d add that under these circumstances, crime, environmental/social illegality, and recruitment by terrorist factions thrive, due to the lack of economic prospects and meaning in life).
Also, where 2.8 billion people have no access to a healthy diet and where 733 million people starving, the declaration is unanimous, with the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty focusing on coordination with Family Farming, which brings together around 550 million small farmers and families around the world. Hence, we need to develop local and international markets so that they become legitimate agents of the planet's food and environmental security.
This means understanding that extreme Poverty and Hunger are concentrated precisely in rural areas, where small producers with land don´t have access to sustainable technologies and don´t participate, neither locally nor internationally, in the “Food System”, a concept of agribusiness created at Harvard in 1955 by Professor Dr.Ray Goldberg,
The fight against waste is also included in the above declaration, including irrigation, storage, and infrastructure.
However, associating poverty and hunger in rural areas with world development and undoubtedly developing sustainable sources of income, would mean a great and valuable challenge, a cause worth getting involved in.
Reminding a phrase from former Minister Mr. Alysson Paolinelli, candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, where he said: “We have around 4 million farmers in Brazil with land, but starving”.
The declaration claims for international financial coordination, “Target-to-Target” strategic planning, participation of all stakeholders in the CFS (Committee World Food Security) and recognizes the interdependence between countries; calls on the World Trade Organization to establish clear rules for fair and multilateral trading, highlights the word “holistic” as a mandatory commitment in the actions of all supply chains and addresses food security as being fundamental for all.
The B20's contribution, representing the business group, was noted once more, underscoring the necessity for the involvement of all agricultural and forestry communities in pursuing financial solutions, alongside multilateral cooperation to facilitate an agricultural transition.
Sustainability, gender equity, with relevance for Rural Women, fertilizers as essential, including the innovative development of local biofertilizers, where biogas, through biodigesters treating waste and residues, represents an extraordinary leap in this viability, including bio-inputs, anti-microbial projects, genetic security, mechanization and precision agriculture with digital inclusion.
Four priorities were established in the G20 Agro Declaration, which are:
1 – Sustainability of agriculture and the food system in its multiple pathways.
2 – Improving international trade, contributing to food and nutritional security for the entire planet.
3 – Increasing the role of Family Farming, small properties, local communities, and indigenous peoples, as an essential action for sustainability, resilience, and social inclusion.
4 – Promoting sustainable integration in fishing, aquaculture, local activities, and global value chains, also considering the sustainable aspects of the oceans and the growth in consumption of seafood, water, and a “Blue System”, where we shouldn´t forget algae.
The document highlights, throughout its wording the expressions Sustainability, Inclusion, Systemic Vision, and the need for a “Concert of Efforts” to enable an investment policy for developing countries”.
Scientific and technological research created and developed by Brazil is mentioned as Low Carbon Agriculture and Integrated Crop, Livestock, and Forestry Systems, as well as renewable biofuels and Agroforestry Models.
Climate Change runs through the entire declaration, in a document that, if obeyed and put into practice, is full of paths and clarity about what needs to be done, which would be restoring Paradise on Earth and decarbonizing the world!
But if we can unite the world's agricultural sectors instead of using them against each other, put an end to protectionist wars, create a food and energy system integrating industry, trading, services, and rural production including all producers in access to markets, science, technology, digitalization and insurance, we´d indeed succeed in eradicating starving, combating poverty and increasing the dignity of life and health on Earth.
I missed three points in the G20 Declaration:
1 – There´s no mention of the cooperative system, as it is understood that it would be the only one that could make the declaration viable for the 550 million small producers spread across the planet, and our Brazilians, around 4 million.
Cooperativism worldwide already brings together more than 1 billion people; in Brazil, it should reach 30 million cooperative members, more than 1 million farmers, and it is known that, where there is a good cooperative, the Human Development Index (HDI) is always higher.
2 – The environmental Carbon Market wasn´t brought to a discussion, as it will undoubtedly become a “product” with more value than most commodities today, and also as a remuneration for the health index embedded in each food, the result of Regenerative Systems, true Nutrients for Life.
3 – There was no correlation between these actions and investments for the growth of the global GDP and its per capita distribution, as well as their effects on the income of citizens in emerging countries and the planet's tropical belt.
And we will also experience an increase of 1.5 billion people on Earth by 2050!
We need “accountability” so that the goals are duly demanded of everyone.
Although the expression “Food System” is emphasized, I´d recommend greater clarity and a call for the “Big Agri Corporations”, the large industrial, commercial, and service companies (don´t let us aside the power of the media), to play a greater role in the fair and ethical coordination of their “Supply Chains”, including communication that attributes perception and value to their rural originators.
So here is the G20 Agro Declaration, and may it be echoed by the leaders of their countries, at the G20 summit, to be held next November, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
May the Great Maestro appear to walk in the “Orchestration” of this important Public/Private Concert, transforming an out-of-tune lyric into a legitimate symphony for peace, food, energy, biodiversity, and a single health on the entire planet.
Points of the Magna Carta written at the International Agricultural Forum, one day before the G20 Agro event, are in complete agreement with the declaration of the 20 ministers, which emphasized the aspect of the Tropical Belt of planet Earth as an essential zone of development, with the registration of Brazilian scientific, entrepreneurial and human resources competence to serve the world.
In addition, considerable emphasis was placed in the Magna Carta for the union of all agricultural sectors, in a fight against the polarization and division of the world, including investments from conscious international capital when registering the plan to convert 40 million degraded pastures into sustainable crops, with the great final synthesis echoing the voice of the minister professor Dr. Roberto Rodrigues in his declaration: “The agrifood system means peace”.
In the Magna Carta of FIAP (São Paulo College of Computer Science and Administration), Brazil, Cooperativism was also strongly indicated and highlighted, as well as in education and communication.
Three Brazilian ministers attended the G20 Agro: Mapa (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock), Minister Mr. Carlos Fávaro. MDA (Ministry of Agrarian Development), Minister Mr. Paulo Teixeira, and MPA (Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture), Minister Mr. André de Paula.
So, all we need to do is do it. Let's do it?
As the late prominent Brazilian writer Ariano Suassuna, from the State of Paraíba, once explained: “The optimist is a fool, the pessimist is boring; I am a hopeful realist”.
I consider myself the same way.
So, Let's do it! Just do it!
Dr.José Luiz Tejon - PhD in Education-Universidad de La Empresa/Uruguay; Master's degree in Art Education and History of Culture - Mackenzie University; Journalist and Publicist - Harvard, MIT and PACE/USA / Insead in France Specialisation Academic Coordinator of Master Science Food & Agribusiness Management at Audencia in Nantes/France and FECAP/ Brazil. Managing Partner at Biomarketing and TCA International. Professional Head at Agro Anefac. Writer author and Co-author of 35 books. Agro Personality Award 2023. ABAG. Former director of Grupo Estadão, Agroceres and Jacto S/A.
