Rural Poverty & Cancun
December 7th, 2010 The Rural Poverty Report has just come out. There are positive results with China reducing its rural poverty and negative results in South Asia and Africa with rural poverty increasing. This is increasingly tied into global warming and environmental destruction. In Cancun there are meetings of the nations and meetings of those outside the portals of power. Little is to be expected from the nations without leadership from the major players, the USA, China, the EU, & Japan with Brazil and India coming up fast. There is a need for sustainable agriculture that meets the needs of the largely rural third world. Can it be done under capitalism? It seems that the mechanisms for profit making will at some point interfere with the needs of people to sustain themselves. But in the meantime, the market seems to be the method of development preferred by most investors, naturally, that is how they make a profit. But does that really help a poor farmer in Bangladesh? Wouldn't a rational social system make more sense?
This is from Aljazeera
"According to the report, this is where we stand in 2010. The global population is 6.7 billion people, out of which, the report says 1.4 billion live in extreme poverty. More than 70 per cent of them live in rural areas of developing countries. Nearly one billion do not have enough to eat."
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2010/12/2010127101119119276.html
This from Terraviva
Developing Countries Must `Double' Food Production
By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Dec 6, 2010 (IPS) - Food production will have to increase by 70 percent to feed the expected world population of 9 billion by 2050, says a report released Monday by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Agricultural output in developing countries will have to double, the report says.
This will have to be done when rural poverty is still widespread across many developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly a third of the world's extremely poor rural people live, the number of rural poor has risen from 268 million to 306 million over the past decade, says IFAD's Rural Poverty Report 2011. The rate of extreme poverty in rural areas is highest here at 62 percent.
http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=53781
This from AFP via Yahoo News
China leads decline in world rural poverty
by Dario Thuburn Dario Thuburn – Mon Dec 6, 3:40 pm ET
ROME (AFP) – China has led a dramatic decline in rural poverty rates in many parts of the world over the past decade, a report released on Monday by the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development showed.
The decline is mainly due to increased production and higher levels of private investment in the farming sector, as well as increased urbanisation across the developing world, economists from the Rome-based IFAD said.
Greater productivity of farmers and higher global food prices have also helped, as has the increase in farm market information available to small farmers in remote areas of the developing world using mobile phone technology.
"The figure of one billion poor rural people represents a substantial decline in rural poverty numbers — down from almost 1.4 billion in the late 1980s," said IFAD's 2011 Rural Poverty Report, which comes out every 10 years.
"This has been largely due to the extraordinarily fast decline in the numbers of rural poor in East Asia particularly China," the report said.
The number of poor in East Asia has gone down from 365 million to 117 million in 2011, with the poverty rate falling from 44 percent to 15 percent.
Other regions where there have been major declines are South East Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa.
The numbers of rural poor have instead risen in South Asia and Africa.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101206/bs_afp/italyunifadfoodpovertychina_20101206204045
The Rural Poverty Report site
http://www.ifad.org/rpr2011/report/
A report from the IMF on Rural Poverty
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues/issues26/index.htm
From Democracy Now
Small Farmers Gather for Alternative Global Forum on Climate Change and Social Justice
While climate negotiators, NGOs and delegates gather at the walled-off U.N. Climate Change Conference at the plush Moon Palace Hotel in Cancún, Mexico, those who were not invited have organized their own meetings. The international small farmers movement La Via Campesina and other grassroots organizations are holding the alternative Global Forum for Life and Environmental and Social Justice, with participants attending from across Latin America.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/6/small_farmers_organize_in_alternative_global
From Huffington Post
Linda Adams.Secretary for Environmental Protection
Posted: December 6, 2010 09:40 AM BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index .Investing in the Resilience of Poor People on the Frontlines of Climate Change
If we've learned anything from this summer's destructive floods in Pakistan, unrelenting drought in the African Sahel, or the killer heat wave in Russia, is that we better get ready. Because the "future" of climate change is already here.
While scientists cannot conclude that any of this summer's dramatic whether events are definitively caused by climate change, they are consistent with scientific predictions of global warming and a sign of what's to come.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-adams/investing-in-the-resilien_b_792426.html
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