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A joint initiative of the Worldwatch Institute and Beijing-based Global Environmental Institute (GEI), China Watch reports on energy, agriculture, population, water, health, and the environment in China—with an emphasis on big-picture analysis relevant to policy makers, the business community, and non-governmental organizations.

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New Cassava Varieties Promise Food Security in Zanzibar
'); document.write('published on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:00:00 -0400
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Millions of cassava farmers in eastern and central Africa are in distress from viral cassava diseases that are sweeping across the region and ravaging their crops. But their counterparts on the popular tourist island of Zanzibar are undergoing a quiet revolution using new disease-resistant and high-yielding varieties that were introduced three years ago.

The four varieties, Kizimbani, Mahonda, Kama, and Machui, have given cassava a new lease on life after the crop was devastated by the two main diseases afflicting the region: brown streak disease and mosaic disease. The diseases, which are spread by white flies, cost Africa\'s cassava sector more than US$1 billion in damages every year. Small-scale farmers - among the poorest in the region - bear most of the economic effects.

Cassava mosaic disease first appeared in Uganda in the mid-1980s and spread rapidly in cassava-growing areas of eastern and central Africa through the sharing of infected planting materials and via the white fly vector. Following the development and deployment of resistant and tolerant varieties and widespread awareness-raising on ways to curb the mosaic\'s spread, scientists, governments, non-governmental organizations, and farmers were able to bring the disease nearly under control. Then the cassava brown streak struck. This disease had been around for much longer but was confined to the coastal low-altitude areas of Eastern Africa and around Lake Malawi. From 2004, it started spreading rapidly to mid-altitude areas that were recovering from the mosaic, sending scientists back to the drawing board.

Haji Saleh, the head of Zanzibar\'s roots and tuber program under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Environment, says the first survey of cassava brown streak on the island was conducted in 1994 and indicated that 20 percent of the crop had disease symptoms. In a follow-up survey in 2002, the disease was found everywhere. "All the local varieties grown by the farmers were susceptible. The farmer and authorities were crying out for help," Saleh said.

Heeding the call for help, Zanzibar crop scientists in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) started a breeding program to develop cassava varieties that were resistant to the two diseases. Their efforts paid off, and after only four years, four new varieties were released in 2007.

"You have to understand, cassava is a very important staple in Zanzibar, where it comes in second after rice," Saleh said. "However, it is first in terms of acreage and production with over 90 percent of farmers growing the crop. It is our food security crop as it grows in most of the agro-ecological zones including in the dry parts of the island where other crops do not perform well. So when the diseases hit, they were very devastating to the island\'s food security. We had to act fast."

The research team then started a rapid multiplication program, working with the farmers to spread the improved varieties on the island and beyond. "We selected pilot farmers in each district to help with the multiplication," Saleh said. "We trained them on how to grow cassava to get good yields and maintain soil fertility, and on business skills, as they were to sell the planting material as a business."

One farmer, 59-year-old Ramadhani Abdala Ame of Kianga village - a father of 10 - participated in the on-farm trials using the improved varieties. During the trials, the farmers helped the researchers select not only the best performing varieties, but also those that met farmer preferences and requirements for various uses of the crops. Ramadhani said he had given up on cassava, which was suffering from "kensa ya mhogo," or "cancer of the cassava." Infected by the brown streak disease, the crop develops a dry rot in its roots - the most economically important part of the plant - which makes it useless for consumption.

"The cassava looked good in the field, but when you harvested, the roots were rotten and useless, with all your labor and efforts going down the drain," Ramadhani said. He explained that he was given 40 cuttings of the four new varieties to test on his farm. "At that time, they did not have names, only numbers. I was amazed at their performance: the tubers were huge, and had no disease. I selected the two I liked best that were later renamed Kizimbani and Machui."

Ramadhani said the sale of cassava roots and planting materials has made a big difference in his life. He has bought two cows to add to his stock, constructed a cowshed, and is now building a better brick and iron-sheet house for his family.

Another pilot farmer, Suleiman John Ndebe of Machui village, had also given up on cassava after 10 years of bad harvests due to the "cancer" and other pests and diseases such as mealy bug and cassava green mite. But the varieties given to him at Kizimbazi research station for testing excited him and motivated him to resume growing the crop. It\'s a decision he says he has not regretted.

Suleiman says his involvement in the project has turned his life around. Farming for him is now a serious business. He estimates that he makes profits of between 50 and 100 percent from his cassava, depending on the season, and his income increased more than four times. "Before the training, I did not know agriculture was a business. I did not know whether I made a profit or a loss. Now, I know how much cassava I have planted, the cost of labor and manure, how much I expect to harvest, and how much profit I will make," he said. "I am now able to save some money in the bank and my life is less stressful. I even bought a color TV to be able to follow the World Cup!"

Yet there is still a big gap to fill before all the farmers on Zanzibar can enjoy the new cassava varieties. According to Salma Omar Mohamed, a research officer with Kizimbani Research station, only some 10,000 farmers are currently growing these new varieties, out of a potential of more than 1 million. She says the business model of distributing the planting materials has excluded poor farmers who are not able to afford the materials. However, she was thankful for the strides made with funding from donors such as Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which supported the free distribution of planting materials to poor farmers under a voucher program.

Mohamed hopes they can get more such support to spread the improved varieties to all the farmers on Zanzibar and on neighboring Pemba Island, where the disease is also prevalent and penetration of the new varieties is even lower.

IITA cassava breeders report that hope is also on the way for farmers in Kenya, mainland Tanzania, and Uganda, as 15 promising cassava varieties that are suitable for the climatic conditions of these areas are in the last testing stages.

Catherine Njuguna is a communication officer with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Visit Worldwatch\'s Nourishing the Planet blog to learn more about food security developments through innovations such as crop breeding.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute blog Nourishing the Planet. For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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OPINION: Hope and Progress in the Developing World, Despite Daunting Challenges
'); document.write('published on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:00:00 -0400
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The following op-ed appeared in The Seattle Times.

For most Seattle residents, global hunger seems like an impossible problem to solve. Reports of famine in Niger or the thousands at risk for starvation and malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, seem not only far away but impossible to change. A local organization, however, begs to differ.

The Seattle-based Bridges to Understanding uses digital technology to empower and connect children around the world. Students participating in the Bridges curriculum are taught to use cameras and editing software to develop stories about their community and culture. These videos, comprised of a photo slide show with a running narration, are then shared with the Bridges online community, which is made up of schools in seven countries around the world.

For many students, it\'s the first time they have ever even held a camera.

"At first, the prospect of designing, shooting and editing a movie seems insurmountable but then they produce these beautiful films," says Elizabeth Sewell, Bridges Program Manager at the Rural Development Foundation\'s (RDF) primary school in Kalleda, a small village in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh, India. "And then you knock down that barrier, you show them what they are capable of doing. And then they can start to approach other, larger and more institutional, problems the same way. Suddenly, in their own eyes, there are no limits to what they can achieve."

Since the 1980s, international investment in agriculture has decreased significantly. These cuts have impacted women and children the most. But in addition to making sure we reverse these trends, we need to ensure that funding is used effectively - reaching the farmers who need it most.

Who better to consult - and to equip with the tools to help out - in the global effort to combat hunger than the youth, women and farmers who will most benefit from it?

In South Africa, the organization Food and Natural Resource Policy Analysis Network is using theater to engage leaders, service providers and policymakers; encourage community participation; and research the needs of women farmers through a project called Theatre for Policy Advocacy. Popular theater personalities travel to communities in Mozambique and Malawi and stage performances using scripts based on the network\'s research, to engage members of the community.

After each performance, community members, women, men, youth, local leaders are engaged in facilitated dialogues. The dialogues give all community members - especially women - a chance to openly talk about the challenges they are facing without upsetting the status quo, empowering them to speak about what they need from aid groups and their community.

In Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Mali, and other countries around the world, the Africa Rice Centre is using farmer-made instructional videos to help rice farmers share various new methods of improving rice production with each other. The strong presence of women in the videos also helps local NGOs and extension offices - which tend to be made up mostly of male agents - engage women\'s groups.

Projects like Bridges, Theatre for Policy Advocacy and Farmer to Farmer Training Videos - that provide a forum for those who might not otherwise have a voice - allow for the spread of important information, empowering the very people who will most benefit from, and can play the largest role in, the alleviation of global hunger and poverty.

They are ready. All they need are the tools.

Danielle Nierenberg is co-project director of the Worldwatch Institute\'s Nourishing the Planet Project. Molly Theobald is a research fellow at the Worldwatch Institute.

Visit Worldwatch\'s Nourishing the Planet blog to learn more about agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Renewable Energy at the Tipping Point
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No longer a mere suggestion of what might be, renewable energy is hitting a tipping point, with far-reaching implications. For the first time, understanding the scale and patterns of renewable energy development has become essential to any full analysis of trends that will shape the global energy economy and the health of the planet.

That is the story told by a new report that the Worldwatch Institute helped research and write: the Renewables Global Status Report 2010. Produced by the REN21 network of governments, NGOs, and industry associations, the report paints a remarkable picture of a booming new economic sector that has powered its way through a deep global recession, emerging stronger than ever.

Buoyed by hundreds of new government energy policies, accelerating private investment, and myriad technology advances over the past five years, renewable energy is breaking into the mainstream of energy markets. Over the past two years, the United States and Europe have both added more power capacity from renewables than from coal, gas, and nuclear combined, according to the report. Worldwide, renewables accounted for one-third of the new generating capacity added.

Renewable energy, including hydropower, now provides 18 percent of total net electricity generation worldwide. Meanwhile, biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are making inroads in the transportation fuels market and are now equal to about 5 percent of world gasoline production. And in China, more than 150 million people heat at least some of their water using solar hot water systems.

The economic weight of the renewable energy sector is now large enough to attract many of the world\'s largest and most powerful companies, from GE and Siemens to unlikely players such as Samsung and Google. Renewable energy investment of $150 billion worldwide in 2009 was the equivalent of nearly 40 percent of annual investment in the upstream oil and gas industry, which topped $380 billion.

Changes in government policy are responsible for most of these advances. In 2009 alone, 10 national and state governments enacted policies giving renewable power generation access to the grid at prices set by policymakers, bringing the number of governments with such policies to 70. Altogether, the number of countries with policies to encourage renewable energy has increased from 55 in 2005 to 100 in 2010.

One of the forces motivating new renewable energy policies is the desire to create new industries and jobs. Employment in the renewables sector now numbers in the hundreds of thousands in several countries. In Germany, which has led renewable energy development for more than a decade, more than 300,000 people were employed in renewables industries in 2009. This figure almost equals the number of jobs in the country\'s largest manufacturing sector: automobiles.

The changing geography of renewable energy is another indicator that we are entering a new era, with the growing geographic diversity boosting confidence that renewables are no longer vulnerable to political shifts in just a few countries. It is also clear that leadership is shifting decisively from Europe to Asia, with China, India, and South Korea among the countries that have stepped up their commitments to renewable energy.

This transition reflects a growing recognition within Asia itself that these oil-short countries have much to gain from the development of renewable energy in economic, environmental, and security terms. For the world as a whole, this is a momentous development, since Asian nations now lead the growth in carbon emissions. Given East Asia\'s dominance of low-cost global manufacturing, the region\'s commitment to renewable energy will almost certainly drive down the price of many renewable energy devices in the coming years.

Renewable energy is also beginning to make a dent in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In Germany, renewables displaced 109 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2009 - equivalent to 12 percent of the country\'s total - helping to reduce domestic emissions 29 percent from the 1990 level.

At a time when the world\'s energy headlines are dominated by an oil-stained Gulf of Mexico and failure of the U.S. Senate to act on climate change, renewable energy is a rare good news story. The momentum that renewables have gained in a relatively short time indicates that with modest policy changes, a very different energy system could begin to emerge over the next decade.

Our congratulations to Worldwatch Senior Fellows Janet Sawin and Eric Martinot, who co-directed the Renewables Global Status Report 2010. They and their many contributors from around the globe have provided a surprisingly clear picture of an energy economy in motion. The optimistic picture they paint offers inspiration to those who despair of the energy headlines in recent months.

Christopher Flavin is President of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Interview with Small-Scale Farming Advocate Raj Patel
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Raj Patel, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley\'s Center for African Studies and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy (also known as Food First), has worked for, and later rallied against, the World Bank and World Trade Organization. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and most recently, The Value of Nothing. In an interview with Worldwatch research intern Ronit Ridberg, the award-winning writer, activist, and academic shares his views on food sovereignty and global agricultural policies.

What is food sovereignty, and what policies and programs will help encourage it?

Food sovereignty is about communities\', states\', and unions\' rights to shape their own food and agricultural policy. Now that may sound like a whole lot of nothing, because you\'re actually not making a policy demand, you\'re just saying that people need to be able to make their own decisions. But, actually, that\'s a huge thing. Because in general, particularly for smaller farmers in developing countries, and particularly for women, decisions about food and agricultural policy have never been made by them. They\'ve always been imposed.

That\'s why La Via Campesina, the organization that really invented the term, says that one of the visions behind food sovereignty is that food sovereignty is about an end to all forms of violence against women. That may sound like something not at all to do with food, but of course, if we\'re serious about people being able to make choices about how their food comes to them and what the food system looks like, then the physical and structural violence to which women are exposed in the home, in the economy, and in society all need to be tackled. Otherwise we will continue with a situation in which 60 percent of the people going hungry today are women or girls. So food sovereignty, to boil it down, is really about power - who has it in the food system and how to redistribute it so that those who have concentrated it have it taken away from them.

In terms of specific policies, what Via Campesina is calling for is for agriculture to be removed from the World Trade Organization, which is a way again in which local countries\' sovereignty is already been given away. They also call for large corporations to be booted out of agriculture. There\'s strong opposition to Monsanto, for example, and the way that they\'ve been behaving in many developing countries, and many Via Campesina members are campaigning against Monsanto in their home countries.

Will another Green Revolution or more food subsidies help reduce hunger?

To answer the question, let\'s look at Malawi. It\'s the poster child for what a new Green Revolution in Africa might look like, with widespread subsidies of inorganic fertilizer for farmers. When I went there, late last year, what you found was long lines at the gasoline pump, because all Malawi\'s foreign exchange had been spent on importing this fossil fuel-based fertilizer. The country had bankrupted itself in order that it might be a showcase for the new Green Revolution in Africa. And of course, there are alternatives right there in Malawi, driven by farmers, invariably by women who are innovating around sustainable systems like polyculture - growing lots of crops simultaneously together, building soil fertility for the long run.

What this shows is that there are some basic incompatibilities between varieties of ways of addressing agrarian problems in Africa. Some organizations, Worldwatch included, adopt a "big tent" approach, in which solutions that keep the status quo but improve it marginally sit alongside far more radical approaches. Ultimately, you can\'t promote genetically modified monoculture or techniques that make large-scale commercial farming less destructive at the same time as wanting something like food sovereignty, which calls for much more of a deeper structural rethink of the way the food system operates. Food sovereignty is about democracy in our food system so that everyone gets to eat; industrial agriculture involves a food system run by technocrats for profit. At the end of the day, you can have one or the other - not both.

[Editor\'s Note: Worldwatch has a long history of writing about sustainable agriculture systems that encourage crop diversity and support the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. Those reports have documented evidence that genetically modified crops are not necessarily the best, most appropriate, or only available solution to agricultural challenges. Visit the Nourishing the Planet blog for a more detailed response from our team of agriculture researchers.]

How does global agricultural policy affect small-scale farmers across the world?

In general, the policies foisted on developing countries through organizations like the World Bank is that large-scale agriculture is the way to go: that small farmers are a relic of the past. They are of purely cultural significance but economically, socially, and agriculturally, they stand in the way of development. So the policies that are essentially designed to increase farm size and kick off rural populations to the cities are ones that you see in pretty much every country around the world. And yet of course, it is the poor in rural communities that are being forced to bear the brunt of these policies, and these are the communities that are least able to afford it. And again-you can never say it too often - it is on women\'s shoulders that the bulk of the pain of moving from agrarian society to a so-called modern industrial society, falls.

Why should American food consumers care about the fate of agricultural producers halfway across the world?

Not out of any sense of pity or charity, but because the struggles that farmers in developing countries face are very similar to the struggles that farmers in the United States face. Industrial agriculture wreaks havoc. We\'ve seen the deaths from E. coli, we\'ve seen industrial agriculture and the rise of BSE [mad cow disease], we\'ve seen the massive dead-zone in the Gulf of Mexico because of the runoff from animal feeding operations flowing down the Mississippi. If you\'re in America and you\'re concerned about the quality or safety of your food, or about the consequences of the way your food is produced, then you\'re not alone. Those are all things that farmers elsewhere in the world are worried about, and that consumers elsewhere in the world are worried about too.

There\'s a proven way in which those concerns can be addressed. It is to wrench power away from the corporations that profit from low standards, from the ability to create offshore pollution, and the ability to evade the costs of defective products. So I think in the U.S., if you\'re at all concerned about food safety, health, obesity-any of these things-then you would want to have more control over your food system. And wanting more control over your food system is exactly what food sovereignty is about. In a globalized world, you can\'t have control over your food system in this country while people elsewhere don\'t, and this is what makes it a common struggle.

Funding for agricultural research has declined in recent decades. Where should funding for agricultural innovation and research come from?

Funding for agriculture ought to come from the places where research used to come from: the government. I don\'t have any stars in my eyes when I think about governments in developing countries having a ton of cash in their coffers for research into this. But governments that are net food-importing developing countries found themselves after the last food crisis in very dark times. They\'re keen to develop new ways of doing things.

A lot of these countries haven\'t had the money to be able to invest in agricultural extension and research, and so what we need are two things: one is a cancellation of the illegitimate debt that these countries have racked up with organizations like the World Bank. There\'s a huge debt that rich countries owe poor ones-for colonialism, for the ecological damage we have caused and continue to cause by the way we consume. Yet through the World Bank, the debt has been flipped over, and has become an agent for controlling these economies.

So we definitely need a change in the way international development and finance work. But we also need to support change within developing countries so that agricultural extension becomes something that once again is funded and is geared toward the kinds of research that is about low-carbon, that is about democratic control over resources, rather than about pushing a particular kind of product and particular kind of vision of agriculture that is ultimately unsustainable for the majority of countries in Africa.

Ronit Ridberg is a research intern with the Worldwatch Institute. Visit Worldwatch\'s Nourishing the Planet blog to learn more about food sovereignty and fair trade.

This article appeared in its original form on the Worldwatch blog Nourishing the Planet. For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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OPINION: A French Revolution Needed in U.S. Transportation Policies
'); document.write('published on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:59:56 -0400
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The prospects of Congressional reauthorization of a multi-year surface transportation bill in the United States-already many months overdue-appear dim this year. Identifying funding sources is one of the major stumbling blocks, and legislators seem to lack a vision of what 21st-century mobility entails. They might gain inspiration from developments in France.

On July 9, the French government released a draft plan for transportation infrastructure investments (called "avant-projet au schéma national des infrastructures de transports") over the next two decades. If the priorities hold, it will represent nothing less than an "adieu" to decades of car-centered development.

Of €170 billion ($220 billion) in planned spending, €85 billion-50 percent-will be allocated to high-speed rail, and €53 billion-31 percent-to urban trams, subways, and bus lines. That\'s a whopping 81 percent of transportation spending for public transport! Roads and airports, by contrast, will receive only a combined 5 percent, with the remainder going to ports and waterways.

By 2020, a total of 2,300 kilometers of new high-speed rail (HSR) lines are to be built, with another 1,500 kilometers planned by 2030. (See map.) Urban mass-transit lines are to be expanded fivefold to a total of 1,800 kilometers. It is expected that the overall plan will reduce the annual carbon dioxide emissions of France\'s transportation sector, currently at 30 million tons, by 2 million tons.

But, as the newspaper Les Echos comments, the plan does not specify how the French government will finance the plan-through taxes, user fees, borrowing, or other measures, including the mobilization of private investments-which raises some questions about the overall viability of the plan.

Financing could also prove somewhat of an Achilles heel of ambitious Spanish plans. Spain currently has the largest high-speed rail construction program in Europe and, at 1,614 kilometers, already has the second-longest HSR track in Europe after France. Plans call for a total of 10,000 kilometers built by 2020, meaning that Spain will add more than three times the additional capacity envisioned under the already ambitious French plan by the same date.

The 2004 Strategic Plan for Infrastructures and Transport (PEIT) calls for 44 percent of total transportation investment by 2020 to be directed toward rail, primarily for expansion of the high-speed network. Between 2005 and 2020, some $152 billion is to be invested in rail, with $115 billion going to high-speed routes.

By 2010, with the country deeply mired in the global recession, the Spanish government turned to infrastructure investments, especially in rail, as a way to stimulate the economy. Its two-year Extraordinary Infrastructure Plan, rolled out in April 2010, promised to invest some $22 billion in transportation, with 70 percent going to rail and 30 percent to highways. High-speed rail tracks will see about $8 billion in new investment in 2010 alone. This latter amount is about as much as the U.S. stimulus program (ARRA) makes available for high-speed rail. Per capita, however, it\'s almost 7 times as much.

Given high levels of public debt, initial investments in projects will be made by construction companies and financial institutions, rather than the government. The government will begin to pay companies for their work starting in 2014, after projects are completed. Government spending is to be financed by a new tax on users of the infrastructure.

While a warm bienvenue and bienvenido is being extended to rail in these two European countries, the United States still struggles to offer its own welcome mat. The existing U.S. intercity rail network is fragmented, plans for the future are far less sweeping, and funding remains uncertain.

Gary Gardner and Michael Renner are senior researchers with the Worldwatch Institute. They can be reached at mrenner@worldwatch.org .

This article originally appeared on the Worldwatch blog Green Economy. For permission to republish this report, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org

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U.S. Finance Reform Seeks to Combat Global “Resource Curse”
'); document.write('published on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:15:36 -0400
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Extractive industry companies that operate in U.S. markets will have to disclose any payments they make to governments worldwide as part of the financial reform bill that U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law this week.

Advocates of greater industry transparency in resource-rich developing countries managed to tuck the disclosure rule into the package of market regulations, claiming that the added transparency will limit investment risks abroad. More significantly, the rules would provide citizens in developing countries with essential information to combat the "resource curse" - the tendency of profits from oil, gas, or mineral deposits to adversely affect local economies and sometimes lead to conflict over these lucrative resources.

Oil, gas, and mining companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will be required to disclose publicly any payments made to government entities on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis as part of the financial statements already required by the SEC.

"With this far-reaching new law, citizens now have a reliable tool to ensure that the wealth created by natural resource extraction is used for essential social services such as health and education, as well as economic development opportunities," said Radhika Sarin, coordinator of Publish What You Pay, a global coalition of 600 organizations lobbying for mandatory disclosure of extractive industry payments and related government revenues.

Nigeria, the world\'s eighth largest oil exporter, has long struggled with crippling corruption associated with extraction of its petroleum resource. The country\'s anti-corruption commission has accused successive military dictatorships of embezzling some $400 billion between 1960 and 1999. Meanwhile, the majority of the population earns less than US$2 per day.

Lawmakers said that the reporting requirements would be designed using the voluntary Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) guidelines. The initiative, launched at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, and since supported by the Group of Eight (G8) world leaders, entails regular audits of company payments to governments and of the material revenues that companies receive from governments. Independent audits are arranged in cases where audits do not already exist, with steering groups comprising government, industry, and civil society representatives overseeing the validation process.

The new disclosure rules, to be issued by the SEC no later than nine months after the financial reform bill is enacted, would increase transparency in developing countries by expanding disclosure to countries not covered by the EITI (more than 25 countries are "candidates" for inclusion in the initiative but only three have been fully validated).

Advocates estimate that the rules would apply to hundreds of companies, including 90 percent of the world\'s largest international oil and gas companies and eight of the world\'s 10 largest mining companies. Firms based outside the United States that are still listed on U.S. stock exchanges, such as Shell and BP, would have to comply.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade group that represents some 400 energy companies, opposes the disclosure rules. In a letter to U.S. legislators, Chief Executive Jack Gerard wrote that the measure would create an unfair disadvantage to companies that compete with quasi-governmental and national oil companies such as Russia\'s Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Company. "Disclosing payments at this level of detail, including payments on a project level, means that foreign competitors would have access to very specific, proprietary information that can be used against U.S.-listed companies in contract negotiations and for other purposes," Gerard said.

API also criticized the rules for its "unilateral approach." However, the Hong Kong stock exchange enacted similar rules earlier this year and now requires mineral companies to include in their listing requests any information about taxes, royalties, or other payments to host governments on a country-by-country basis. Companies listed on the Hong Kong exchange must also disclose information regarding environmental, social, and health and safety risks associated with their projects.

In addition, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), a private London-based group that sets standards used in more than 100 countries, is considering a rule change that would require disclosure of payments to governments.

U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) urged other countries to follow the U.S. lead when he spoke on behalf of including the transparency amendment, named after its backers Senators Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), in the financial reform bill.

"It is part of a broader international effort to combat corruption, poverty, hunger, and disease throughout Africa, Asia, and Central America by providing a mechanism to ensure greater transparency for the many ways in which sometimes corrupt and authoritarian governments in those regions take in huge revenue flows from oil and gas producers or mining companies and then fail to adequately meet the needs of their own vulnerable populations with social spending funded by the income from these projects," Dodd said. "I would hope that other nations and those in charge of major exchanges in London, Hong Kong, and elsewhere would follow the Cardin-Lugar approach on this."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

This article originally appeared on the Worldwatch blog Green Economy. For permission to republish this report, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Women Oyster Harvesters Revive Gambia’s Degraded Fisheries
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A group of women stands alongside the roads leaving Gambia\'s capital city of Banjul, offering up oysters for 15 dalasis a cup, or about 55 cents for approximately 75 pieces of oyster meat. These women have been harvesting oysters from the extensive mangrove wetlands of Gambia for decades. Much of the harvesting is concentrated in Tanbi National Park, a wetland listed by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (known as the Ramsar Convention). Surprisingly, the mangroves themselves have undergone little change during the last 30 years, even as the population of the country, increasingly concentrated around Tanbi in the Greater Banjul Area, has more than doubled.

Although the mangroves remain healthy, the harvesters have witnessed firsthand the effects of increased pressure on the oyster population. The women report that oysters today are smaller and harder to find than 30, or even 10, years ago. Yet even with the increased effort required, more women are harvesting today than in the past. These women rely on oysters for their livelihoods and contribute to food security in a country that is heavily dependent on seafood for protein.

In 2007, a group of oyster harvesters organized themselves into a producer association called TRY Women\'s Oyster Harvesting Association. The founding members decided to call the organization TRY because it was an effort to do just that-try to improve the situation for oyster harvesters without much certainty that their work would pay off. After some initial success raising funds to buy boats, membership in TRY grew rapidly from 14 women in just one village to 500 oyster harvesters from 15 communities across the Greater Banjul Area.

This growth was no small feat. Although the women are all Jola, a minority ethnic group in Gambia, they are divided into different sects with distinct languages and heritages. Through TRY, the harvesters have been able to put aside these differences and work as a cohesive community, making decisions by consensus and collectively prioritizing needs.

Two years after its founding, TRY became linked with the USAID-funded Sustainable Fisheries Project, Ba Nafaa. Ba Nafaa has helped TRY expand the scope of its mission and has worked to create a sustainable co-management plan for the oyster fishery that respects the needs of harvesters, consumers, and the environment.

In their short time together, TRY and Ba Nafaa have already made important strides in working toward improved livelihoods and fisheries practices. The women have collectively agreed to practices that may be difficult in the short run but that pay off over time. Traditionally, oysters are harvested during the dry season, with the wet months of July through December closed for harvesting. This past year, the communities agreed to extend the closed season until March. When harvesting resumed in the spring, the women saw the benefits of the extended closure immediately, noticing a marked increase in the size of oysters for harvest. Additionally, each community agreed to close one bolong, or tributary, in their territory for the entire year to encourage regeneration of the oyster population there.

The women are also adopting practices to ensure that Tanbi remains a healthy mangrove ecosystem. Harvesters are learning about the ecological importance of mangroves and how destructive practices like cutting roots with machetes damages the capacity of the ecosystem to support oyster populations and fish nurseries. They are sharing these lessons with one another and the Gambian public through short plays demonstrating proper harvesting techniques and sharing information about mangrove ecology. In a country stretched for resources, the oyster harvesters are also helping the Department of Parks and Wildlife Management police the wetlands by reporting observations of illegal fuelwood harvesting to local officials. The women are experimenting with shellfish aquaculture to help relieve pressure on wild stocks and limit the harm to mangroves.

One of the first accomplishments of TRY was to raise the price of oysters from 10 dalasis per cup to 15. Customers have been willing to pay the new price, a partial acknowledgment of the value of these harvesters\' effort. One of the big goals for Ba Nafaa and TRY, however, is to see that number grow exponentially by opening up new markets in the high-end retail outlets serving tourists. This would be greatly aided by establishing a permanent market for harvesters who currently rely on customers stopping by the side of the road or at temporary markets in the major cities in the Greater Banjul Area. Eventually, the harvesters could develop an export market to the United States or European Union, which could yield prices high enough to create living wages for harvesters.

In the meantime, the oyster harvesters will continue to sell their catch along the road outside of Banjul, working together to try to improve their situation.

Christi Zaleski, an environmental studies undergraduate at Brown University, is spending the summer in Gambia working with the Gambia-Senegal Sustainable Fisheries Project Ba Nafaa.

Visit Worldwatch\'s Nourishing the Planet blog to learn more about improving livelihoods through sustainable seafood.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute blog Nourishing the Planet. For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Beneath the Surface: A Survey of Environmental Risks from Shale Gas Development
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Washington, D.C.- Improved drilling techniques have unlocked vast new reserves of shale gas, a resource that could be large enough to displace significant amounts of coal, and an energy source that emits less than half the carbon dioxide. But growing shale gas development has raised both environmental questions and public controversy. A new independent assessment by the Worldwatch Institute concludes that improved adherence to drilling best practice and better regulatory oversight are essential to assure environmental and public protection as shale gas production continues to expand.

The report, Addressing Environmental Risks from Shale Gas Development, details what happens beneath the surface during horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in deep shale formations, evaluating the risks to local water quality and the environment, as well as the technologies and policies needed to overcome them.

"Microseismic data have shown us that a properly designed hydraulic fracture job stimulates gas production only within the shale formations, which are typically hundreds of feet thick and thousands of feet deeper than drinking water supplies," says Mark Zoback, a geophysicist at Stanford University and a report co-author. "For this reason, the risk of fractures propagating from deep shale formations to underground sources of drinking water, which has been the subject of much debate, appears to be extremely low."

The report concludes that faulty well construction, in particular poorly cemented steel casings needed to isolate the gas from shallow formations, as well as above-ground contamination due to leaks and spills of fracturing fluids and waste water, pose more significant risks to the environment. In addition, continued study and improved communication of the environmental risks associated with both individual wells and large scale shale gas development are essential for society to make well-informed decisions about its energy future.

"Although the technologies, best practices, and regulations that can help minimize these risks exist, they have not yet been universally adopted," says Worldwatch Fellow and co-author Saya Kitasei. "Experiences in Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and New York demonstrate that strong public pressure exists for stricter oversight."

The report, authored by Mark Zoback of Stanford University, Saya Kitasei of the Worldwatch Institute, and Bradford Copithorne of Environmental Defense Fund, is the second in a series of briefing papers from Worldwatch\'s Natural Gas and Sustainable Energy Initiative, which examines critical environmental and policy issues surrounding natural gas.

Download Addressing Environmental Risks from Shale Gas Development by Mark Zoback, Saya Kitasei, and Bradford Copithorne.

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OPINION: Working Together for Ethiopia\'s Agricultural Self-Sufficiency
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The following op-ed appeared in Addis Fortune, Ethiopia\'s largest English daily newspaper

Most of the news one hears from Ethiopia is about millions of people facing malnutrition and starvation. Although one wishes that the answer could be as simple as supplying food aid or high-tech quick fixes, like chemical inputs to increase production, the financial and environmental costs of these solutions are often more than one can afford.

What one does not often hear about are the local organisations that attempt to unite farmers to find long-term solutions to Ethiopia\'s food security problems together, solutions that will enable small-scale farmers to become self-sufficient and the country to wean itself off of international food aid altogether.

Sustainable solutions require more than just additional funding and technology.

Most often, there is no "one size fits all" solution, the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) in Addis Abeba discovered. Instead it is the sharing of traditional knowledge, practices, and innovations that leads to sustainable solutions.

"We need policies that enable researchers and farmers to have the time, places, and support to work together as genuine partners," said Sue Edwards, an advisory group member and director of the ISD, in an interview for the Worldwatch Institute\'s Nourishing the Planet Project, on October 23, 2009.

Edwards established the ISD in 1996 with her husband, Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher (PhD), who is now the head of the Ethiopian Environmental Authority (EPA).

In one project of the ISD, farmers and local agriculture experts in four communities were trained to make compost in pits using traditional processes and apply it to their fields during crop planting.

Within two years farmers found that natural compost increased crop yields as much as chemical fertilisers. Over the following years soil fertility and crop yields improved so much that farmers were able to stop purchasing chemical inputs altogether. Some farmers equated the use of chemical fertilisers with a system of bribing the soil, which they recognised as unsustainable.

To share this knowledge across Tigray Regional State, the northernmost region of Ethiopia, the ISD utilised a training strategy whereby farmers were responsible for training 10 or more of their neighbours, while local agriculture experts recorded and reported the impacts of compost use. This shared approach rapidly multiplied the number of farmers making and using compost and increased overall crop production throughout the region.

Across the globe it is widely recognised that the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides produces high crop yields. However, these inputs can often bring problems for farmers because they are expensive, often pollute water supplies, retard plant growth, and destroy biodiversity by killing beneficial insects and wildlife.

One farmer, Teklu Beza of Mai Berazio, Tigray Regional State, experienced these negative side effects. Using a pesticide called 2-4-D to control weeds on half of his small field of teff, he found that the growth of the crops where 2-4-D was applied, was slowed by two weeks when compared to the other half.

This side effect, in addition to the death of honeybees from the pesticide, led other farmers to shy away from buying pesticides and shift to using and improving their own traditional pest and disease control methods.

By developing their own practices, farmers not only avoided monetary costs and environmental degradation but also improved their confidence, livelihoods and local ecosystems. Also, by sharing this knowledge with their local agriculture experts, most farming communities in the area have reduced the use of pesticides and are collaborating with local authorities to ban their use.

A series of workshops organised by Spanish NGO Centro de Iniciativas para la Cooperación/Batá, Prolinnova, and the National Farmers Union of Mozambique (UNAC) in Maputo, Mozambique, allowed farmers to share their experiences and innovations and learn what is working in their local communities.

At one session, Energindo Paulo from Nicassa Province explained how to make natural, nontoxic pesticides. His ingredients, including leaves from the neem tree, were displayed on the floor as he discussed methods of pest control. When Energindo finished his presentation, the group of 50 farmers asked questions about how to apply the pesticide and how long they should wait after application to eat the produce.

These workshops help farmers value and invest in their own local knowledge.

"Good agriculture requires knowledge of how people can cultivate food and other natural products we need in a way that is ecologically and culturally suitable for the places we live," said Edwards.

The idea that technology is always the answer means that only those who can afford to buy the quickfix products will avoid hunger. Those who cannot buy them will have their choices and opportunities for healthy and affordable food reduced or, more likely, eliminated.

Growing food based on the shared traditional knowledge of local people is one way to bring healthy and nourishing food within reach of everyone.

Danielle Nierenberg is co-project director of the Worldwatch Institute\'s Nourishing the Planet Project. Amanda Stone is a communication intern at the Worldwatch Institute.

Visit Worldwatch\'s Nourishing the Planet blog to learn more about agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa.

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“Biofortification” Boosts Nutrients in Africa’s Staple Crops
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Whether a bowl of rice or a piece of bread, staple foods provide millions of poor people around the world with a source of basic sustenance day in and day out. Now, a new technology promises to make these foods-which provide calories but do not always contain enough of the micronutrients required for good health-more nutritious.

People who intake insufficient amounts of iron, zinc, and vitamin A can suffer from a hidden hunger," often with serious consequences. Without zinc, an eight-year-old girl may have the stature of a five-year-old. A young boy who doesn\'t receive enough vitamin A-an amount easily provided daily by a small orange sweet potato-could face permanent blindness. These precious nutrients, needed in only minute amounts, can make or break a young person\'s life and haunt them through adulthood.

The ideal solution - a more diverse diet - is beyond the reach of millions of poor people living in often-remote rural areas. This is where more nutritious staple foods can help. Through a process called biofortification, scientists are breeding new varieties of staple food crops that are richer in micronutrients. They scour seed banks to find seeds that contain the desired nutrients and then breed these into popular varieties using conventional methods.

The first crop out the door was sweet potato, a staple food in many parts of Africa, traditionally eaten in its white or yellow forms. Working with partners, the global agricultural research program HarvestPlus successfully released an orange sweet potato in Uganda and Mozambique that is far richer in vitamin A than yellow or white varieties. Children and women, the populations most susceptible to vitamin-A deficiency, are eating substantially more of this locally grown root vegetable.

"Me and my family are experiencing better health with fewer visits to the local clinic since we incorporated the orange sweet potato into our diet," a farmer in Uganda recently attested to visiting HarvestPlus staff. The organization and its partners will soon release two other nutritious staple foods in Africa: beans containing more iron and a vitamin A-rich maize.

Jean D\'Amour Manirere, HarvestPlus Country Manager for beans, is currently testing the iron-rich bean varieties through field trials, with the goal of ultimately offering them to farmers and consumers in Rwanda, a country of lush rolling hills that claims beans as its staple crop. "Beans are the bread of Rwanda," Manirere says.

HarvestPlus is conducting a feeding trial to demonstrate that the new iron-rich beans reduce iron deficiency, a condition that leaves at least half of Rwanda\'s preschoolers physically and mentally impaired. With this seal of approval, local partners will be able to get the beans out to smallholder farming communities throughout the country. Farmers will be able to save and share seed to grow, year after year.

HarvestPlus expects that millions of Rwandans will be eating the beans within the decade. Once the beans have taken root in Rwanda, neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and several other African countries where people regularly eat beans will also benefit.

In Zambia, a different crop that has become synonymous with African diets is about to become more nutritious: maize. The new maize varieties are a distinct orange color due to their vitamin-A content. HarvestPlus partners will begin releasing these varieties in provinces where rural households grow maize and where the incidence of vitamin-A deficiency among women and children is high.

"First, we want to confirm that these varieties perform well in the field," says Eliab Simpungwe, HarvestPlus Country Manager for maize. "We are already working with two seed companies to test this maize in the field."

How do people react to these new "orange" crops? HarvestPlus has found that when you explain the nutritional benefits, people are willing to include these foods in their diet. A HarvestPlus study in Zambia found that there is no stigma attached to orange maize, so the color should not be an issue. Coupled with its more nutritious profile and good field performance, the crop should easily carve out a niche in farmers\' fields-and the Zambian diet. Once proven in Zambia, orange maize will be adapted to numerous other countries where maize is a popular food, in Africa and beyond.

Biofortification may ultimately prove to be most successful because it uses food crops that rural communities are already growing and eating to deliver better nutrition. It also has built-in sustainability. Once scientists have bred the high-nutrient into the crop, it stays there-nourishing many generations to come.

Yassir Islam is Senior Communications Specialist at HarvestPlus, a program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Visit Worldwatch\'s Nourishing the Planet blog to learn more about efforts to improve nutrition across sub-Saharan Africa through agricultural innovations.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute blog Nourishing the Planet. For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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