The two biggest challenges the world faces today are climate change and global
hunger. These challenges are bound to escalate over the next decade, and if
we’re to avoid unimaginable calamity they must be met headon. Though the two
may appear distinct, in reality they’re joined at the hip. Thus if we’re to
triumph over one we must also tackle the other.
One of the keys to a double solution lies in transforming the global food
system. According to recent studies, the corporate-dominated food system is
responsible for 44%– 57% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—a quantity larger
than that of all the world’s vehicle traffic. A hotter climate in turn portends
ill for our food supply. The heat waves, droughts, and monster floods unleashed
by a warmer planet reduce crop yields, blocking efforts to feed a world
population due to add 2 billion hungry mouths by 2050.
While the tie between agriculture and climate confronts us with a dilemma,
agriculture experts have suggested that both problems can be ameliorated at one
stroke by changing the dominant system of food production. What they propose is
a pivot away from the focus on large-scale monocrop cultivation toward
small-scale farming using agro-ecological techniques.
A short article recently published in the online journal GRAIN, authored jointly by GRAIN
and the peasant movement La Via Campesina,
argues the case for the advantages of traditional small-scale farming. The
article dissects the industrial food system into six segments, describing the
negative impact each has on our climate. It then proposes five steps for
simultaneously cooling the planet and feeding its people. These proposals closely
mesh with the types of projects promoted by Buddhist Global Relief.
The onslaught against the climate begins with deforestation, which
razes the huge forest tracts that serve as major “carbon sinks,” sucking up
vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in tree trunks, foliage,
and the soil. The burning of felled trees and undergrowth aggravates the
situation by discharging large quantities of CO2 back into the air. It’s
estimated that deforestation accounts for 15–18% of GHG emissions.
Farming itself is directly responsible for 11-15% of emissions,
most resulting from chemical imputs such as fertilizers and pesticides and from
the use of oil to run farm machinery. The toxic chemicals, moreover, seep into
the plants and soil and from the food into our bodies, to the detriment of our
health.
The transportation of food, carried by ships and trucks back and
forth across oceans and continents, accounts for 25% of global GHG emissions
linked to transport and 5-6% of all carbon emissions.
Processing, the next step in the chain, transforms raw foods into
commodities for sale in supermarkets and food shops. This requires an enormous
input of energy, as does the packaging and canning of foods. Together,
processing and packaging account for 8-10% of total GHG emissions.
To preserve the food for sale, it must be refrigerated, another
energy-intensive process, which together with the retailing of foods
adds 2–4% of carbon emissions.
Finally, the industrial food system discards as waste up to half
the food it produces. Much spoilage occurs in storage or during the long
journey from farm to plate, while in the developed world mountains of food are
thrown out by supermarkets, restaurants, and homes. Food waste adds another
3.5–4.5% to GHG emissions.
The article proposes five steps “to
cool the planet and feed its people,” all revolving around small-scale
ecologically sustainable agriculture.
Taking care of the soil. Where industrial agriculture destroys masses of the
organic matter on arable lands, the traditional practices of small farmers
have the opposite effect, capturing carbon from the atmosphere and
sequestering it in the soil. Hence, if the right measures are adopted,
this “would offset between 24-30% of all current global greenhouse gas
emissions.”
No use of chemicals.
Small farmers know how to preserve the fertility of the soil without the
chemical fertilizers that have fostered an unholy alliance between
agricultural firms and chemical corporations. Such traditional techniques
as diversified cropping, integration of crop and animal production, and
planting of trees and wild vegetation on cropland help to improve soil
fertility and and prevent soil erosion.
Cut the transport, focus on fresh food. The article maintains that reorienting food
production to local markets and fresh foods can dramatically cut carbon
emissions. It neglects to mention, however, that livestock cultivation is
responsible for some 18% of global carbon emissions (see “Livestock’s Long
Shadow,” Executive
Summary, p. xxi). Thus a transition from meat-based diets to
plant-based diets would bring sharp drops in carbon emissions while making
available for human consumption the vast amounts of grains and beans now
used to feed animals. Since the animals are raised to provide meat for
affluent people in the developed world, such a shift would also bring
greater equity into the global food system.
Give the land back to the farmers. Over the past half-century, 140 million hectares have
been taken over by big estates to grow crops such as soybeans, oil palm,
rapeseed, and sugar cane, all notorious emitters of greenhouse gases.
Small farmers produce food more efficiently and in ways better suited to a
finite planet. Thus, the article says, “a worldwide redistribution of
lands to small farmers, combined with policies to help them rebuild soil
fertility and policies to support local markets, can reduce GHG emissions
by half within a few decades.”
Forget false solutions, focus on what works. The false solutions include GMO crops, large
geo-eningeering projects, and policies like carbon markets that allow the
worst emitters to avoid cuts. Though these approaches are favored by big
agro, biotech, and chemical firms, which all profit from them, the article
contends that they do not work. The real solution, it holds, is “a shift
from a globalized, industrial food system governed by corporations to
local food systems in the hands of small farmers.” This suggestion is
supported by independent studies. For instance, a study of 286 sustainable
agriculture projects in 57 countries found an average yield increase of
79% (Oxfam, Growing
a Better Future, p. 53).
As global civilization pushes back
against the mounting threat of climate chaos, governments and innovators will
be promoting clean technologies, green commodities, more fuel-efficient cars,
and retrofitting of buildings. While these are essential parts of any solution,
policymakers shouldn’t overlook the role of agriculture. Shifting support from
the industrial model of food production to agro-ecological farming will not
only reduce carbon emissions but regenerate soils, protect rivers and lakes
from pollution by toxic chemicals and animal waste, and reaffirm the dignity of
small-scale farmers. Such a shift will further help lift traditional farmers
from poverty, thus enhancing their economic security and promoting social
justice. It will also redefine our relationship to the natural world from one
characterized by domination and exploitation toward one marked by deep care,
reverence, and collaboration.
It is for such reasons that BGR
sponsors projects that favor small-scale farmers and ecologically sustainable
agriculture. We see these as critical both to our efforts to combat global
hunger and to counter climate change, which poses such a grave danger to the
world’s food supply. By promoting sustainable methods to tackle poverty and
hunger, in our own small way we are helping to preserve a planet that will
remain hospital to human flourishing.
David Loy 是一位学习日本禅学的教授、禅师和作家。他对佛教的理解，综合了西方学者对原始佛教的敬重，因此从小乘佛教对“苦dukkha”的教理，分析转基因食物（基因改造）是否如法。华系佛教学者，可能对转基因有更高的见解，但事实是，佛教对食品安全和转基因食物的醒觉，以及食物与佛教的关联性，以实际行动应对，是比较慢热或者是迟缓或来不及的。
What does Buddhism have to say about genetically modified food? Needless to
say, the Buddha didn't know anything about DNA, much less the possibilities of
modifying it technologically. So it is not surprising that I've been unable to
find references to genetically modified organisms (GMO) in any Buddhist text --
though I admit that my search has not been very thorough.
An alternative approach is to consider whether traditional Buddhist
teachings might give us some insight into our new situation.
Because of the way it spread, Buddhism has tended to adapt to local dietary
customs, rather than export and impose food restrictions. Given the difficult
climate of Tibet, for example, it is not surprising that Tibetan Buddhists have
often eaten a lot of meat. Another factor is that, in general, Buddhism has
been less concerned about what we eat than how we eat it, since our dukkha
"suffering" is rooted in our craving -- and food is the second most
popular example of human craving.
Buddhist monastics are expected to live a simple life largely unconcerned
about mundane matters such as food. In many Buddhist cultures they eat only
before noon. According to the Patimokha that regulates their daily
lives, "There are many fine foods such as ghee, butter, oil, honey,
molasses, fish, meat, milk, and curds. If any monastic who is not sick should
ask for them and consume them, it is an offense entailing expiation."
Notice the careful wording. Evidently the problem is not with these foods
themselves, but that seeking and indulging in them is a distraction from what
monastics should be concentrating on. There is no suggestion that lay followers
should also avoid them, and the qualification -- "any monastic who is not
sick" -- is a good example of Buddhist pragmatism.
Historically, the main food issue for Buddhists is whether one should be
vegetarian. This has been somewhat complicated by the fact that, according to
the earliest accounts we have, the Buddha died of a stomach ailment apparently
caused or aggravated by eating pork. Buddhist vegetarians have sometimes
considered this fact scandalous and denied it, but it is consistent with what
we know about the early Buddhist community.
According to the Vinaya rules established and followed by the
Buddha himself, Theravada monastics are mendicants. Being dependent on what is
donated to them, they are not required to be vegetarian -- with an important
restriction often followed by devout laypeople as well: "If a monastic
sees, hears or suspects that [meat or fish] has been killed for his sake, he
may not eat it." Such practices are not required of non-monastics. Not
observing them may create bad karma, but that is one's own decision.
What, if anything, do these attitudes imply about genetically modified food?
There is a problem with any absolute claim that genetically modified food
does not accord with Buddhist teachings: there's little if any support for the
position that "unnatural is bad" in any early Buddhist text. That's
because Buddhism does not romanticize nature or "being natural." Our
distinctively Western ambivalence between infatuation with technological
progress, and nostalgia for a return-to-nature, is not characteristic of Asian
Buddhism.
Here it is helpful to remember the three "basic facts," according
to Buddhism: dukkha (suffering or "dis-ease"), impermanence,
and not-self.
Impermanence means that everything arises and passes away according to
conditions, including ourselves. Socially, this implies an openness to change,
including progress -- if it really is progress, that is, an improvement. New
technologies are not in themselves a problem, for the important issue is their
effects on our dukkha. Buddhism is not nostalgic for some prelapsarian
time when life was "natural," because there never was such a golden
age.
In contrast, not-self involves realizing that nothing self-exists
-- not only because there is no permanence, but also because everything is
interdependent on everything else. This fact does not discriminate between
naturally-occurring things and more technological ones: nothing has any reality
of its own, because nothing is on its own. In effect, everything is part of
everything else.
If we don't need to worry about disrupting genetic "essences" such
as the DNA of a plant or animal species, doesn't that liberate us to do
whatever we want technologically? Not quite, because the most important
criterion for Buddhism remains the consequences of any GMO for dukkha
"suffering": does it tend to reduce dukkha, or increase it?
In general, the genetic modifications that I am aware of seem designed more
for the convenience of the food industry than for the benefit of consumers. The
focus has been on growing and processing food more efficiently and profitably,
rather than on taste or nutrition. Prominent examples are sterile
"terminator seeds" and Roundup Ready crops engineered to be resistant
to Monsanto's own brand of herbicide. In a controversial 1998 British
experiment, Arpad Pusztai reported that genetically modified potatoes caused immune
system damage to rats; his results have been criticized but have also been
defended by other scientists. In 2000 StarLink corn, with a built-in
insecticide and a protein indigestible to humans, was accidentally released
into the human food chain, leading to 37 reports of serious allergic reactions.
These and many other incidents are discussed in Kathleen Hart's book Eating
in the Dark: America's experiment with genetically engineered food. Such
issues suggest what Buddhist emphasis on interdependence implies: that altering
the genome of food plants (and no doubt that of animals as well) is an
extraordinarily challenging process with many consequences that are very
difficult to anticipate and evaluate exhaustively. Producing safe and
nutritious food appears to be more complicated than providing most other
consumer products.
Perhaps this helps to explain why the European Union does not allow most GMO
foodstuffs to be sold in Europe. The technological modification of plant and
animal species, without a much better understanding of how all the genomes of
living creatures affect each other, is an especially important example of how
our technical ambitions can outrun our wisdom.
In short, the genetic engineering of food, as presently practiced, may be
incompatible with basic Buddhist teachings, insofar as it is more likely to
increase dukkha than reduce it.
This does not necessarily mean that genetic modification of food is always a
bad thing. From a Buddhist point of view, most technologies are neither good
nor bad in themselves. Nor are they neutral. That is because technologies
cannot be separated from the larger social, economic, and ecological contexts
within which they are devised and applied. Since Buddhism does not privilege
"the natural," including the natural selection that drives the
evolutionary process, there is the possibility that in the future some GMO
might actually serve to reduce dukkha. For that to happen, however,
it's essential that the evaluation process not be distorted by other, more
problematic motivations that make it more likely to increase dukkha.
KUALA
LUMPUR, Feb 8 -- The disastrous floods which hit some states last
year are expected to recur more frequently and with greater intensity as a
result of global warming and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) phenomenon,
says climatologist and oceanographer Professor Dr Fredolin T. Tangang.
Fredolin, who is a lecturer at the Faculty of Science and Technology,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), said there were already studies which
proved increase in global temperature caused phenomena like El Nino, La
Nina, and MJO to be stronger and more frequent. He said according to the Fifth Synthesis report of the Inter-governmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) in November 2014, the increased frequency of extreme
weather and climate event phenomena were connected to weather change.
"An increase of one degree in global temperature would increase the
atmospheric moisture by seven per cent, thus increasing the frequency of
extreme weather episodes which are worse than we experienced, last year,"
he said.
Fredolin stressed that the IPCC report also stated that the average global
temperature had increased by 0.87 degree Celsius in 100 years. He said climate change due to global warming was causing a worsening of the
phenomenon.
The media had previously reported that the MJO phenomenon was a factor causing
heavy rains in Malaysia.
MJO is an element in the tropical weather pattern which occurs once in 20 to 60
days as compared to the El Nino phenomenon which happens in three to seven
years.
It is a large-scale weather pattern phenomenon which occurs due to temperature
changes in the Indian Ocean, affecting atmospheric moisture.
However, when the MJO meets with the northeast monsoon and a cold surge from
the north, the result will be exceptionally heavy rainfall.
"This means that in future, in Malaysia, there will be more frequent
extreme rain and droughts caused by these phenomena," he told Bernama
recently.
He added that his studies showed the heavy floods in Johor in 2006 resulting
from exceptionally heavy rains were caused by the MJO.
He said data showed that rainfall distribution in Johor was only 29mm in an
hour, but between Dec 21 to 24 last year, Kelantan recorded an increase in
rainfall of up to 35mm in one hour, caused by the same phenomenon. (Bernama)
