The Carter Center Pushing Chemical Fertilizers & Pesticides?

by Sophia Barkat 

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born Oct. 1, 1924), the 39th President of the United States (1977 to 1981) has an excellent reputation in the world. He is seen as a peace-maker and philanthropist, unlike the current President Bush. Carter has even received the Nobel Peace prize in 2002 for his work. So why is his organization, The Carter Center, pushing chemical fertilizers and pesticides onto poor farmers in Third World nations?

Instead the Carter Center states: (http://www.cartercenter.org/health/agriculture/index.html)

"The Agriculture Program promotes:
 

§                            Use of fertilizer, seed, and crop protection chemicals in food crops

§                            Soil fertility with increased use of fertilizer and with organic and indigenous mineral sources

§                            Environmentally friendly agronomic methods of crop production, such as no-till

§                            Quality grain storage to sustain market prices for the farmer and ensure greater food security

§                            Establishment of farmers' associations for marketing and saving and loan services and

§                            Use of high-quality food crops such as quality protein maize, or QPM, which has greater protein quality than regular maize. "

Activists working for farmers’ rights in the Third World, such as Vandana Shiva, will attest that the Third World farmers have been perishing under the weight of debt incurred by undertaking industrial modes of agriculture involving the use of expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides (http://navdanya.org/about/mission.htm). The agrochemical industry represent a regime of violence against farmers in the Third World, according to Shiva’s organization, Navdanya in India, which helps farmers save seeds.

Is dependence on petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides a very good idea for nations that are already debt-laden and agriculture-based economies? According to Dr. Mario Giampietro, Professor at ICREA and ICTA, who spoke at Northern Arizona University on March 29, 2007, the major input in industrial agriculture models, which the Third World is being asked to emulate, is oil, a commodity that if anything is unaffordable right now, what with oil at $63/barrel in the U.S. Oil is also expected to run out. Dr. Giampietro stated that this model is not necessarily the best model, as far as short-term yield of crops is concerned, either, and farmers in the Third World have outperformed those in the “developed” nations. The long-term nonsustainability of industrial agriculture—using excessive petro-based chemicals-- is already understood.

Dr. Giampietro also stated that the reason why this model of agriculture is still sustained by the states in Third World nations is because states like universities rely on corporations worldwide. Agriculture universities and centers worldwide have relied on “big money” to fund them, and would not get the funding if they adopted an ideology free of oil. Similarly, many farmers associations have been similarly co-opted and pushed the industrial model of agriculture. 

But, the Carter Center would dispute this. It would have us think that lack of “quality grain storage” was why Third World farmers were losing out in the world market. That it was not due to the increasingly unsubsidized regime of “free-trade”, where farmers become price-takers, lose subsidies and go into debt from buying chemical fertilizers and pesticides. With the regime of genetically modified crops and companies like Monsanto, farmers are now also being forced to buy seed. Do, we really need people with Nobel Prizes towing the line for the agrochemical industry right now? 

Nothing New?

So, why is the Carter Institute feeding this model to the Third World? While the website for the Carter Center states: it is “waging peace, fighting disease and building hope,” it so turns out that Carter’s method of doing so has always included the global capitalists, in particular corporations based in the US. In the attempt to save Africa from AIDS for e.g. in 2003 the Carter Institute endorsed Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates’ proposal that would force African nations inflicted with HIV/AIDS to accept American drugs. The USAID would award no-bid contracts to the US-based pharmaceutical giants—that was the plan. Even President Bush saw the merit in helping the S&P 500 leaders, the pharmaceutical giants like SmithKline Beecham, out of a rut, and proposed a $15 billion HIV/AIDS aid package for Sub-Saharan Africa, though the pharmaceutical industry has traditionally been a favorite tax-payer-money sink of the Clintons (Berrios 2000).  A win-win situation for all, except the HIV/AIDS patients in Africa!

Is this the norm for the Carter Center? Don’t know, but it’s certainly worth looking into.

Bibliography

Berrios, Ruben. Contracting for Development: The Role of For-Profit Contractors in U.S Foreign Development Assistance. Praeger Publishers. 2000.

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