In just a few days world leaders will meet at the United Nations climate summit in Paris to decide on a new global treaty to limit carbon emissions that cause global warming.

Climate Change threatens to destroy life as we know it on this planet. Yet the political will to drive a sustainable transformation is absent so far. After twenty years of shockingly insufficient action, carbon emissions continue to rise.

An energy revolution is possible

A new report by Friends of the Earth International shows that an energy revolution, a complete transformation of the current unjust and dirty energy system, is possible.

The cost? In round numbers, most of the developing world – and more than half the world’s population – could be renewably powered for an investment of around $5 trillion. Yes, it’s a lot of money. But to put it in perspective, it’s about one sixteenth of current world product of $80 trillion of so. So spread over 15 years, it would cost only about half a percent of the world’s economic output each year.

Or to to put it another way, the personal fortunes of the 782 wealthiest people on the planet – many of them CEOs of major corporations – would be enough power Africa, Latin America and much of Asia with 100% renewable energy by 2030.

Perhaps even more startling, our research indicates that the wealth of the richest 53 people could power the whole of Africa with 100% renewable energy by 2030. This would lift millions of people out of poverty and be a major step forward in the fight against climate change.

Of course, we are not advocating that these 782 people give all their money specifically to fund renewable energy in the global South. Rather, this report clearly illustrates that the finance for an energy revolution certainly exists.

It is a gross injustice that 0.00001% of the global population holds the kind of wealth that could halt a climate disaster, but instead often exacerbates the problem and or benefit from dirty energy.

These findings should be a wake up call to policy makers and governments. There is an urgent need to address inequality and work on new and innovative ways to address the crises threatening our planet and its people. The finance to solve the climate crisis exists; it is political will that is lacking.

Inequality and climate change

Climate change is a symptom of the dysfunction of the current economic and political system. A sustainable transformation involves not just switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but also a deeper societal transformation, which includes prioritizing the democratic ownership of renewable energy.

We live in a world of unacceptable and growing inequality where nearly 1.3 billion people – or a fifth of the world’s population – lack access to electricity and 2.6 billion people lack access to clean cooking fuels. Meanwhile major corporations and the wealthiest 1% continue to pollute without limit.

Climate change is already wreaking devastation on communities and ecosystems around the world. Without urgent and drastic action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, we face far worse runaway climate change, with impacts that would dramatically overshadow anything we see today, and affect predominantly the poorer people and nations, which are the least responsible for climate change.

Energy production from fossil fuels is one of the main contributors to sky-high levels of carbon emissions, which must be tackled to stop a climate disaster. To create a climate-safe, just and sustainable world it is crucial we address inequality head on. This means transforming the way we produce, distribute and consume energy.

Kick starting an Energy Revolution

The wealth exists to transform our energy system. It will be social movements and people power that drive this long term and systematic change, by mobilising to change economic structures and dismantle corporate power.

Some important steps to kick-start this transformation are, firstly, governments must end current subsidies to fossil fuel companies and redirecting the funding to community and socially controlled renewable energy. G20 countries alone spend on average $452 billion per year on dirty fossil fuel subsidies. Switch that over to renewable energy, and you’re up to the $5 trillion we need in just eleven years.

Developed country governments must also make the most drastic cuts in their carbon emissions. This includes repaying their climate debt for using far more than their fair share of atmospheric space by providing money — without conditions — to drive the energy transformation in developing countries.

We must reduce energy dependence and consumption especially in developed countries. The IEA estimates that four fifths of the potential to reduce energy demand in the buildings sector and half of the potential to reduce demand in industry remains untapped.

Stopping new dirty and harmful energy projects and planning a phase out of existing destructive energy sources is another common sense action that says, lets not make the problem worse. This means halting Canadian Tar Sands, Nigeria’s harmful oil exploration and Australia’s mega coalmines.

As climate negotiators, civil society and experts start preparations for the UN climate summit in Paris, millions of people around the world will take to the streets to demand climate justice.

We know we have the power to create a more just and more sustainable world. We know an energy revolution is possible.

The report: ‘An Energy Revolution is Possible‘.

Dipti Bhatnagar is Climate Justice & Energy Co-coordinator for Friends of the Earth International, based in Maputo. Twitter: @diptimoz

Sam Cossar-Gilbert is the Economic Justice Resisting Neoliberalism Program Coordinator for Friends of the Earth International based in Paris. Twitter: @samcossar

“The deal’s dead.” These were the words of my chief negotiator, approximately six years ago, in the middle of the night in the final hours of the sleep-deprived Copenhagen summit.

I was standing in my bedroom as I took his call, about to go to bed for the first time in 36 hours.

Thanks to the efforts of a number of countries into the night and the next day, it turned out the deal wasn’t quite dead, and something did survive.

But in truth, it is what has happened in the years after Copenhagen that made it not quite the disaster it appeared at the time. Slowly, steadily, the unwieldy, spatchcock UN process has rumbled on. Lessons have been learned from that chaotic episode.

The idea that we should build an agreement bottom-up with countries making individual pledges, first conceived at Copenhagen, has become more serious, and every big emitter has put one forward.

And now we approach next week’s Paris climate talks, the most important summit since Copenhagen, in a significantly better place than we feared back in 2009. However, we are not where we need to be.

The science is beyond doubt. We have the technology. But the political will?

The science is even more unequivocal than it was six years ago. Just to take one example, 2015 looks like being the hottest year on record by some distance. We sometimes talk about the need to avoid dangerous warming of the planet as if it is a theoretical idea, but its effects are already here, with approaching 1 degree of warming so far.

On the other side of the ledger, technology has thrown us a lifeline. The costs of wind and solar energy have come down far quicker than anyone dreamed of. The constructive side of human ingenuity is holding its own in the fight against its destructive side.

And it is now demonstrably the case that the fight against climate change can be job-creating, not destroying, according to the Confederation of British Industry and many others.

And what about political will? Climate change seems less politically fashionable as an issue. But China and the United States have moved forward a long way from where they were at Copenhagen.

We have moved from a world where everyone said it was someone else’s problem, to one where everyone knows this can be only be solved collectively. We are not in a world of business as usual.

That’s the good news. And in many senses the Paris summit looks set to represent success: every major country taking real action to reduce emissions, a substantially different path from where we would be without that action. Paris will also repeat the international commitment made at Copenhagen to limit warming to 2 degrees.

We must move to ‘net zero’ – and the faster, the better

But the bad news is that the pledges will still be short of what is needed. In reality, the commitments for 2030 would take us towards something like a 3-degree world. That would mean higher temperatures than at any time in the last three million years, with potentially dramatic effects of intense heatwaves, flooding and climate refugees across the world.

So what can be done? Just like at Copenhagen, what matters as much as Paris is what happens afterwards. That is why countries are rightly seeking to build an upwards ratchet mechanism into the agreement. If these pledges are the start, not the final word – a prelude to greater ambition – then we can still avoid the most dangerous effects of global warming.

What does this mean for Britain? The last Labour government introduced the Climate Change Act, with all-party support for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 – the first country in the world to legislate for such deep, long-term cuts. It is essential we remain on track for this goal, including making the right decisions about the period to 2030 which will face the government in the coming months.

But what the science now tells us is that we will need to go further and see a complete end to the accumulation of additional greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The world will need to move to zero emissions at some time in the second half of the century, as President Obama and the other G7 leaders, including David Cameron, have rightly acknowledged. A point will come when the total carbon budget for the world will simply be used up.

And here is the relevance as far as Paris is concerned: every excess tonne of carbon we emit between now and 2030 brings the date when we need to get to ‘net zero’ emissions forward – the point at which any remaining emissions are balanced out by the capturing of carbon.

Is zero emissions even practical, and can it be done without closing down our economy? The answer to both questions is a strong yes. Indeed, top business leaders such as Ratan Tata as well as Paul Polman of Unilever have recently called on world leaders to adopt a zero emissions goal in Paris.

The UK could be a climate leader once again

So how can it be done in the UK? It is about a 100% clean energy supply. It is about making our energy system more efficient and productive. It is about the right infrastructure. And, to cancel out residual emissions from agriculture and industry, it is about capturing carbon from the atmosphere, for example through reforestation and by the use of carbon capture and storage technology.

Already cities and companies are adopting the zero emissions goal. The right step now would be for Britain to become the first major country to enshrine net zero emissions in law, with the date determined by advice from the independent Committee on Climate Change.

This would be consistent with the government’s support for zero emissions at G7 level and would show our determination to face up to this existential challenge. It will provide an essential framework for business and government so that we make the right decisions now on key energy and infrastructure issues. And it will inspire the inventors, engineers and businesses that can deliver on this challenge.

From my conversations with people across the House of Commons, including the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Caroline Lucas of the Greens and Conservatives such as Nick Hurd and Graham Stuart (chair of Globe, the international parliamentarians group on climate change), it is clear there is cross-party support.

Paris must be the start of a journey of the whole world towards this goal. And far from this commitment holding Britain back, we can be a leader again on climate change. Leadership which does not mean harm to our economy, but will put us ahead in the race for the new jobs, businesses and advantages of this new world.

I hope the government will support this initiative. We can build an alliance, put aside our party differences as we have before, and seize this moment.

Ed Miliband is MP for Doncaster North and a former leader of the Labour Party.

This article was originally published on the Guardian and is republished by kind permission of the author..

In a quiet corner of the rolling Somerset countryside lies a farm. It is almost completely hidden from public view – a private road leads up to the facility, dominated by several vast steel-framed buildings and conical feed silos.

It is a scene that has become typical in Britain’s modern farming landscape – a livestock factory dedicated to the production of animal products with the highest possible efficiency.

But this farm does not rear poultry or pigs. It is an intensive dairy unit, home to at least 1,300 cows which, contrary to the popular image of milk production, do not graze in the fields which surround the farm. Instead, they are confined – all year round – inside a series of huge barns capable of holding up to 400 animals each.

Row upon row of cows are standing or sitting in one of the scores of metal cubicles that run the length of the barns, or wandering around the walkways in between. As there is little or no outdoor grazing permitted, feed and water and everything else the animals need is brought directly to them.

Three times a day, the herd is milked in a state-of-the-art automated milking parlour, capable of handling 380 cows per hour. The milk obtained is transferred into two large tanks – total capacity 50,000 litres – before beginning its onward journey into the food chain.

Outside, adjacent to the main barns, a row of white boxes, with straw bedding and a small wire enclosure for each, provide a temporary home to the latest additions – female calves – that will enter the main herd as replacements for those cows that have reached the end of their productive lives.

Nearby, two dedicated waste lagoons store the sizable volumes of slurry that the shed-bound cows generate. The waste will be deposited onto land surrounding the farm.

Is this where we want our milk to come from?

It is an industrial scene a world away from the popular perception of British dairy farming and the image portrayed on many cardboard cartons at the breakfast table where cows roam on green pasture and a milk churn stands at the farm gate.

But an investigation by The Ecologist and The Independent has revealed how an increasing number of UK dairy farmers, some struggling in the midst of the ongoing milk-price crisis, have begun operating highly-intensive US-style farms where cows are kept permanently indoors throughout the year.

Those behind these hyper-efficient dairies insist that what they have set up is a sustainable, economically-viable and welfare-friendly model for a struggling sector of British agriculture buffeted by the winds of global trade and the cut-throat nature of the competition between supermarkets.

Backers of these ‘mega-dairies’ point to evidence showing how animal health can be improved with the constant surveillance and management of the units with round-the-clock monitoring by herdsmen and veterinary care.

But campaigners have warned that this new industrialised model of milk production could help bring about the end of traditional dairy farming, pointing to the experience in the United States where intensive dairy farms – known as confinement units – are increasingly common. Those housing 700 cows or more are classified as CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations) and the largest in America house up to 36,000 cows at a time.

The first attempt to bring CAFO-style farming to Britain ended in uproar five years ago. Plans for an intensive 8,100-cow ‘mega-dairy’ at Nocton, Lincolnshire, had to be abandoned following a national outcry and objections that the facility could pollute drinking water supplies.

But campaigners are concerned that despite this setback, the industry has been intensifying ‘by stealth’ – slowly building up larger farms which they fear will lead to environmental problems and change the face of British farming.

Now we know: 70 intensive dairy operations across the UK

Official figures on the number of dairy farms operating intensively are vague – estimates range between 5% and 10% of the total. Neither the National Farmers Union nor the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) hold a definitive record of numbers.

But our investigation has identified dozens of such farms operating across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, pinpointing – for the first time – at least 50 confinement units, and 20 CAFO-style facilities. More are understood to be in the pipeline. The largest units hold over 2,000 cows, in comparison to the average UK herd size of around 125.

Although this new breed of intensive farms span the length and breadth of the UK, from Sussex to Lanarkshire to County Antrim, the majority have been established in traditional milk production hotspots – Devon and Cornwall, Cheshire, Lancashire.

All have been confirmed as housing some or all of their animals indoors year-round – or, in a few cases, for the majority of the year – in contrast to many conventional dairy farms which typically allow their animals to graze for up to half of the year.

Opponents of intensive dairies say the facilities risk polluting water and soil, compromise animal welfare and blight the lives of local people with extensive slurry spraying and a constant stream of farm traffic and tankers.

Ian Woodhurst, a campaigner with World Animal Protection, said: “There are a wide range of environmental impacts from any intensive livestock system. Our focus is on the welfare of cows in intensive dairy units, because of evidence that cows face an increased risk of udder infections and lameness, and because their natural behaviours are inhibited and restricted.”

For many dairy farmers, it’s intensify or quit

British farmers themselves appear divided over the intensification issue – some are worried about the negative image that intensive farming can produce. Yet others believe that the current economics of milk production – with wafer-thin margins and fluctuating milk prices – make scaling up to more efficient, higher-yielding farms not just an attractive proposition but one of a rapidly-disappearing number of means of survival.

Television screens and newspapers have been filled with images of protesting farmers blockading milk depots, cows being paraded through supermarkets, and warnings from farming leaders about the consequences of the ongoing milk crisis, where farmers are being forced out of business because of the low price of milk.

The crisis is centred around the fact that many farmers are forced to sell milk for less than it costs them to produce it. Figures released earlier this year revealed that whilst many farmers were receiving 23.66 pence per litre of milk – and some as little as 19p – it was costing them between 28p and 32p per litre to produce.

The result has been incidences where milk is being sold in supermarkets for less per litre than mineral water and losses that many farmers cannot afford.

A complex combination of factors – supermarket price wars, global overproduction and a drop in demand from two key markets, China and Russia – has been blamed and the number of UK dairy farmers has continued to plummet. From more than 25,000 nationally in 2000, the number of dairy farmers now stands at less than 10,000 in England and Wales with an average of one leaving the sector every day over the last year.

The supermarkets, the UK Government and EU officials have scrambled to address the crisis with short term fixes – nearly all of the big retailers now pay a raised price per litre of milk; emergency financial packages; initiatives to open up (or re-establish) overseas markets. But for many the situation remains bleak, and each week more are forced to empty their farms and shut up shop.

In order to survive, farmers leaders say, stark choices must be made. Some borrow, some diversify, others expand or intensify in order to attempt to make production more profitable and efficient.

Mega-dairies ‘inevitable’, says farmers’ advocate

The supporters of the CAFO-style units say that far from being environmentally damaging, they actually bring benefits, with waste slurry frequently being used for energy production. Anaerobic digesters, which turn waste into renewable energy, are becoming more common on large dairies.

Mike King, vice chairman of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, said: “The move towards larger scale dairies is inevitable given the economics and price pressure within the dairy farming sector. However, this trend should not lead to the demise of smaller efficient family farms.”

“In many cases the larger dairies are able to employ their own animal health and husbandry specialists who enable the unit to achieve standards which would equate to those on any dairy farm, whatever the scale”, he said.

But the arrival of the facilities has not been without problems.

In Wales, Cwrt Malle Farm, near the village of Llangain, Carmarthenshire, is home to around 2,000 dairy cows – making it one of the UK’s largest dairies. The cows are housed permanently indoors all year round, with a 24-hour milking operation supplying around 68,000 litres of milk per day.

Local people have complained that the farm, which has expanded over a number of years, has made their lives a “misery”, with complaints about noise, odours and increased farm traffic – particularly tractors carrying slurry and milk tankers.

Gaynor Thomas, a Llangain resident, told the Carmarthen Journal: “The quality of life in some parts [of the village] has been so badly affected by the activities at Cwrt Malle. Mud all over the roads, foul smelling slurry all around and sometimes spilt in front of your property.”

‘Serious farmyard slurry pollution’

The Ecologist has learnt that Cwrt Malle has been responsible for a number of pollution incidents in recent years.

Internal records from Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the Welsh equivalent of the Environment Agency, reveal officials have investigated – and verified – seven separate incidents involving waste from the farm since 2008, including one in which “serious farmyard slurry pollution” was reported.

In a Freedom of Information request, the NRW confirmed it had sent four official warning letters to the farm and prosecuted it for breaching environmental regulations. In 2013, Cwrt Malle Ltd was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs after admitting an offence under the Environmental Permitting Regulation 2010 in which silage effluent was discharged into a stream.

The farmer behind Cwrt Malle, Howell Richards – who has said that cows grazing in fields is an “almost nostalgic concept” – has defended his expansion, stating that large scale dairy farms have a key role to play in increasing UK dairy production, and in improving the fortunes of dairy farmers.

He told BBC News: “The backbone of British dairying will always be the family farms, as we are a family farm ourselves; the big difference will be that the family farm, where it used to be 40 or 50 cows today is 120 cows, maybe tomorrow [it will] be 150 cows. But it’s inevitable that people will milk more cows [and] become more efficient because like any other business you have to be efficient.”

Mr Richards did not respond to questions from The Ecologist. He has previously defended the operations of his farm, saying it offered higher welfare for cows with low rates of mastitis and better conditions for farmworkers, who work eight-hour shifts in an industry renowned for its long hours.

He told a conference last year: “In the past we’ve had people complaining about slurry spreading with splash plates, so now slurry isn’t spread anywhere near houses and we use an injection system.”

‘Too much slurry!’ Local residents up in arms in North Devon

In north Devon, the Parkham Farms dairy, not far from the renowned holiday village of Clovelly, is an example of the way some producers have diversified to survive. It makes premium cheddar cheese for Tesco, amongst other customers.

Parkham Farms is run by Peter Willes, one of those behind the controversial Nocton ‘mega dairy’ proposal in 2010. The company says it produces 4,000 tonnes of cheese a year, using milk from 6,000 cows.

Many of these animals are managed on 28 independent farms which sell their milk to Parkham but three large farms are operated by the company itself, including a CAFO-style unit of around 1,000 animals housed year-round at Beckland Farm, near Hartland.

Local residents claim the volumes of slurry being generated from the farms have at times turned fields where it is regularly disposed of into “open sewers”, and caused unacceptable odours and traffic in an area popular with tourists. It is, they say, Nocton “through the back door”.

One homeowner said: “People love coming to the countryside and seeing the cows, seeing the lovely hedgerows, and what do they get? Smells, intensification, John Deere’s hammering down the road.”

Members of a local campaign group, ‘Too Much Slurry’, accuse the farms of expanding “by stealth” and are currently objecting to a retrospective planning application for a waste lagoon at a facility built to house 1,000 cows.

‘We pride ourselves’ farm cops £30,000 pollution fine

Earlier this year, Mr Willes and the Parkham Farms Partnership were prosecuted in relation to a number of pollution incidents in 2014 and ordered to pay more than £30,000 in fines.

The farm strongly defended its operations, saying it was a responsible business employing 90 people that had acknowledged mistakes where they were made and worked with the Environment Agency (EA) to rectify faults.

It said that it had admitted the breaches at the earliest opportunity and it had been acknowledged by the courts that no environmental damage had been caused by the incidents.

The company said it injected – rather than sprayed – waste into the soil in line with regulations, adding that the practice was a more sustainable way of fertilising land than using chemical fertilisers and the amount slurry was no greater than that from traditionally grazed cattle. It added that its planning application met the EA’s requirements.

In a statement, the farm said: “It is the case that the economics of the dairy industry, which are ultimately driven by consumer choice, necessitates larger herds and that keeping cows under cover – and in our case feeding them using grass cut from our own pastures – is often the most effective way of managing large herds. We pride ourselves on the quality of our products and the care of our herd.”

Kerry McCarthy: ‘I don’t think people want it’

For the moment, the mega-dairies remain relatively small in number. Yet some politicians have warned against the trend towards intensification:

Kerry McCarthy, the shadow farming minister, said: “I don’t think intensification is the right answer, I don’t think people want it. Partly you’ve got the environmental impact. I think people are also concerned about animal welfare – they want to think that the milk they drink is produced by cows frolicking in green pastures.

“I certainly don’t think they want to see thousands of cows housed together and not going outside.”

The Government itself declined to comment directly on the intensification issue but said that an over-supply of milk on the world market was partly to blame for the sharp fall in milk prices and therefore increasing production was “not the answer”.

“It’s about increasing the great things we do with that liquid milk, such as turning it into higher value products like cheese. In turn we’re working to support the industry by opening up new export markets”, a spokesperson for DEFRA said.

Experts say British farmers should look to the experience in America, where CAFOs now account for a large chunk of dairy production, to see that intensive dairy production may become the norm.

The University of Wisconsin’s Center for Dairy Profitability has found that, contrary to much conventional thinking, large farms are not necessarily more economically efficient than smaller farms.

Associate Professor Tom Kriegl, said: “One of the arguments is that as the farms get larger, they can specialise, they can have employees who are highly trained in a certain speciality where they spend most of their time applying all that knowledge and skill and when you put it all together the end result is a lower cost of production and greater output for a given amount of input. In practice it doesn’t always work out that way.”

Learn from the US experience

John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics at the University of Missouri, said that the UK’s dairy industry urgently needed to learn lessons from the US:

“There is no reason to expect the negative environmental and social consequences of fully housed, confinement-style, CAFO dairies in the UK to be any different from the negative consequences of dairy CAFOs in the US.”

“History has shown that the negative consequences begin to become apparent with around 220 dairy cows and become a major problem at around 700 cows so 2,000 cow dairies would invariably run into the same environmental, social, and economic problems as we are seeing in the US.”

“Economically-speaking, the industrialisation of dairy operations in the UK will mean the end of dairy farming as you have known it, with the only long-run profits going to large investors and to the agribusiness corporations that ultimately will control animal agriculture if current trends are allowed to continue.”

Andrew Wasley is an investigative journalist specialising in food issues. He’s co-founder of the award-winning investigative agency Ecostorm and a previous editor of The Ecologist magazine. His book, ‘The Ecologist Guide to Food‘, was published in 2014.

Additional research: Luke Starr, Sarah Stirk and Katie Revell. A version of this story first appeared in The Independent.

It is essential that we get off the chemical treadmill that the modern industrial urban-centric food and agriculture system is based on.

It is essential in terms of our health, the environment and sustainability and not least in terms of food security and supporting rural economies and smallholder farmers, who comprise the backbone of global food production.

Nevertheless, promoters of chemical-intensive agriculture and GMOs are fond of telling us all that traditional approaches to agriculture will not be able to produce enough food to feed the world.

For example, the former UK environment minister Owen Paterson flew to South Africa earlier this year to praise the apparent success of the ‘green revolution’ and to promote the supposed wonders of genetically modified (GM) crops. Paterson warned that a food revolution that could save Africa from hunger is being held back.

He rounded on opponents of GMOs and chemical-intensive agriculture by stating: “Not since the original Luddites smashed cotton mill machinery in early 19th century England, have we seen such an organised, fanatical antagonism to progress and science.

“These enemies of the Green Revolution call themselves ‘progressive’, but their agenda could hardly be more backward-looking and regressive… their policies would condemn billions to hunger, poverty and underdevelopment. And their insistence on mandating primitive, inefficient farming techniques would decimate the earth’s remaining wild spaces, devastate species and biodiversity and leave our natural ecology poorer as a result.”

Have GMO opponents ‘lost that fundamental concern for their own species’?

Proponents of GM crops constantly claim that we need such technology to address hunger and to feed a growing global population. We are told by the GMO biotech lobby that GM crops are essential, are better for the environment and will provide the tools that farmers need in a time of climate chaos.

By seeking to denigrate traditional forms of agriculture, however, Paterson is attempting to close off these in favour of promoting external input intensive ‘solutions’ and proprietary technologies, such as GMOs, on behalf of global agribusiness corporations.

Some months ago, in defence of Owen Paterson’s claims, Professor Tony Trewavas of Edinburgh University, who specialises in plant physiology and molecular biology, stated in an open letter to me:

“If agroecological approaches can currently match yield that can be attained by using modern farming methods then by all means use it. But if not and my understanding is that currently it cannot, then they should not be the farming method of recommended choice at present …

“When Africa has got its population increases under control and producing sufficient to feed everybody then alternatives like agroecology may come to the fore. No-one with any concern for humanity or the welfare of its population should currently consider any other alternative. The groups that campaign for this kind or that kind of farming method and destroy crops to try and bounce others into their point of view have lost that fundamental concern for their own species.”

The claims and assertions of Paterson and Trewavas are wrong on many levels, as I have described in previous articles (see this, this and this). Smears, rhetoric and emotional blackmail are no substitute for rational debate. They are no excuse for ignoring reality either.

The truth – agroecology works!

New research by the Oakland Institute shows the actual reality. It has released a report on 33 case studies that shed light on the success of agroecological agriculture across the African continent in the face of climate change, hunger and poverty.

Agroecology combines sound ecological management, including minimising the use of toxic inputs by using on-farm renewable resources and privileging endogenous solutions to manage pests and disease, with an approach that upholds and secures farmers’ livelihoods.

Or as the report explains: “Agroecology is the application of ecological science to agriculture and agroecosystems. It encompasses a wide-variety of practices, which are coherent with key principles of environment preservation, social fairness, and economic viability.

“Therefore, agroecology combines parameters of sound ecological management, like minimizing the use of toxics by using on-farm renewable resources and privileging endogenous solutions to manage pests and disease, with an approach that upholds and secures farmers’ livelihoods.”

Released just two weeks ahead of the COP21 Conference in Paris, says Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, “these case studies provide irrefutable facts and figures on how agricultural transformation – respectful of the farmers and the environment – can yield immense economic, social, and food security benefits while ensuring climate justice and restoring soils and the environment.”

Owen Paterson says that Africa needs a new green revolution, more synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified crops, and the Gates Foundation as well as big agribusiness concerns such as Monsanto are pushing hard for this. Frederic Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute, who coordinated the Oakland Institute research, responds:

“These case studies debunk these myths and highlight the multiple benefits of agroecology, including affordable and sustainable ways to boost agricultural yields while increasing farmers’ incomes, food security and resilience.”

For the real ‘knowledge economy’, meet Africa’s agroecology practitioners

The research highlights the wide variety of techniques and practices used to achieve these benefits, including plant diversification, intercropping, the application of mulch, manure or compost for soil fertility, the natural management of pests and diseases, agroforestry and the construction of water management structures.

The case studies show that agroecology is not a one-size-fits-all set of practices. Rather, techniques are adapted to meet specific needs and ecosystems. Indeed, farmers who practice agroecology are innovators and experiment to find the best solutions for themselves.

It is worth noting that agriculture, forestry, and other land use are responsible for nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The International Panel on Climate Change noted that emissions from these sectors have almost doubled over the past 50 years and could increase by an additional 30% by 2050. The use of synthetic fertilizers is the fastest growing source of agriculture GHG emissions, having increased 37% since 2001.

As Ibrahima Coulibaly, President of CNOP-Mali and Vice President of the ROPPA (Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organisations of West Africa), says:

“Our governments must now take decisive steps to actually support agroecological practices instead of promoting industrial food production systems that are contributing to climate change while making farmers poorer and more vulnerable to market fluctuations and weather hazards. We need our governments to ensure our children a future in which they can feed themselves with nutritious food in a healthy environment.”

Gates Foundation: a global mission to promote agribusiness

Since 2006, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to the tune of almost $420 million. This strategy for agriculture in Africa is a flawed attempt to impose corporate-controlled industrial agriculture at the expense of more ecologically sound approaches.

AGRA is part of a global trend that is being driven by big agribusiness corporations that seeks to eradicate the small farmer and subject countries to the vagaries of rigged global markets (see this and this). Smallholder farmers are being displaced across the world and are struggling to preserve their indigenous seeds and traditional knowledge of farming systems.

Agritech corporations are being allowed to shape government policy by being granted a strategic role in trade negotiations. They are increasingly setting the policy/knowledge framework by being allowed to fund and determine the nature of research carried out in public universities and institutes. And they continue to propagate the myth that they have the answer to global hunger and poverty, despite evidence that they do not (see this and this).

The Gates Foundation, Monsanto and Western governments are placing African agriculture it in the hands of big agribusiness for private profit and strategic control under the pretext of helping the poor. And they are side-lining local farmers and organisation and using taxpayers’ money to help do it (see this).

Numerous official reports have argued that to feed the hungry in poorer regions we need to support diverse, sustainable agro-ecological methods of farming and strengthen local food economies: for example, see this official report, this report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and this report by 400 experts which was twice peer reviewed.

It is after all small farms and peasant farmers (more often than not serving local communities) that are more productive than giant industrial (export-oriented) farms and which produce most of the world’s food (see this report from GRAIN).

The experience with GM crops shows that the application of GM technology is more likely to actually undermine food security and entrench the social, economic and environmental problems created by industrial agriculture and corporate control (see this other report from GRAIN and this article by Helena Paul documenting ecocide and genocide in South America due to the imposition of GM crops there).

What Paterson and the agritech cartel offer is more of the same by tearing up traditional agriculture for the benefit of corporate entities. The current global system of chemical-industrial agriculture and World Trade Organisation rules that agritech companies helped draw up for their benefit to force their products into countries (see here) are a major cause of structural hunger, poverty, illness and environmental destruction.

By its very design, the system is parasitical, sucking the life from people, nations and the planet for profit and control (see here).

The same thinking that created the problems is not about to solve them

Forwarding some bogus technical quick-fix will not put things right. It represents more of the same. The globalised industrial food and agriculture system is failing to feed the world and is driving some of the world’s most pressing crises.

The success stories from Africa highlighted by the research discussed here indicate that agroecology puts farmers, including many women farmers, in charge their own future. Moreover, development is placed firmly in the hands of farmers themselves.

However, while agroecology promotes low use of external inputs, it is a very knowledge-intensive system. The Oakland Institute thus notes that transmission of this knowledge, adaptation to local contexts and appropriation by farmers and government technicians are essential for farmers and communities if they are to reap the benefits of agroecology.

The case studies demonstrate how the expansion of agroecological practices can generate a rapid, fair and inclusive development that can be sustained for future generations. They also highlight just where investment should be going and where priorities should ultimately lie.

As I have stated elsewhere, the environment, the quality of food and our health are being sacrificed for corporate profit. The type of agriculture being pushed by the likes of Paterson and his agribusiness backers represents a form of looting based on what we can loosely call ‘capitalism’. The solution involves a shift towards agroecology and a reaffirmation of indigenous models of farming.

The report: ‘Agroecology case studies‘ is by the Oakland Institute.

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer. Support his work here.

This article was originally published on Colin Todhunter’s website.

Talk of ‘coywolves’ – a blend of coyote and wolf – is everywhere. There is a PBS special called Meet the Coywolf, a recent article in the Economist, and it is now trending on Facebook. The media really love this new animal name.

There is no doubt that there is a hybrid canid living in the eastern US, and that it is the result of an amazing evolution story unfolding right underneath our noses.

However, this is not a new species – at least not yet – and I don’t think we should start calling it a ‘coywolf’.

What creature are we talking about? In the last century, a predator – I prefer the name ‘eastern coyote’ – has colonized the forests of eastern North America, from Florida to Labrador.

New genetic tests show that all eastern coyotes are actually a mix of three species: coyote, wolf and dog. The percentages vary, dependent upon exactly which test is applied and the geographic location of the canine.

Plenty of genetic swapping – but no coywolf

Coyotes in the Northeast are mostly (60%-84%) coyote, with lesser amounts of wolf (8%-25%) and dog (8%-11%). Start moving south or east and this mixture slowly changes. Virginia animals average more dog than wolf (85%:2%:13% coyote:wolf:dog) while coyotes from the Deep South had just a dash of wolf and dog genes mixed in (91%:4%:5% coyote:wolf:dog).

Tests show that there are no animals that are just coyote and wolf (that is, a coywolf), and some eastern coyotes that have almost no wolf at all.

In other words, there is no single new genetic entity that should be considered a unique species. Instead, we are finding a large intermixing population of coyotes across the continent, with a smattering of noncoyote DNA mixed in to varying degrees along the eastern edge. The ‘coywolf’ is not a thing.

All eastern coyotes show some evidence of past hybridization, but there is no sign that they are still actively mating with dogs or wolves. The coyote, wolf and dog are three separate species that would very much prefer not to breed with each other. However, biologically speaking, they are similar enough that interbreeding is possible.

This genetic swapping has happened more than once in their history; one study showed that the gene for black coat color found in North American wolves and coyotes today (but not in Old World wolves) originated in dogs brought to the continent by the earliest Native Americans. Some prehistoric hybridization event transferred the dog gene into wild wolves and coyotes.

The eastern coyote is born

We can estimate the date of the most recent hybridization events that created eastern coyotes by analyzing their genetic structure. Their DNA show that about 100 years ago, coyotes mated with wolves, and about 50 years ago with dogs.

A century ago, wolf populations in the Great Lakes were at their nadir, living at such low density that some reproductive animals probably couldn’t find another wolf mate, and had to settle with a coyote.

The more recent date for the dog hybridization likely results from a cross-species breeding event at the very leading edge of the wave of colonizing coyotes in the east, possibly after a few females first spanned the St Lawrence seaway into upstate New York, where they would have encountered abundant feral dogs, but no other coyotes.

Video: A coyote was spotted earlier this year on a rooftop in New York, a city where they are becoming more common each year. Which genes will help coyotes adapt to breed and survive in cities?

Nowadays, eastern coyotes have no problem finding a coyote mate. Their populations continue to grow throughout their new forested range, and they seem more likely to kill a dog than breed with it. Wolf populations in the Great Lakes have also recovered, and the wolf is once again the worst enemy of the coyote, rather than its last-chance prom date.

Coyotes have also expanded north into Alaska, although there is no sign of hybridization in that range extension. In Central America, they have expanded out of Mexico’s deserts, working their way south past the Panama Canal in the last decade, apparently bound for South America.

No genetic studies have looked at Central American coyotes, but photographs of doglike animals suggest that coyotes might be mixing it up across species lines along the leading edge of this southward expansion as well.

Coywolfdog evolution

Hybridization across species is a natural evolutionary phenomenon. The old notion that an inability to breed should define what a species is has been abandoned by zoologists (with a resounding ‘I told you so’ from botanists). Even modern humans are hybrids, with traces of Neanderthal and Denisovan genes mixed into our genome.

The first requirement for evolution is variation, and mixing genes from two species creates all sorts of new variations for evolution to act on. Most of these probably die, being a compromise between two longstanding species that were already well-adapted to their own niches.

However, in today’s rapidly changing world, new variations might actually do better than the old types. Some of these genetic mixes will survive better than others – this is natural selection.

The coyote with a bit of wolf genes to make it slightly larger was probably better able to handle deer, which are overabundant in eastern forests, but still wily enough to live in a landscape full of people. These animals thrived, dispersed east and thrived again, becoming the eastern coyote.

Exactly which dog and wolf genes are surviving natural selection in today’s eastern coyote is an area of active research.

Coyotes with odd coat colors or hair types are probably the most conspicuous sign of dog genes in action, while their slightly larger size might come from wolf genes. Some of these genes will help an animal survive and breed; others will make them less fit. Natural selection is still sorting this out, and we are witnessing the evolution of a new type of coyote right under our noses, one that is very good at living there.

Western coyotes adapt locally to their environments, with limited gene flow between populations (called ‘ecotypes’) living in different habitats, presumably reflecting local specialization.

Will eastern coyotes specialize locally as well? How will dog and wolf genes sort out across cities and wildernesses of the east? Expect some really cool science in the next few years as researchers use modern genetic tools to sniff out the details of this story.

Evolution still in progress

There are many examples of bad animal names that cause a lot of confusion.

The fisher is a large type of weasel that does not eat fish (it prefers porcupines). The mountain beaver of the Pacific Northwest is not a beaver and does not live in the mountains. And then there’s the sperm whale …

We don’t get many opportunities to name new animals in the 21st century. We shouldn’t let the media mess up this one by declaring it a new species called the coywolf. Yes, there are wolf genes in some populations, but there are also eastern coyotes with almost no wolf genes, and others that have as much dog mixed in as they do wolf. ‘Coywolf’ is an inaccurate name that causes confusion.

The coyote has not evolved into a new species over the last century. Hybridization and expansion have created a host of new coyote variations in the east, and evolution is still sorting these out. Gene flow continues in all directions, keeping things mixed up, and leading to continual variation over their range, with no discrete boundaries.

Could evolution eventually lead to a coyote so specialized for eastern forests that they would be considered a unique species? Yes, but for this to happen, they would have to cut off gene flow with nonhybrid animals, leading to distinct types of coyotes that (almost) never interbreed. I think we are a long way from this possibility.

For now, we have the eastern coyote, an exciting new type of coyote in the midst of an amazing evolutionary transition. Call it a distinct ‘subspecies’, call it an ‘ecomorph’, or call it by its scientific name Canis latrans var.

But don’t call it a new species, and please, don’t call it the coywolf.