Agricultural Systems and Poverty - Assignment Example

Running Head: AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS AND POVERTY THE EFFECTIVITY OF AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS IN ELIMINATING POVERTY The abundance of the world's leading and most needed crops are mostly found in the developing countries. However, these countries remained poor and some of them became even poorer. While there are some organizations such as World Trade Organization and SAGE or The center for Sustainability and the Global Environment who seek ways to eliminate poverty and developed innovative agricultural systems, sad to say, there are also developed countries that are not as supportive and implemented "Agricultural Protectionism" which appears in various forms and disguises. This paper will site the agricultural systems that have been developed and evaluate its effectivity. It will discuss if the agricultural systems had helped in any way to eliminate poverty or just added up the expenses or has wasted money. By reviewing the several qualitative and quantitative researches conducted about Poverty, Sustainability, Global Environment, Agricultural Systems and Agricultural Protectionism, the study reveals that although many organizations have strived hard to eliminate poverty, there are unsupportive countries that imposed taxes as a disguise to cover the agricultural protectionism. This study also discusses the effects and systems being implemented in trying to eliminate poverty. INTRODUCTION Agriculture has been the main source of income for farmers all over the world. It has been the source of nourishment and through agriculture, the world is provided with food to eat and nourishment for our bodies. It sustains health and boosts the world's economy through importing and exporting. Through the help of globalization, different agricultural products are imported and exported all over the world in order to supply the basic needs of a human being which is food. The World Trade Organization, World Wildlife Fund and SAGE or The center for Sustainability and the Global Environment are only few of the hundreds of organization that aims to eliminate poverty. To start of with their project, SAGE studied the production and environmental impacts of agricultural systems. During the 4th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, the DOHA development round was declared and the round was tasked to focus on the agricultural and poverty problems occurring in developing countries. The Doha Development Round aims to improve the agricultural market access, internal and export aids. It also aims to give a special treatment for developing countries as well as give a market access for non-agricultural products. Their goal however, was implemented in a very slow pace because of the existence of Agricultural Protectionism in developed countries. According to the World Wildlife Fund, sustainable development means balancing economic needs with environmental and social needs - a tripartite alliance. The conservation of nature and natural processes is not an optional extra; rather, it is the foundation of human welfare. (n.d) Agricultural protectionism is known to worsen the global poverty by imposing high import tariffs for small or developing countries. High tariffs are imposed to protect one country from too much importing. Avoiding too much importing will protect the countries, especially developed, to lose the balance of trade as well as local businesses in their country. It protects its countries local industries to decline. While the WTO's goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business (n.d), the SAGE's ultimate goals in this area of research are to better understand the effect of different vegetative communities on rates of soil carbon accumulation, the costs of verification, and to quantify the total amount of carbon being sequestered to help assign "carbon-credits". (December, 2005) The main priority of WWF-UK's International Development Programme is the integration of environmental considerations into the agenda of development aid agencies and international institutions. (n.d) AIMS To be able to site and evaluate the effectivity of the agricultural systems that has been developed. To discuss if the agricultural systems had helped in any way to eliminate poverty. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Poverty has been spreading so fast around the world, faster than a contagious disease. Poverty is a state of being poor where a person or a country cannot afford material needs and comfort. According to Ezatollah Karami, the linkage among environment, poverty and extension are complex and in many cases, poorly understood. According to conventional thinking and assumptions the role of agricultural extension in sustainable development of Third World countries may be seen as being potentially capable of alleviating poverty and contributing to sustainable agricultural development. Sustainable development encompasses helping the poor as a major objective. The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in its perception of development emphasizes helping the very poor, because they are left with no options but to destroy their environment (Tolba, 1984). The Link between poverty and environmental degradation is rather complicated. Lele (1991) has criticized the mainstream perception of a two-way link between poverty and environmental degradation and has provided a more realistic representation of the poverty-environmental-degradation problem. METHODOLOGY This paper is based on review of the several qualitative and quantitative research conducted about Poverty, Sustainability, Global Environment, Agricultural Systems and Agricultural Protectionism from three large organizations that focus on working out the worlds significant problems. The center for Sustainability and the Global Environment focuses on sustainability, agricultural systems and global environment. World Wildlife Fund focuses on poverty. Sustainability and global environment and World Trade Organization through Doha Development Round focus on poverty, globalization and agricultural systems. DISCUSSION Agricultural Protectionism Agricultural protectionism comes in discreet forms. They over ride in domestic support policies, import barriers, and export subsidies. The effects of agricultural protectionism are: Farmers and other workers are not permitted to do their activities such as farming, etc. It is their field and because of agricultural protectionism, they are not allowed to do their job of which they are most productive. If farmers and other workers can't do their forte, they cannot gain enough income and benefits, thus they became poor. Billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies are paid to U.S, European and Japanese farmers which depress world prices and make it tougher for our farmers to earn a decent return for their hard work," Mr Vaile said. (Vaile, 2005) The high global cost of goods deprives the poor ones to buy enough for their living. Commercialize agricultural goods that are not usually good for the health. Flooding of their (developing countries) domestic market (import surges) with products sold on the world market at less than their cost of production. (n.d) Displacement of local trading capacity which was intended to, and in some circumstances initially did, fill the void left following the deregulation of local markets and associated dismantling of parastatals. (n.d) Worsen the global poverty by imposing high import tariffs for small or developing countries, so instead of pulling up those developing countries, many of which have dived down to poverty due to these factors. Increased tradeproblems, tensions and job losses. For sugar, the deterioration of economic conditions which initially curtailed imports into major Asian markets has also led to a substantial drop in imports into the Russian. (FAO, n.d) Tight supplies in the vegetable oil market, particularly emanating from a drought-induced contraction in palm oil availability from major Asian producing countries, boosted prices, while oil meal prices suffered from a decline in the demand for animal feeds in crisis-affected regions, accentuated by abundant supplies of competing feed grains. (FAO, n.d) Agricultural Systems The organizations above have formulated different kinds of strategies. They aim to implement a sustainable development to be able to supply the needs of human beings for this generation without sacrificing the needs of the next generations. The Doha Development Round aims to improve the agricultural market access, internal and export aids. It also aims to give a special treatment for developing countries as well as give a market access for non-agricultural products. Aside from that, Doha Development Round aims to liberalise the trade in services and focus on Singapore issues with regards to trade facilitation, investments, government procurement contracts, conditions governing competition. The WWF-UK on the other hand aims to end all forms of human suffering. It is so important and urgent that the organization should not falter in the fight against disease, hunger and every form of human misery. It is a passionate goal of bringing life back to normal just as God has first created it, where in the world has a room for everyone. Human, wild life, wild species and wild places. To integrate the environmental considerations into the agenda of development aid agencies and international institutions, the WWF is lobbying development agencies and share its concerns with other NGO's by working and sharing projects with them. Through this, the environmental management and poverty reduction will be addressed and secure and equitable access by the poor to environmental assets will be ensured. By also working closely with other NGO's, the concerns will be shared with other organizations, therefore, there will be an advanced solution or action of the development and environmental agendas. SAGE is specifically interested in how they might best manage agricultural land in the future to maximize food production while minimizing environmental damage. By combining field researches with examining the behavior of agricultural systems across a variety of scales - ranging from individual fields to the regional scale, they have formulated agricultural systems such as Prairie Restoration and Carbon Sequestration by Looking at the Individual Farm and Looking at the Regional Scale. Through Prairie Restoration and Carbon Sequestration, the focus on varied soil conservation techniques gave a lot of benefits to the agricultural areas. Effectivity So far, since the beginning of the World Trade Organization, the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference held in Doha (Qatar) in 2001 which formulated the DOHA Development Round has the greatest achievement. The trade has helped bridge many of the small and big markets that made them key players in the worlds' trading industry. Some countries have increased their exports of which, 40 % goes to other developing countries Faizel stressed a three different treatment for developing countries. First, is the taking off of the anti-development misrepresentations should be the main focus of Doha Development Agenda. Although developing countries cannot be expected to pay for this highly recommended change in agriculture, the high tariffs are not realistic to the economic development level of a developing country. Second, provision of a well developed or heightened exporting process and equipment is encouraged. Through this, developing countries will have an exposure on the high-end markets of industrial countries. Third, Doha Development Agenda short term goals are not applicable to all developing countries. Due to the markets latest innovations, improvements, and upgrading, the weak countries will have no ability to cope up with, or compete with the latest technology and export qualities. These vulnerable countries should be trained to be more ambitious in developing their products. Trainings and plant tours can be sponsored for them. The commitment of the developed countries is also significant in providing free access to those less developed countries, provided that they too are encouraged to do the same. The WWF-UK research center made two reports available to look at putting the environment at the heart of Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS). The first report is titled "Influencing PRS process, a users guide, where in, it is stated that a number of benefits are observed such as: - strengthening and increasing WWF's access to government circles and to new actors within those circles - for example the ministries of finance and planning; - the creation of new partnerships across civil society (in some countries WWF is now being viewed by many as a 'development' organisation); - ensuring that national policies and frameworks endorse WWF's approach to support communities to sustainably manage natural resources; and - heightened awareness among government and civil society of the role of the environment in poverty reduction and economic growth. (2006) The second report is titled strengthening the case for water - a user's guide discusses the importance of water. This report provides very significant opportunities for improved freshwater management and provides the opportunity of a multisectoral perspective and way of working. The agricultural system studied by SAGE also provides a lot of benefits to the farmers, land owners, ecological and biological system by increasing soil fertility is increased, reducing soil erosion and sediment runoff, enhancing biodiversity, and creating an additional wildlife habitat. In addition, there are potential economic advantages for farmers, corporations, and utilities in trading "carbon credits". Through globalization and advanced technologies, campaigns to uplift and eliminate poverty is not as hard to spread and to solve as before where the era of computers and modern technologies still doesn't exist. Unfortunately, the more progressive one country is, the poorer the developing countries could get. Eliminating poverty seems to be an unreachable goal. But if more and more organizations would strive to eliminate poverty and if only the people of the world are ready to support each other, this unreachable goal will be easy to achieve if people will work hand in hand. And of course, the easiest way to get involved is to start within ourselves. REFERENCES Karami, Ezatollah (n.d). Extension, Poverty and Sustainability: Myths and Realities. Wageningen University. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from http://www.sls.wau.nl/cis/ESEE/ESEE-papers/search='poverty%20and%20sustainability Vaile, Mark (March 16, 2005). Vaile Supports NFF Campaign to End Agricultural Protectionism. Commonwealth of Australia Retrieved April 22, 2006 from http://www.trademinister.gov.au/releases/2005/mvt020_05.html (December 12, 2005). Agricultural Systems. Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment . Retrieved April 30, 2006 from http://www.sage.wisc.edu/pages/agriculture.html What is the WTO. World Trade Organization. Retrieved April 29, 2006 from http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/whatis_e.htm International development and poverty. WWF-UK Research Center. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from http://www.wwf.org.uk/researcher/issues/internationaldevelopment/index.asp Committee on Commodity Problems. FAO Retrieved April 22, 2006 from http://www.fao.org/UNFAO/bodies/ccp/Ccp62/X0315E.htm (March 2006). Influencing PRS process, a user's guide. How to Put the Environment at the Heart of Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS). Retrieved May 1, 2006 from http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/prs_process1.pdf (March 2006). Strengthening the case for water - a users guide. How to Put the Environment at the Heart of Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS). Retrieved May 1, 2006 from http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/prs_water2.pdf Read More