By Douglas Southgate

Sunday, April 20, 2008 

At a time when food prices are beyond what many can afford, it is unconscionable to consider policies that would make food scarcer and drive prices even higher. Yet that is exactly what is advocated in a UN-backed report published THIS/LAST week [NOTE: 15 April].

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) published its confused and inconsistent recommendations for more sustainable agriculture on 15 April. Repeated throughout the report is the message that, despite increases in food production, the benefits of modern agriculture "have come at an increasingly intolerable price, paid by small-scale farmers, workers, rural communities and the environment."