728x90

일각에서는 빈곤층의 아이들이 영양부족에 시달리는 것을 막아야 한다는 뜻으로 골든라이스라는 유전자변형 벼를 홍보하는 사람들이 있다.

그리고 또 다른 쪽에선, 그건 유전자변형 작물을 퍼뜨리려는 숨은 의도일 뿐이지 그러한 방식은 진정한 해결책이 아니라고 비판한다.
무엇이 정답인지는 모르겠다. 빈곤 문제도 해결하고 영양 문제도 해결하고 여러 사람이 잘 살 수 있으면 좋겠다. 한 가지 확실한 건, 빈곤이 해결되지 않은 상태에서는 영양 문제도 해결하기 어려울 것 같다.
그런데, 이제 전자에 선 사람들은 한발 더 나아가 유전자변형 수수를 개발하여 또 선전하기 시작했다.


728x90
저작자표시 비영리 동일조건

'농담 > 씨앗-작물' 카테고리의 다른 글

토종 씨앗은 지속가능한가?  (0) 2017.03.31
육종은 변화가 핵심이다  (0) 2017.03.30
토종 담배를 찾아서  (0) 2016.12.02
유전자변형 작물의 거짓된 약속  (0) 2016.11.04
심수 벼(Deepwater Rice)를 알아보자  (0) 2016.10.19
728x90

벼에는 '심수 벼(Deepwater rice)'라는 종류가 있다. 

이 벼는 보통 연중 적어도 1달 이상 50cm보다 깊은 물에 잠겨 자라는 벼를 가리킨다. 동남아에선 아직도 1억 명 정도가 이 벼를 주식으로 삼아 살아간다고 한다.


이 심수 벼에 또 두 가지 유형이 있는데, 하나는 뜬벼(浮稻, floating rice)라 하고 다른 하나는 그냥 키가 큰 품종을 가리킨다. 키가 큰 벼는 일반 벼보다 키가 크고 잎이 길어서 50~100cm 깊이의 물에서도 잘 살아가고, 뜬벼의 경우에는 100cm 이상의 물에서도 줄기가 쭉쭉 자라며 문제없이 살 수 있다. 뜬벼의 쭉쭉 자라는 성질로 인해 우기가 되어 점점 물이 차올라도 그 속도보다 빠르게 줄기의 마디들이 자라서 항상 잎이 물밖으로 나오도록 만든다. 뜬벼는 주로 인디카 계통의 벼인데, 자포니카 계통도 방글라데시와 인도 등지에서 극소수가 발견된다고 한다. 


뜬벼의 줄기가 얼마나 잘 자라는지에 대해서는 조형택이란 한국인 연구원이 참여한 다음 연구를 참조하라. http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/118/4/1105.full

홍수에 강한 두 가지 유형의 벼에 대한 일본인 연구자들의 연구도 읽으면 좋다. http://www.plantstress.com/articles/up_salinity_files/Deep%20water%20rice.pdf


<Rice in Deep Water>의 9장에 나오는 그림과 사진만 보아도 심수 벼를 이해하는 데 도움이 된다. https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=LIt8LgSNfE0C&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=rice+in+deepwater&source=bl&ots=_NSOFEXDso&sig=Huts2yVSqmByMl7v21ICu8k-NvM&hl=ko&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjys5fLpeXPAhVImpQKHT7bD4kQ6AEIVzAK#v=onepage&q=rice%20in%20deepwater&f=false




현재 심수 벼는 인도와 방글라데시의 갠지스-브라마푸트라 강 유역과 버마(미얀마)의 이라와디 강 삼각주, 태국의 차오프라야 강, 베트남과 캄보디아의 메콩강 일대에서 주로 재배되고 있다. 그런데, 메콩강 일대는 현재 대형 댐들이 들어설 예정이라 재배환경의 변화에 따라 이러한 심수 벼들이 사라질 운명에 처해 있다. (메콩강의 대형 댐 건설에 대한 기사 http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=201308192241035&code=970207)



댐=치수사업으로 이제 심수 벼들이 살기에 좋은 환경은 사라지고, 그 자리를 키가 작고 수확량이 많은 녹색혁명의 볍씨들이 차지할 것으로 전망된다. 그럼 거기에서 생산된 그 많은 쌀은 모두 어디로 갈까? 국내에서 소비하지 못하면 수출을 할 텐데 말이다.


또 대형 댐이 건설되어 강의 흐름이 막히고 비옥한 양분이 하류로 전달되지 못하면 메콩강 삼각주에 있는 너른 들판에선 더욱더 외부투입재인 화학비료 등에 의존할 수밖에 없을 테고, 그렇게 넘치는 영양분은 다시 바다로 흘러들어가 '죽음의 구역'을 만들지 모른다.


쌀 생산은 비약적으로 증가하겠지만, 이런 일은 어떻게 감당할까? 

전통적으로 논은 벼만 생산하는 공간이 아니라, 물고기 등도 함께 키워 단백질을 공급하는 근원이기도 했다. '벼논양어'라는 형태로 말이다. http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0444e/a0444e04.htm




이 책이 번역 출간되면 좋겠는데 그럴 수 있을까? 

https://www.amazon.com/Rice-Research-Development-Flood-Prone-Ecosystem/dp/971220197X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476825400&sr=1-1&keywords=9789712201974


728x90
저작자표시 비영리 동일조건

'농담 > 씨앗-작물' 카테고리의 다른 글

토종 담배를 찾아서  (0) 2016.12.02
유전자변형 작물의 거짓된 약속  (0) 2016.11.04
해남신문의 토종종자 기사  (0) 2016.10.13
불법종자 문제를 다루는 기사  (0) 2016.10.13
농장의 작물다양성에 대한 유전자변형 특성의 영향   (0) 2016.09.26
728x90

Photo: Martin Abbiati/IRIN
Most people depend on the land for their livelihoods
BAN HOUYTHAO, 22 May 2014 (IRIN) - "Land grabs" in Laos are driving poor farmers, including ethnic minorities, off their land, away from livelihoods they know and into further poverty, activists and experts say. 

“When these lands [are given] to companies and converted to industrial agriculture or other uses, it destroys the foundation of rural people’s lives, livelihoods and knowledge systems, as well as their access to food, nutrition, medicines and incomes," Shalmali Guttal, a senior analyst with Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based NGO which campaigns for social justice in Laos, told IRIN. 

Large-scale land leases in Laos - or "land grabs," as campaigners call them - are driven by foreign investment projects brokered between the government and private companies, which have increased in frequency in the past decade and encroached on the land occupied by hundreds of communities, according to researchers at the University of Bern's Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) in Switzerland.

Ethnic minorities, which make up about 70 percent of the population, mostly live in resource-rich upland areas, which are often the target of land purchases by international corporations. 

Because of where they live, they are disproportionately affected. 

“Since many of Laos’s ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples' traditional lands are in areas coveted for conversion into development projects, they have been targeted for relocation projects, largely without their free, prior or informed consent,” says Nicole Girard, senior campaigner for Minority Rights Group(MRG). 

Corporations usually promise prosperity. For example, mining operations in Laoshave claimed to create thousands of jobs and contribute to local development: The proponents of such schemes would probably point to the fact that between 2005 and 2012, Laos’ GDP increased from US$2.7 billion to 9.3 billion. 

However, increased poverty and higher mortality rates are often the lot of those displaced following a government-brokered land deal. 

“As most [ethnic farmers] have no education, if they are forcibly displaced, they have very few livelihood options,” said Debbie Stothard, executive director of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), a coalition of human rights NGOs.  

Researchers and activists point to the impossibility of continuing traditional farming practices, coupled with lack of work skills, as driving resettled communities into poverty. Land deals in Laos, they say, despite decent laws, are carried out with little transparency or accountability. 

Wikimedia Commons

Laos is one of the poorest countries in the region
Higher mortality 

“There are certain indications that there is a new poverty happening in Laos with the landless poor,” said Andreas Heinimann, senior lecturer at CDE, who co-authored a 2012 land report with the Laos Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) . 

UN Development Programme research found that populations from uplandvillages that are resettled can suffer mortality rates of up to 30 percent when they are forced to abandon their traditional livelihoods and move to other places.  

“The impacts [of so many rural poor moving to urban areas] have included significant rises in mortality rates, conflict between communities, and a lack of access to education and health facilities, despite promises of such things,” said MRG’s Girard. 

When the government relocates farmers to consolidated villages near towns and cities, families in some cases have been given as little as 0.75 hectares of land - roughly half what they traditionally use for farming.

Most ethnic groups in rural areas practice shifting cultivation, which requires large plots of land to allow some soil to lie fallow to regenerate while other sections are planted - a system that is “completely different” from the settled farming of the lowland areas where they are resettled, according to Heinimann. 

In June 2012 the government issued a moratorium on new land concessions for rubber and eucalyptus farming, and mining. However, researchers say, murky land deals continue to drive ethnic communities off their land without adequate consultation or compensation. 

Photo: Martin Abbiati/IRIN

An ethnic Hmong woman in Ban Houythao, northern Luang Prabang
Lack of transparency 

Official data show 1.1 million hectares of land - 5 percent of the country’s arable land - has been the subject of roughly 2,600 land deals since 2010 (when the government started keeping track) for large-scale development projects, though some activists suspect leased land could be more than three times that amount. In 2012 the International Food Policy Research Institute listed Laosamong seven countries in the world in which international land deals account for more than 10 percent of the total agricultural area.  

“Decisions are not made in public because [the government] doesn’t have proper procedures, and companies are operating in a vacuum of rule of law and policy,” said Michael Taylor, the programme manager for Global Land Policy at the International Land Coalition (ILC), a Rome-based secretariat for NGOs and UN agencies working on land issues worldwide. 

All land in Laos officially belongs to the state, leaving citizens with few options in terms of legal redress when land deals are brokered between the government and companies. 

“The government sometimes just tells people to move. Of course, we don't want to go, but what can we do?” said Vong (he uses one name), a 25-year-old ethnic Hmong farmer in Ban Houythao village in northern Luang Prabang Province. 

The most recent domestic analysis shows that 72 percent of all land development projects in Laos are run by foreign investors - mostly from China, Vietnam, and Thailand.  

Investors target resource-rich and fertile land, especially forested areas, which ILC’s Taylor calls “winning twice” - meaning the companies are “harvesting timber and selling it before using the land [for other projects].” 

“In the rush to attract overseas capital, the Laos government has made concessions [renting out areas for intensive land use projects] extremely favourable for foreign investors,” said Taylor. 

While a 2005 government decree requires investors to compensate and resettle villagers whose land is appropriated for projects, loose monitoring means implementation has been piecemeal.  

“The legal framework is good, but enforcement is the issue,” said CDE researcher Oliver Schoenweger. “Most of the time, no compensation is provided to individuals.” 

For example, a lignite mining project in the northern Hongsa District launched in 2010 to provide electricity to Thailand will expropriate roughly 6,000 hectares of rice paddy fields cultivated by 2,000 farmers there. However, according to theLand Issues Working Group, a consortium of international NGOs based on Vientiane, the Laos capital, no negotiation with communities has taken place. 

The government, in the report it co-published with CDE, acknowledged the lack of proper oversight allows such cases to occur. 

“Weaknesses in national land planning and the enforcement of investment regulations have generated concerns,” admitted Akhom Tounalom, vice-minister of MoNRE, explaining: “This case and several others reveal the severe disadvantages local populations have in land negotiations, especially where they are poorly educated, illiterate, or simply under-exposed to tenure or business-related standards or practices.” 

“There is a lot of scope for abuse,” said Taylor. 


728x90
저작자표시 비영리 동일조건

'곳간 > 해외자료' 카테고리의 다른 글

도시농업, 신선한 먹을거리를 수확하고 땅을 재생시키다  (0) 2014.05.26
몬산토가 밝히는 농민을 고소하는 이유  (0) 2014.05.26
이상한 날씨에 직면한 파키스탄의 농민들이 유기농업으로 돌아서다  (0) 2014.05.26
수확량의 개념을 다시 정의하자  (0) 2014.05.26
동아시아의 농업을 활성화시키는 다섯 가지 방법  (0) 2014.05.26

+ Recent posts

티스토리툴바