Hydro case for sustainable agriculture online at World Summit
(Aug. 14, 2002) Hydro Agri's case for sustainable agriculture in Africa has been accepted as part of the Virtual Exhibit website that will distribute online information about sustainability before and during the World Summit on Sustainability Development in Johannesburg from August 26 to September 4.
 SUSTAINABLE FARMING: Crop land in Africa. (Photo: Terje S. Knudsen) |
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"Participation on the website was suggested by the International Fertilizer Association (IFA) as an effective way to present our views and ideas about sustainability," says head of Agri communication Ingegerd Rafn.
IFA was active in preparatory committee meetings ahead of the World Summit. It successfully pushed for acceptance that more productive agriculture is important when addressing poverty alleviation, particularly in Africa, but also elsewhere.
"When we talk about alleviating poverty, agriculture has a very important role to play because so many of the world's impoverished people are farmers," Rafn remarks.
"One of the goals of the summit is to create more sustainable livelihoods for people. To achieve that a more sustainable agriculture is essential. This is where mineral fertilizer has an important role because it protects soil fertility and yields and allows for continued farming on the same plot of land, avoiding the traditional slash and burn agriculture with no inputs leading to soil mining, deforestation and destruction of wildlife habitats.
"Hydro Agri has worked in Africa for nearly 20 years and in our experience, the combination of cash crops like cotton with food crops has been a successful driver towards a more sustainable agriculture, but there's still a long way to go."
See both the Virtual Exhibit homepage and Hydro Agri presentation on the Virtual Exhibition Project Showcase page. A more extensive presentation of Agri's experience can be seen on Agri's Internet site.
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