Sustainable Agriculture Center

The Sustainable Agriculture Center resolution was the 26th Environmental resolution to reach the UN floor and the 6th resolution sponsored by Love and esterel. The proposed resolution was first submitted to the United Nations for review in Sept. 2006, where it was well received by several nations. The resolution was designed to accomplish two major goals: (1) to promote easy to understand sustainable agricultural practices, and (2) to establish a new United Nations body, UN Sustainable Agriculture Resource Center, to help nations share techniques on practicing sustainable agriculture.

Resolution text

The United Nations,

-A- Affirming the importance of sustainable agriculture for our societies,

-B- Defining “Sustainable Agriculture” as a global agriculture achieving all of the three following goals:

- Sufficient and healthy food for population’s need

- Environmental stewardship

- Good living conditions and prosperity for farmers and farms,

-C- Convinced that, in order to achieve these ambitious goals, the best of both traditional techniques and new technologies have to be used with a sensible, critical, secure and ethical approach:

-1- ESTABLISH the UNSARC « UN Sustainable Agriculture Resource Center » for the purpose of collecting, sharing, educating and studying sustainable agriculture techniques and experiences in member nations, via UNSARC national branches in interested nations and free internet resources and forums;

-2- PROMOTES by its UNSARC agency the following:

-2.1- Water-saving management systems such as drip irrigation (drop by drop) or surge irrigation (intermittent application of water),

-2.2- Traditional rain-harvesting systems such as reservoirs, tanks, wells or johads (small earthen check dams build across a slope that capture and conserve rainwater), their shading to decrease evaporation and collective projects to build them,

-2.3- Crop rotation practices and polyculture to decrease pests (insects, weeds, pathogens …) and soil depletion,

-2.4- Scientific researches for more-biodegradable and less toxic pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, bactericides …) and ecological biological ones,

-2.5- The sensible use of pesticides for agriculture (as for road maintenance) along with small predators animals in order both to protect crops and avoid soil degradation,

-2.6- Land distribution to farmers, in particular in areas with labour intensive agriculture

-2.7- The suppression of animal carcass in livestock feeding;

-2.8- The mitigation of new cultivated areas gained over forests

-3- CHARGES the UNSARC with studying the safety and effects of artificial hybrid crops (the result of interbreeding between two varieties) and GM crops (Genetically modified crops) and with giving recommendations on this matter following the principles below:

-3.1- The tractability of GM crops and the labelling of genetically modified food,

-3.2- The need of security testing for new hybrid and GM crops; in particular those with an insect resistance trait,

-3.3- The encouragement of scientific researches for new safe hybrid and GM crops with a disease, drought, floods, heat or cold resistance traits or with added vitamin

-3.4- The refusal of sterile GM crops (so called terminator technology) in the wild,

-3.5- The awareness that hybrid and GM crops with an herbicide resistance trait may induce damageable over-use of herbicides,

-3.6- The need for hybrid and GM crops with an insect resistance trait for “refuges” (a 20% belt of non-hybrid or non-GM crops inside any hybrid or GM crop parcel),

-3.7- The even greater importance of crop rotation practices and polyculture whith hybrid and GM crops.

Co-authored by CR Oscilloscopes

Votes For: 8,834

Votes Against: 4,534

Implemented: Mon Oct 30 2006

Voting analysis

No official poll was attached to the UN floor debate, so no formal analysis of votes can be directly associated with this resolution. However, the final tally of votes on this resolution was very similar to the final tally for the similar environmental category resolution, Mitigation of Large Reservoirs: 8,834 to 4,534 compared to 8,949 to 4,807 respectively. The earlier resolution was adopted by the United Nations nearly a year earlier and its debate was characterized by many of the same types of arguments used in this resolution's debate. Since both resolutions dealt with the topic of sustainable development, had the same category and strength classification, and introduced fairly complex concepts, the similarity between the voting outcomes might suggest that between 2005 and 2006 that the ensemble voting pattern of UN members on environmental topics has stayed the same.

Additional materials

• Sustainable Agriculture Center UN floor debate
• Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Draft proposal thread
• Mitigation of Large Reservoirs UN resolution #116
• UN Timeline
• Index of UN Resolutions
• United Nations