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When the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “negotiations” ended in Copenhagen, a colleague from ATTAC France remarked that we might have just witnessed the tipping point of the end of capitalism and the New World Order.

On one hand, there was the official conference representing a corporate- and market-driven system being propped up by governments responsible for this crisis. On the other, there were the thousands that gathered from across the globe to protest false solutions and promote real ones. The road to Copenhagen for many activists began on September 18, 2008 when over 100 people from 21 countries came together to discuss mobilizing for Copenhagen. Over the next year, meetings were held in Poznan, Poland (2008 UN Climate Conference), in Belém, Brazil during the 2009 World Social Forum, and in Copenhagen. Somewhere in the midst of those meetings, Climate Justice Action was formed and became the major network for organizing the demonstrations in Copenhagen. Other Danish organizations pulled together the alternative Peoples’ Summit Klimaforum09, which featured workshops, debates, art, and serious discussions that a new world was not only possible, but necessary. An estimated 10,000 people took part each day in Klimaforum09 activities.

Read the full article at Z Magazine

The government intends to apply new criteria for calculating the reference prices in state rice tenders, particularly for deteriorated rice.

The new pricing plan for deteriorated rice in the state stockpiles would be similar to the method the private sector currently uses, said Yanyong Phuangrach, permanent secretary for the Commerce Ministry.

Private-sector bidders seeking deteriorated rice currently use pricing approaches based mainly on market mechanisms.

Read the full story at Bangkok Post

AFA member Aliansi Petani Indonesia (API) joined this multi-sectoral protest rally as they continue to oppose free trade agreements and other trade liberalization policies being implemented by the government because of their negative impact on agriculture and the farmers’ livelihoods.

JAKARTA — Thousands of Indonesians took to the streets Thursday to condemn corruption and demand the resignations of key ministers on the 100th day of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s new government.

Demonstrations were held across Jakarta and other cities including Surabaya, Makassar and Ambon, where protesters tried to storm the governor’s office and burned a poster of Yudhoyono.

Scuffles broke out with police in several places including Palu, in Central Sulawesi, and the wealthy Menteng suburb of Jakarta, where opposition party supporters set fire to tyres in the middle of a busy road.

About 10,000 people from a cross-section of civil society, student and labour groups gathered at various locations across Jakarta to shout slogans against graft and perceived mismanagement in Yudhoyono’s second and final term.

Read the full story at Bilaterals.org

As an agricultural country with a variety of products topping the world’s import list, every year Vietnam still has to spend a large amount of foreign currency to import farm products, including vegetables, fruits, salt and milk. This paradoxical fact has existed for many years.

A variety of imported agricultural products are sold in markets and supermarkets in Vietnam. Most of them come from the US, China, Australia, Thailand and Japan. While Vietnamese agricultural products have difficulty in finding consumer markets, similar imported products continue to enter the daily meal of Vietnamese families.

In 2009, the agricultural sector achieved high revenues from exporting farm produce, earning US$15.4 billion, above the yearly set target of US$12 billion despite the global economic downturn. Vietnam was among the world’s largest exporters of rice, coffee, peppers and cashew nuts. However, last year the country also spent almost US$150 million importing vegetables and fruits from China and US$45 million purchasing farm products from Thailand. Furthermore, Vietnamese farmers have grown a lot of maize and cassava, but they still have to import fodder for cattle and fish from 25 countries around the world.

Read the full article at VOV News

BATTAMBANG, Cambodia, Feb 02, 2010 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Tuesday that by 2013, irrigation network in his country will cover up to 70 percent of the total cultivated land.

In his speech at ground breaking ceremony of Kanghot Irrigation Development Project, donated by China, in Battambang province, Hun Sen said that the irrigation network will be able to cover as many as 70 percent of all cultivated land in the country by 2013.

Read the full story at TMC Net

W hen Laos won its bid to host last month’s South-East Asian Games, China offered to help the tiny nation by building a gleaming new venue on the outskirts of the capital Vientiane. The facility included a “natatorium” for swimming and a stadium for soccer. But for the Laotian government, such generosity would not come cheaply.

China’s Suzhou Industrial Park Overseas Investment Co was promised a 50-year lease on 1,600 hectares of land on the outskirts of the capital in return for building the venue. But an exceptional public backlash, fuelled by news that the Chinese intended to bring in 3,000 labourers to do the job, forced the government to cut the size of the concession to 200 hectares and promise to find extra land elsewhere to compensate for the loss.

The episode illustrates both the gravitational pull exerted by China’s economic and strategic might, drawing the nations of continental south-east Asia into a tighter orbit, and the counterveiling tensions that are becoming apparent as a result. Economic and diplomatic imperatives are starting to clash with nationalist fears of becoming - in many cases not for the first time - satellites of Beijing.

Read the full article at Financial Times

Vietnam has increased investment in forest projects to better protect forest resources, said Hua Duc Nhi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

Mr Nhi made the statement at an annual meeting in Hanoi on February 2 to review the Forestry Sector Support Partnership (FSSP).

The meeting evaluated the progress made in implementing the forestry sector’s five-year development strategy through 2010, reviewed their partners’ performance and discussed plans for financial and technical assistance to the sector.

Read the full story at VOV News

Sample tissue from ducks in Takeo province that died in an outbreak of a disease officials could not identify earlier this week have tested positive for the H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu, officials at the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said Tuesday.

In light of the test result, officials said they will move ahead with Monday’s order from the provincial agriculture department to destroy all live ducks and halt duck meat sales in the affected area. Since the outbreak began last month, 16,442 ducks have died and at least 31,000 live ducks are exhibiting symptoms of the virus.

Ly Sovann, deputy director of the Communicable Diseases Control Department at the Ministry of Health, confirmed the positive test result on Tuesday and related the contents of an unreleased statement from the Agriculture Ministry.

“The statement identified the bird flu-affected area as Pralay village, Romenh commune, Koh Andeth district. All ducks within 5 kilometres of the village will be incinerated, sales of duck meat will be stopped and local officials within 10 kilometres of the area must monitor both ducks and humans for signs of infection,” Ly Sovann said.

Read the full story at The Phnom Penh Post

Ten most outstanding farmers in the country were presented the “2009 Farming Genie” prize at a ceremony in Hanoi on January 31.

The awardees representing over 50 million farmers nationwide have production models that bring high economic values.

Read the full story at Nhan Dan

The following is an opinion column by Malaysian Association of Standards Users President Marimuthu Nadason, who is also Chairperson of AsiaDHRRA, a strategic NGO partner of AFA which catalyzed the latter’s formation, that appeared in Malaysia Kini. Nadason examines the problem of rice production in Malaysia and agriculture in general, and urges different ministries and agencies to do a critical review of Malaysia’s agriculture system, subsidies and price control mechanism.

The media has reported on the plight of paddy farmers who experienced ar educed yield due to insect attacks on their crops. Last year, they experienced severe flooding which caused damage to their crops. This year the insects/pests further aggravated the impact of last year’s loss. The report focused on the utilisation of pesticides.

According to the media: ‘In March last year (2009), Deputy Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Minister Mohd Johari Baharum was reported as saying that Muda Agricultural Development Authority (Mada) was preparing a working paper for a standardised pest-control system in the padi fields. Under the system, he said the ministry would provide a suitable amount of pesticides to the farmers’.

The agriculture and agro-vased industry ministry seems very shortsighted about the problems which are beginning, if not already plaguing, the agriculture sector due to first of all to the lack of technology and innovation in improving the yields of locally-produced crops for food.

Furthermore, the ministry and its agencies seem to lack a sense of urgency on what changes in climate are doing to agriculture production all over the world.

Read the full article at Malaysia Kini