Mon, 07 Dec 2009

Sekem CEO demands clear targets for Copenhagen climate agreement

CAIRO (NNA) – The CEO of the Egyptian Sekem Group, Helmy Abouleish, has again called on “all countries” to commit to clear goals to combat climate change.

In an interview on occasion of World Climate Day tomorrow, Abouleish called on all decision-makers to include carbon sequestration in soils, forestry, and sustainable land management in the climate treaty aimed for at the UN Climate Change Conference which starts in Copenhagen today.

Delegates from 192 countries will debate the climate change issues facing the world at the 15th UN Climate Change Conference from 7-18 December. It is widely seen as the last chance to agree a deal to protect the world from disastrous global warming.

Abouleish is an official member of the Egyptian delegation.

“As an Egyptian organic farmer, and like many other farmers from Egypt, I am very concerned about the future of our planet and about the future of agriculture in particular. Scarce water resources, rising prices for inputs like fertilizers and seeds and a growing number of weather extremes threaten the basis of agricultural production and therefore the main source of income for the rising population of Egypt and Africa,” Abouleish said on occasion of World Climate Day.

“Egypt in particular is going to be affected by climate change nearly as much as Bangladesh. Only five percent of the country’s area is arable,” he added. A rise of sea levels would mean a loss of millions of homes and millions of acres of arable land. The social and economical cost would be disastrous.

Abouleish also emphasised the important role played by organic agriculture: “1.5 organic hectares of sustainably farmed land can store up to three tons of carbon per hectare which is 7.5 tons of CO2,” he said in the interview.

The Sekem CEO had already set out the same message in September at the meeting of the “UN Leadership Forum on Climate Change” in New York.

“I am very happy that increasing numbers of people see organic agriculture as a positive factor in the fight against climate change and that I had the opportunity to present this fact once again to all the heads of state and government gathered in New York,” Abouleish said at the time.

“Al Gore, too, with whom I shared the platform at an important press conference, took up and defended the subject immediately,” Abouleish added.

Together with many other actors from the organic movement, Sekem actively supported the view that the positive contribution made by organic agriculture and sustainable forestry to the reduction of greenhouse gases should also be financially rewarded as set out in the new protocol being negotiated in Copenhagen, similarly to the way that this was already the case today with clean industrial plant.

Healthier soils rich in humus on organic farms could bind more CO2, the refusal to use artificial fertilizer and pesticides saved large quantities of emissions. Financial compensation for this positive contribution could support organic agriculture particularly in the developing countries, the Sekem CEO said in New York.

SEKEM says that it makes savings of up to 60,000 tonnes CO2 equivalent per year through the controlled and certified production of compost alone. Immense savings were achieved through biodynamic cultivation on three new farms and the continuous transformation of more than 2,500 hectares of desert soil into fertile humus.

END/nna/cva

Item: 091207-01EN Date: 7. December 2009

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