IF A green revolution won鈥檛 work, how can Africa solve its food crisis? This was the subtitle of an editorial in 快猫短视频 (3 July, p 3). At a recent conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Hilary Benn, secretary of state for international development, agreed with Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations and a native of Ghana, that conditions in Africa are very different from those in Asia. A technology-led 鈥済reen revolution鈥� was not in prospect for Africa. The continent will have to develop its own solutions.
Benn went on to say that given the diversity of agricultural, political and economic systems in Africa, different agricultural policy needs will operate on different timescales. African leaders accept that reducing hunger and achieving food security is about more than increasing farm production. Conflict, HIV and AIDS, internal and external markets and poor infrastructure all have an impact. The description of a new approach as 鈥渁 discrete series of rainbow evolutions鈥� is appropriate.
He added that the key issue for African countries is to develop their own strategies. This means moving away from donor-led policies towards partnerships between donors and governments that would enable governments to implement their agricultural policy.
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Night after night British TV news carries hideous images from Sudan. There is widespread clamour for something to be done. Sending in troops would, in my view, court disaster. All that any UK government can do is work with others to encourage and assist African governments to address these issues and to provide support to their national strategies.
FOLLOWING my recent comments on the growing impact of air traffic on climate change (快猫短视频, 17 July, p 45) John Davis of Harpenden, Hertfordshire, wrote to me suggesting that it is not only the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) that is appalled by the dismissive attitude of the Department for Transport to the problem, but also the House of Commons Environment Audit Committee, as evidenced in its recent report Aviation: The plane truth. While air travel contributes to the atmosphere鈥檚 carbon dioxide burden, global warming is also exacerbated by aircraft vapour trails. Details of this are provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 1999 report on aviation.
It would be better, Davis thinks, if aviation minister Tony McNulty were less dismissive of the scientific input into such calculations. The recent white paper, The Future of Air Transport, is not much better with its pretence that emissions trading will remove the problem. Such trickery offers too easy a way out for countries struggling to meet targets.
Since receiving this letter, Tom Blundell and Brian Hoskins of the RCEP have written to 快猫短视频 expressing concern that unhindered growth in airport capacity conflicts with the government鈥檚 goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 (7 August, p 24).
