With all eyes on the climate deliberations in Copenhagen, it is more important than ever to find innovative ways of reducing agriculture's contribution to global climate change. The livestock industry in particular has helped feed the world but at a significant cost to the environment, including generating large emissions of greenhouse gas.

One promising solution is to substitute fish production for meat production. But to do so we must ensure that the "blue revolution" in ocean fish farming does not lead to the same suite of environmental problems that have accompanied the "green revolution" for land-based agriculture. Americans' appetite for fish continues to grow and is increasingly met by a year-round supply of fresh fish imported into our marketplace. Yet few Americans know where their fish comes from or how it was produced. Just as most chickens, pigs and cows are raised in tightly confined, intensive operations, so too are many fish.

Right now in the United States we have an opportunity to help ensure that the emerging marine aquaculture sector meets both human and environmental needs. This week, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) will introduce in the House of Representatives a bill called the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act that addresses the potential threats of poorly regulated fish farming in U.S. ocean waters. These threats include spread of disease and parasites from farmed to wild fish; discharge of effluents into surrounding waters; misuse of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals and chemicals; escape of farmed fish into wild fish habitat; killing of marine mammals and sharks that might prey on ocean farm cages; and reliance on use of wild-caught fish in aquaculture feeds, which could deplete food supplies for other marine life and the aquaculture industry itself over time.

These environmental impacts have been evident in many other countries with intensive marine fish farming. The recent collapse of salmon aquaculture in Chile, where industry expansion was prioritized over environmental protection, is the most glaring example. Salmon, one of Chile's leading exports, has suffered a major blow as a result of poor regulation and environmentally unsound management. Tens of thousands of people are now jobless in southern Chile, where the salmon farming industry once boomed.

There are three critical points to be made about the Capps bill. First, unlike previous attempts to legislate on fish farming at the national level, the bill would ensure that U.S. aquaculture adopts a science-based, precautionary approach that establishes a priority for the protection of wild fish and functional ecosystems. This approach is consistent with President Obama's recent call to develop a comprehensive and integrated plan to manage our ocean's many competing uses to ensure protection of vital ecosystem services in years to come.

Second, the Capps bill would preempt the emergence of ecologically risky, piecemeal regulation of ocean fish farming in different regions of the U.S. Efforts are already afoot in Hawaii, California, the Gulf of Mexico and New England to expand marine aquaculture without consistent standards to govern their environmental or social performance. If these piecemeal regional initiatives move forward, there will be little hope of creating a sustainable national policy for U.S. open-ocean aquaculture.

Finally, the Capps bill as currently written has a solid, long-term vision for the appropriate role of fish farming in sustainable ocean ecosystems and thus should win widespread support among environmental and fishing constituencies. It should also garner support from the more progressive end of the aquaculture industry that aspires to sustainable domestic fish production.

Previous federal bills introduced in 2005 and 2007 were fundamentally flawed -- and thus rightly criticized -- because they put the goal of aquaculture expansion far above that of environmental protection. Now, for the first time, a bill has been introduced that would demonstrably protect our ocean ecosystems, fishing communities and seafood consumers from the risks of poorly regulated open-ocean aquaculture.

Rep. Capps and her colleagues are to be commended. Now is the time for the new leadership in Washington -- at the White House and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- to embrace this more science-based and precautionary approach to ensure a sustainable future for U.S. ocean aquaculture.

The Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America is a policy-oriented research initiative of the Global Center for Development and Democracy, which was founded by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo in 2006. Authored by a taskforce of 20 former Latin American Presidents, as well as development experts from academia, the private sector, and multi-lateral organizations, the Social Agenda comprises 16 pressing social issues and 63 specific public and private policy recommendations to the region's current heads of state.

From the Washington, D.C. launch of the Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America:

The Global Center for Development and Democracy, founded and presided over by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, along with The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the National Endowment for Democracy, the Brookings Institution, and the Inter-American Dialogue, is pleased to invite you to join us at the Falk Auditorium at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday, November 3, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. for a presentation of The Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America for the Next Twenty Years by Dr. Alejandro Toledo and the following former presidents: Vicente Fox of Mexico; Carlos Mesa, Bolivia; Nicolas Ardito Barletta, Panama; Ricardo Maduro, Honduras; and Vinicio Cerezo, Guatemala.

The Global Center for Development and Democracy has sponsored five Presidential Meetings over the last two years, at which a Presidential Task Force (including 20 former presidents of Latin American countries) has met with leading experts from policy-oriented academia, multilateral organizations, the private sector, and members of civil society to consider the innovative policy research of those experts and to discuss what the former heads of state consider to be the 15 most important social issues facing the region.  The conclusions of their research and discussions at these meetings have been synthesized into a report that will be shared with the sitting presidents of Latin American nations at the Ibero-American Summit in Estoril, Portugal, on December 1, 2009 – as well as with President Obama, the Prime Minister of Canada, and the heads of state of the European Union.  The report will present specific recommendations for actions to significantly reduce poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, as well as to strengthen democratic institutions in Latin America. The report will also include mechanisms for carrying out a twenty-year program of monitoring the results of the policy initiative.

Full text of the Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America (pdf).
 

Tapan Parikh, of UC Berkeley School of Information, spoke about a number of projects that are using mobile phone based technology to give small businesses the information they need to improve productivity. He argued that voice technology has distinct advantages over text, because it overcomes challenges of illiteracy while responding to a strong need people feel to be heard. 

Information is key for economic development and empowerment. But information is worthless unless it is also useable (leads to decisions the business owner can actually take), trusted (comes from a source he respects) and relevant (speaks about the issues he is facing). For information to be really empowering, it must also be two way: there must be ways for individuals to create content themselves.

Tapan described three current projects he is involved in:

Hisaab: Microfinance groups in India often suffer from poor paper based record keeping, making it difficult for the group to track loans and repayments. The Hissab software was designed with an interface suitable for those who may be illiterate and/or new to computing. The use of voice commands and responses in the local language, Tamil, prevented the software from feeling remote and inaccessible and contributed to the success of this initiative. 

Avaaj Otalo: Agricultural extension workers provide advice to farmers on pests, new techniques etc to help improve yields. But often they have limited reach, visiting areas only rarely, or perhaps lacking the expertise to respond to all the problems they encounter. Avaaj Otalo is a system for farmers to access relevant and timely agricultural information over the phone. By dialing a phone number and navigating through simple audio prompts, farmers can record questions, respond to others, or access content published by agricultural experts and institutions. The service has been hugely popular, with farmers willing to spend time listening to large amounts of material to find what they want. The opportunity to be broadcast was a major attraction, reflecting the desire to be heard and to create media rather than be a passive consumer of it.

Digital ICS: Smallholders' compliance with organic, fair-trade and quality requirements is usually measured via paper based internal inspections. The data uncovered by these is vital but often lost. Digital ICS is a mobile phone based application that allows inspectors to fill out the survey digitally, enhance it with visual evidence (e.g. from camera phones) and upload it onto a web application. This is being piloted with coffee farmers in Mexico. A key finding from the work is that farmers want to know who ends up drinking their coffee, what they pay for it and what they think about it. Greater links between producers and consumers may therefore be another area for this project to investigate.