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Dear Delegates, Hello and welcome to the General Assembly and the Special Summit on Food Security! We are thrilled to hear you will be participating in YMUN XL! For 39 years, YMUN has been hosted at Yale and is one of the biggest events on campus every year. This coming year, we are delighted that you will join us at this committee as we participate in the best YMUN conference yet. My name is Helder Toste and I am one of the two Senior Staffers who will be running this committee. I am a Latin American Studies and History of Art double major and this coming year I will be a Sophomore in Berkeley College. I was born and raised in Tulare, California a rural community in Central California where I grew up on a dairy. At Yale, I am involved primarily with YIRA: I am currently the social chair and membership coordinator for this year and have staffed SCSY and YMUN. I am part of the Berkeley College Council where I help with residential college activities and am part of the Tory Party, one of the Yale Political Unions major parties. And my name is Sabina Lee; I am the other Senior Staffer. I am an English major and a sophomore in Pierson College. I was born and raised in Boston (Go Sox!) and have been involved with Model UN since my sophomore year in high school. Although I didn’t grow up on a farm, my dad is an 18th generation farmer, and I’ve always been excited to learn about global agriculture through his experiences and anecdotes. This year, I am the Secretary-General of YMUN Korea 2014, hosted in Seoul, and have staffed YMUN and SCSY last year. Outside of YIRA, I work as the Asian American Studies Coordinator at the Asian American Cultural Center and on weekends I jam with UNITY, Yale’s Korean Drumming Troupe. Finally, we would like to say that the success of this committee will come down to how you will engage the two main topics we have set for you and what role you will take in the decision making. We have chosen extremely important topics in the world of global agriculture, and we cannot wait to hear your thoughts on the subject matter and the resolutions you will bring forth. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this committee, the conference in general, or life at Yale. We wish you good luck with your research and are counting down the days to your arrival in January! Best Wishes, Helder Toste (helder.toste@yale.edu) Sabina Lee (sabina.lee@yale.edu)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS History of the Committee 5 Topic I: Drought

Topic History 6 Current Situation 11 Questions to Consider 18

Topic II: Genetically Modified Organisms Topic History 19 Current Situation 23 Questions to Consider 34

Role of the Committee 35 Structure of the Committee 36 Suggestions for Further Research 37 Footnotes 39

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As the head delegate representing your nation at our specialized general assembly, you have been called to attend a Special Summit on Food Security at the General Assembly. This committee will operate like any other GA committee, allowing participation of all member states. The history of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a group that deals with many of the same issues you will deal with over the course of the conference, may serve as our inspiration in finding solutions and ways to implement those solutions. But as you read this topic guide and research further, keep in mind: all rules regarding GA committees still apply.

An organization to oversee international food and agriculture concerns was first proposed in 1943. 44 nations gathered together in Hot Springs, Virginia and committed themselves to founding an international organization to address many of the humanitarian crises that developed post WWII. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was founded on October 16, 1945 in Quebec City, Canada. The organization was founded to: eliminate hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition; make agriculture more productive and sustainable; reduce rural poverty; protect communities from disasters; and to create efficient agricultural systems. Since 1951, the organization has been based in Rome and currently has 192 member states, two associate members (British territories), and one member organization (EU). Today, the main goals of the organization are to achieve food security for all and to ensure regular and global access to high-quality food so that all people may lead healthy, active lives. Specifically, the FAO's

mandate is to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations, and contribute to the growth of the world economy.i As the first specialized committee of the United Nations, a variety of other UN organizations are intimately related to the FAO; at least a third of the FAO’s missions are related to other UN organizations. Like many UN organizations, the FAO has no mandatory powers and is given the ability to strongly suggest the implementation of programs and resolutions. The organization, which at minimum meets every two years, has a total of six departments: Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Economic and Social Development, Forestry, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Natural Resources Management and Environment, and Technical Cooperation. Together, these six departments manage the bulk of FAO’s missions and are tailored to deal with the six major areas of food management. In the past decade, the FAO has dealt with a variety of crises and made a series of resolutions to continue with one of its millennium goals: reduce world hunger by half. In the past decade, the FAO has passed a resolution dealing with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s), continued decentralization to increase efficiency, established a new Crisis Center to deal with animal health or food emergencies, formulated a new proposal to combat illegal practices in the fishing industry, assessed climate change on food security, and dealt with drought and famine crises in the Horn of Africa, Pakistan, and the Sahel Region of Africa. Most recently, the organization has decided to combat land rights issues to reclaim land that has been lost to erosion and land infertility, and prevent future crises that impede upon or eradicate food production.

History of the Committee!

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Due to the combination of climate change, population growth, and excess water usage, the world is seeing more droughts and a quickly diminishing fresh water supply. Droughts have always plagued the world but it wasn’t until the Dust Bowl and the disaster caused by the incident that pushed the US to move towards water and food security. One response to the Dust Bowl was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan for a United Nations committee to deal with food security and from that FAO was born. As a result FAO has been central to identifying and dealing with water crises across the globe. Roughly 30 years ago, the FAO initiated FAOSTAT, a program whose goal is to collect information on agricultural production, water resources, and evaluate the nutrition of a nation. In order to understand the current state of water resources and the droughts that currently plague our planet, let’s look at the five major regions that will be discussed and their respective histories on the subject.

The Americas United States:

While droughts have always existed, none was more devastating than the Dust Bowl from the mid 1930’s until the 1950’s. The Dust Bowl resulted from a combination of excessive farming, a large drought, and large erosion and turned entire crops into eroded soil. During this time, thousands of residents from all walks of life were displaced, famine reached extreme levels, and erosion caused massive environmental damage. The result of the drought was a move by the US government to build dams, new irrigation systems, and to increase the supply of water to prevent these types of the disasters. Regardless, the efforts have been in vain and still the Midwest, Rockies, Southwest, Southeast, and Southern California constantly face water shortages due to little rainfall, excessive use, mismanagement, and extreme evaporation. After a disaster in 1969 when a firestorm erupted on Lake Erie from extreme heat and toxins in the water, the United

TOPIC I.

Drought Topic History !

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States government passed the Clean Water Act. This act, signed into law in 1972, was originally designed to regulate toxins in water but ultimately was used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deal with water resource management from aquifers, lakes, dams, rivers, and other bodies of water. The government passed the act because “it provides a comprehensive framework of standards, tools and financial assistance to address the many issues such as poor water quality, all wastewater discharges, polluted runoffs, and habitat destruction.”ii Most recently, many droughts have hit California and Texas, resulting in the loss of thousands of acres of farmland and wildfires. Central America, Amazon, Pampas, Andes: This region of Latin America, which has limited water resources, depends primarily on the rainy season from May until September to fill up freshwater lakes, natural water reserves, and to replenish the water table. As a result, crops are seasonal and the region lacks the ability to implement large scale farming to feed the growing population. Above all, the topsoil here is poor, making rainwater the primary way to water crops. Throughout the 20th century, many droughts have occurred, primarily in the rainforest regions of Latin America and the more naturally arid regions such as Argentina, Mexico, and Peru. Throughout this time period, a total of 38 droughts occurred. Through a detailed analysis of global weather patterns, it was discovered that 27 coincided with other global droughts and outlines two new international trends.iii The new trends, not only common in Latin America but the whole world, show that until the Second World

War, droughts were much more common but not too severe. Beginning in the 1940’s this trend reversed and to this day droughts are occurring less frequently but are lasting much longer and are much more severe. Today, the crisis keeps accelerating with a growing number of longer lasting droughts. This have devastated populations, ruined the harvest of major staple foods, and decimated livestock. Caribbean: The Caribbean, along with a large portion of Latin America, has seen changing weather patterns over the course of the past few decades. This is all due to El Niño, “the cyclical phenomenon in which warm surface waters of the equatorial Pacific flow eastward, altering weather patterns across the Americas.”iv This has resulted in massive water shortages over the years. Governments have passed laws restricting access to water, started to import water from other countries, and taken up extreme measures such as cloud seeding and constructing desalination plants. The change in weather comes at no surprise because, as was previously noted, drought is now more intense and affects even larger regions, causing major flooding and adding to the intensity of hurricanes. Throughout its history, the Caribbean has always been prone to drought, primarily due to the lack of aquifers and the ability to have access to large water tables. The result is that, in many instances, natural disasters require water aid since island nations naturally lack freshwater retention.

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Africa Sahel:

This region of Africa, which separates the Sahara Desert from the central rainforests of Africa, is the most prone to droughts (the Eastern Horn of Africa is a close second). The history of drought in the Sahel is relatively new and came as a direct result of industrialization in the Northern Hemisphere and the use of aerosols. The use of aerosols in the late 20th century caused massive droughts in central Africa, which almost caused the entire draining of Lake Chad, a large freshwater lake in north central Africa. Because the water was drained, it was seen as the cause of the drought, along with water mismanagement, overgrazing, and poor farming. The result, however, was much more complicated: “Aerosols emanating from coal-burning factories in the United States and Europe during the 1960s, 70s and 80s cooled the entire Northern Hemisphere, shifting tropical rain bands south.”v Due to these shifting bands, weather patterns were quite literally changed and rain ceased to fall in naturally water-rich areas. On the same note, naturally arid or dry regions saw large increases in rainfall causing flooding, among other disasters.

Drought is still persistent in the region and even though legislation against aerosols passed and the weather band has moved northwards, the amount of precipitation has not fully recovered. Today Lake Chad, the largest freshwater lake in the region, has not yet returned to its 1980s water level and the lake continues to have a high level of water stress. Eastern Africa: The developments of massive drought over East Africa are much more recent than other global droughts because, much like the global trend, the region has gone from having many small droughts to having large scale droughts and irregular patterns of precipitation. The drought crisis, which affected almost 12 million people, occurred in one of the poorest and least prepared regions of the world. This crisis is a result of naturally arid conditions that exist throughout the Horn where trade winds and water currents ensure only the driest air arrives to the coast. As a result, rainfall is a very random occurrence. Accordingly, the region has faced many droughts since the mid-20th century. The lack of consistent rainfall in the region also puts large stress on the grain and livestock that form the base of all

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nutrition in the region. In a region where wealth is based off of livestock, lives are occasionally uprooted due to catastrophic droughts. “Consistently poor rainfall over the past few years in East Africa has had a cumulative effect and the land has been unable to recover. 2011 has so far proved the driest year in the region since 1951.”vi Asia: South and Southeast Asia: This region has a total population of nearly two billion and some of the most unstable water resources. Resource levels depend on a monsoon season to bring the rains necessary to meet the needs of the population. This region, long plagued by instances of drought, has recently seen an escalation in this issue. Trade winds and global weather patterns are the primary drivers of drought, where extreme monsoon seasons cause major flooding and erosion. Due to the formerly mentioned weather patterns, northern and southern India, along with the interior plains throughout the Indochina Peninsula, are the most prone to drought. The latest drought, which developed in early 2000, was due to “a rain season that concluded much earlier than normal and caused unexpected flooding.”vii Much like weather change across the planet, drought here is lasting longer and affecting regions that were once only slightly arid, such as Pakistan and Central India. Overall, drought trends show that this region has seen an increase in drought severity and the overall geographical distribution of drought.

Northeast Asia: The northeast region of Asia, which includes China, Mongolia, Japan, and Korea, is quickly becoming one of the most drought-affected regions in the world. This is due largely to rampant industrialization, growth of population, and changing global weather patterns. The lack of strong water retention and management programs results in a high dependence on rainfall to water most crops. “Starting in the 1980’s, water reserves along the Yellow River and across central China and Korea began to decrease, with the frequency of disasters growing at an almost exponential rate and resulting in extremely low averages of water resources per capita.”viii According to a UN report from 2000, North Korea, along with a few others, will soon require millions of international aid to ensure that populations can get fed. Unless dealt with soon, malnutrition and low crop yields will begin to plague many regions. Overview of Other Regions in the World:

Former Soviet Union: These nations, historically known as the breadbaskets of the world, have faced huge water shortages throughout history. This occurs when the rainy winter season fails and the many mountain ranges of the region fail to retain or even receive large amounts of snowfall. This, along with the extremely underdeveloped infrastructure of the region, makes water retention difficult, especially due to the rugged and extremely flat terrain. This results in the inability of major waterways to provide the necessary water resources. In many cases, water pollution from industrialization,

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combined with other issues such as excessive farming, have greatly reduced water access and depleted soil nutrients. Middle East:

This region, one of the driest in the world, has long depended on concentrated water reserves like oases and underground aquifers to provide freshwater. Beginning in the late 20th century, large infrastructure projects such as the Great Manmade River in Libya and the large irrigation agriculture projects in the Arabian Peninsula have caused major droughts and added stress to already limited water supplies. In both of these cases, desalination plants and intricate canal systems move water from oases, mountain springs, and other natural aquifers to large retention basins where the water is then moved for irrigation. This causes droughts because it depletes water sources from at risk regions and escalates water stress, causing drought. All of this resulted in the widespread construction of desalination plants and investment in drought-preventative infrastructure beginning in the late 1990’s, which continue to present-dayMost recently, changing weather patterns have made particular regions much more prone to disasters.

These changing weather patterns along with man-made natural disasters, such as drought, have resulted in extreme levels of devastation. The result has been an international effort to preserve and restore water tables across the world in hopes of preserving what little water resources remain and growing those reserves.

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Global Water Resources

The total volume of water on Earth is

about 1.4 billion km3. The volume of freshwater resources is about 2.5 percent of all water in the world. Of these freshwater resources, 70 percent are in the form of ice and permanent snow cover in mountainous regions, the Antarctic, and Arctic regions. Around 29.7 percent of the world's freshwater is stored underground in the form of groundwater (shallow and deep groundwater basins, swamp water and permafrost). This constitutes about 97 percent of all the freshwater that is potentially available but currently not accessible for human use.ix Humans are over-consuming natural resources at an unsustainable rate. Around 3.5 planet Earths would be needed to sustain a global population achieving the current lifestyle of the average European or North American. Water scarcity already affects almost every continent and more than 40 percent of the people on our planet. By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with high rates of water scarcity, and two-thirds of the

world’s population will live in areas under water stressed conditions.

According to the World Water Development Report published in 2012: “In 2030, 47% of the world’s population will be living in areas of high water stress. Most population growth will occur in developing countries, mainly in regions that are already experiencing water stress and in areas with limited access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities.”x Water resource management impacts almost all aspects of the economy, in particular: health, food production and security, domestic water supply and sanitation, energy, industry, and environmental sustainability. Water Demand Global demand for water can be divided into a variety of categories: food and agriculture, energy, industry, human settlement, and ecosystems. Each of the water-use sectors is driven by a number of external forces (such as demographic changes, technological developments, or economic growth), which in turn dictate their current and future demands for water. “Agriculture accounts for 70% of all water withdrawn by the agricultural, municipal and industrial (including energy) sectors.” xi The current demand for water is only growing; with the world estimated to have 9 billion people by 2050, water stress will increase across the water table and place millions into regions of water scarcity.

Another important section is energy, which requires water for various production processes such as agriculture, raw material collection, and a variety of industry-related

Current Situation

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activities. Energy is required to make water resources available for human use and consumption, with costs for transportation, water treatment, and agriculture, for example.

Industry uses relatively little water on a global scale. It nevertheless requires an accessible, reliable and environmentally sustainable supply. According to the UN, approximately 20% of the world’s freshwater withdrawals are used by industry, although this varies between regions and countries, with more developed nations using far more water for industry. The percent of a country’s industrial sector water demands is generally proportional to the average income level, meaning wealthier countries use far more water in industrial sectors. “Water management in the industry sector is typically considered in terms of industrial withdrawals and consumption. Total industrial water withdrawals can be calculated as: Water Withdrawal = Water Consumption + Discharge.”xii Because of this formula and a variety of other factors, it is unknown how much water is actually withdrawn and consumed by industry. Proposed manufacturing, transportation and production needs are only vague estimates of what is actually used.

Water resources across the world Precipitation delivers water unevenly over the planet from one year to the next. There can be considerable variability between arid and humid climates and wet and dry seasons. As a result, distribution of freshwater supplies can be erratic with different countries and regions receiving different quantities of water over any given year.

Understanding the spatial and temporal distribution and movement of water is crucial for efficient water resource management. Water resource management plans and policies must take into account this variability and distribution of freshwater supplies. Freshwater is also available in many different forms, some of which were outlined above. For example, Canada has very high levels of freshwater availability, but most of that water is frozen. By understanding the different sources of water and different global uses for water, this committee will be able to make the decisions necessary to achieve success and help place the globe back on track to use water resources effectively.

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Groundwater Groundwater is a significant source of water for human consumption and agriculture. Because of this, groundwater is one of the most important socio-economic factors in the world. “Due to the relatively large volumes of water stored underground, most aquifers have a

considerable buffer capacity, which keeps their water available for withdrawal even during very long periods without rainfall.”xiii Groundwater refers to the water that is stored underground, whether in between rocks or in underground crevices. The relationship between groundwater and an aquifer is that only groundwater that is found in an aquifer (highly permeable sediment that has high water retention) can be extracted for use. Taking into consideration the relationship between groundwater and aquifers, the formerly mentioned “buffer zone” is crucial for understanding water resources. This buffer zone specifically refers to aquifers’ natural ability to replenish themselves even when water is being extracted, to the point at which natural aquifer replenishment is equal to the extraction of water from aquifers.

The most striking example of this buffer capacity is formed by non-renewable groundwater resources: various large aquifer systems on earth still contain very large volumes of groundwater. This groundwater, however, is found at unknown depths and varies in concentration from place to place. Regardless, no matter how large the volumes of water contained in these aquifers may be, the fact that they are non-renewable means they will likely be exhausted if not managed appropriately. “Groundwater is crucial for the livelihoods and food security of 1.2 to 1.5 billion rural households in the poorer regions of Africa and Asia, but also for domestic supplies of a large part of the population elsewhere in the world.”xiv Another reason why groundwater is crucial is because groundwater-fed irrigation is usually considerably less susceptible to water shortage risks than irrigation supplied by surface water. In general,

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groundwater is much more susceptible to being overused than surface water, and so preserving groundwater is central to many countries’ water management plans.

The quantity of groundwater is controlled by inflows and outflows, the volume of water stored and related groundwater levels, and water quality. Only when an excess of inflows versus outflows occurs will an aquifer retain or grow its water capacity. Sadly, steadily increasing rates of groundwater extraction due to human activity is affecting the amount of groundwater found in aquifer systems. “As a result, the majority of the world’s groundwater systems are no longer in dynamic equilibrium, but do show significant trends. In particular, reduction of natural outflows, decreasing stored volumes, declining water levels and water quality degradation are widely observed, along with changes in the mean rate of groundwater renewal.”xv

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Weather patterns:

El Niño is a weather phenomenon that occurs primarily in the Pacific Ocean and a primary contributor to climate change. Warm waters in the equatorial western Pacific Ocean shift to the central and eastern region periodically over a three to eight-year timescale. As an immediate consequence, tropical western Pacific regions and Northern Australian regions see a reduction in rainfall and tropical eastern parts of South America see an increase in rainfall. These convection changes in the tropical Pacific trigger teleconnection responses to other parts of the world, especially South and Southeast Asia and Africa. These changes also impact the location and strength of the mid-latitude jet stream and consequently the weather over North America. There has been extensive documentation of El Niño’s impacts on precipitation, temperature, hurricanes and tropical cyclones, ecosystems, agriculture, water resources and public health around the world, especially from the tropical countries where most of the world’s population reside.

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a

change in a large-scale sea surface temperature pattern predominant in the Pacific. The pattern resembles that of El Niño, but is slightly broader, influencing weather in multiple locations and is a lot more irregular. Regardless “this activity is particularly also strong in the Southern Pacific and Oceania where it can be used to determine forecasts for rainfall and to help plan water management ahead of time.”xvi

Water stress and scarcity Hydrologists typically assess scarcity by looking at the population-water equation. This equation calculates water usage and assesses the available water supplies to make conclusions about water availability in a region. An area is experiencing water stress when annual water supplies drop below 1,700 m3 per person. When annual water supplies drop below 1,000 m3 per person, the population faces water scarcity, and below 500 m3 “absolute scarcity”. The ideas of water stress and water scarcity are occasionally interchanged, but they are distinct things and the subtle differences greatly influence the way water usage is perceived. “For example, the term water stress is generally used to describe the ratio of water use (i.e. the amount of water withdrawn from the natural hydrological system) over the total amount of renewable water available. Thus, the higher the use as a fraction of available water, the higher the stress on the supply system.”xvii Today many regions have or are at risk of water stress and scarcity. As a result, a water management strategy that deals with these issues is crucial for the success of any resolution.

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Water Management As water moves through the hydrological cycle, the term ‘water management’ comes into play, particularly when directly involved with water usage by humans. Water management covers a variety of activities and disciplines. The three major water management qualities are: managing the resource, managing water services, and managing the trade-offs needed to balance supply and demand of water. “Water resource management is about managing water found in rivers, lakes and groundwater. This includes water allocation, assessment and pollution control; the protection of water-related ecosystems and water quality; natural and man-made infrastructure for the redistribution and storage of these resources; and groundwater recharge.”xviii Water service management consists of managing water from acquisition through processing, up to the moment it is used. The cycle repeats again when the waste is captured, treated, and turned into clean discharge through a variety of practices. While all these activities are unique and different, together they make up what is called water management.

Today, water management is divided into two categories: hard approach (which involves infrastructure and large scale projects) and soft approach (which deals with local small scale

activities and grassroots efforts). It is the committee's job to use these approaches and to decide how you use the information provided here and the information you find through other resources to create an effective resolution.

In order for this committee and the resolutions it plans to pass to be a success, it must address the major issues that relate to water management, creating a resolution that addresses the key sectors of global water usage. More importantly, preparing for future water demands is very important because as many nations begin to enter advanced phases of development and become more industrialized, more populated, and wealthier, that wealth will greatly alter global water use andresource availability. In addition, many nations also need tailored programs. While general resolutions are great, regions or even specific countries may require specially tailored plans. In order to be able to sufficiently address international water use, the issue needs to also be looked at through the food security lens. This topic is therefore far more intimately related to genetically modified organisms than first meets the eye. In addition, the dais team strongly recommends you also look at the sources we provided to get a comprehensive view of your assigned country.

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Organization of American States (OAS)

This geo-political organization is an alliance between American nations for the purpose of national development. While the organization normally has a strong collective vision, the issue of water management is extremely divisive. Caribbean nations are primarily concerned with freshwater supplies and water retention programs such as dams and storage tanks. The USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are primarily concerned with returning water to the water table. In general, the poorer and least developed countries of this Bloc are focused on water policy that allows them to retain more water, while the wealthier nations of the Bloc are more preoccupied with dealing with groundwater and aquifer replenishment. The nations that have the strongest opinions on water management are the USA and Canada, but Brazil,Mexico, and Argentina are three powerful emerging economies seeking a balance between water conservation and developing a plan that ensures a continuation of their economic growth. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

This union of Southeast Asian countries, made up of 10 states, shares a very unified vision on their approach to water management. Since most nations are economically at the same level of development and most are emerging economies, their interest with water is primarily based on conservation of freshwater sources. Shifting weather patterns are the greatest concern for this rain-heavy region, and as central continental regions begin to receive less water, all of the nations believe the damming, diversion, and

seasons, are crucial to their needs. They seek a bans on aerosols, CFC’s and other substances that cause or are known to cause weather change since weather fluctuations and inconsistencies are dangerous to the countries and their development. European union

This group of nations, among the wealthiest in the world, is allied in the water and global food security issue through their similar stances. The most important of their policies are those dealing with the environment. The goal of the EU block is to set a high standard for lower pollution, better and planned infrastructure for water management, and mandatory quotas for groundwater and aquifer levels. Their plans do not include common water retention methods such as damming or water diversion due to environmentally friendly policies but instead seek to magnify the effect of natural processes. A key divisive factor in the block is the issue of water usage in industry and agriculture, with Western European EU members seeking stronger regulation of industry water usage, and Eastern European EU members seeking loosened regulations in industry and agriculture to allow for quickened economic development. *Special Note: If the nation you receive is not part of one of the above-mentioned blocs, then you have the ability to choose for yourself which bloc you will join, if you choose to join one at all. We strongly recommend you research some of the main water issues across the world and then decide where you fit in and what will work best to help you achieve the goals you have in mind. Finally, take into consideration that even if you are part of a bloc, you are in no way obligated to cooperate or participate with the bloc you are part of and may pursue your own goals or agenda.

Bloc Positions

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Questions to Consider

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1 What are the key demographics and resources available to your country and what type of resolution do you see will put them to use?

2 What do experts say will happen to your country by 2050? What can you expect will happen to your nation and how do you best see your nation dealing with those future issues?

3 Many people are bound to jump for the desalination bandwagon, but this form of freshwater

extraction is extremely expensive. What water projects or strategies will work best for your nation?

4 What major water crises or issues affect your neighboring countries or major economic, social, and military partners across the world? How can you work to meet both your needs and theirs?

5 What role will climate change continue to have on your region and what global environmental measures can be taken to help your efforts on the more regional or local level?

6 Does one size fit all? What resolution will work best for the goals you wish to achieve? A very large general one, or a more specific and tailored one?

7 How does the topic of water management deal with the other major topic of this committee: GMO’s/Food Security?

8 What are the three most important water issues for your country and what steps do you think the committee should take to help you resolve them?

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!!!!!!!!!!!!With the rapid increase of global

population, agricultural strains have affected every facet of global and local life. Agriculture affects international trade policies and regulations, along with local fertilizers and seeds; not only is the world concerned for the plague of soil degradation and depletion, especially in the context of climate change, but also local scientists worry over the eradication of biodiversity and host species. Furthermore, the international community has struggled to combat widening poverty and malnutrition rates, especially in the context of GMOs and their safety.

Since international food security is so multifaceted, it is necessary to approach it from several different angles. Some immediate crises include resource limitations, sustainability, crop improvement, safety, and profit. Some social issues include food security, nutritional enhancement, market structure, and urban and rural development. Some cultural challenges foster questionable definitions and connotations of “natural,” “pure,” “contaminated,” “polluted,” “organic,” and “safe” foods, especially in regard to GMOs. Some global concerns include the unfair profit of large private companies, crucial food sourcing to places of high poverty, efficient food transportation, and product labeling, especially in regard to organic foods and GMOs. The utilization of GMOs in global food production is highly contested and debated, and so it is crucial to examine every large issue at hand from a social, cultural, economic, global and local perspective.

The World Health Organization defines Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) as organisms whose genetic material has been artificially altered.xix While these days almost all major GM organisms and foods are created with modern biotechnology, humans had domesticated crops and agriculture long before the feasibility of genetic engineering. Farmers have selected and crossbred specific species of crops and animals with desirable characteristics in hopes of creating nutritionally enhanced offspring, and generations of ruthless trials often created desirable food products. Food has also been manipulated with bacteria long before people knew of the science behind specific bacteria, such as yeast, fermentation and Bt bacteria, and this non-artificial tampering to efficiently produce nutritional crops and food is gaining more popularity. Since the early 18th century, farmers experimented with crops with a scientific mindset; Mendel, for example, famously crossbred peas to produce a variety of peas with specific traits and characteristics. In doing so, scientists began to realize the possibility of artificially manipulating genetic material in organisms to produce desirable foods with more ease and precision.

The technological advances in agriculture in the 20th century are known as the Green Revolution. The technology used in making GMO’s is generally known as modern biotechnology or genetic engineering. In 1973, Herbert Boyer’s team at Stanford University Medical School began experimenting with the

TOPIC II.

Genetically Modified Organisms Topic History !

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idea of artificial genetics.xx In 1975, the Asilomar Conference in America set the first principles and guidelines to prevent biohazards in the creation and experimentation in recombinant DNA technology.xxi The conference addressed the dangers of contamination, the use of naturally biological barriers (such as vectors and bacteria) to limit any accidental spread of these artificial genes, and microbiological safety and ethics. The conference set recommendations for low-risk emergencies to high-risk crises, and prohibited certain experiments, such as those that pertain to toxin genes.xxii In 1980, a court case ruled in favor of a genetic engineer, allowing for the first patent on a genetically modified organism — in this case, a bacterium that consumes crude oil, useful for oil spills.xxiii The FDA approved of a GMO in 1980, marking the first time a GMO appeared on the market. The first genetically modified plant — tobacco — was produced in Belgium in 1986,xxiv and by 1994, the first genetically modified food — the tomato with a lengthened shelf life — was on sale in conventional grocery stores across America.xxv Since then, the development and refinement of modern biotechnology has increased at an exponential rate and has rapidly expanded the GM industry.

Most GM foods are produced using recombinant DNA technology. This technology involves the artificial combination of genes that

are not naturally found together, and their insertion into an organism to create new genetic combinations for social benefit, such as faster growth, longer shelf life, or enhanced nutritional value.xxvi The work involved with recombining genes is extremely strenuous because researchers must comb through millions of genetic code elements to find specific pieces of DNA that directly translate to desirable traits. Researchers not only isolate important segments of DNA, but also identify the function of each strand of significant and desirable DNA. Furthermore, the actual labor involved with combining two or more strands of genetic material is quite taxing. The three biggest methods of creating recombinant DNA are: Transformation, Non-Bacterial Transformation, and Phage Introduction.xxvii Each method involves cutting a specific piece of DNA with a restriction enzyme, and then using DNA Ligase to insert this genetic information into a vector, such as a bacterial cell, a non-bacterial cell, or a phage. The vector is used to transport and insert genetic information from one organism to another. Once the vector is in action and begins inserting its genetic information into that of the second organism, the genetically modified organism will begin to express these artificially inserted genes and traits. This work not only involves high-quality equipment and materials, but also a thorough understanding of this process,

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which is only possible through higher education. As a result, most recombinant DNA technology and GMO’s are developed and hold copyright in developed countries by large, private corporations.

To understand how GMOs fit into conventional agriculture, it is necessary to explain this latter, more traditional form of food production. Natural populations are heterogeneous and diverse. In a natural environment, several different species of plants coexist with balanced population ratios that directly affect one another. The diversity of plants and animals tends to keep natural resources in healthy ratios, such as minerals and nutrients in the soil and water in the environment. Populations generally stay the same due to the food chain’s natural state of being. Not only are these systems diverse, but interspecies diversity also exists. Plants and animals may accidentally pass down mutations to their offspring, but this slight deviance is actually quite healthy for the species as a whole; heterogeneity preserves the species’ survival in case of a rampant disease, drought, flood, massive migration of herbivores, and other unpredicted environmental stressors. Parent generations cannot only pass down mutations, but also unforeseen abnormal chromosomal rearrangements, and transposable elements. Interspecific hybrids may also exist, depending on how the wind may blow or whoever is around for mating season. GMOs may undergo wild crosses, in which a GM plant may cross with a different but related species nearby. This kind of reproduction may also be advantageous, as it may prove to be physically larger, more disease resistant, or more stress tolerant than either of its parents.

Furthermore, it should be noted that

conceptually, agriculture and GM technology is equivalent. Conventional breeding is also deliberate breeding, but takes a lot longer to produce a desirable product as opposed to molecular breeding, since this latter category may track each desired trait by using a DNA sequence tag. Genetic breeding is slightly different by adding only the desired gene as a cloned piece of DNA into the crop’s genetic information, resulting in no mixing of genes.

GMO’s have benefited society in a number of ways. GM technology has greatly eased the production of crops. The biological features of plants that are central to agriculture include environmental-dependent growth, light, and resources, such as water and nitrogen. While humans have crossbred many crops and livestock with the most desirable traits and features for thousands of years, GM technology dramatically speeds up this process and allows scientists to pick and choose between individual traits, rather than settle for traditional guessing. Thanks to modern biotechnology, GM plants and animals can grow faster with higher resistance to common pests, diseases, and herbicides and can withstand harsh environmental conditions such as drought, flood, humidity, wind, imbalance of gases, excess toxic gases, poor sunlight, harsh temperature, nutrient deficiencies or surplus in the soil, salinity, and toxic minerals.

Furthermore, GM technology allows scientists to pick, choose, enhance, diminish or transfer specific traits of GM products. Artificial gene modification can increase, decrease, or turn off specific gene expression, and even allows selected genes to be transferred from one

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organism to another. Due to the massive demand for food around the world, enhancing the nutritional value and mere size of GM crops and animals may make a significant difference in the amount of labor and capital required in the global field of agriculture. GM plants and animals possess desirable traits such as larger sizes, increased nutritional value, and longer shelf life; and, if the new GM plants or animals look different from these enhancing features, GM technology also allows for phenotypic manipulation of the way these GM crops and animals may look. For example, the Innate Potato tends not to discolor from bruises or simple exposure to oxygen; by changing the physical trait of this crop, fewer of these potatoes may be discarded at the marketplace and in the kitchen.xxviii Some mass-produced GMO’s include corn, soy, wheat, rapeseed, potato, rice, cows, pigs, and chickens.xxix

Nonetheless, the production of GMO’s has been an issue of high controversy since the recent development of modern biotechnology and mass production in the late 20th century. Since GM technology produces thousands of new crops and animal varieties a year, and due to global economic and humanitarian pressure to produce enhanced food products as soon as possible, testing these products for human and environmental safety is often a secondary concern. Due to the omnipresence of GMO’s in almost all facets of the world, GMO’s are of an ethical, economic, global and local concern.

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GMOs are prevalent worldwide, both in store aisles of developed countries and in the fields of developing countries. By the end of 2010, GM crops had covered more than 9.8 million kilometers, or 3.8 million square feet, of land in 29 countries worldwide, which constitutes about 10% of the world’s farmland.xxx Because of the rise of recent biotechnology, only a few decades old, the uncertainty of long-term effects of growing and consuming GMO’s, along with its economic consequences, has been the subject of heated debate across the world. There are doubtless benefits to utilizing GMO’s for global food, as food production, security, cost, and nutrition have all been increased due to GMO’s. However, the utilization of GMO’s may harm the environment, either with added chemicals or by decreasing agricultural biodiversity, harbor unseen harm to human health, and increase the power and wealth gap between the developed and developing world through complicated and unfair policies.

Influence on Environment

Given the rising demand for food products, it makes sense that our natural resources simply cannot keep up. GMOs and other biotechnology may surpass these limitations by making agriculture more efficient and increasing a system’s level of intensity. When resources are scarce or limited, farmers may look into compressing time and space in order to run a high intensity system. This system sees large-scale simultaneous intercropping throughout the year. By rotating through a variety of diverse crops, the soil may not be as depleted as homogenous cropping, as its nutrients will be used in a balanced manner. This kind of large-scale farming requires constant off-farm inputs, such as capital-intensive products (seeds), heavy cultivation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and fuel for transportation. Furthermore, biodiversity may disappear amongst local crop races, as these industrial crops compete for resources and space.

Modern agriculture may either work with nature or against it. Biotechnology allows scientists to insert several genes into plants and crops, and oftentimes scientists may insert proteins or even bacteria to create plants that are naturally resistant to more diseases and poisonous to insects. For example, scientists modify the biological and genetic potential of crops by increasing a plant’s ability to photosynthesize in regions with little sunlight or better controlling a plant’s flowering time.

In India, scientists worked with a large biotechnology company called Monsanto to create an eggplant that is naturally resistant to borer, a moth whose larvae consume budding

Current Situation

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eggplant.xxxi Farmers traditionally used a spray that did not contain any synthetic chemicals, but rather a bacterium known as Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) that produces toxic proteins. This spray killed many other harmless insects and affected humans as well, many of who would report skin rashes and nausea after exposure. By inserting this toxin-producing gene into the crop, the eggplant would produce toxins that would kill those that consumed its leaves — namely, the borer larvae. Scientists hoped to avoid collateral damage to surrounding insects and humans. After almost twenty years of development and careful testing on humans and animals, the Indian government approved the Bt eggplant in October 2009, but anti-GM protest groups forced the government to put the public opinion before scientific reasoning. Regardless of the success of Bt cotton in India, many Indians believed that GMOs were unnatural and harmful. These protesters had some merit to their argument, as the Bt eggplant reportedly killed some butterflies and caused mild skin rashes on humans, but Bt proved very successful in other parts of the world. Not only did the elimination of Bt spray cause less harm to the surrounding environment, but it also lowered gas usage to transport the spray and

increased yield. In India, and other developing countries, some farmers may commit suicide when faced with low yield and high debt; by increasing yield, this farmer suicide may end, along with rural poverty.

Another example is rice. Golden Rice, most advanced in the Philippines and led by Dr. Antonio Alfonso, contains beta carotene, an important source of vitamin A, which could combat up to half a million cases of child blindness annually.xxxii Turbocharge C4 rice is an ongoing project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to create rice that is more efficient with photosynthesis.xxxiii Another project attempts to increase phosphorus uptake, given environments with low levels of phosphorus and other compounds; similarly, another project attempts to increase the drought tolerance of rice by increasing the efficiency of mineral uptake and defense mechanisms to avoid losing water as much as possible. These GM breeds of rice work to better each plant’s ability to maximize the productivity of its uptake of limited resources, as opposed to other breeds that are programmed with herbicides and pesticides that can become obsolete in the face of natural resistance and superweeds.

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xxxiv Of course, each crop has different needs that depend on its environment. As such, many scientists are looking into developing drought-tolerant crops and other crops with improved resource utilization, such as increased nutrient uptake in areas with depleted soil. Arable land is diminishing as the global population increases in conjunction with climate change.

Another source of sustainable agriculture attempts to squelch natural impediments for crop development, but in a biodegradable manner. While many large-scale farms may use chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, there has been a recent push toward sustainable agriculture

by increasing renewable inputs and decreasing off-farm inputs. Sustainable agriculture may include, but is not limited to, organic fertilizer and manure - which are biodegradable; pest management rather than the use of pesticides; mulch and weeding, rather than using herbicides; matching crops to land type and specific region; enhancement with native genes to highlight and build upon its natural genes and abilities; and the general conservation of soil, water, and energy.

xxxv The implementation, however, of GMOs may negatively affect agricultural biodiversity. Producing massive amounts of the same crop may alter the food web and create an imbalance that may greatly increase or decrease certain species in the area. The identical genetic material of GMOs contradicts the natural biodiversity that occurs, even in crop fields, and may pose a risk to its survival, as a specific GMO plant or animal shares the same weaknesses to diseases and pests with the rest of the group. Furthermore, introducing a GMO into a new ecosystem or environment usually creates unfair competition with natural inhabitants for food, water and land. This competition often eliminates entire

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populations of natural plants and animals, which in turn negatively affects the food web.

In 1996, scientists discovered an Australian superweed, about ten times more resistant to glyphosate, a common herbicide used in many GMOs, than other weeds.xxxvi Similarly, in 2003, a species of caterpillar was found to be resistant to pest-resistant cotton crops.xxxvii This sudden resistance to herbicides and pest resistant GM crops will continue the cycle of the artificial refinement of crops. In 2011, the widespread use of GMOs affected Canadians, as scientists found toxins not only in the blood of pregnant women, but also in their fetuses. In 2012, an American farmer named Paul Francois successfully sued Monsanto for chemical poisoning from the pesticide called Lasso, used in the cultivation of GMOs.

Since this technology is so new, there is a problematic dearth of data and research on the long term environmental effects of growing GMO’s (upon the environment) and consuming GMO’s (upon humans and animals), and has thus been the subject of high controversy.

Human Health GMO crops and biotechnology have

greatly enhanced the quality of food products for humans and animals alike; however, we are not entirely sure of their safety, though almost all modified food products on the market have had years of positive feedback. From 1965 to 1990, the daily caloric intake has improved by 150% in several Asian countries due to the introduction of GM crops. Yield has increased significantly over the years, and has increased even in proportion to the amount of fertilizer added. Many crops have increased in size and started to flower earlier, so that more crops may be grown given the same time period and input resources. Many of these crops, needless to say, are more disease and pest resistant than their predecessors.

GMO crops may also be associated with debilitating human or animal health, but the lack of conclusive studies makes it difficult to be sure. The general consensus for the international community is that most GMOs are safe to consume and use within global health guidelines.

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Nonetheless, there have been numerous studies on the dangers of specific GMOs, such as Roundup Ready Soy, Monsanto’s Mon 863 Bt Corn, GM FlavrSavr Tomato, vegetable oil, and sugar.xxxviii Some health problems arise because gene insertion or the subsequently produced protein disrupts the DNA of consumers; in other cases, the artificial gene incorrectly creates a protein that actually hurts the consumer. GM crops may also increase environmental toxins and accumulate biotoxins in the food chain.xxxix Furthermore, the industrialized forms of agricultural production associated with many GMOs, such as artificial fertilizer, chemicals, and pest killers, may have immediate or long-term impacts on the health of the workers and people living near the fields, as well as neighboring animals, plants, and the environment. These unconfirmed potential dangers have stirred social unrest around the world, ranging from legislation to riots; this past August, there have been a number of violent protests in the Philippines, rioting against the cultivation of Golden Rice and Bt Eggplant.xl

The WHO's safety assessment of GMO's includes six parts: direct effect on health, with particular attention to toxicity; potential allergenicity; general change to nutrition; specific parts of the GMO that has changed nutritional or toxic value; the resistance to change or mutation of inserted genes; and any unforeseen changes.xli The WHO has listed some major areas of concern for human health regarding GMOS: allergenicity, gene transfer from the crop to human DNA, and outcrossing, in which conventional and GM crops mix and may actually produce crops that are dangerous to human health.xlii While the WHO

declares that all GMOs currently on the market have passed international regulations, the international community may benefit from revising and enhancing these regulations so that more GMOs on the market are guaranteed to have no adverse effects on humans and the environment.

Putting possible health effects aside, there still exists tremendous demand for food worldwide. There is still a very high demand for livestock that farmers cannot meet due to the resource-intensive nature of raising livestock. And on the other side, there are still developing regions at high risk for starvation, such as sub Saharan Africa. Overall, we must increase our agricultural output within our confined, fixed resources, especially since arable land and clean water are diminishing in quantity. Some specific areas to consider include transportation - at least 40% of crops are lost due to the long time it takes them to move from the farm to the marketplace; floods and droughts, which are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change; pests and diseases pose a problem not only by decreasing crop yield, but also by producing significant crop loss and pollution from the many synthetic pesticides and herbicides used; photosynthesis and other forms of intra-cellular molecular growth are not as efficient as they could be; and tragically, many local and regional diets are still nutritionally incomplete. Economic effects of producing GMOs

The omnipresence of GMOs in everyday life has also increased its controversy and instances of harmful consequences. There has been an evident shift to high intensity farming

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due to the high demand for food, and new inputs are required constantly, which require tremendous amounts of capital for new and continuing farmers. These days, many farmers use the soil simply as a location of growth and cultivation; the other required minerals and resources can be available in artificial fertilizer and other inputs, and some GM plants are genetically designed to capitalize on the scarce resources that may be found in the depleted soil. Due to the high maintenance of the cultivation of GMOs, many farmers fall into inescapable credit and loan cycles. As such, the gap between the rich and the poor increase, and crop failures cause automatic and catastrophic debt.

The entrance of GMOs into the global economy may boost local economies and international trade, but also hurt many in the agriculture business. GM farmers tend to produce more than non-GM farmers, given the same land, resources, and financial investment. As a result, competition stiffens for non GM farmers. GM food is often sold at lower prices because of the huge quantity produced per year; non-GM farmers may not be able to lower their prices. Therefore, more farmers are switching to producing GMOs, as it may not be economically feasible to stay in the local agricultural business

otherwise. On the other hand, GM farmers also face tremendous fees and economic pressure. GM crops and animals often require agricultural infrastructure, such as special chemicals, or even products from specific companies, such as name-brand fertilizers, pesticides, or food. Furthermore, intellectual property laws dictate that GM farmers must purchase their artificial seeds from the copyright holder every year, which often is very expensive. And if GM crops happen to mix with non GM crops, perhaps when insects pollinate two different fields or when the wind blows some seeds over to another field, local GM farmers may be sued by large multinational corporations due to the current state of copyright laws; this accidental mix of GM crops and natural crops may be called theft of genetic information. While yields may be higher than that of conventional farming, they are limited by the farming system’s resources, transportation, energy, and by bigger factors, such as the local and global market and other sociological or cultural factors.

The relationship between the developed and developing world may appear to be cooperative, but may be more manipulative than it appears. Since producing GMOs and biotechnology requires tremendous capital and money, large multinational private corporations

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tend to be involved in the majority of GMO development. Since these GMOs are constructed in a laboratory, they fall under intellectual property laws, which can cause controversy if wild crossbreeding occurs randomly. GMO labeling is still a topic of hot debate and confusion. There is no uniformity in definitions in the global market for labels and levels of perceived risk. For example, EU regulations are much harsher than that of the USA and the majority of the world. This reason stems from the EU’s precautionary principle, in which the EU assumes GMOs are a public danger until proven safe. As such, the EU will prohibit GMOs whose impact on health and environment is uncertain. The EU also believes that the consumer has the right to know the process of their food production and will prominently label GMOs as such. While transparency is generally good, it may deter uneducated people from purchasing safe foods simply because of its label. This transparency and caution is a prolonged effort to restore public confidence and trust in food safety after the Mad Cow Disease incident from the 1990s, a tragedy that had no relation to GMOs whatsoever.xliii On the other hand, the USA regulates the product rather than the process. The National Research Council has found no difference between most GMOs and their conventional twins since 1987 in annual reports.xliv Due to the discrepancy of definitions and criteria for GMOs and other food labels, one country may ban a food product that is considered healthy and safe in another country. This irregularity violates international trade agreements. Furthermore, many developing countries are creating stricter regulation laws and ban many nutritionally-enhanced or fast-growing GMOs that have had several years of successful

trials. Chairman of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board Ingo Potrykus argues that these poverty-stricken developing countries simply cannot afford to take the EU’s strict approach to GMOs, many of which are designed for specific regions to accommodate for geographic restrictions and nutritional shortcomings.xlv

Economically speaking, the laboratorial

research needed for GMO’s may increase global

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costs of growing GM crops and raising GM livestock. While the cost of production may rise for GMO’s, the increased prices may greatly improve rural economies of agricultural countries. A European Union moratorium actually projected an annual loss of $1.2 billion for the entire world due to the continued use of GMOs, comprised by a loss of $3.1 billion for the European Union and a gain of $1.9 billion for the rest of the world.xlvi In a 2002 GM crop cultivation economic study regarding a variety of popular crops in Ireland, the costs of growing conventional crops were always higher than that of GM crops, ranging from potatoes to wheat to more:xlvii xlviii xlix

This study took into account all fixed and variable costs needed for crop cultivation, such as seeds, fertilizer, herbicide, and machinery. The study did note the lack of inclusion of GM seed price due to the fluctuation of prices based on country, crop and variety. In fact, Margaret Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Food and Environment Program, said that GMO breeding programs are immensely expensive and may cost up to $100 million dollars to produce and perfect, as opposed to $1 million dollars for the conventionally bred variety.l As a result, GMO researchers and developers are often large private corporations, and sometimes work in collaboration with other charity or educational funds, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or the Ford Foundation. Economist Michael Duffy of Iowa State University reported that a specifically herbicide tolerant GM soybean caused cost thousands of farmers to actually lose money - about $0.02 per acre - after all factors were considered.li Dr. Charles Benbrook found that, from 1996 to 2001, American farmers paid a total of $692 million to buy and plant Bt corn and ended up losing about $92 million by raising a mere $1.31 per acre.lii It is difficult to say whether GMOs help or hurt the global or even local economy.

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The growing dependence of GM farmers

upon GM technology and research, which tends to come from research institutions from developed countries, may deepen the socioeconomic gap between the developed and developing worlds. Local and global food production may increase with the production of GMOs, along with efficient farming techniques and other scientific advances to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in rural villages and in the world. Nevertheless, using GMOs may make farming expensive and legally complicated.

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"#$%&'()!*)+%) The European Union has some of the strictest regulations on GMOs amongst all country blocs. All GMOs are subject to a case-by-case evaluation by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA); then, the European Commission decides to accept to reject this food product. If accepted, the proposal must pass through a Section of the GM Food and Feed of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, and then the European Council or the Council of Agricultural Ministers, where a majority vote is needed to ultimately accept the product. As of September 2013, the EU has authorized 49 GMOs.liii Authorization for the cultivation of GMOs is even more stringent, but in 2010, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovenia, and the Netherlands jointly requested sovereignty in allowing the cultivation of GMOs within individual countries.liv By March of 2010, Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic cultivated a GM potato called Amflora after it was approved within the EU.lv France was fined 10

million Euros in 2013 for implementing GMO cultivation laws six years late.lvi Germany is the other major opponent of GMOs in Europe, but smaller states include Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, and Luxembourg.lvii On the other hand, Spain is the largest proponent of GM crops in Europe, as roughly 20% of its maize production is GM; other smaller supporters include the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Romania, and Poland.lviii Its strict regulation laws have influenced public policies of developing countries, which is evident in a number of protests and riots in India and the Philippines. Asia and South Asia India and the Philippines are adamant opponents of the consumption and cultivation of GMOs. In late July 2013, the Indian Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee released a report recommending the indefinite stoppage of all GMO activity in India, especially those pertaining to Bt. The TEC claims to be both scientifically accurate and ethically on par, despite numerous trials confirming only mild skin rash in

Bloc Positions

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reaction to genetically implanted Bt toxin in crops.lix In August 2013, teenagers and young adults protested the cultivation of Golden Rice in the Philippines by destroying young crops. Local farmers were infuriated at their loss of capital, so it is clear that there is no singular stance in the Philippines.lx Similarly, China is experiencing a split in opinions toward GMOs, as one side associates GMOs with western power and influence on the global market, and the other welcomes international cooperation and trade.lxi South Korea, Japan, Pakistan, and other nations in the two regions share a skepticism toward GMOs that is both political and biological. The Americas The United States and Canada have been the forefront leaders in developing, testing and passing regulatory approval on GMOs.lxii Most of the large-scale corporations that produce these GMOs are based in North America. Similarly, Brazil and Mexico, the Latin American giants, have significant potential for biotechnology research, but fall behind the US and Canada in institutional infrastructure for global commercial success. Although most GM crops have been delivered through the private sector, the benefits of GMOs are widely shared between farmers, consumers and those in industry. As such, it appears that intellectual property law does not always reward industry disproportionately above farmers, nor does it seem to favor the industrial farmer to the local farmer.

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Questions to Consider !!

1 What are some of the most prominent GMOs created, grown, or consumed by your country? What are some of your country’s biggest trade partners regarding GMOs? Does your country seem to benefit or lose out on the GM trade?

2 What are some of the biggest GM controversies to your country? What are some priorities in regulations - health? Economy? Trade?

3 Should regulations focus on the process of agriculture and cultivation, or on the product itself? In

other words, how should GMO foods be labeled?

4 How can we increase cooperation between the developed world and the developing world to create a global system of equitable agriculture? How can developing regions have more access to GMO technology and education on GMO production?

5 How can we best conduct risk assessment, with regard to public perception?

6 How can we preserve agricultural diversity, given that large companies will encourage the

destruction of native flora and fauna for the expansion of local GM farms?

7 How should GM crops be sold internationally?

8 How do GMOs relate with water management?

9 What should be amended, if anything, about intellectual property law and GMO patents?

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Role of the Committee!

The General Assembly often calls for additional high-level plenary meetings during the annual

General Assembly meetings in the fall. These are commonly requested through GA resolutions during the previous year’s session. For example, this past September, high-level meetings were held on the issues of disability, the Millennium Development Goals, nuclear disarmament, and international migration and development. The role of these committees is to bring international focus to critical issues that need attention and support from the wider international community. These special summits are venues for creative brainstorming and profound examination of the core issues preventing global progress. This Special Summit on Food Security is no different: in this committee, delegates will thoroughly scrutinize the state of global food security and recommend the best ways to move forward with the subject. The committee is expected to use its position as a truly global organ, with representatives from each of the member states of the United Nations, to come up with ways in which the two topics on the agenda can be dealt with in terms of short- and long-term measures.

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Structure of the Committee

Unlike typical General Assembly committees, the Special Summit on Food Security has the opportunity to break barriers in its recommendations. This summit is an incredible chance to deal with an issue in its full scope without limitations. Every aspect and issue of food security has a chance to be debated over the course of the committee. Delegates should take this job seriously, being sure to focus the debate when necessary in order to enact specific recommendations and not allow the final resolutions to be marred with generalizations and vague policy proposals. All nations have the opportunity to participate in special summits at the United Nations, and the country composition of this committee will reflect that diversity of voices.

The summit will operate with the standard General Assembly rules, with a speakers list, moderated caucuses, un-moderated caucuses, working papers and draft resolutions. The goal of the committee is to produce draft resolutions that tackle specific issues of food security as decided by delegates. To submit your position papers and for all questions, please contact either member of the senior staff: Helder Toste (helder.toste@yale.edu) Sabina Lee (sabina.lee@yale.edu)

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Suggestions for Further Research! Topic I:

1. Review of World Water Resources by Country. Report from FAO, 2003. http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4473e/y4473e00.htm#Contents

2. Information on Food security statistics from the FAO. http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-fs/en/

3. Report on “Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate reduction of hunger and malnutrition”. From the FAO. http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/

4. CIA World Factbook. Useful for general information about your country. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

5. Database from The World Bank. Lots of useful statistics can be found here. http://data.worldbank.org/?display=map

6. World Drought Monitor from University College London.

http://drought.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/drought.html?map=%2Fwww%2Fdrought%2Fweb_pages%2Fdrought.map&program=%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmapserv&root=%2Fwww%2Fdrought2%2F&map_web_imagepath=%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_imageurl=%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_template=%2Fdrought.html

7. Latest articles from The Economist on drought

http://www.economist.com/topics/drought

8. Statistics from UN-Water, including the Key Water Indicator Panel. http://www.unwater.org/statistics.html

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Topic II:

1. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=9909&Cr=Health&Cr1=GMOs#.UisTgWQacVn

2. http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0111sp.htm

3. http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/home/

4. http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/gmos.pdf

5. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/abdc/documents/mediaQA.pdf 6. http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/GeneticEngineering/GeneticallyEngin

eeredAnimals/ucm113605.htm

7. http://www.goldenrice.org/PDFs/Nature_Opinion_Potrykus_2010.pdf

8. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/sunday-review/golden-rice-lifesaver.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

9. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=farming-a-toxin

10. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.single.html

11. http://irri.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=12438:the-state-of-play-genetically-modified-rice&lang=en

Please also make sure you are registered on the delegate forum, your advisors should provide you with a sign up ink. For the latest information, updates, topic guides and more, visit Yale Model United Nations online at: http://ymun.yira.org

For the second year, YMUN will be offering a competitive essay competition. For the rules and guidelines visit: http://ymun.yira.org/essay-contest/

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NOTES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i “Who we are” Food and Agriculture Organization, http://www.fao.org/about/who-we-are/en/ ii :Clean Water Act”. http://www.epa.gov/oecaerth/civil/cwa/. iii Florescano, Enrique “A forgotten story: Drought”. Nexus Publications. 1/08/1980 iv “Region in Drought: the thirsty Caribbean”. The Antillean. 3/6/2010 v Hickey, Hannah. “Pollution in Northern Hemisphere helped cause 1980’s African drought”. UW. 6/06/2013 vi “Drought Crisis in East Africa”. www.opusa.org. 8/05/2013 vii LianYou, Liu. “Drought in Asia and the Pacific.” www.unescap.org. 8/05/2013 viii Ibid. ix “Water Statistics- Water Use”. FAO and UN-Water Report. 2012 x “Water Resources”. World Water Development Report. United Nations. 2012. xi ibid. xii ibid. xiii “Groundwater”. World Water Development Report. United Nations. 2009. xiv “Groundwater”. Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. 2007. xv “Groundwater”. World Water Development Report. United Nations. 2012 xvi Chiew. F. “Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation”. Cooperative Research Center for Hydrology, Australia. xvii “Water Stress”, World Water Development Report. United Nations. 2012 xviii “Water Management”. World Water Development Report. United Nations. 2012 xix http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/ xx Ibid xxi http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7211/full/455290a.html xxii Ibid xxiii Ibid xxiv http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/gmos_india/history.html xxv http://gmoinside.org/news/gmo-timeline-a-history-genetically-modified-foods/ xxvi http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/493667/recombinant-DNA-technology xxvii http://www.rpi.edu/dept/chem-eng/Biotech-Environ/Projects00/rdna/rdna.html xxviii http://www.biofortified.org/2013/05/qa-with-haven-baker-innate-potatoes/ xxix http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/crops/ xxx http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/897705/genetically-modified-organism-GMO xxxi http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=farming-a-toxin xxxii http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/sunday-review/golden-rice-lifesaver.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 xxxiii Ibid xxxiv http://www.irri.org/ xxxv http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/food-and-soil.php xxxvi Ibid xxxvii Ibid xxxviii http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/65-health-risks/1notes xxxix Ibid

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!xl Ibid xli http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/ xlii Ibid xliii http://www.cfr.org/agricultural-policy/regulation-gmos-europe-united-states-case-study-contemporary-european-regulatory-politics/p8688 xliv http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php? record_id=10977 xlv http://www.goldenrice.org/PDFs/Nature_Opinion_Potrykus_2010.pdf xlvi http://arec.oregonstate.edu/jaeger/biotech/biotechFAQ11.html xlvii http://www.agbioforum.org/v7n4/v7n4a01-mullins.htm xlviii Ibid xlix Ibid l http://www.rodale.com/research-feed/genetically-modified-organisms-huge-price-tag-limited-benefits li http://www.infowars.com/economic-issues-surrounding-genetically-modified-foods/ lii Ibid liii http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biotechnology/index_en.htm liv http://uaces.org/documents/papers/1201/petetin.pdf lv http://www.gmo-safety.eu/science/potato/263.amflora-potato-industrial-applications-starch-potatoes-renewable-raw-material.html lvi http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/03/20/us-france-gmo-idUSL202805920070320 lvii http://www.euractiv.com/cap/germany-joins-ranks-anti-gmo-cou-news-221725 lviii http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/41/executivesummary/default.asp lix http://www.globalresearch.ca/gmos-and-the-destruction-of-indian-agriculture-government-in-collusion-with-the-biotech-conglomerates/5345664 lxhttp://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/26/golden_rice_attack_in_philippines_anti_gmo_activists_lie_about_protest_and.html lxi http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/09/03/its-china-vs-china-in-gmo-food-fight/ lxii http://www.fas.usda.gov/icd/stconf/event5/GTraxler.pdf