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sandeep dikhit
New Delhi, February 23
India plans to join the controversial UAE-US-led coalition AIM4C, which promotes energy-intensive agriculture and is already facing opposition in Africa for increasing greenhouse gas emissions and for agribusiness interests overriding the voices of local farmers and communities.
On the sidelines of the I2U2 (India, Israel, United States and UAE) Business Forum in Abu Dhabi, Senior Diplomat Dammu Ravi signed a letter expressing the Indian Government’s intention to join the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C).
Lucrative agribusiness accounts for about a third of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and industrialized food production, championed by AIM4C, is more energy-intensive and nearly a third of food system emissions, according to a report in Nature From energy-related activities.
According to Anna Maine of the Kenya Association for Biodiversity and Biosafety, more than two-thirds of AIM4C’s 300 partners are based in the US or Europe, and only 7% are in Africa. “The focus on agricultural technology is often dependent on the profits of multinational corporations and is unsustainable,” she said, proposing viable alternatives for resilient farming in partnership with nature.
AIM4C claims to support “climate-smart agriculture and food system innovation”, but its alliance with high-profile polluters such as PepsiCo and meat producer JBS demonstrates its reliance on carbon-intensive production methods.
Launched in November 2021, the AIM4C program has already invested more than $8 billion globally. “With today’s announcement, India joins more than 275 partners, including 42 governments, who are working together to advance AIM4C’s mission,” said a US government press release.
Ben Williamson and Allie Molinaro of World Farming point out that AIM4C was launched without public input, allowing only government involvement to increase public investment in agricultural innovation, non-government entities to increase self-financed agricultural R&D, and already supported private Object of entity AIM4C. “These barriers to entry exclude small farmers, indigenous peoples and other groups disproportionately affected by factory farming,” they said, noting that the AIM4C initiative supports industry and private research rather than local solutions.
“By focusing on potentially costly solutions that require significant overhead and initial investment, AIM4C enables businesses to use government funding to develop expensive products and pass them on to producers for profit, furthering local economic development and bringing Ecosystems pushed to the brink with little climate benefit,” they said.
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