Recommendation drafting: Fertile Farmland Protection

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Description: The World Assembly,

NOTING that most -- if not all -- WA States rely heavily on professional farmers to grow crops through agricultural means, and deeming it necessary for agriculture to remain intact having realized the benefits to the farmers, the economy, and international trade, but

REALIZING that when the same crop is planted in the same field too frequently, it rapidly depletes necessary nutrients from the soil, causing the soil to become infertile and unable to continue to produce enough crops to benefit anyone,

RELUCTANTLY AWARE that whenever a fertile field is destroyed by any means, a portion of similarly sized area of forest must be deforested in order to replace that field,

BELIEVING it is necessary for fertile farmland to be protected, this resolution hereby:

1. DEFINES a "professional farmer" as a person who is a farmer, planter, or gardener by profession, and farms at least one acre of farmland,

2. RESTRICTS professional farmers from planting the same crop in the same field in back-to-back growing seasons so that fertile farmland might be preserved,

3. ADVISES professional farmers to alternate crops so that a perfectly good field does not go unused,

4. ESTABLISHES the World Assembly Agricultural Association (WAAA) to oversee a agricultural communities and enforce the given guidelines, and

5. STRONGLY ENCOURAGES the World Assembly Forest Commission (WAFC) to consider creating restrictions on the number of acres that can be deforested for agricultural purposes in a given area.

There is a chance this may be pulled from the queue, but I am starting the recommendation thread just in case.

The GHR that was filed is wrong, so this will very likely go to vote. Here's my recommendation:

It's a shame this resolution didn't spend more time cooking because its goal is actually something that most reasonable nations can support. At its core, this resolution seeks to address sustainable agriculture, yet it's too narrow in focus and simplistic in content to achieve anything worthwhile. In order to prevent soil erosion, it mandates a style of crop rotation taken straight out of a "Farming for Dummies" book. Which is not to say that crop rotation isn't an effective strategy, but it should be a small part of a more comprehensive resolution on sustainable agriculture. Mandating crop rotation as a solution to soil depletion is a very poor, uninformed solution to a very complicated problem.

Is a resolution on sustainable agriculture worthwhile? Absolutely. It's probably one of the most important issues yet to be addressed by the World Assembly. But this is a very weak draft that hardly touches the issue, let alone addresses it with an appropriate level of depth. As such, the ministry recommends a vote AGAINST.

Thanks Scion. I largely agree with your assessment. The proposal appears to have been rushed to submission. Some of the definitions are problematic, it does not actually do much, and the few things it mandates are not necessarily sound policies.

I am not sure I agree with the latest part of your assessment, about whether a resolution on sustainable agriculture is worthwhile. It is an important issue, but it is an area where it is easy to overreach and where nations should maintain a high degree of liberty to act as they want. I could possibly support a resolution on this area, but it would need to be of appropriate scope.

I am currently sending out the IFV for the SC resolution. I will queue an IFV for this one immediately afterwards, using your recommendation but with the last part slightly edited.