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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Mitigating Climate Change through Organic Agriculture and Localized Food Systems
  • Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:40:34 -0700


ISIS Press Release 31/1/08

Mitigating Climate Change through Organic Agriculture and Localized Food
Systems (revised version)
***********************************

Organic, sustainable agriculture that localize food systems
has the potential to mitigate nearly thirty percent of
global greenhouse gas emissions and save one-sixth of global
energy use. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Lim Li Ching


Modern industrial agriculture of the “Green Revolution”
contributes a great deal to climate change. It is the main
source of the potent greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and
methane; it is heavily dependent on the use of fossil fuels,
and contributes to the loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere
[1] (Feeding the World under Climate Change, SiS 24),
especially through deforestation to make more land available
for crops and plantations. Deforestation is predicted to
accelerate as bio-energy crops are competing for land with
food crops [2] (Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False
Carbon Credits, SiS 33). But what makes our food system
really unsustainable is the predominance of the globalised
commodity trade that has resulted in the integration of the
food supply chain and its concentration in the hands of a
few transnational corporations. This greatly increases the
carbon footprint and energy intensity of our food
consumption, and at tremendous social and other
environmental costs. A UK government report on food miles
estimated the direct social, environmental, and economic
costs of food transport at over £9 billion each year, which
is 34 percent of the £26.2 billion food and drinks market in
the UK [3] (Food Miles and Sustainability, SiS 28).

Consequently, there is much scope for mitigating climate
change and reversing the damages through making agriculture
and the food system as a whole sustainable, and this is
corroborated by substantial scientific and empirical
evidence (see below). It is therefore rather astonishing
that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should
fail to mention organic agriculture as a means of mitigating
climate change in its latest 2007 report [4]; nor does it
mention localising food systems and reducing long distance
food transport [5].

Read the rest of this article here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/mitigatingClimateChange.php

Or read other articles about sustainable agriculture here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/susag.php





  • [Livingontheland] Mitigating Climate Change through Organic Agriculture and Localized Food Systems, Tradingpost, 01/31/2008

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