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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] To Fight Global Warming and Prevent Hunger, We Need to Change How We Grow Our Food
  • Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:24:02 -0700


To Fight Global Warming and Prevent Hunger, We Need to Change How We Grow Our
Food
By Yifat Susskind, MADRE. Posted December 15, 2009.
Unless we control global climate change, caused in part by industrial
farming, agricultural output across the world is likely to plummet.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/144586/to_fight_global_warming_and_prevent_hunger%2C_we_need_to_change_how_we_grow_our_food/?page=entire

We tend to think of cars as the main culprits in climate change. But
industrial agriculture, with its fossil-fuel-based fertilizers and
pesticides, monoculture plantations, fuel-guzzling global transport system,
and clear-cutting of carbon-absorbing forests is the source of as much as
half of the world's carbon emissions.

Moreover, the way we grow our food is now threatening our ability to produce
enough food to feed the world. Unless we control global climate change,
caused in part by industrial farming, agricultural output across the world is
likely to plummet.

In Latin America, climate change may bring a 25 percent drop in crop yields
within two generations; in Sudan that number is a frightening 50 percent.

Isn't Industrial Agriculture Necessary to Feed the World Population?

* Big agribusiness says its goal is to "feed a growing world." But its
actions prioritize profit over even the basic right to food.
* Industrial agriculture is actually a cause of world hunger. It has made
farmers dependent on expensive inputs like pesticides, chemical fertilizers
and genetically modified seeds.
* Millions of formerly self-reliant farming families have been driven off
their land, unable to compete as the world's farmland is consolidated into
fewer and fewer hands.
* Export agriculture uses huge inputs of petroleum to fuel its massive
global transportation infrastructure and often requires farmers to grow
non-food crops like coffee and tea.
* Small, diverse farms actually grow more food per unit area than large
single-crop plantations. But industrial agriculture is more profitable per
unit area, which is why we often hear that large farms are "more efficient."

Are High-Tech Solutions the Answer to Climate Change?

* Many corporations, foundations and governments are promoting synthetic
fertilizers, genetically modified (GM) organisms and hybrid plants and seeds
as solutions to world hunger.
* Yet, the overuse of fertilizers and chemicals is degrading the quality
of soils and contaminating ecosystems globally, making it harder to grow
enough food.
* The claim that GM crops generate higher yields has been debunked.
* GM crops disrupt farmers' traditional practice of saving and trading
seeds. Farmers who once bred seeds are turned into a captive market for
biotech companies.
* Finally, "high-tech" solutions do nothing to address the real causes of
hunger, which are political and economic factors such as poverty, inequality
and poor access to land, food and markets.

Why are Smallholder Farmers Important for Climate Change Adaptation?

* These farmers use far less energy and rely on methods that actually
cool the planet by putting carbon back into the soil.
* According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
"small-scale sustainable farms have been found to emit between one-half and
two-thirds less carbon dioxide for every acre of production" than industrial
farms.

Why Are These "Women's Issues?"

* The majority of smallholder farmers are women who grow as much as 80
percent of the world's food.
* Women have expertise in small-scale agriculture, preservation of
biodiversity, water collection, seed banking and more. These are the very
methods that international institutions now recognize as the basis for a
sustainable response to climate change.
* Because of poverty and gender discrimination, farmers are denied a
meaningful say in policies that affect them. Moreover, sustainable farming is
being threatened by industrial agricultural policies that undermine the
health of the planet and all of us who live on it.

What Methods Will Help Smallholder Farmers Adapt To Climate Change?

* Forgoing expensive and toxic fertilizers and pesticides in favor of
organic methods of enhancing soil and controlling pests.
* Improving ways to conserve and manage water.
* Growing diverse crops and integrating crop and livestock management
* Developing seeds that can adapt to drought and other impacts of climate
change
* Strengthening community self-reliance through seed banks and farmers'
associations
* Building political momentum for small farmers--especially women--to
play a meaningful role in policy-making.

What Policies Would Support Such Practices?

Those that defend rural communities who have historically maintained the
world's ecosystems--and the climate. We need policies that:

* Guarantee women small-scale farmers access to land, seeds, water,
credit and other inputs and ensure that national legal frameworks uphold
women's property rights.
* End the privatization and monopolization of seeds by a handful of
corporations.
* Recognize food as first and foremost a human right and only secondarily
a tradable commodity.
* Support a process to establish an international Convention to implement
the concept of food sovereignty, whereby communities control their own food
systems.
* Respect the right of small farmers to save and exchange seeds between
communities and internationally, without penalties from agribusiness
corporations.
* Convert national agricultural subsidies from support for agribusiness
to incentives for sustainable farming.

What's the Bottom Line?

Sustainable farming is our best bet for feeding a growing world population
and restoring the health of the planet and the stability of the climate.
That's the conclusion of a 2008 United Nations report on Africa that found
that organic methods produced more food and improve soil, water, biodiversity
and carbon sequestration.

Worldwide, the vast majority of small-scale, sustainable farmers are women.
Securing the full range of their human rights -- as women, as workers, and as
rural and Indigenous Peoples -- is key to empowering them to enact solutions
on which so much depends.







  • [Livingontheland] To Fight Global Warming and Prevent Hunger, We Need to Change How We Grow Our Food, Tradingpost, 12/15/2009

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