Tag Archive for: Food Sovereignty

Sustainable Incentives: How Not to Eat the Planet

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Author: Adolfo Brizzi | Published: November 16, 2016

More than seven billion people currently call our planet home, and their lives depend on finite resources. With both climate change impacts and populations on the rise, we need to understand how we can meet the growing food demand while simultaneously preserving the environment and building community resilience. Agriculture and the environment are often in competition, because one needs to use what the other needs to conserve. Building sustainable agriculture is therefore critical for our future, especially in view of climate change.

Agriculture is severely affected by climate change. It is estimated that by 2050, 22 per cent of cultivated areas will suffer impacts, agricultural production will shrink by 2 per cent every decade and rising ocean temperatures and acid levels will lead to declines in fish stocks. At the same time, demand for food will increase by 14 per cent and we will need twice as much dairy and meat products than were produced in 2000.

The 2.5 billion smallholder farmers around the world, who are predominantly poor, have been seen as both the victims and the culprits of climate change. Poverty can lead to people to act in self-defeating ways, for example farming in destructive ways that are unsustainable and contribute to climate change.

Farmers know that “eating the planet” in order to feed their families undermines the very sustainability of their production systems and their own food security in the future. But they continue to do so for three main reasons.

KEEP READING ON THE HUFFINGTON POST 

Declaración Latinoamericana en la Asamblea de los Pueblos en la Haya en el marco del Tribunal a Monsanto

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[ English | Español ]

Por: Naturaleza de Derechos | fecha:14th – 16th de octubre, 2016

Denunciamos:

Que el actual sistema extractivista en nuestros países está destruyendo nuestra diversidad biocultural, poniendo en riesgo la vida en la Tierra.

Considerando:

Que el agronegocio, como expresión del modelo extractivista, ha cambiado el eje de la agricultura suplantando la producción de alimentos por mercancías, y que las consecuencias directas para nuestros pueblos son el despojo de los territorios; la eliminación de los pueblos originarios y las comunidades campesinas; la concentración de la tierra; la deforestación de bosques nativos; la degradación irreversible del ambiente y la biodiversidad.

Que los actos de biopiratería sobre nuestro germplasma vulneran nuestra soberanía alimentaria, económica, política y cultural.

Que el poder político en su mayoría no esta cumpliendo con su misión de promover el bien común y proteger la vida, sometido al poder económico y a los intereses de las grandes transnacionales.

Declaramos:

Que asumimos nuestra propia defensa frente a los intereses del agronegocio y protegeremos nuestros pueblos y nuestros territorios. Para ello:

  • Exigimos a cada uno de nuestros Gobiernos que apoye el reconocimiento del Ecocidio como el quinto crimen contra la paz y la seguridad de la humanidad ante la Corte Penal Internacional.
  • Postulamos la construcción del principio de equiparación por el cual deben universalizarse los criterios de mayor beneficio y/o protección alcanzados sobre la salud y el ambiente en una región o continente.
  • Exhortamos el cumplimiento del principio de no regresión, ya que nuestros países están siendo sometidos a procesos legislativos de flexibilización de las normas de protección ambientales, que en la mayoría son el resultado de luchas populares.
  • Exigimos el cumplimiento del Principio de Solidaridad intergeneracional e Indubio Pro-natura: en caso de duda, a favor de la naturaleza
  • Sostenemos que la educación es un motor de transformación social al servicio de los pueblos y la naturaleza, y no una herramienta de dominación.
  • Instamos a los consumidores europeos a dejar de comprar carne, soja y otras materias primas latinoamericanas, cuya producción vulnera los Derechos Humanos.
  • Rechazamos los Tratados de Libre Comercio por someter las autonomías de los pueblos.
  • Defendemos las semillas criollas y nativas dado que son fuente de diversidad biológica y cultural, que inspiran la creación individual y colectiva en las comunidades y son fuentes de Vida. Reivindicamos el derecho de guardar, reproducir, multiplicar, intercambiar, donar, compartir y vender libremente las semillas.
  • Manifestamos nuestro compromiso con la defensa y la promoción de la agricultura campesina, especialmente con las prácticas agroecológicas.
  • Desconocemos los organismos genéticamente modificados e híbridos degenerativos como semillas, ya que no cumplen la función de generar y sostener la vida.
  • Nos solidarizamos con el pueblo haitiano, victima de una catástrofe climática producto del modelo económico.
  • Rechazamos el gobierno ilegítimo hetero, patriarcal, racista y saqueador de Brasil.
  • Refrendamos la firma de los acuerdos de Paz en Colombia entre el Gobierno y las FARC como una oportunidad de construcción de paz, estable, duradera y con justicia social. Respaldamos a quienes han vivido la guerra.
  • Rechazamos las políticas desestabilizadoras que amenazan la autonomía y la soberanía de Latinoamérica.

Herederos de las luchas liberadoras de la historia latinoamericana, confiamos en nuestra capacidad para recuperar la soberanía, y abrazamos fraternalmente la lucha emancipadora de los pueblos del mundo.

Latin American Declaration of the Peoples’ Assembly and the Monsanto Tribunal

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[ English | Español ]

Author: Naturaleza de Derechos | Published: October 14th – 16th, 2016

Traducción por: Equipo Regeneration International

We denounce:

That our countries’ current extractive systems are destroying biocultural diversity, putting life on Earth at risk.

Considering:

That agrobusiness, as an expression of the extractive model, has changed the key focus of agriculture by replacing the production of food with commodities. Therefore, the direct consequences for our people are: the dispossession of our lands; the elimination of indigenous peoples and peasant communities; land concentration; the deforestation of native forests; the irreversible degradation of the environment and biodiversity.

That acts of biopiracy over our germ-plasm harm our economic, political, cultural and food sovereignty.

That the majority of the political system remains controlled by economic factors and the interests of huge transnational companies and is therefore unable to fulfill its mission of promoting the common good and protecting life.

We declare:

That we will defend ourselves against agribusiness interests and that we will protect our people and our land. Therefore:

  • We demand each of our governments support the recognition of Ecocide as a fifth crime against peace and security of mankind before the International Criminal Court.
  • We propose the application of a principle of parity by universalizing best practices in health and environment protection standards across regions or continents.
  • We exhort the application of a non-regression principle, as our countries have been subject to legislative processes that have undermined the environmental protection norms fought for and established through grassroots movements.
  • We demand the application of the Intergenerational Solidarity principle and Indubio Pro-natura: if in doubt, nature should take precedence.
  • We maintain that education is a force for societal transformational at the service of the people and nature and not a tool of domination.
  • We urge European consumers to stop buying meat, soy and other Latin American commodities whose production violates Human Rights.
  • We reject Free Trade Agreements as suppressing the autonomy of the people.
  • We defend heritage and native seeds as sources of biological and cultural diversity that inspire both individual and collective creation within communities and are the very essence of life. We claim the right to save, reproduce, multiply, trade, donate, share and freely sell seeds.
  • We declare our promise to defend and promote peasant agriculture, especially agroecological practices.
  • We reject categorizing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and degenerative hybrids as seeds, as they do not comply with the function of generating and sustaining life.
  • We express our solidarity with the Haitian people, victims of a climate catastrophe produced by the current economic model.
  • We reject the illegitimate, patriarchal, racist and plundering government of
  • We endorse the signing of a Colombian Peace Agreement between the government and the FARC as an opportunity for constructing stable, socially just and lasting peace. We support those that have survived the war.
  • We reject the destabilizing policies that threaten the autonomy and sovereignty of Latin America.

We are heirs of Latin America’s history of liberation movements, we trust our ability to recover our sovereignty, and we fraternally embrace the emancipating struggles of peoples around the world.

Four Areas of Agriculture That Can Help Solve Many Environmental Problems and Improve Human Health

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Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola | Published on: September 10, 2016

Agriculture has a significant impact on life on Earth. It provides food, sure, but it’s also an integral part of the ecosystem as a whole. Done correctly, it supports and nourishes all life.

When abused — as it’s been done since the “green revolution” in the 1930s — agriculture contaminates and destroys soil, air and water, reducing biodiversity and threatening wildlife and humans alike, thanks to toxic chemicals and destructive farming methods.

The featured short film, “Unbroken Ground,” explores four areas of agriculture, featuring pioneers in each field, that can help solve many of the environmental crises’ currently facing us:

Reinventing Food

As noted in the film, there’s a growing movement toward more sustainable agriculture; a shift so great that it’s almost like we’re reinventing the food system all over again.

However, rather than focusing on more and newer technologies, this shift involves a return to basics — a going backward, if you will — which is really the only way to make progress at this point.

Continuing to destroy the soil, air and water we need to sustain life simply isn’t a viable option anymore. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard says:

“I’ve always thought of my company, Patagonia, a clothing company, as an experiment; making decisions based on quality and responsibility. And I can tell you, it’s not an experiment anymore.

I’ve proven to myself, it works! Applying that to food — this is another experiment. But I think it’s the most important experiment we’ve ever tried.”

The Land Institute — Regenerative Farming

According to Wes Jackson, Ph.D., founder of the Land Institute, grains account for about 70 percent of our daily calories, and grains are grown on about 70 percent of acreage worldwide.

The continuous replanting of grain crops each year leads to soil degradation, as land is tilled and sprayed each year, disrupting the balance of microbes in the soil. Top soil is also lost each year, which means that eventually, our current modes of operation simply will no longer work.

We will not have any usable topsoil left, and this may actually occur far sooner than most people realize. Soil erosion and degradation rates suggest we have less than 60 remaining years of topsoil.1

Forty percent of the world’s agricultural soil is now classified as either degraded or seriously degraded; the latter means that 70 percent of the topsoil is gone.

Agriculture also accounts for 70 percent of our fresh water use. When the soil is unfit, water is wasted. It simply washes right through the soil and past the plant’s root system.

We already have a global water shortage that’s projected to worsen over the coming two or three decades, so this is the last thing we need to compound it.

Soil degradation is projected to cause 30 percent loss in food production over the next 20 to 50 years. Meanwhile, our global food demands are expected to increase by 50 percent over this span of time.

“Regenerative agriculture actually BUILDS topsoil,” Chouinard says. “Wes is doing the most important thing in agriculture in the last 10,000 years.”

KEEP READING ON MERCOLA.COM

5 Reasons Why Biodiversity is a Big Deal

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Author: Russell McLendon

“Biodiversity as a whole forms a shield protecting each of the species that together compose it, ourselves included.” — E.O. Wilson, “Half-Earth”

Earth is teeming with life, from huge blue whales and redwoods to tiny bacteria, archaea and fungi. It’s not just the only planet known to host any life at all; it has so many species in so many places we still aren’t even sure how many there are.

We do know, however, that Earth is losing species unusually quickly at the moment. We’re seeing a mass extinction event, something that’s happened at least five times before on Earth, albeit never in human history — and never with human help.

Extinction is part of evolution, but not like this. Species are vanishing more quickly than any human has ever seen; the extinction rate for vertebrate animals is now 114 times higher than the historical background rate. Humans are driving this in several ways, from poaching to pollution, but the No. 1 factor is habitat loss.

This is raising deep concerns about our planet’s biodiversity, which, as biologist E.O. Wilson has pointed out, is like an ecological shield for us and other species. In fact, according to a new study, biodiversity loss has crossed the “safe” threshold in most of the world, leaving many ecosystems in danger of collapse.

KEEP READING ON MOTHER NATURE NETWORK

Anna Swaraj

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Mahatma Gandhi’s spinning wheel and Gandhi’s ghani (the indigenous cold press oil mill) are both symbols of swadeshi as economic freedom and economic democracy.

Gandhi inspired everyone in India to start spinning their own cloth in order to break free from the imperial control over the textile industry, which enslaved our farmers to grow cotton and indigo for the mills of Lancashire and Manchester, and dumped industrial clothing on India, destroying the livelihoods of our spinners and weavers. The spinning wheel and khadi became our symbols of freedom.

Gandhi promoted the ghani to create employment for the farmer and processor and to produce healthy, safe and nutritious edible oils for society. What the spinning wheel is to “kapda”, the economy of clothing and textiles, the “ghani” is to “roti”, the economy of food.

Fresh, local and artisanally processed food without chemical additives and industrial processing is recognised as the healthiest alternative. That is why until the 1990s, food processing was reserved for the small-scale and cottage industry sector. The World Trade Organisation rules changed our food and agriculture systems dramatically.

Today we are living in food imperialism. We have become a sick nation due to the rapid spread of industrially processed food and junk food, which are destroying our healthy food traditions.

Keep Reading on Asia Age

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Fixing Food: Fresh Solutions from Five U.S. Cities (2016)

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The nation’s cities are at the frontlines of a food system that sickens and impoverishes millions of Americans every year. Local communities where people live, shop, work, and receive healthcare bear the brunt of this system’s unhealthy, unjust outcomes, which disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income Americans.

In response, many local governments and community leaders are launching innovative efforts to make healthy food more available and affordable. Fixing Food presents case studies of programs from five U.S. cities that are helping residents grow and sell healthy food, training the next generation of farmers, and bringing healthy food to places where people gather.

The case studies

We reviewed hundreds of initiatives taking place in hundreds of U.S. cities, ultimately choosing five local efforts that show how healthy food access problems can be addressed at multiple points in the food system—by facilitating local production, creating new distribution channels, or making it easier for consumers to overcome time and transportation hurdles.

The five cities chosen—Oakland, Memphis, Louisville, Baltimore, and Minneapolis—all have populations between 400,000 and 700,000, and in all of them, the percentage of residents living below the federal poverty line is higher than the national average.

We hope these case studies may provide models that other local communities can learn from and adapt to their own unique challenges and needs. But they also demonstrate the need for comprehensive national food policy reform.

Keep Reading on the Union of Concerned Scientists

Michael Pollan: What You Should Eat to Be Healthy

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Author: Cole Mellino

A new documentary from Kikim Media based on Michael Pollan’s bestselling book, In Defense of Food, helps consumers navigate a food system complicated by globalization and industrialization.

“I’ve been writing about the food system for a very long time,” Pollan said in the trailer for the new film. “But what I kept hearing from readers was ‘yeah yeah yeah, you told me where the food comes from and how the animals live and everything, but what I want to know is what should I eat.’”

In the film, Pollan attempts to answer that very question: What should I eat to be healthy? He addresses what he has called the “American paradox: the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.”

We’re consuming “edible food-like substances” rather than actual food, Pollan said. By actual food, he means the food people ate for thousands of years before we became dependent on processed foods.

“You don’t have to be a scientist to know how to eat,” said Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University. “Just go around the outside of the supermarket and pick up fruits, vegetables and meat, and stay out of the processed foods, because they’re fun to eat once in a while, but they shouldn’t be daily fare.”

Keep Reading on Alternet

The Potential for Regenerative Agriculture in the Developing World

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Authors: Charles A. Francisa, Richard R. Harwooda and James F. Parra

Abstract

Increased food production and greater income for farm families are primary goals of agricultural development in the Third World. Most strategies to achieve these goals are unrealistic in assuming that limited resource farmers can move out of basic food production in multiple cropping systems to high-technology monocropping for export. These strategies are based on petroleum-based inputs that demand scarce foreign exchange. They may include excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which adds unnecessary production costs, endangers the farm family, and degrades the rural environment. Dependence on export crops and world markets is economically tenuous, especially for the small farmer. Future agricultural production systems can be designed to take better advantage of production resources found on the farm. Enhanced nitrogen fixation, greater total organic matter production, integrated pest management, genetic tolerance to pests and to stress conditions, and higher levels of biological activity all contribute to resource use efficiency. Appropriate information and management skills substituted for expensive inputs can further improve resource use efficiency. On the whole farm level, appropriate cropping on each field can be integrated with animal enterprises, leading to a highly structured and efficient system. Such systems can serve the needs of national agricultural sector planners, who in many countries are concerned with increased self-reliance in farming inputs and in production of basic food commodities. This includes a realistic focus on training of local development specialists, increased research on food crops under limited resource conditions, and providing information, incentives, and appropriate technologies for operators of both large and small farms. Well-conceived national plans include varied food production strategies and options for farmers with different resource levels.

Download the Report from the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture

What Do We Really Know About the Number and Distribution of Farms and Family Farms in the World?

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Authors: Sarah K. Lowder, Jakob Skoet and Saumya Singh

Abstract

The agricultural economics literature provides various estimates of the number of farms and small farms in the world. This paper is an effort to provide a more complete and up to date as well as carefully documented estimate of the total number of farms in the world, as well as by region and level of income. It uses data from numerous rounds of the World Census of Agriculture, the only dataset available which allows the user to gain a complete picture of the total number of farms globally and at the country level. The paper provides estimates of the number of family farms, the number of farms by size as well as the distibution of farmland by farm size. These estimates find that: there are at least 570 million farms worldwide, of which more than 500 million can be considered family farms. Most of the world’s farms are very small, with more than 475 million farms being less than 2 hectares in size. Although the vast majority of the world’s farms are smaller than 2 hectares, they operate only a small share of the world’s farmland. Farmland distribution would seem quite unequal at the global level, but it is less so in low- and lower-middle-income countries as well as in some regional groups. These estimates have serious limitations and the collection of more up-to-date agricultural census data, including data on farmland distribution is essential to our having a more representative picture of the number of farms, the number of family farms and farm size as well as farmland distribution worldwide.

Download the Report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations