We all need it. Food and water. Sad to say that in this so-called enlightened age we still have large numbers of people around the world starving and deprived of clean water.
Today is World Food Day. But, are we really tackling the availability of food and who is growing it? No!
"Today, World Food Day, we are confronted with the failure of our global food system: 805 million people are going hungry while obesity affects over 2 billion of us.
The hungry are mostly the rural poor living in developing countries, predominantly peasants and other small-scale food producers, from Africa, Asia Nearly one of every nine people go to bed hungry every night....
The solution to global hunger is within our grasp, but it requires a fundamental reform of the global food system: a wholesale shift from industrial farming to agroecology and food sovereignty."
Adolfo knows from first hand experience that agricultural diversity and saving traditional seeds are essential to the livelihoods of small scale food producers, who, in turn, play a vital role in feeding local people.
Governments around the world have sidelined small-scale food producers for decades, pushing millions of them into hunger. Yet, even today, most of the world’s food is still grown by them, using traditional seed varieties and without the use of industrial inputs.
In Africa, peasants grow almost all locally consumed food. In Latin America, 60 per cent of farming, including meat, comes from small-scale family farms. In Asia, the global rice powerhouse, almost all rice is grown on farms of less than 2 hectares.
Yet industrial farming - based on monocultures, hybrid seeds, and chemical pesticides and fertilizers - is still promoted heavily by agribusinesses and some governments as the best way to provide food for the planet.
Yet, evidence shows that industrial farming is destroying the resources we rely on to produce our food. Desertification of soils, a diminishing genetic pool, and dead-sea zones from fertilizer runoff are just some of the effects of industrial farming. Climate change is another huge challenge that could bring down agricultural productivity significantly by 2050, especially in developing countries. Ironically, industrial farming is itself a major contributor to climate change because of its reliance on fossil fuels and fertilizers.
Despite this, backers of industrial agriculture point to our growing population and the need to produce more food as a justification for ignoring its real environmental consequences."
Today is World Food Day. But, are we really tackling the availability of food and who is growing it? No!
"Today, World Food Day, we are confronted with the failure of our global food system: 805 million people are going hungry while obesity affects over 2 billion of us.
The hungry are mostly the rural poor living in developing countries, predominantly peasants and other small-scale food producers, from Africa, Asia Nearly one of every nine people go to bed hungry every night....
The solution to global hunger is within our grasp, but it requires a fundamental reform of the global food system: a wholesale shift from industrial farming to agroecology and food sovereignty."
Adolfo knows from first hand experience that agricultural diversity and saving traditional seeds are essential to the livelihoods of small scale food producers, who, in turn, play a vital role in feeding local people.
Governments around the world have sidelined small-scale food producers for decades, pushing millions of them into hunger. Yet, even today, most of the world’s food is still grown by them, using traditional seed varieties and without the use of industrial inputs.
In Africa, peasants grow almost all locally consumed food. In Latin America, 60 per cent of farming, including meat, comes from small-scale family farms. In Asia, the global rice powerhouse, almost all rice is grown on farms of less than 2 hectares.
Yet industrial farming - based on monocultures, hybrid seeds, and chemical pesticides and fertilizers - is still promoted heavily by agribusinesses and some governments as the best way to provide food for the planet.
Yet, evidence shows that industrial farming is destroying the resources we rely on to produce our food. Desertification of soils, a diminishing genetic pool, and dead-sea zones from fertilizer runoff are just some of the effects of industrial farming. Climate change is another huge challenge that could bring down agricultural productivity significantly by 2050, especially in developing countries. Ironically, industrial farming is itself a major contributor to climate change because of its reliance on fossil fuels and fertilizers.
Despite this, backers of industrial agriculture point to our growing population and the need to produce more food as a justification for ignoring its real environmental consequences."
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