New form of agriculture: More pesticides do not help anyone

“The food system is responsible for about thirty percent of emissions of greenhouse gases and is one of the main contributors to species extinction.

 

Indian author and activist Vandana Shiva is one of the most radical voices calling for a transformation of agriculture and the food system. For decades she has been criticizing large-scale agribusiness, which she accuses of plundering the planet with chemicals and genetic engineering, endangering people's health and undermining sustainable cultivation methods. 

Shiva's answer to the challenges is agroecology, the principle of which is to transform the agricultural and food system holistically and according to ecological principles.

The question of pollination

As a social movement, agroecology goes further than organic farming by trying to involve farmers, processors and consumers in decision-making processes and by relying on so-called food sovereignty - the right of all peoples and countries to define their own agricultural and food policies.

One observation made by Shiva is correct in this regard: although the trend worldwide has been towards ever larger farms for decades, data has long shown that this does not necessarily translate into greater productivity. In many parts of the world, small farmers produce more per acre than large farms. New studies confirm this and also show that smallholders preserve more biological diversity than in large-scale, industrialized agriculture.

This data also shows that small farmers generate more than thirty percent of the food supply from twenty-four percent of the agricultural land. This is a far cry from the claimed seventy percent, but nonetheless shows that small family farms make an important contribution to food safety and are less destructive to biodiversity.

Vandana Shiva: „Wer ernährt die Welt wirklich?“ Das Versagen der Agrarindustrie und die notwendige Wende zur Agrarökologie. Aus dem Englischen von Andreas Lentz. Neue Erde Verlag, Saarbrücken 2021. 256 S., br., 18,– €.”

 

China, the second largest economy in the world, uses the principle of food sovereignty. The Chinese government does not allow farmers to use patented, genetically modified seeds sold by Western companies. This way China is going to maintain food security in the country.