Today’s global food systems (production, processing, distribution and consumption) have an enormous climate impact and account for almost a quarter of total CO2 emissions. In order to solve the climate problem, we must change our food system. (read more in the IPCC report of August 2019, chapter 5, Swedish)
Today’s unsustainable food systems are a consequence of international and national policies in several areas. It is a strongly globalized food system that favors large-scale industrial agriculture, where a single – usually resource-intensive and poorly adapted – crop is grown and where fertilizers, irrigation and chemical pesticides are widely used. The system leads to the concentration of power in a few transnational companies that gain control over the entire food chain, from soil to table.
We have a system that leads to negative climate impact, deforestation, large emissions, reduced biodiversity and extensive death of pollinators. Structures embedded in production and trade models also lead to increased injustice, less equality and violation of human rights. We must address these structural problems and systematic inequalities. We must create democratic control over land and territory, seeds and other natural resources to overcome the food system’s threat to the climate, nature and all living things in it.
The problem is in the food
… but it’s also the solution!
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The good food
Future Earth strengthens sustainable initiatives to use the earth’s resources. Our members in South Asia and Latin America show the way forward through agroecology.
Agroecology is a way of cultivating, planning and operating agriculture based on local conditions, ecological thinking and biodiversity (species richness in both wild and cultivated species).
Agroecological agriculture counteracts climate change while creating better conditions for climate adaptation and resilience. The agroecological model organizes agriculture, management and distribution with a strong rights perspective. A sustainable food system should focus on the central role of small-scale producers. In order to combat climate change, marginalization and poverty, preservation of cultures and biodiversity, it is crucial to secure smallholder farmers, women and indigenous peoples access to land and forest.
Future Earth wishes the whole world population a really good meal!
Climate strike in Ladakh. Julia Bergmann intern at LEDeG demonstrates in Leh.