Who Really Feeds the World?

Agroecology versus Agribusiness – Who Really Feeds the World?

In this reckoning by scientist and activist Vandana Shiva, it is compellingly demonstrated how large-scale agribusiness plunders the planet with chemicals and genetic engineering, destroys our living environment, and undermines our health.

And she shows, with an abundance of facts and expertise, who truly secures our food supply and how we can defeat hunger and restore our food security.

On the one hand, only 30% of the food consumed by people comes from large industrial operations, while 70% comes from small, biologically diverse farms. On the other hand, 75% of the ecological destruction of our soil, water, and biodiversity is caused by industrial farming methods. And 40% of the climate devastation we are experiencing today is attributable to globalised industrial agriculture.

This means: Industrial agriculture will have destroyed 100% of our ecological foundations before it is even able to supply 40% of our food. This is a recipe for our extinction, not for feeding the world.

Organic cultivation in farms and gardens must become a planetary mission everywhere. We must innovate towards a food and agricultural system that regenerates the earth, our communities, our cities, and our health. That is agroecology.

Agribusiness requires 10 units of energy to produce 1 unit of food energy. Agroecology requires 1 unit of energy to produce 10 units of food energy. Is there still any question about what is economical?

Feeding the world's population raises some of the most fundamental questions of our time. The question of food becomes an ethical question about our relationship to the earth and to other species; about whether we have the right to exterminate other species or to deny safe, healthy, and nutritious food to large portions of the human family.It becomes a question of whether humanity will live as members of the Earth community or condemn itself to extinction by destroying the ecological foundations of agriculture. It becomes a cultural question: about our eating habits, our identity, and our sense of home and rootedness.

The feeding of humanity is a question of knowledge: Do we wish to continue cultivating a destructive, reductionist, mechanistic paradigm and view seeds and soil as dead matter and mere machines that can be manipulated and poisoned? Or do we want to regard seeds and soil as living, self-organizing, self-renewing systems,that can nourish us without the use of chemicals and poisons?

The following title has just been published by Neue Erde Verlag, Saarbrücken, and is now available in bookstores:

Vandana Shiva Who Really Feedsthe World? – The Failure of Agribusiness and the Necessary Shift to Agroecology – Paperback, 256 pages – ISBN 978-3-89060-798-6

In this book, renowned author and scientist Dr. Vandana Shiva demonstrates that a biological, regenerative, and long-term sustainable agriculture is both possible and necessary, illuminating the subject from an international perspective, with regard to the global situation and a globalized agribusiness that has undoubtedly already left its mark on our planet.

The book is a radical, expertly grounded, and passionate manifesto for agroecology and a valuable compendium for all advocates and defenders of a healthy, organic, and sustainable agricultural and food culture.

Some figures and facts from the book

• Only 10% of the maize and soya grown worldwide ends up on our plates; the rest is used for biofuels and feed for factory farming.
• 75% of the world's resources (water, soils, biodiversity) are consumed by agribusiness, which produces only just under 30% of global food.
• 70% of the food grown worldwide, by contrast, is still produced by smallholder farmers.
• 93% of agriculturally used plant diversity has been driven to extinction by industrial agriculture.
• The production of 1 kg of synthetic fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of two liters of diesel. In the year 2000, this amounted to 191 billion liters of diesel, and is projected to rise to 277 billion liters by 2030.
• Most pesticides sold on the market today are nerve agents, with only one percent of the sprayed pesticide affecting target organisms, while the rest spreads through the ecosystem and affects everything.
• The chemical use of the “Green Revolution” has caused so many cancer cases among farmers in India that an entire train line was established to transport them from Punjab to another state for treatment.
• This “Green Revolution” was also exported to Africa, backed by one billion dollars in funding, yet it achieved the exact opposite of its stated goal: hunger in Africa has since increased by approximately 30%.
• Contrary to oft-repeated claims that today’s genetically modified crops reduce pesticide use, the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds in herbicide-resistant weed management systems has led to a significant increase in both the number and volume of herbicides applied.
• Today, global agricultural systems lose 24 billion tons of fertile soil every year. In fact, soil is being lost ten to forty times faster than it can be naturally replenished. As soils degrade, they lose their capacity to store carbon, causing substantial climate damage.