Small-Scale Traditional Farming Is the Only Way to Avoid Food Crisis, UN Researcher Says by Nafeez Ahmed — YES! Magazine
▻http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/un-only-small-farmers-and-agroecology-can-feed-the-world
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Modern industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water, and resource availability.
“If we deal with small farmers we solve hunger and we also deal with food production.”
The stark warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver, in her first public speech since being appointed by the U.N. in June.
“Food policies which do not address the root causes of world hunger would be bound to fail,” she told a packed audience in Amsterdam.
One billion people globally are hungry, she declared, before calling on governments to support a transition to “agricultural democracy” which would empower rural small farmers.
Hinting at the future direction of her research and policy recommendations, Elver criticized the vast subsidies going to large agribusiness companies. Currently, in the European Union about 80 percent of subsidies and 90 percent of research funding go to support conventional industrial agriculture.
“Empirical and scientific evidence shows that small farmers feed the world,” said Elver. "According to the U.N. Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO), 70 percent of food we consume globally comes from small farmers.” She continued:
This is critical for future agricultural policies. Currently, most subsidies go to large agribusiness. This must change. Governments must support small farmers. As rural people are migrating increasingly to cities, this is generating huge problems.
If these trends continue, by 2050, 75 percent of the entire human population will live in urban areas. We must reverse these trends by providing new possibilities and incentives to small farmers, especially for young people in rural areas.
Sergio Sauer, formerly Brazil’s national rapporteur for human rights in land, territory and food, added:
Agroecology is related to the way you relate to land, to nature to each other—it is more than just organic production, it is a sustainable livelihood.
In Brazil we have the National Association of Agroecology which brings together 7,000 people from all over the country pooling together their concrete empirical experiences of agroecological practices. They try to base all their knowledge on practice, not just on concepts.
Generally, nobody talks about agroecology, because it’s too political. The simple fact that the FAO is calling a major international gathering to discuss agroecology is therefore a very significant milestone.