Industrial Agriculture – Perilous for our Planet!

Why is small-scale ecological agriculture the way forward? That was the question answered by Dr Vandana Shiva, ecologist and founder of Navdanya, Patrick Holden, the Soil Association, and Liz Hosken, founder and director of The Gaia Foundation, at Friday night’s Gaia evening in St Stephen’s Church (London). Here’s the lowdown - thanks to our lovely residential volunteers who dropped their shovels (quite literally) to attend this inspiring and invigorating conference. They may have been disappointed having arrived too late to eat the delicious food on offer, but they were certainly pleased and excited to be representing Church Farm, Ardeley and to be actively playing a part in the solution to the food and climate change crisis.

So where shall we start? Here’s a little insight into the background of the conference as provided by The Gaia Foundation.

“Studies last year concurred that industrial agriculture not only destroys biodiversity, soils, nutrition and local food systems, but is responsible for a staggering 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which trigger climate change.

Industrial agriculture requires chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, intensive water use, inhumane animal factories, and large-scale transport, storage and distribution. All this transforms biodiverse landscape into enormous mono-cultural plantations, displacing the small-scale regenerative agricultural practices that sustain rural communities and healthy ecosystems.

This system incurs a social, ecological and climate debt which is perilous for our planet. Yet its advocates call for more land, technology and investment, to feed the growing human population. Why, when the industrial world continues to waste enough food to feed the hungry?

In contrast, decentralized, diversity-based organic agriculture improves soil fertility and carbon content, reduces emissions from fertilizers and food miles, and increases resilience to climate instability. These approaches can feed the world now and for generations to come.

Biodiversity-based agriculture is a proven, effective and accessible solution to climate change. Social movements around the planet are reclaiming their food sovereignty and showing the way for this vital transition.” (The Gaia Foundation)

So what insights into the critical links between food systems and climate change were provided by the speakers? Dr Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, primarily spoke about the hazards and limitations of genetic engineering – bringing to the forefront her concerns about the distribution of aubergines modified with a gene from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis to Indian farmers. She spoke of her biodiversity programme to support local farmers and to rescue and conserve crops that are being pushed to extinction and reiterated the fact that food should be everybody’s basic right rather than a commodity.

Patrick Holden, who has been Director of the Soil Association since 1995, based his speech on the newly released movie, Food Inc. He conveyed how impressed he was with the film and how applicable it was to all, despite it being rather US-centric. He highlighted the problems for small producers as a result of the actions of supermarkets and major corporations and also personalised his speech by mentioning the difficulties he’d experienced himself in keeping his own dairy farm profitable. He went on to talk about the ways in which the land around London could be put to better use in order to supply the city with all the food it needs. At the moment, it seems that London is surrounded by golf clubs and fields for equestrian purposes.

And last but not least, Liz Hosken, the co-founder and director of The Gaia Foundation in London, spoke about the violent and inhumane acts that take place in order to get food onto our tables. She communicated the need to educate people about what goes into the food we consume and the direct influence it can have on us.

The overall message of this conference was the need to reconnect people to the food that they eat. This is definitely right up our street! After all, the idea of our biological and ecological farm is to produce a maximum variety of food for local people, with 50% less fossil fuels from farm to fork. We want to enhance the environment and build a community to treat the land, wildlife and animals as they should be treated and obviously, grow great food.

Equipped with a DVD copy of “Pig Business”, our residential volunteers managed to make it back safely and were glad to be back on home “soil”. I’m sure we’ll have the chance to watch it in the next week or so – so keep a look out on here for our “Pig Business” review.