Further partners:
- Convergence Afrique de l’ouest
- JINUKUN
Home – Bread for all / Agriculture and climate
Background
Our diet is heating up the earth’s climate
Present-day agricultural and food systems are the main drivers of global warming. If we want to protect the climate, biodiversity and habitats, an urgent change of course is needed.
More than half of all greenhouse gases are produced by our increasingly industrialised agricultural sector, which is based on large-scale land clearing for monocultures, intensive nitrogen fertilisation and the destruction of the soil as an important storehouse of CO2. As part of our globalised food supply system, frozen food is transferred halfway around the world, only to be turned into fast food or left unused, often ending up in landfills.
On the other hand, millions of poor people living in the South go hungry as agricultural corporations produce animal feed, industrial feedstock or biofuels destined for export on land that formerly belonged to them. Compounding this, they are severely impacted by droughts, floods and natural disasters caused by climate change.
Farmers feed the world
For years, Bread for all and its partners has been urging a rethinking of our way of life: if we wish to protect the climate, biodiversity and the habitats of humans and animals, we need a food system that is based on the knowledge and work of local farmers. They are the ones growing diverse, biological and locally adapted food for regional markets. Local farmers produce 60 to 70 per cent of all food in the world on just 25 per cent of globally available soils. To support them, we need to strengthen their decision-making power especially when it comes to soil and seed. Farmers need to be protected against the forward march of global agricultural corporations and financial investors in the interest of our planet and everyone who lives on it.
What do we want?
Let farmers feed the world, not corporations.
Bread for all and its partners in the South are part of a global movement that is advocating for ecologically and democratically determined food systems worldwide.
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Food is a basic human right
The right to adequate food was adopted as part of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Accordingly, states must not undermine the human right to food, and are obliged to help realise the human entitlement to adequate food and safeguard against the encroachments of third parties. The right to food must enjoy top priority and take precedence, for example, over state treaties including free trade agreements. - 3
Land for farming families, not corporations
Farmers in the South, in particular, should be supported in safeguarding their rights and access to land. It is critical that they are protected against the expansionary interests of agribusiness. - 4
Seeds belong in the hands of farmers
Farmers should be making their own decisions about what to grow and which varieties of crops to cultivate. The trade in seeds should not be ceded to a few large agricultural conglomerates. It belongs in the hands of farmers. - 5
Put research funds into agro-ecological farming, instead of industrial solutions
Research funding should be used to lay a strong foundation for sustainable agriculture. It should focus on solutions to feeding the world's population, and not just serve the interests of agribusiness. - 6
Food has no place in our fuel tanks
The large-scale cultivation of sugar cane, palm oil (es ist beides, Palmöl und Raps. Bitte Palmöl auch in der deutschen Fassung ergänzen), maize and other crops to produce biofuels has intensified the struggle for land in many places in the world, exacerbating hunger. It should be urgently stopped. - 7
Say no to genetic engineering
Genetically engineered seeds only grow with the extensive use of fertilisers and pesticides . Many farming families in the South are driven into debt and dependency due to the high procurement costs of genetically manipulated seeds, which have unknown consequences on our environment.
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