PHA-Exch> Small scale sustainable farmers are cooling down the earth VIA CAMPESINA

[Claudio Schuftan]

*A Via Campesina back ground paper on global warming *



*Small scale sustainable farmers are cooling down the earth*

Current global modes of production, consumption and trade have caused
massive environmental destruction including global warming that is putting
at risk our planet's ecosystems and pushing human communities into
disasters. Global warming shows the failure of a development model based on
high fossil energy consumption, overproduction and trade liberalization.

Farmers - men and women - around the world are joining hands with other
social movements, organizations, people and communities to ask for and to
develop radical social, economic and political transformations to reverse
the current trend.

Farmers - and especially small farmers - are among the first to suffer from
climate change. Changing weather patterns bring unusual droughts, floods and
storms, destroying farmlands, stock and farmers houses. Moreover, plants and
animal species are disappearing at an unprecedented pace. Farmers have to
adjust to these changes by adapting their seeds and usual production systems
to an unpredictable situation. Moreover, droughts and floods are leading to
harvest failures, increasing the number of people going hungry in the world.
Studies predict a decline in global farm output of 3 to 16% by 2080. In
tropical regions, global warming is likely to lead to a serious decline in
agriculture (up to 50% in Senegal and 40% in India) and to the acceleration
of farmland turning into desert. On the other hand, huge areas in Russia and
Canada will turn into arable land for the first time in human history, yet
it is still unknown how these regions will be able to grow crops.

Corporate food production and consumption are significantly contributing to
global warming and to the destruction of rural communities. Intercontinental
food transport, intensive monoculture production, land and forest
destruction and the use of chemical inputs in agriculture are transforming
agriculture into an energy consumer and are contributing to climate change.
Under neo-liberal policies imposed by the World Trade Organisation, the
regional and bilateral Free Trade Agreements, as well as the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund, food is produced with oil-based pesticides
and fertilizers and transported all around the world for transformation and
consumption.

Via Campesina, a movement bringing together millions of small farmers and
producers around the world, asserts that it is time to radically change our
way to produce, transform, trade and consume food and agricultural products.
We believe that sustainable small-scale farming and local food consumption
will reverse the actual devastation and support millions of farming
families. Agriculture can also contribute to cool down the earth by using
farm practises that store CO² and reduce considerably the use of energy on
farms.

Moreover, farms can also contribute to the production of renewable energy,
especially through solar and biogas energy.

*Globalized agriculture and corporate food production create global warming
*

*1/ By transporting food all around the world *
*2/ By imposing industrial forms of production (mechanization,
intensification, use of agrochemicals, monoculture…) *
*3/ By destroying biodiversity (and carbon sinks)*
*4/ By converting land and forests into non-agricultural areas*
*5/ By transforming agriculture from an energy producer into an energy
consumer *
*The false solutions *
*Agrofuels *(*fuels produced from plants, agriculture and forestry)*are
often presented as one of the solutions to the current energy crisis.
However, leaving aside the insanity of producing food to feed cars while so
many people are starving, industrial agrofuel production will actually
*increase
global warming instead of reducing it*.

*Carbon trading*
 is a privatization of carbon after the privatization of land, air, seeds,
water and other resources. It allows governments to allocate permits to big
industrial polluters so they can trade "rights to pollute" amongst
themselves.

*Genetically modified crops and trees*
Genetically modified organisms will not solve any environmental crisis as
they themselves pose a risk to the environment as well as to health and
safety.

*Food sovereignty provides livelihoods to millions and protects life on
earth*
Via Campesina believes that solutions to the current crisis have to emerge
from organized social actors that are developing modes of production, trade
and consumption based on justice, solidarity and healthy communities. No
technological fix will solve the current global environmental and social
disaster.

Sustainable small-scale farming is labor-intensive and requires little
energy use; it can and does contribute to cooling down the earth.

All around the world, we practice and defend small-scale sustainable family
farming and we demand* *food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is the right of
peoples to healthy and culturally-appropriate food produced through
ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their
own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those
who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and
policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. Food
sovereignty prioritizes local and national economies and markets and
empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisan-style
fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and
consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability.

*We urgently demand of local, national and international decision makers: *

1/ The complete dismantling of agribusiness companies: they are stealing the
land of small producers, producing junk food and creating environmental
disasters.

2/ The replacement of industrialized agriculture and animal production by
small-scale sustainable agriculture supported by genuine agrarian reform
programs.

3/ The promotion of sane and sustainable energy policies. That includes
consuming less energy and producing solar and biogas energy on the farms
instead of heavily promoting agrofuel production as is currently the case.

4/ The implementation of agricultural and trade policies at local, national
and international levels supporting sustainable agriculture and local food
consumption. This includes the ban on the kinds of subsidies that lead to
the dumping of cheap food on markets.

*For the livelihoods of billions of small producers around the world,*

 *For people's health and the planet's survival: *

 *We demand food sovereignty and we are committed to struggle to achieve it
collectively.*
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