Food security is on the agenda as the global scientific community is meeting this week in London at the Planet under Pressure Conference, a runner up event to Rio +20 in June.
For millions of people, that simple question is not a matter of idle speculation at the end of a busy afternoon, but a daily dilemma as they face a constant struggle to buy or grow enough food to feed the family even one meal a day. According to the United Nations, one in seven people worldwide still suffers from chronic hunger. Hunger is no accident. It is an entirely preventable outcome of a combination of bad politics, bad economics and bad agriculture. Greenpeace is seeking to tackle all three root causes.
Bad politics is one of the root causes because hunger is often derived from a failure of governments to protect and respect peoples' right to food. For example, every year thousands of small-scale farming and indigenous communities lose their homes and livelihoods because their rights over land, water and seeds and other natural resources are not being protected from powerful vested interests such as big agribusiness. Poor families displaced by land grabs often quickly slide deeper into poverty, and into the ranks of the world's chronically hungry people.
Industrial Agriculture And Industrial Medicine vs Organic Farming And Organic Medicine
The Results Are In
Eric Johnson
source: rense.com
Industrial agriculture is toxic. One has only to look at the Punjab in India which was ground zero for the Green Revolution, to see what "gifts" it has delivered.
"The power point presentation and speech of Sukhi Chahal's , who is a founder of Punjab Foundation was so emotional and powerful that somefemales of the sangat cried upon knowing the ground realities of the increasing number of Childless Couples, Spontaneous Abortions, Premature Births, Low Weight Births, Early Childhood Deaths, Congenital Malformations, Menstrual Disorders, Ovary and Uterus Tumors; Diabetes, Hypertension, Heart and Blood Vessel Diseases, Bone and Joint Diseases, Allergies, Asthma and Cancers which are the well-known effects of Water Contamination and Environmental Toxicity which is visibly on the rise in Punjab." (1)
The toxicity of industrial agriculture becomes the greatest argument for the non-toxic and health giving qualities of organic farming. And beyond toxicity to life, there is what industrial agriculture is doing to the planet itself.
But only half the picture is being given and there is more toxicity to come. When one points out that industrial agriculture causes cancers, the sick are then directed to industrial (conventional) medicine for the treatment of those cancers; yet industrial medical treatments for cancer are delivered by the very same companies that caused the cancers to begin with.
Industrial agriculture is toxic. One has only to look at the Punjab in India which was ground zero for the Green Revolution, to see what "gifts" it has delivered.