Saturday, December 12, 2009

The need to change our farming practices

Here's some information I truly didn't know although, now that I think about it, it's fairly logical. I refer to an article entitled Small Farmers Can Cool the World published over on Common Dreams today. Here's part of what it says:

Industrial agriculture may emit nearly half of climate-heating greenhouse gases, but that reality has gone unrecognized by negotiators at the climate treaty talks here, say farmers with La Via Campesina, an international movement of hundreds of millions of small-scale peasant farmers.

"Small-scale farmers use 80 percent less energy than large monocultures," said Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian farmer with Mouvement de Paysan, through a translator.
...
"The evidence is irrefutable. If we can change the way we farm and the way we produce and distribute food, then we have a powerful solution for combating the climate crisis. There are no technical hurdles to achieving these results, it is only a matter of political will," said Henk Hobbelink, coordinator of GRAIN*, in a release.

Governmental policies and trade agreements the world over support industrial agriculture production and the study shows this must change in order to stabilize the climate, [Camila] Montecinos said. "No governments are talking about this," she noted.

It's very disheartening indeed that the governments are not talking about it. No doubt that's due to pressure and lobbying from Big Agriculture.

* an international non-governmental organization that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity to support local communities.
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