A different way to fill our belly

Food insecurity is largely driven by a food system that is highly controlled by agribusiness (Big Ag), believed to be the only way of producing large volumes of food to satisfy global demand. We see an ever increasing concentration in the agribusiness sector, as two recent mergers—Syngenta-ChemChina and Dow Chemical-DuPont—show. But the figures are clear: in 2016 the number of undernourished people in the world came to an estimated 815 million—from 777 million people in 2015. In addition, 75% of the world’s poor rely on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods yet, despite this, they are also the most food insecure, leading many to migrate to urban areas or other countries in search for better living conditions with great uncertainty for their own and their children’s futures. Hunger is not diminishing, it is increasing. We must be tackling its root causes, which is the capitalist system not increasing production. We must make a radical political and economic change.

Agroecology is a system that enable people and small-scale farmers to access land and resources, that can allow rural communities to work, flourish and live and that offers a sustainable food system.  The application of agroecology has demonstrated the potential to increase productivity, yields and biodiversity; revitalise exhausted and degraded soils, improve health and nutrition, enhance resilience and cohesion in communities while addressing climate change. It empowers farmers and peasants, especially women. It also brings consumers closer to farmers and the food they eat,  by reconnecting us to local and seasonal produce and restoring our relationship to nature. These are essential ingredients for sustainable, and just communities, where every person and every ecosystem counts and flourishes.  The present production for profit agricultural policies are reducing small-scale farmer’s autonomy, weakening the social fabric of their communities, affecting our health and the planet.

Capitalism interlinks food insecurity, land injustices and migration and the true root cause of the climate crises. The socialist cooperative commonwealth holds out solutions that take into account the well-being and dignity of people, the respect and the protection of our ecosystems. We must make a revolutionary transformation in how we produce and distribute the fruits of humanity's harvests.

Adapted from here