'Agroecology' Could Feed The World

Agroecology represents a solution to the interconnected crises of our time, not only in the agricultural sector but also in the economic and social spheres.

This is according to Navdanya, the civil society organization that for more than 30 years has been promoting a regenerating and ecologic circular approach to contrast the world's rising environmental degradation, poverty, sanitary emergencies and malnutrition.

At the Second Symposium on Agroecology held in Rome this past Spring, the FAO highlighted how agroecology directly contributes to some of the most important sustainable development goals, including poverty and hunger eradication, guaranteeing the quality of education, the achievement of gender equality, increased efficiency in water use, the promotion of decent work conditions, guaranteeing sustainable consumption and production, consolidation of climate resilience, sustainable use of marine resources and an end to biodiversity loss.

What small producers and consumers must claim, according to the FAO, is a new agricultural and economic paradigm, a food culture based on health, in which ecological responsibility and economic justice take precedence over today’s extractive production systems based on consumption and profits. Agroecology is not only a set of techniques but also a whole vision of life, based on the concept of integration between human beings and nature, as underlined by the declaration of small producers and civil society organizations.

The majority of the food we consume is, according to the FAO, still produced by small and medium-size farmers, while the vast majority of crops coming from the industrial sector, such as corn and soy, is mainly used as animal feed or to produce biofuels.

In 2016, 815 million people suffered from malnutrition, while more than 1.9 billion adults worldwide were overweight; more than 650 million were obese.

The problem, they say, isn’t productivity itself, but distribution, poverty and food quality.