Nanotechnology in Food & Agriculture - denix

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Time to choose sustainable food and farming
Producing enough safe, healthy
food to meet the needs of all global
citizens, and doing so in an ecologically
sustainable and socially just manner,
will be a growing challenge in the
decades ahead. Proponents of
nanotechnology predict that it will
deliver more environmentally benign
agricultural systems which are also vastly
more productive - the solution both to
environmental degradation associated
with conventional agriculture, as well
as to widespread hunger. However
Friends of the Earth is concerned that
while nanotechnology may deliver
efficiencies in some areas, on balance
it may introduce more health and
environmental problems than it solves,
while doing nothing to redress the root
causes of existing inequities in global
food distribution.
Nanotechnology is unlikely to deliver
environmentally sustainable food
systems
Nanotechnology in agriculture stands
in contrast to growing public support
| NANOTECHNOLOGY IN FOOD & AGRICULTURE
for more environmentally sustainable
food production. Against the back
drop of climate change, there is a
mounting recognition that meeting a
greater proportion of our food needs
on a regional basis, reducing the
greenhouse gas emissions associated
with food production and transport, and
using less fossil-fuel intensive agricultural
inputs makes environmental sense. Yet,
nanotechnology appears likely to result
in new pressures to globalise each sector
of the agriculture and food system and
to transport agricultural chemicals, seeds
and farm inputs, unprocessed agricultural
commodities and processed foods over
even further distances at each stage in
the production chain.
Nano agrochemicals designed for
controlled self-release in response to
changing environmental conditions and
nano-sensor based farm management
systems, aim to enable larger scales of
production of more uniform crops. In
this way, nanotechnology entrenches
and expands the industrial scale model
of monoculture agriculture which has
resulted in rapid losses of agricultural and