A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
www.brucenixon.com
advocating quick technology-fixes, more space for research into more effective crop protection, alternatives
to GM and critical reflection ought to be supported. Efforts to promote GM technology, which brings large
profits to corporations, take away attention from the more fundamental problems affecting African smallscale
farmers. Dr Julia Wright, formerly of Garden Organic, reported that in Cuba an agro-ecological
approach has transformed the micro-environment into a water-rich one, creating an environment that no
longer suffered from drought.
Climate Change and Peak Oil will make the current food system unsustainable. Oil is embedded in
agriculture, food production and distribution. Prices of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides are likely to rise.
Are farmers paid enough? For example, UK’s 125,000 farm workers are amongst the lowest paid despite
their high productivity and importance to our food security; they receive the smallest percentage of profits in
the food industry; milk marketing co-operatives are closing, unable to pay their members. Their sons and
daughters do not want that way of life. There are amazing exceptions like Rebecca Hoskin who decided to
return to her family farm and make it a Farm for the Future - see YouTube. The fortunes of farmers
everywhere are insecure because commodity prices are unstable and pressures are always upon them to
reduce prices even below their costs. So they resort to increasingly unsustainable forms of animal husbandry.
Food sovereignty and security are essential requirements to which every nation has a right. Sovereignty
means each nation has a right to protect its own food production and choose how it feeds its population.
When we are threatened with the consequences of climate change, peak oil and the limits of spaceship earth
to provide for an increasing population, food security is a major global issue. Food security is at risk because
of the industrialisation and globalisation of food and agriculture and its domination by a few enormous TNCs
– in agriculture, food production, distribution and retailing.
Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation (nef) says that 75% of the world’s food is
grown from only 12 plant types and 5 animal species (Soil Association). Production methods are now such
that 95% of all the food we eat in the world today is oil-dependent. Diesel is used by farm vehicles and we
must take into account the carbon footprint of chemical fertilisers used by most non-organic beef farms and
energy required to transport a cow to the abattoir and process it.
Food security is very much an issue in the UK although many people may not realise this. In UK, we import
90% of our fruit, half our vegetables. 70% of animal feed in EU is imported. This leaves us extremely
dependent on imports and vulnerable to the effects of climate change, declining supplies of oil and gas and
hence rises, growing shortages of food and major fluctuations in commodity prices. Fluctuations in
commodity prices will seriously affect our farmers unless we take appropriate measures. We are vulnerable
to strikes amongst transport workers and other interruptions to world transport or trade. A few years ago,
when truck drivers protested against fuel price rises, we had only three days food stocks or nine meals per
person in the supermarkets. Growing world demand for food as a result of population growth will affect us
too. We are also vulnerable to the effects of international conflicts and possible wars.
Apparently UK Government has no contingency plans.
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