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
Scientists say impoverishment of the soil is a major threat to the global population's ability to feed itself.
They have found that nearly 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. The damage has
already had "a significant impact" on the productivity of about 16% of the planet's farmland.
“Soil is not well understood but it is the basis of our lives. It also provides a sink for carbon emissions.
Desertification is likely to spread as a result of human activity”.
Sophie Boukhari
Food
The system of global sourcing and industrialising food production is harmful. Apart from producing huge
amounts of CO2 through transportation (e.g. “food miles”), it damages the provision of good, fresh food on
which human life and health depends. It puts our food in the hands of too few large corporations and
destroys variety. This is unsafe.
In UK we are steadily destroying our farming and local food production. Thirty-seven per cent of UK’s food
is now imported compared with 27% in 1995. We were virtually self-sufficient in WW2. The effects on
farmers everywhere are devastating. For food to be fresh and sustainable, production needs to be largely
local. People have become separated from the sources of food and from cooking. We are endangering food
security which requires diversity and an understanding of local soil and climate conditions. We are destroying
indigenous ancient knowledge about ecology, cultivation, nutrition and healing. Industrialised farming
methods destroy the millions of tiny organisms that are an essential part of healthy fertile soil. We are
making food more, not less, expensive. As we buy our out of season vegetables and flowers from places like
Kenya, we use precious water needed for local food crops. Embedded water is as important a measure of
sustainability as food miles or CO2 emissions.
We are over fed but undernourished. In UK we suffer a major obesity epidemic because of poor diet and
lifestyle. There is an explosion of diabetes linked to growing obesity (46% of men are and 32 % of women are
overweight). Obesity is growing at a faster rate than in Canada and USA. In UK, 33% of men, 28% of women
and 20% of children will be obese by 2010. Obesity rates have trebled since the 1980s. The £20bn cost of
diet-related diseases to the NHS is unsustainable and could reach £50bn by 2050. But in countries like USA,
where until recently, 40 million had no health care insurance, or worse still India, where there is no NHS, the
consequences are even worse. Unhealthy Western diets, including soft drinks instead of water, lifestyles and
methods of producing food are spread throughout the world.
The effects on our food and health of industrialised worldwide agribusiness
Because of large scale mono-cultures there has been a major loss in biodiversity. 75% of the world’s food is
dependent on 12 plant types and 5 animal species. This exposes the world to great risk. Multiple varieties
are important to food security. In 1971 it became illegal to sell seed varieties in the EU unless they were
registered, a process that is too expensive for small varieties. So only a basic range of seeds, convenient to
grow in large quantities, is available. Garden Organic warn that because of the industrialisation of food
production, distribution through supermarkets and the domination of seed production by huge companies,
we have lost thousands of vegetable species. In Victorian times there were 120 different varieties of tall
garden pea. Now there are only two and a few varieties of dwarf pea dominate.
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