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.
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highest in the world. Our dairy industry has one of the worst animal welfare records in Europe. The RSPCA
say that we are in danger of “milking our cows to death”. Another farmer showed how she ran a successful
dairy farm using smaller Friesian cows in green pasture to produce her milk. A scientific study into the
welfare of dairy cows in Europe may result in new directives for standards of welfare.
Would you knowingly buy milk, yoghurt or cheese produced in this way, because it’s cheaper?
Bee colony collapse - another threat to food security. The British Bee Keepers Association warns that colony
collapse could wipe out bees in Britain by 2018. Bees are essential for pollinating crops. The causes are
complex and may include toxic pesticides and bees being under stress (Telegraph.co.uk).
One thing people can do to help is to plant more flowers and shrubs that attract bees in their gardens. The
same thing needs to be done in public spaces like parks, verges and roundabouts. There is also a campaign by
the British Bee Keepers Association to encourage more people to keep bees.
World Poisoning from Pesticides
Each year, around 2.5 million tons (2,500,000 tons = 5 billion pounds) of pesticide are dumped on the
planet's crops.
In 2002, an estimated 69,000 children were poisoned by pesticides in the US.
The World Health Organization reports 220,000 people die every year worldwide because of
pesticide poisoning.
In 2001, the world pesticide market was valued at $32 billion ($32,000,000,000).
Although most pesticides (80%) are used in rich countries, most poisonings are in poor countries.
This is because safety standards are poor; there may be no protective clothing or washing facilities,
insufficient enforcement, poor labelling of pesticides which are used by farm workers who can't read
anyway. Few people know much about pesticide hazards.
Pesticide residues in food are often higher in poor countries.
Farmers who use pesticides have a 'significantly higher rate of cancer incidence' than non-farmers.
In the US, nearly one in ten of about 3 billion kilograms (6,613,800,000 pounds) of toxic chemicals
released per year is known to be capable of causing cancer (in other animals as well as people).
Source: One World Net
Cash crops produced by poor countries for wealthy Northerners are a major contributor to water scarcity,
desertification and salinisation caused by excessive irrigation in dry areas. Salinisation is one of our biggest
environmental problems, a major cause of desertification and soil degradation. Salinisation and sodification
are among the major degradation processes endangering the potential use of soils in Europe and elsewhere
in the world. Furthermore, to produce these exports, peasants are deprived of the land that gives them
independence; local food production is damaged and forests destroyed to make way for meat, grain and now
bio-fuel exports. These are of little benefit to poor, dispossessed people or local economies.
Dietary diversity is vital to health and disease prevention. A healthy diet requires a complex mixture of
nutrients, not just protein, energy, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins. We need complex diets rich in
micronutrients. We are learning that traditional food, made from a variety of crops, grown for centuries
from seeds saved over generations, unique to the environment in which people live, are full of important
micronutrients that are vital to health and preventing diseases. As Westernisation took hold, these were
often discarded as “poor peoples’ food” and replaced by imports or new crops. In places like Kenya there are
now efforts to publicise this information and reintroduce such indigenous crops, as well as how to cook them
to make them delicious.
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