MANIFESTO

Section 8
KNOWLEDGE TRANSITION FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION
Climate change is the ultimate test for our collective intelligence as humanity.
Industrial agriculture has destroyed vital aspects of knowledge of local
ecosystems and agricultural technologies which are necessary for making the
transition to a post-industrial, fossil fuel-free food system. The diversity of
cultures and of knowledge systems required for adapting to climate change
need recognition and enhancing through public policy and investment. A new
partnership between science and traditional knowledge will strengthen both
knowledge systems and enhance our capacity to respond.
Industrial agriculture is based on a reductionist, mechanistic paradigm and is an
outmoded and fragmented way of looking at the world. The industrial paradigm
replaces intimate knowledge of biodiversity and ecosystems with careless
technologies such as use of agrichemicals which destroy biodiversity and soil,
pollute air and water and destabilise the climate. Traditional and indigenous
knowledge systems are based on plurality and diversity, necessary principles for
adaptation that are increasingly needed because of climate change.
The diversity of agricultural knowledge systems has developed over generations
in thousands of different eco-systems and varying cultural conditions. The
chemical industrial paradigm of agricultural science and technology emerged
in the course of the 19 th century in Europe and America and improved the
productivity of particular crops in many parts of the world. However, the entire
calculus of productivity of industrial agriculture is based on externalization of
costs and increased energy inputs.
Such progress increased dependence on fossil fuels, displaced farmers and led
to an erosion of a wealth of traditional knowledge, of indigenous approaches to
agriculture and the extinction of many specializations in horticulture, farming,
forestry, animal husbandry, aquaculture and other forms of agriculture, as well
as of food preparation and medicines.
While increasing external energy inputs, large-scale industrial agriculture and
shifts in the control of land and water and other natural resources resulted in
a steep decrease of the number of people working in primary production and
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