Convergence or Divide in the Movement for Sustainable and Just Agriculture

E. Lichtfouse (ed.), Organic Fertilisation, Soil Quality and Human Health, Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 9, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4113-3_1, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 Abstract ‘Greening’ the green revolution will not be suffi cient to reduce hunger and poverty and conserve biodiversity. The increasing cost of oil and fertilizers, and the deterioration of the climate and global ecology are key factors that undermine the capacity of humankind to feed itself. This phenomena became evident when the ‘perfect storm’ occurred in 2008 with the alarming rise in the cost of food that sent an additional 75 million people to the world’s line of hungry people. Disregarding the above issues the ruling international agricultural class continues asserting that food production will have to be increased by 70% by the year 2050. The threat to global food insecurity is the direct result of the industrial model of agriculture characterized by large-scale monocultures tailored for the export markets. We need an alternative agricultural development paradigm, one that encourages more ecologically, biodiverse, sustainable and socially just forms of agriculture. Strategies are needed which lead to the revitalization of small and medium sized farms, and point the way towards the reshaping of the entire agricultural policy and food system in ways that are economically viable to farmers and consumers. Proposed ‘sustainable intensifi cation’ is ideologically buttressed by intellectual projects to reframe and redefi ne agroecology by stripping it of its political and social content and promote the wrong notion that agroecological methods can co-exist alongside the aggressive expansion of transgenic crops and agrofuels. Many environmental and advocacy groups privilege those with access to capital and perpetuate an ‘agriculture of the poor for the rich’. The technological determinism that the organic agriculture movement emphasizes via development and dissemination of low-input or appropriate technologies is not only naïve but dangerous, as it assumes these technologies in themselves have the capability of initiating benefi cial social changes.