Agriculture at a Crossroads - Business as Usual is Not an Option!
Why should almost one billion people on our planet be going hungry while just as many are suffering from the ill effects of obesity? In 2011 more grain was harvested than ever before: 2.3 billion tons worldwide. Despite this record-breaking harvest, only 46% was used to feed people.The rest was used to feed livestock, fill our gas tanks, support industrial production processes or was simply wasted. Our global food system is one of the most significant contributors to climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution and water shortages as well as preventable disease, poverty and injustice.
On behalf of the United Nations and the World Bank, in a four-year-process, more than 400 scientists summarised the state of global agriculture, its history and its future. The outcome was the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). The findings are uncomfortable and alarming: providing a warning on the misleading ways of the past and showing new ways forward. This website makes the IAASTD’s findings available by topics, and offers all reports as well as updated figures, background information and news.
Rio+20: Taking Agriculture beyond “Business as Usual”
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) provides an opportunity to set the course for future farming, to implement the IAASTD's findings and secure its continuation by initiating a permanent assessment of agricultural knowledge. “Agriculture must be at the core of all discussions about sustainability in Rio” said Hans Herren, President of Biovision and the Millennium Institute, who co-chaired the IAASTD. This demand is supported by the US-based Nourish9billion-initiative and the global NGO coalition “Time to act”. Our Rio+20 page reflects the discussion on food and agriculture in the run-up to Rio+20.
Petition for Rio+20 with proposals on
issues linked to food and agriculture
Rio+20 Facebook Game:
English Brochure on the IAASTD Report
"Agriculture at a Crossroads: Food for Survival" Climate change, loss of biodiversity, forest destruction, water crises, food safety, hunger and poverty all have one thing in common: the principal cause of these threats is the way in which we produce, trade, consume and discard food and other agricultural products. This brochure, also written by Benedikt Haerlin, is available through Greenpeace International.
