The FoEA Sustainable Food and Agriculture Project addresses issues of social justice and environmental sustainability in contemporary food and farming systems.
Introduction
sustainable_food.jpgThe FoEA Sustainable Food and Agriculture Project addresses issues of social justice and environmental sustainability in contemporary food and farming systems.
The dominant global agri-food system is characterised by severe ecological problems and social inequalities. Ecological problems include: the chemical pollution of land, waterways and foods; soil and degradation and erosion; the loss of seed and animal diversity; the energy and resources consumed in the long-distance transportation, processing and packaging of foods; and a range of human health impacts and risks.
Socio-economic problems and inequalities include: widespread hunger and malnutrition in the context of an abundance and oversupply of food; health problems association with the over-consumption of particular types of foods; the squeezing out of small-scale farmers in favour of large-scale farms and the undermining of subsistence and local forms of food production and consumption; and the expansion of the corporate ownership and/or control of the entire agri-food system.
Contemporary technological developments (such as the new genetic technologies) and economic developments (such as attempts by the WTO and other institutions and governments to open local economies to the forces of corporate globalisation) threaten to exacerbate these ecological and socio-economic problems.
A range of oppositional and alternative forms of food production and consumption have emerged to challenge the dominant agri-food system. The general tendencies of these movements are towards more environmentally sustainable forms of food production including the preservation of traditional farming practices and communities and for more local and equitable forms of food distribution and consumption which involve forming more direct links between food producers and consumers. Examples of these initiatives include: organic agricultural production, seed saving networks, Community Supported Agriculture, farmers markets, fair trade movements, and food co-operatives.
Friends of the Earth Australia campaigns against the ecologically destructive practices of chemical-industrial agriculture, genetically-modified foods, government policies which undermine small-scale and local producers and markets, and the corporatisation of the agri-food system. Friends of the Earth supports initiatives aimed at creating and preserving organic and environmentally sustainable farming practices, local production for local and subsistence markets, fair trade between Northern and Southern (First and Third World) countries, and land redistribution to landless and near-landless rural people to meet their own and local food needs.