Productive, sustainable, and affordable production systems accessible to all

The IFOAM People before Commodities campaign aims to put local people back at the centre of food production by encouraging policies and grass roots actions based on the intensification of ecological knowledge, ecosystems and biodiversity. From the regeneration of eroded regions to the rapid uptake of high yielding rural and urban production systems organic agriculture provides a realistic pathway to food sovereignty by raising production in line with population growth in a participatory manner. As traditional agriculture has done for millennia, organic agriculture can nourish the world between now and 2050 when the earth’s human population is expected to peak.

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. BUT one in every six human beings is either hungry or starving.

Industrial agriculture is aggressively positioning itself as the only solution to feeding a growing human population. Unfortunately it is not about feeding the world but maximizing profits by producing commodities for which ever global market pays the most.This is the reason why we have enough food now to feed 7.5 billion people yet one billion are starving. This is the reason why over a billion people in developed countries are obese and why many are suffering serious diet related health issues like coronary disease and diabetes.

Industrial food and agriculture is the number one cause of deforestation and other devastating land use changes such as the conversion of carbon rich savannah lands into soy plantations for animal feed. It is the major cause of global warming (accounts for over 30% of all GHG emissions) and through land grabbing drives people from their lands converting them from proud producers to extremely poor and vulnerable consumers.Industrial agricultural is a major cause of biodiversity loss – devastating both natural biodiversity and the world’s agricultural biodiversity replacing rainforest with plantation and bio-diversity with bio-monotony. 75% of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost in the 20th Century due to the spread of industrial agriculture.

We are however being told a big lie. It is not industrial agriculture but a global web of 3 billion small producers that provides the backbone of food security throughout the developing world. These farmers, fisher folk and pastoralists nourish 70% of the world’s population. Based on tried and tested traditional and ecological based systems adapted to local conditions, small farms are generally highly productive, diversified and efficient. These producers and their practices need to be protected and strengthened and their knowledge made available to new producers so that food production can increase as populations increases.

Organic agriculture builds the social capital of rural areas. Being knowledge-intensive, rather than capital and resource-intensive, it utilizes traditional knowledge and promotes farmer-to farmer exchange. It puts the farmer at the center of the farming strategy restoring a decision-making role to local communities, guaranteeing their right to control their own resources and engaging their active participation in a value-added food web.Diversified production decreases the impacts of crop failures and increases market opportunities. In reducing the use of chemical inputs, organic agriculture provides a healthier working environment for farmers and communities and reduces the cost of farming to a minimum thereby lowering the barriers to entering production and improving livelihoods and food security.