Abstract
The hypothesis of this chapter is that organic green agriculture is granting food sovereignty to countries, to urban dwellers and small-scale producers, while the productivity life sciences paradigm and green revolution have increased malnutrition (obesity) and required artificial components (vitamins, proteins, minerals) to control the deterioration of human health by chronic diseases.
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Notes
- 1.
CEPAL (ECLAC 2004) estimated that each percentage of inequality reduction in Brazil or Mexico would allow the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) promoted by the UN General Assembly in 2000 to advance several years.
- 2.
Via Campesina is a global organisation of peasants from the Global South and North, which brings together more than 150 peasant organisations in 56 countries. It has subregional associations in Latin America (CLOC), North America, Asia , Europe and Africa . Its main objective is to defend, through concerted and global mobilisations, sustainable rural development in the hands of small producers, fishers, artisans, rural workers, women and young people, in order to create a process in which small-scale agriculture offers a sustainable living. The Executive Committee is democratically elected within a framework of regional balance, where there is gender equality and inclusion of young people.
- 3.
While in 2010 general inflation was about 3 per cent in the US , the increase in its food prices was 17.7 per cent. This impacted the pockets of the neediest and in October 2010 about 41.8 million Americans depended on food stamps for their survival .
- 4.
First-generation biofuels include biogas from human and animal waste by anaerobic digestion ; biodiesel from oil seeds (soya beans , sunflower, palm, jatropha, canola, beaver, etc.) by cold extraction or hydrogenation from oils and burned waste; and bioethanol from sugar cane, beet, sorghum, corn or wheat , produced by hydrolysis, fermentation or chemical synthesis.
- 5.
China promoted biofuel production in 2003 and, to stimulate production of this new energy supply, had offered any producer 1,880 yuan ($ 280) per ton of ethanol . Between 2004 and 2006, its production exceeded 10 million tons of ethanol , reaching the third place as a global bioethanol producer. In 2007, the Chinese cabinet stopped all emerging projects, but the subsidy was not eliminated and several projects went ahead despite the national scarcity of food .
- 6.
- 7.
The GBD 2015 Obesity Collaborators includes 2,300 researchers in more than 130 countries. These researchers capture premature death and disability statistics from more than 300 diseases and injuries in 195 countries, and obesity is their greatest concern.
- 8.
These five actions included: 1. Improving food products locally through mixed farming, fruit trees, family gardens, nitrogen-fixing plants (association of corn with beans and squash), crop rotation , composting of domestic organic waste and biopesticides. 2. Community health centres that offer services for the most common diseases , such as gastrointestinal, broncho-respiratory, malaria and dengue , reproductive health , as well as campaigns to prevent unwanted pregnancies and contagious diseases such as HIV /AIDS . 3. Basic education , training for specific technological practices in production , sanitation and conservation of food products at community level, in particular for women. 4. Renewable energies , through photovoltaics, biogas , biofuel and other energies, since they offer children light for studying and energy for pumping water , crushing grains and refrigerating food and medicines. Alternative energy reduces further the deforestation process and diminishes the workload of women and children . 5. Clean water , sanitation , rainwater harvesting, protection of wells, water ponds and other basic eco-techniques to conserve and care for safe water , in order to prevent water and vector diseases and drought.
- 9.
Women in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa generate: 33 per cent of the workforce; 70 per cent of salaried agricultural workers; 60–80 per cent of the work to produce subsistence food and local sales; 100 per cent of the transformation of agricultural products; 80 per cent of the storage of crops and transport from the field to the community; 90 per cent of the spinning and weaving jobs ; 60 per cent of harvest and market activities (FAO/FAOSTAT 2011). FAO (2005) accepted that the relationship between land and women is complex and, as providers of food , firewood, water , clothes and domestic work , they are directly responsible for the health and well-being of their family members. By maintaining hygienic conditions around the house, latrines, composting organic waste and caring about water quality, these women educate and monitor the health of their family members, even in urban slums. These activities generate stress for poor women and, along with material poverty, they suffer from poverty of time (Damian 2002), frequently worsened by pregnancy and lactation, aggravated by malnutrition and anaemia. In the Philippines and Indonesia more than 50 per cent of rural day labourers are women. In Kenya the Soil Conservation Program employs 40 per cent of women and in Gambia a local female organisation desalinated 45 hectares of damaged agricultural land . In Nepal, women reforested eroded areas with communitarian nurseries and restored 100 ha of land for subsistence agriculture , which helped to overcome their chronic undernourishment . In the Loess highlands of China women have diversified their diet since 1980 by establishing family farms, where they conserved the hillsides with fruit trees and established terraces for their crops. They managed to control extreme winds, dust and water erosion (@interactive Population Center 2005).
- 10.
In Africa , only 2 per cent of the land is in the hands of women and in Mexico , despite the amendment of Article 27 of the Constitution, only 18 per cent of women have a property or usufruct of the ejido land they work on.
- 11.
For more details, see: https://viacampesina.org/en/ (6 January 2018).
- 12.
For more details, see: http://www.cloc-viacampesina.net/ (6 January 2018).
- 13.
Local and small businesses are better linked to regional services and tend to be more accountable to the population, because they depend on these customers . They might react more quickly to local demands and economic changes.
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Oswald Spring, Ú. (2019). Food Sovereignty and Green Agriculture. In: Úrsula Oswald Spring: Pioneer on Gender, Peace, Development, Environment, Food and Water. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94712-9_18
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