Dr. Vandana Shiva
There are two paths to the future of our food and farming. The first path is made by walking with nature, co-creating and co-producing with sensitivity, intelligence and care with diverse species, the living earth and her complex web of life. This is the path of life which has sustained humanity in its diversity over millennia. Each community and culture has co-evolved its own distinctive path according to its climates, soils and biodiversity, and contributed to the diversity of food and farming systems. The diversity of cultures of food and agriculture are united through the common and perennial principles on which life is based. Today these common principles practised by diverse schools of ecological agriculture--organic farming, permaculture, biodynamic farming, natural farming, etc.--are referred to as Agroecology. This is the path to the future.
The second path is the industrial path based on fossil fuels and poisons. This path is the path of death. It goes against the principles of nature and life. It violates the principle of diversity and imposes monocultures and uniformity. It violates the principle of giving back and extracts from nature and farmers, disrupting ecological sustainability and social justice. It is the path to biodiversity extinction and climate catastrophe, of destruction of small farms and displacement of farmers, and the spread of hunger, malnutrition and chronic diseases. Walking further and faster down the path of extinction is not an intelligent choice.
Ecological agriculture is an ethical, ecological and survival imperative.
