Celebrate Food Diversity

Solution: an eco-farming revolution

Food is taste and nourishment. Food is family and culture. Food is science, identity and religion. Food is connection. But do we know where our food comes from, how it is grown and by whom? The answer is a revolution in ecological farming. Unlike our current broken industrial ag model, eco-farming answers these questions as it is a food system, with people and farmers at its heart.

Eco-farming combines modern science and innovation with respect for nature and biodiversity. It ensures healthy farming and healthy food. It protects the soil, the water and the climate. It does not contaminate the environment with chemical inputs or use genetically engineered crops. And it places people and farmers – consumers and producers, rather than the corporations who control our food now – at its very heart.

It is a vision of sustainability and food sovereignty in which food is grown with health and safety first and where control over food and farming rests with local communities, rather than transnational corporations.

Ecological Farm in Brazil. 5 Dec, 2014 © Peter Caton / Greenpeace

Seven basic principles about eco-farming you should know

  • Food sovereignty – Producers and consumers, not corporations, should control the food chain and determine how food is produced.

  • Rewarding rural livelihoods – Eco-agriculture is instrumental in rural development, food security and fighting poverty.

  • Smarter food production and yields – Eco-agriculture can create higher yields to help feed the world.

  • Biodiversity – Promoting diversity in crops, instead of monocultures like corn and soy, is essential to protecting nature.

  • Sustainable soil – Soil fertility can improve using eco-farming methods and refraining from chemical fertilizers and inputs.

  • Ecological pest protection – Farmers can control pest damage and weeds effectively through natural means instead of chemical pesticides.

  • Food Resilience – Diverse and resilient agriculture, not monoculture crops, is the best way to protect communities from shocks from climate and food prices.

Jump-start an eco-food revolution by sharing this page. Then click to see What You Can Do now.

To read more on Greenpeace's 7 Principles on Ecological Farming, click here.

The latest updates

 

Is FAO opening a window for ecological farming?

Blog entry by Monique Mikhail | 23 September, 2014 4 comments

It was an exciting moment for me and a small team of Greenpeace food campaigners to take part in the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Agroecology Symposium in Rome last week. It was the first FAO event on agroecology in...

An apple a day keeps the pesticides away

Blog entry by Federica Ferrario | 12 September, 2014 1 comment

The fields around Malles in the heart of the Venosta Valley in northern Italy are right now surrounded by thousands of yellow and red apples, ready to be harvested. These apples – the real "gold" of this area – will soon be produced...

Clean Chai Now! Let's demand our tea to be chemicals free

Blog entry by Melissa Shinn | 11 August, 2014 7 comments

Tea anyone? I'm a self confessed 'queen of tea' – preferably green and, if I can get it, especially green chai! All the healthy properties of green tea spiced with the flavours and traditions of India, one of the world's greatest tea...

Tasty food has always been part of culture, leaping through time and civilizations

Blog entry by Aquiles Chávez | 31 July, 2014

It is a historical fact that the type of diet defines cultural patterns of the different communities in every society. It is also a fact that changes in the human diet have led to biological changes in the human being as he adapted to...

Making the case for ecological farming in Africa

Blog entry by Glen Tyler | 12 June, 2014 1 comment

When I ask people what the backbone of most African economies is, the response is often a unanimous, "agriculture". It goes without dispute that agriculture is the most important and largest contributor to the gross domestic product...

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