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Rice farmer in China's Yunnan Province, holds rice grain in his hands. Traditionally farmed varieties of rice are under threat from GE varieties.
Enlarge ImageSmall family farmers are driven off their land and local people cannot afford to buy what is grown.
Too often, the result is a downward spiral of environmental destruction, poverty and hunger.
Hunger and poverty go hand in hand. Technological 'solutions' like genetic engineering (GE) overshadow the real social and environmental problems that cause hunger. These issues include who grows our food, how and where it is grown, how it is distributed, and who has access to it.
There is a fundamental conflict within agricultural research and development - between an agenda that caters to the needs of private industry and one that addresses the real needs of the poor and the environment. In 1989, US$7 billion of development aid went into agriculture, forest and fishing projects worldwide; by 1999 the sum had plummeted to US$3 billion.
The argument that GE is vital to feed the world and has a central role to play in enhancing agricultural productivity is based on the assumption that hunger is the result of too little food. GE proponents ignore the fact that most hungry people live in countries that have food surpluses rather than deficits.
Food security will not be achieved by technical fixes or even by increasing food production. It requires, among other things, access to land and money. GE provides neither.
Greenpeace works for real solutions.
The future for farming lies in recognising its role not only in the production of food, but also in providing clean water, diverse wildlife and plants, and the fertile soil on which the future depends.
There are many success stories from farmers around the world who are practising ecologically and socially sustainable agriculture.
Some of these stories can be found on the Farming Solutions website, jointly created by Greenpeace, Oxfam and ILEIA.
It demonstrates how food security and sustainable livelihoods can be achieved across the globe by innovative and environmentally responsible farming systems.
The site shows how today's farmers can encourage biodiversity, retain a rich, natural soil base, maintain clean water and foster human health.
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