Solutions

A widening circle of individuals and organisations around the world believe that governments, agribusiness, farmers and consumers should reverse the current trend of chemical-dependent, industrial agriculture, and support independent public research and promote sustainable agriculture - especially to meet the needs of small-scale farmers in the South.

Poor farmers in developing countries around the world have the skills and the motivation to protect their environment, for their benefit and for the benefit of the global commons on which we all depend.

Environmentally friendly practices are literally already in the ground but desperately lacking funding and policy support. Farming Solutions - a website jointly created by Greenpeace, Oxfam, and the Centre for Information on Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture (ILEIA) - shows how food security and sustainable livelihoods can be achieved by innovative, environmentally responsible agriculture systems without threatening biodiversity, eroding the soil base, polluting water or endangering human health.

The report "Recipes Against Hunger" contains many success stories of sustainable agriculture. Another report, "Real Green Revolution", provides an overview of the state-of-the-art organic and agroecological farming systems in the South with 10 case studies from developing countries.

The challenge of the coming agricultural revolution is to support farmers to feed themselves and their communities and to protect their environment. Solutions lie not in feeding the world but in enabling the world to feed itself.

For more information go to www.farmingsolutions.org