Celebrate Food Diversity
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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

 

Picking Cotton

Publication | 15 June, 2010 at 11:30

This case study shows the economic stability and benefit for Indian farmers of farming cotton organically and without genetic engineering and toxic chemicals.

Counting the Costs of Genetic Engineering

Publication | 26 January, 2010 at 1:00

As the biotechnology industry continues to hail GE (genetic engineering) as the solution to innumerable problems, the grim reality unfolds in our fields and in the market place. The stories contained in this dossier document these failures, both...

Benefits of Diversity in Rice Farming

Publication | 26 January, 2010 at 1:00

Sustainable agriculture that embraces diversity over monoculture, as demonstrated by traditional forms of Chinese rice farming, has multiple benefits including greater yields, pest and weed control, disease resistance, increased nitrogen...

Kenya Overcomes Pests and Weeds with Ecological Solutions

Publication | 26 January, 2010 at 1:00

Kenyan farmers utilize local knowledge of ecological and sustainable farming practices to cope with pests, enhancing yields over industrial agriculture or monoculture, by up to 350 percent.

Diverse farming protects against climate change

Publication | 26 January, 2010 at 1:00

As climate change increasingly impacts on agriculture around the world, ecological and sustainable agricultural solutions prove best for climate resilience, farmers and the environment.

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