Soils poisoned by toxic chemicals, the industrial model that is stifling free small-scale agriculture and killing biodiversity, the standardization of nutrient-deprived foods, the huge interests that drive multinationals and governments by denying protection to citizen-consumers.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousSoils poisoned by toxic chemicals, the industrial model that is stifling free small-scale agriculture and killing biodiversity, the standardization of nutrient-deprived foods, the huge interests that drive multinationals and governments by denying protection to citizen-consumers. Food and Health, a manual for food resistance, speaks of this and much more.
Inside it contains the Manifesto Food for Health (Food for Health) which collects data and analyzes from the food and health sectors, denounces the limits of a food production system that is only apparently convenient.
Published by Terra Nuova Edizioni and edited by Navdanya International, it brings together some of the leading international experts in the food and health sectors as part of the international Food for health campaign and in continuation of the work of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture.
The real costs of "low cost" food, which we buy every day when we go shopping, are in fact systematically outsourced by the Big Food industry. These hidden costs concern both the environmental damage caused by intensive agriculture with high chemical input, and the damage to the health of consumers, whose choices are now reduced to the purchase of food with a low nutritional quotient and a high rate of contamination. chemistry.
“It is important - explained Vandana Shiva - to find useful alternatives, the health of the planet and that of people are one. Alternatives exist and are based on regenerating the health of the earth, through agroecology, safeguarding biodiversity, the promotion of the short chain and of food systems at km 0. Health, starting from that of the soil, up to that of plants, animals and humans, must be the organizing principle as well as the goal of agriculture, trade, science, our life and international trade ".
According to the Manifesto, the nutritional qualities of food are sacrificed to achieve quantitative goals, while the great benefits deriving from biodiversity are seriously reduced due to an increasing dependence on monocultures.
This system produces proven harmful effects on the quality and variety of seeds, on the biodiversity of all species, contaminates the soil and aquifers and contributes significantly to climate change.
But not only that, the high financial, ecological and health costs of this production model are largely excluded from the determination of the price of food, creating the illusion that the food thus produced is actually "cheap".
We are talking about an agriculture that is characterized as aggressive, chemical, industrial and which very often includes GMOs. This type of agriculture is rapidly growing, spins large sums of money, involves the growth of very few large landowners worldwide, imposes an exponential increase in monocultures of soybeans, corn, sugar, Asian and African palm oil everywhere, with serious costs for the environment and the local economy.
The motto carried forward by Shiva is Sarve bhavantu sukhinali, that is "may all living beings be happy", which is why the Manifesto does not limit itself to denouncing the situation of degradation, but offers concrete solutions that is the regeneration of the soil, the safeguarding of biodiversity, the promotion of the short chain and of food systems at km 0.
Read also:
- Vandana Shiva: are industrial agriculture lobbies trying to compromise COP21?
- Ecoguerriere: Vandana Shiva and the women who hug the trees
Dominella Trunfio
