I have just spent three days in South Saxony, Germany as part of an EISA farmer’s exchange. EISA stands for the European Initiative for Sustainable Development in Agriculture and is the umbrella organisation for a number of members who are strongly committed to agricultural practices that are economically viable, whilst being environmentally responsible and socially acceptable.
Organisations have been formed throughout Europe for the promotion of integrated farming including FNL in Germany, Odling i Balans in Sweden, FARRE in France, FILL in Luxembourg and LEAF in the UK. The aim of the organisations is to encourage the adoption of the principles of integrated farming as well as engaging with consumers so that they understand the principles and the advantages that they provide in terms of the acceptability of food and the impact on the environment.
Agriculture is the only mechanism that will feed the world. Feeding the world whilst still maintaining the earth’s resources and protecting the natural environment is the aim of integrated farming. By working at the farm level to balance food production, profitability, food safety, animal welfare and environmental and social responsibility integrated farming seeks to meet the challenges that we are facing in the short and longer term.
To some extent it may come to pass that agriculture is not the only method by which the world will be fed.
At the end of the day agriculture is a form of science and as such "science" may eventually lead us away from agriculture altogether in some areas of food production.
The type of thing I refer to is the mass production of proteins/carbohydrates via industrial chemical process. Surely the governments of third world countries are likely to be more open to the concept of cheap protein/carb production if it is "economically efficient" and has other benefits over traditional production such as reduced reliance on the weather.
Given our situation as an island nation with limited land resource and relatively high agricultural production costs c.f. BRIC countries, perhaps this technology isn't as far fetched as it might initially seem.
Posted by: westydexta | September 09, 2008 at 03:06 PM
I agree that we may have to revisit our definition of "food". They are already growing muscle fibres in the laboratory which could one day form a source of protein and if algae can be used to produce biofuels in theory they could be used to produce carbohydrate nutrients too. Individual countries I am sure will take a different ethical position as they have with GM and animal cloning, but this discussion will make an important contribution to the debate on how we provide sufficient nutrients for the projected 9.5 billion people in our global population.
Posted by: Louise Manning | September 09, 2008 at 03:34 PM