Sustainable agriculture and organic farming

Local communities should be allowed to provide for themselves in a sustainable manner before worrying about supplying crops for export

Modern, industrial agriculture has much to answer for. It has degraded the soil, polluted and exhausted water supplies, and destroyed animal and plant species.

Widespread use of pesticides has led to the emergence of pesticide-resistant weeds, while excessive use of fertiliser contributes to global warming due to its energy-intensive manufacture, not to mention the enormous quantities of fossil fuels used in food production and transport. Meanwhile the run-off pollutes water supplies and harms fish. Food scares and epidemics are increasingly commonplace, and in response demand for organic food is skyrocketing.

As is all too common with unsound industries, when people and governments in one part of the world wake up to bad industrial practices, these industries shift to poorer countries. GM technologies - the ugly stepdaughter of industrial agriculture - are no different. The GM industry has wasted no time in claiming that whatever those of us in Europe think about GM, it will be necessary to feed the growing world population.

This is despite the fact that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation states that there is more than enough food on the planet to feed everyone - one and a half times as much in fact. But that hasn't stopped companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer Cropscience trumpeting about the benefits of crops such as golden rice, so-called because of its disputed increase in vitamin A compared to conventional rice varieties.

These companies have not only misrepresented the problem but also their own solutions - neither golden rice nor any other GM crop designed to help poor farmers in the developing world is ready for use. Unsurprisingly, the GM crops which have been commercialised are designed to sell more agrochemicals such as Monsanto's Roundup herbicide or Bayer's Liberty.

To properly address hunger, we need to support sustainable farming that meets the needs of the local people and environment. Successive studies have documented the social and environmental benefits of sustainable low-input and organic farming in both the North and the South. These offer a practical way of restoring agricultural land degraded by industrial farming with chemicals and over-production, allowing family farmers to fight poverty and hunger.

Sustainable agriculture leads to better soil, a varied locally grown diet, increased harvests, a better environment and increased food security. Like illusionists using sleight of hand tricks, the biotech companies are diverting resources away from these more sustainable solutions and towards GM technologies simply to further their own interests.

But by championing organic, locally-produced food, we can challenge the threats posed by industrial agriculture and see a farming system that works in conjunction with nature, not against it.