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    Farmers have the Earth in Their Hands
    Farmers have the Earth in Their Hands
    Farmers have the Earth in Their Hands
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Farmers have the Earth in Their Hands

    By Paul LUU and Marie-Christine BIDAULT

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    About this ebook

    How can we feed 10 billion people tomorrow? Can we avoid deforestation, the intensive use of fertilisers and synthetic products, which aggravate climate change and the erosion of biodiversity? Should the debate be limited to a strict opposition between organic and conventional agriculture ? Can a better distribution of resources and changes in d

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherÉditions La Butineuse
    Release dateDec 1, 2022
    ISBN9782493291110
    Farmers have the Earth in Their Hands
    Author

    Paul LUU

    The International "4 by 1000" Initiative was launched by France in 2015 during COP 21. It calls for the dissemination and implementation of concrete actions for carbon storage in soils through agriculture and forestry.Paul Luu is an agricultural engineer specializing in tropical agronomy, a graduate of AgroParis Tech, with a PhD from the University of Montpellier. He has worked in the field all over the world, in the international relations department of the French Ministry of Agriculture, and in the agricultural development of overseas departments and territories. He was Director of Agropolis International before joining the CGIAR. Since 2016, he has been the Executive Secretary of the "4 for 1000" Initiative.

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      Book preview

      Farmers have the Earth in Their Hands - Paul LUU

      Foreword

      When considering the options for the future development of our agricultural production methods, it is tempting to pit organic agriculture against conventional agriculture.

      However, there is no absolute truth and one of the major challenges of the current debate lie in the realisation that the context is not always as simple as it seems.

      Other principles of agriculture exist, are developing, and coexist. They respond to production needs and adapt to constantly changing natural conditions, particularly under the impetus of climate change.

      The intention of the book you are holding in your hands is to provide a simple and objective overview of agriculture, its scientific foundations, the history of its (r)evolutions and the situation today. It is also to open the way to the agro-ecological transition which is necessary for the future of humanity on planet Earth.

      It is a question of giving everyone the means to understand what is at stake without evading the questions that are sometimes disturbing, but which are important in today’s world. Alongside the challenges, we do have realistic options to address them. This discussion is often presented in a simplistic way, whereas the reality of life is by nature complex.

      This book does not pretend to explain everything exhaustively but to provide keys to understanding. The objective is to allow each person to form his or her own opinion and to engage in his or her own reflections on the choices to be made with regard to food and therefore agriculture, and on the behavior of stakeholders with frequently divergent interests.

      One thing is certain: every human being on Earth needs to feed themselves daily to enable them to survive. Tomorrow, there will be nearly 10 billion of us on a planet that, every day, shows us its limits and the consequences of our thoughtless actions.

      If we wish to leave our children agricultural land capable not only of feeding us today, but also of bearing tomorrow’s crops, there is one capital that is more important than any other, that of the soil, a living soil.

      The most important challenge ahead of us is to lead the agro-ecological transition to improve the world’s food security and actively contribute to the fight against climate change.

      Through agriculture and forestry, soil restoration and regeneration, let us pass on this precious capital to future generations without compromising their future productive capacities!

      Since the birth of the International Initiative 4 per 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate launched during the COP 21 in Paris in December 2015, things have started to move in the right direction.

      But the main actors of this new (r)evolution are, first and foremost, farmers as well as citizens aware of the current global challenges.

      Stéphane LE FOLL

      President,

      Ibrahim Assane MAYAKI

      Vice-President

      and

      Gabrielle BASTIEN

      Vice-President

      of the International 4 per 1000 Initiative

      The International 4 per 1000 Initiative aims to show that agricultural soils can play a crucial role in food security and climate change. It consists of federating all voluntary actors from the public and private sectors and has 700 partners whom it invites to raise awareness and implement concrete actions for soil carbon storage.

      Stéphane LE FOLL has been Mayor of the city of Le Mans since 2018 and was Minister of Agriculture and Food of the French Republic from 2012 to 2017. He is the author of La première graine published by Calmann Levy – 2017.

      Ibrahim Assane MAYAKI is Executive Secretary of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) since 2009. He was Prime Minister of Niger from 1997 to 2000.

      Gabrielle BASTIEN is founder and Executive Director of the NGO Regeneration Canada since 2017. She has been distinguished as an Emerging Leader in Canada in 2021.

      Chapter One

      Why do we need a change in agriculture?

      When it comes to food, and therefore agriculture, the opinions expressed become more radical. For many of our fellow citizens, agriculture has become an aberration that pollutes our land, our water and our air, and that no longer guarantees us sufficient and healthy food. While some people are overwhelmed by the abundance of increasingly processed products, supposedly to simplify their lives, others, elsewhere in the world, are struggling to meet their basic food needs.

      For some, the choice is sensitive between an organic or vegan diet so as not to make animals suffer, or soon synthetic meat from cell cultures; for others, the only daily meal will be what they can find, regardless of the origin, the production methods and the balance between plant and animal based foods.

      How can we confidently envisage feeding 10 billion human beings with food production that no longer seems able to increase, other than through extensive deforestation and increased use of fertilisers and synthetic pesticides?

      Other challenges also threaten humanity, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and the increasing frequency of pandemic diseases.

      Are there another, still under-explored, ways to give us hope for a greener tomorrow? Are there solutions that are more in harmony with nature, which would allow each human being to meet his or her vital needs; access to sufficient and healthy food, breathable and unpolluted air, and clear and pure water as on the first day? Perhaps...

      It is impossible not to notice how dependent our conventional agriculture, and therefore our global food supply, is on chemicals and fossil fuels. In order to exist and develop, it also continues to cause deforestation in some parts of the world, which leads to a significant loss of biodiversity, especially when it concerns primary forests.

      It is nevertheless necessary to recall that this agriculture has emerged and developed in a certain context, fulfilling the objectives assigned to it by society at the time: to increase food security for a growing world population; to reduce the drudgery of work for farmers; to facilitate and reduce the production costs of agricultural products to facilitate trade and exchange, and so on.

      Like many other human activities, the large-scale deployment of cheap fossil fuels, allowing both the manufacture and distribution of various chemicals and powerful mechanical means, has diverted agriculture. It has also sought to gradually free itself from climatic conditions through irrigation, from diseases, pests and weeds through the use of pesticides and, above all, from the state of the soil through application of fertilisers. This to the point of considering the soil as a mere inert substrate and not as the support and source of life.

      The plant and animal species that are cultivated, bred, sorted and selected according to this evolution, have become very dependent on these factors, and they must be provided with appropriate and adapted nutrition food and protection. In short, it does not matter how degraded and unhealthy the soil that supports them becomes, since external inputs compensate for the deficiencies of its natural functioning.

      This system has made it possible to achieve very high levels of production at relatively low cost, at least economically, supported by abundant and cheap fossil fuels. But the negative impact on the environment is now proven and has shown its limits in terms of productivity as well as its fragility due to its very high degree of dependence.

      Conventional agriculture, an assisted agriculture

      So-called conventional or industrial agriculture is dependent on many external inputs.

      It uses mineral fertilisers to provide crops with the elements they need to grow, and thus compensate for the decline in natural soil fertility. Soils which are often depleted by intensive practices like deep tillage and the short rotations of the same crops in the same fields.

      It is also dependent on pesticides and herbicides to ‘easily’ control diseases, pests and weeds, which are favoured in single-crop systems.

      In many parts of the world, it is also dependent on irrigation because, regardless of the problem of climate

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