From global environmental changes to social-ecological crises, the biosphere has been severely affected by the design of a modern production system (Commoner, 1976) unharmonious with the environment. Agriculture provides great potential for mitigating climate change and reducing poverty if implemented by a sustainable system, which does not depend on externally generated inputs but has a self-renewing capacity (Trudgill, 2001).
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| Development and preservation are not mutually exclusive and sustainable development, based on the preservation of resources, will lead to greater eventual benefits. Source |
The so-called Green Revolutions (GRs) produced the dominant agricultural model of today. While this model significantly increased agricultural performance in terms of yields and world food supplies, the number of people undernourished only fell by 80 million between the late 1960s and the early 1990s (Altieri, 2005). In Africa, the prevalence of undernourishment rose from 20.8 to 22.7% between 2015 and 2016, according to a new FAO report.
Today, with about 1 billion people going hungry, climate change and conflicts over resources increasing, many of the same MNC's behind the GRs are promoting a ''Gene Revolution'' to increase food supplies and ''quench the hunger'' for future increasing commodities.
Today, with about 1 billion people going hungry, climate change and conflicts over resources increasing, many of the same MNC's behind the GRs are promoting a ''Gene Revolution'' to increase food supplies and ''quench the hunger'' for future increasing commodities.
A holistic, ecological approach to agriculture must be implemented to address the root causes of hunger and to reverse land degradation, acknowledging the fact that the present agroindustrial model has brought us to an ''ecological limit''. Agroecology provides an alternative and sustainable path. It is labor intensive, reduces the demand for purchased seeds and chemical inputs and works in a systems approach that use natural resources efficiently. Agroecology is the science of sustainable farming.
Taking into account Rabelai’s precepts ''science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul'', Edgar Morin, French philosopher, concludes ''science without conscience is but the ruin of mankind''.
When it comes to innovations in the agricultural sector, science and conscience must be wedded and give birth to an affirmative moral maxim banning environmental trade-offs.
