Living in Epoch-Defining Times: Food, Agriculture and the New World Order https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/living-in-epoch-defining-times-food-agriculture-and-the-new-world-order/ Colin Todhunter Jan 7 2022
This is the future that big agritech and agribusiness envisage: a future of ‘data-driven’ and ‘climate-friendly’ agriculture that they say is essential if we are to feed a growing global population. the aim is for a relative handful of corporations to gain full control of the entire global food system. what is envisaged will lead to the further trashing of rural economies, communities and cultures.
Organic agriculture and Agroecology are not necessarily one and the same. Whereas organic agriculture can still be part of the prevailing globalised food regime dominated by giant agrifood conglomerates, agroecology uses organic practices but is ideally rooted in the principles of localisation, food sovereignty and self-reliance. The FAO recognises that agroecology contributes to improved food self-reliance, the revitalisation of smallholder agriculture and enhanced employment opportunities. It has argued that organic agriculture could produce enough food on a global per capita basis for the current world population but with reduced environmental impact than conventional agriculture.
Global agribusiness and agritech firms continue to marginalise organic, capture public bodies and push for their chemical-intensive, high-tech approaches. Although organic farming and natural farming methods like agroecology offer genuine solutions for many of the world’s pressing problems (health, environment, employment, rural development, etc), these approaches challenge corporate interests and threaten their bottom line.
In India, Walmart and Amazon could end up dominating the e-retail sector... The government is facilitating the dominance of giant corporations, not least through digital or e-commerce platforms. E-commerce companies not only control data about consumption but also control data on production, logistics, who needs what, when they need it, who should produce it, who should move it and when it should be moved...These platforms have the capacity to shape the entire physical economy.