Increased cation Increased Reduced exchange water soil erosion capacity holding Improved capacity Improved water water quality filtration Decreased Reduced soil water run- compaction off Improved Reduced soil tilth and fertilizer structure inputs Reduced air Increased pollution soil buffer capavity Increased More biological wildlife activity Enhanced Aesthetic nutrient appeal to cycling and soil Increased Enhanced pesticide microflora storage adsorption diversity Navdanya- A 60 Hauz Khas , New Delhi ; Dehra Dun and Balasore; www.navdanya.org/site 011-26968077; [email protected]; @Navdanya_Navdanya SEEDS OF HOPE, SEEDS OF RESILIENCE kl nw S = Increased cation Increased Reduced exchange water RFSTE soil erosion capacity holding Improved capacity Improved water water quality filtration Decreased Reduced soil water run- compaction off Improved Reduced soil tilth and fertilizer structure inputs Increased Reduced air soil buffer pollution capavity Increased More biological wildlife activity Enhanced Aesthetic nutrient appeal to cycling and soil Increased Enhanced storage pesticide microflora adsorption diversity HowBiodiversityandAgroecologyofferSolutionstoClimate ChangebyGrowingLIVINGCARBON Navdanya DrVandanaShiva A-60, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 110 016, India Tel: 91-11-2696 8077, 2653 2561 WithDrVinodBhatt,DrAshokPanigrahi, E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.navdanya.org KusumMishra,DrTarafdar,DrVirSingh kl nw S = RFSTE SEEDS OF HOPE, SEEDS OF RESILIENCE How Biodiversity and Agroecology offer Solutions to Climate Change by Growing LIVING CARBON Dr Vandana Shiva With Dr Vinod Bhatt, Dr Ashok Panigrahi, Kusum Mishra, Dr Tarafdar, Dr Vir Singh klnw S= RFSTE Seeds of Hope, Seeds of Resilience © Navdanya/RESTE, 2017 First Edition 2017 Published by : Navdanya/RFSTE A-60, Hauz Khas New Delhi - 110 016, India Tel: 91-11-2696 8077, 2653 2561 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.navdanya.org Designed & printed by : PRINTFORCE (M) 9958392130 [email protected] Contents Climate Change and Biodiversity Erosion: Common Roots of ................................... 1 Interconnected Crises in Fossil Fuel based Industrial Agriculture The Climate Crisis: Transgressing Planetary Boundaries, ............................................. 5 Disrupting Ecological Cycles Soil Not Oil: Agroecology and Organic Farming as ...................................................... 13 Climate Solutions Biodiversity: A Climate Solution ........................................................................................ 23 Seeds of Hope, Seeds of Resilience: How Biodiversity .................................................. 27 makes Agriculture and Communities More Resilient to Climate Change References ............................................................................................................................... 39 Appendix ................................................................................................................................. 42 1 Climate Change and Biodiversity Erosion: Common Roots of Interconnected Crises in Fossil Fuel based Industrial Agriculture oday, we are faced with two life threatening Climate change is not just about global warming and Tplanetary crises – climate change and species rising temperatures. The desatabilisation of the climate extinction. Both crises are inter-connected, and have system is leading to the intensification of droughts, common roots. Our current modes of production and floods, cyclones and other extreme weather events. Year consumption based on fossil fuels - starting with the after year the frequency and intensity of these extreme industrial revolution and intensified by the advent events is increasing. Climate Change is already a life of industrial agriculture, have contributed to both and death issue in large parts of the world. these crises. In 1992, at the Earth Summit, the International The last two centuries of dependence on fossil community adopted two major ecological principles fuels has created multiple distortions in our view – the precautionary principle and the polluter pays of the world, of our production and consumption principle, and signed two legally binding agreements systems, of our ideas of efficiency and productivity, – The UN Convention on the Conservation of Bio- of our ideas of technological progress, of the way we diversity,(CBD) and UN Framework Convention on produce and distribute our food. Climate Change (UNFCC). We use more resources to produce the goods we Both treaties were shaped by the emerging ecological consume, and call it more “productive”. We create more sciences and the deepening ecology movement. one waste and more externalities that the earth and others was a scientific response to the ecological impact have to bear, and we call it more “efficient”. We degrade of pollution of the atmosphere due to use of fossil the planet, push species to extinction at 1000 times fuels. The second was a scientific response to the the normal rate, we are making the planet unliveable genetic pollution caused by GMOs and the erosion of because of climate chaos, and we call it progress. biodiversity due to the spread of industrial, chemical The emissions from fossil fuel based economic monocultures. Three years after Rio, the UN Leipzig activities are termed, by the scientists who have been Conference on Plant Genetic Resources assessed that studying climate change, as anthropogenic emissions - 75% biodiversity had disappeared because of the Green originating from human activity. The Intergovernmen- Revolution and Industrial farming. The FAO estimates, tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recognized 70-90% of global deforestation is due to Industrial that since 1750 the net effect of human activities on Agriculture pushing it’s monocultures further and the earth’s climate has been one of warning. Certain- further into forests to grow commodities for export ly about the anthropogenic basis for climate change - not for food. Disappearance of pollinators and has gone from greater than 66 percent to greater than beneficial soil organisms are other dimensions of 90 percent. biodiversity erosion due to industrial agriculture. If no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gases, Most of mankind now lives on no more than we could experience a catastrophic 4°C increase in 12 plant species, with the four biggest staple crops temperatures by the end of the century. (wheat, rice, maize and potato) taking the lion’s share CLIMATE CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY EROSION • 1 (Esquinas Alcazar 2010). In India, rice varieties have industrial, globalised food system. A report from declined from an estimated 200,000 before colonial- Grain based in Barcelona Spain in their report on ism, to 30,000 in the mid 19th century with several Food Sovereignty concludes “that the current global thousand more varieties lost since the imposition of food system, propelled by an increasingly powerful Green Revolution on India, in the 1960s. Similarly, transnational food industry, is responsible for about Greece is estimated to have lost 95% of its traditional half of all human produced greenhouse gas emissions: wheat varieties after being encouraged to replace local anywhere between a low of 44 per cent to a high of seeds with ‘modern’ varieties developed by CIMMYT. 57 per cent.” The disappearance of this diversity in our diets has Source: www.grain.org/ article/entries/5390-food- manifested in the epidemic of malnutrition, especially sovereignty-can-stop-climate-change-and-feed-us-all. amongst the world’s poor. Having created the epidemic, The same fossil fuel intensive, poison intensive in- this failed system of chemical agriculture would like to dustrial agriculture is also destroying the biodiversity force ‘Golden Rice’ and ‘GMO Bananas’ on us under of our seeds and crops, soil biodiversity, killing polli- the pretext of “bio-fortification” without appropriate nators, destroying water resources. It is also responsible and adequate testing. for 75% of the disease epidemic related to bad food Crop Genetic Diversity is indispensable in provid- produced by oil. ing resilience to face unpredictable environmental and The spread of monocultures and the increasing use climate changes and meet the needs of an ever expand of chemical fertilisers in agriculture, combined with ing human population. destruction of habitats, have contributed to the loss Source: Seed Freedom Report 2012, Living Seed – Breed- of biodiversity. Paradoxically, this biodiversity would ing as Co-evolution, Salvatore Cecarelli have helped sequester greenhouse gases. The model of industrial agriculture and modern Industrial agriculture is a major contributor to plant breeding has resulted in severe erosion of di- climate change because of its dependence on chemicals, versity of crop varieties. The changes in who controls fossil fuels and on a globalized food system that requires seed production and seed supply have had devastating inefficient, energy intensive, long distance transport. effects on genetic erosion. Either we can allow the Additionally, it is highly vulnerable to climate change power of diversity to enrich our soils, combat climate as it is based on uniformity and monocultures, on change and nourish us from disease to health or we centralized distribution systems, and on intensive can sit back and allow monocultures, chemicals and energy and water inputs. Genetically Engineered (GE) GMOs to drive humanity to extinction. crops aggravate all the shortcomings of industrial Interdisciplinary science and democratic