Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

  • First Peoples First
  • About
    • History
    • Our Team
      • Current National Committee
      • Past committees
    • Governance
    • President’s report
    • International
    • Press
      • In the News
      • Media Releases
    • Get in touch
  • Farmers
    • Farming on Other People’s Land
    • The Agroecology Action Research Network
    • Community Supported Agriculture
    • Workers’ Rights
  • Legal Defence Fund
    • Our Services
    • Who we support
    • Campaigns
    • Past efforts
    • Our Vision
  • Peoples’ Food Plan
  • CSA
  • Events
    • Fair Food Week
    • Food Sovereignty Convergence 15-24 Oct 2020
      • Watch: Food Sovereignty Convergence 2020
    • AFSA Solidarity Economy Sessions
      • Why solidarity economies?
      • What is a solidarity economy?
  • Submissions
  • Join Us
    • Join Us
    • AFSA Members’ Sesssions
  • Buy the Book!
    • Farming Democracy
    • Cart

Micro-organism & pollinators – our intervention at the UN

February 28, 2019 by Tammi Jonas

The following text was delivered by legendary peasant farmer, activist, and AFSA comrade Guy Kastler, fellow member of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) and La Via Campesina, and a founding member of Confédération Paysanne in France.

* * *

Farmers are farmers of billions of microorganisms and invertebrates that populate our soils, water, air and live with and within the plants and animals we raise.

We welcome the taxonomic identification and classification efforts promoted by FAO and the Commission. But we wonder about the relevance of the value chain that is then proposed. The conservation and sustainable use of this immense biodiversity will never be guaranteed if we simply identify the last existing genes, microbes or invertebrates before they disappear, in order to reproduce bad copies with synthetic chemistry and biotechnology and then sell them to farmers and other economic operators who need them.

We farmers know that only balanced ecosystems that respect the laws of natural evolution guarantee the conservation of the right microorganisms and invertebrates that we need, which allows them to control the proliferation of pathogens. Spreading micro-organisms and invertebrates in an environment where they cannot multiply, or destroying pathogens that proliferate in an unbalanced environment without correcting this imbalance, is never sustainable.

We welcome the Commission’s ambitious programme concerning pollinators who are essential, inter alia, for the reproduction of plants that provide a sufficiently diversified and balanced diet. But pollinators are not the only insects that disappear. In Europe, the latest scientific studies confirm what we have long observed, namely that we have lost 80% of insects in the last 30 years. They add that they could all disappear from the planet within 100 years. With them, the birds that feed on them have also left. Silent spring is now a reality in our fields, the last surviving birds only fly over city rooftops and insects that are pathogenic to our crops proliferate without any predators regulating them. To avoid using the pesticides responsible for this disaster, we are forced to spread auxiliary insects that often survive only a few days in our fields… until the day we no longer have enough money to buy them.

We call on the Commission to focus first on rebalancing ecosystems to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of the diversity of micro-organisms and invertebrates rather than on the unsustainable industrial production of genes and micro-organisms that are merely a dressing designed to hide a wooden leg very temporarily.

Filed Under: Agroecology, International Tagged With: bees, micro-organisms, pollinators

Support Food Sovereignty

Join or renew your AFSA membership today!

Search

Recent Posts

  • Take our survey to help shape your Peoples’ Food Plan!
  • AFSA responds to an Inquiry on Australian Government’s application of the UNDRIP in Australia
  • AFSA Values & Theory of Change
  • AFSA denounces misinformation from the far right in response to the Victorian Government’s ALA Bill
  • AFSA urges the Federal Government to change its definition of primary producers, to include smallholders seeking critical disaster recovery funding

Read more about…

Latest submissions

AFSA categorically rejects proposals to expand intensive aquaculture into Commonwealth waters

  The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) categorically rejects proposals to expand intensive aquaculture into Commonwealth waters. We need a radical paradigm shift away from Blue Economy to Blue Justice in fisheries, which is crucial for climate justice, encompassing economic, social, and environmental justice. The 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reported […]

AFSA responds to the ACT Capital Food and Fibre Strategy

  AFSA recently responded to the call for submissions to the ACT Capital Food and Fibre Strategy, which will “be a roadmap to delivering social, environmental and economic benefits based on secure, climate-resilient food and fibre production across in the ACT; and respond to the need to mitigate climate challenges via adaptation and diversification. It […]

A Licence to Sell Lettuce? ASFA Submission to FSANZ Proposal

  For three years FSANZ has been working on a proposal to more tightly regulate the production and sale of berries, leafy vegetables, and melons after several outbreaks of listeria, e coli, and salmonella from large monocultures. AFSA has provided feedback from the beginning on the need to approach any changes with a scale-appropriate lens […]

Protecting farmers and preserving farm land: Submission on the Protections within the Victorian Planning Framework

In October 2021 the Victorian Legislative Council tasked the Environment and Planning Committee to inquire into and report on: “the adequacy of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and Victorian planning framework in relation to planning and heritage protection”. Particular terms of reference were outlined for the Committee to address and AFSA provides its submission […]

AFSA supports proposed changes to landscape rehydration infrastructure planning rules in NSW

The Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) supports the proposed changes to landscape rehydration infrastructure planning rules and applauds the NSW Government’s initiative to allow farmers to restore streams on their property through landscape rehydration techniques, without the need for council approval. AFSA represents small and medium scale producers and our vision is to enable regenerative […]

Newsletter

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Become a member

Join or renew

Already a member?

Login

Update membership details

Recent posts

  • Take our survey to help shape your Peoples’ Food Plan! June 3, 2022
  • AFSA responds to an Inquiry on Australian Government’s application of the UNDRIP in Australia June 2, 2022
  • AFSA Values & Theory of Change May 26, 2022
  • AFSA denounces misinformation from the far right in response to the Victorian Government’s ALA Bill May 13, 2022
  • AFSA urges the Federal Government to change its definition of primary producers, to include smallholders seeking critical disaster recovery funding April 8, 2022

Copyright © 2022 · Outreach Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in