Remodel food systems

Subject: Environment

Section: Climate change

Context:

There is a growing discussion on the need to re-engineer the current model of agriculture and the food we consume.

Details:

Agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas emissions through methane emissions from rice cultivation and livestock, through nitrous oxide from the use of synthetic fertilisers and manure on fields, large-scale clearing of forests, including rainforests, to produce beef cattle and even through palm oil plantation.

Agriculture practices that adapt to climate change:

Most dairy farmers are still individuals, using combinations of open and stall feeding for their animals. Their farms are based on agrosilvopastoral systems.
The elements of the agricultural model for livelihood-nutrition-nature security in our climate-risked world are as follows-
- It has to be a low-input-based model that protects the farmer from multiple risks.
- Agriculture has to be built on the principle of risk minimisation by promoting multiple cropping systems. This will also promote biodiversity as farmers would grow more than one crop on the field.
- The choice of crops that are both nutritive and compatible with the local environment. Governments must enable policies — from procurement to price — to promote the growing of these crops.
- The choice of food that farmers grow is in the hands of consumers — us; what we eat; and why we eat it. If we change our diets, it provides signals to the farmer to grow differently.