Food Security
Organic agriculture, by requiring few, low-cost inputs, enhancing local biodiversity, and providing a premium return on investment, is a system that empowers farmers to restore and uphold food security.
About 800 million people are hungry and another two billion people suffer from life threatening disease related to under nutrition and contamination of pesticides. At the same time, 1.4 billion people are overweight, and nearly half of our global food supply is wasted. Our food security campaign challenges policies that have led to this crisis, namely those subsidizing industrial food and agriculture systems.
Organic agriculture can help achieve food security by:
- Increasing and stabilizing yields over the long-term, particularly on marginal lands.
- Battling poverty through reducing debt and increasing returns on labor invested.
- Providing diversified, healthy and nutritious food for farming families and communities.
To increase the use of organic agriculture as a tool for food security, we call on:
- Governments around the world to provide focused support and appropriate policies, including local market promotion for organic products by raising consumer awareness about nutritional benefits.
- Research and extension institutions to focus their work on agroecology and organic agriculture and to develop long-term solutions and promote and exchange successful techniques amongst farmers and technicians.