Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture
We, the undersigned, believe that a healthy food system is necessary to meet the urgent challenges of our time. Behind us stands a half-century of industrial food production, underwritten by cheap fossil fuels, abundant land and water resources, and a drive to maximize the global harvest of cheap calories. Ahead lie rising energy and food costs, a changing climate, declining water supplies, a growing population, and the paradox of widespread hunger and obesity.
These realities call for a radically different approach to food and agriculture. We believe that the food system must be reorganized on a foundation of health: for our communities, for people, for animals, and for the natural world. The quality of food, and not just its quantity, ought to guide our agriculture. The ways we grow, distribute, and prepare food should celebrate our various cultures and our shared humanity, providing not only sustenance, but justice, beauty and pleasure.
Governments have a duty to protect people from malnutrition, unsafe food, and exploitation, and to protect the land and water on which we depend from degradation. Individuals, producers, and organizations have a duty to create regional systems that can provide healthy food for their communities. We all have a duty to respect and honor the laborers of the land without whom we could not survive. The changes we call for here have begun, but the time has come to accelerate the transformation of our food and agriculture and make its benefits available to all.
We believe that the following twelve principles should frame food and agriculture policy, to ensure that it will contribute to the health and wealth of the nation and the world. A healthy food and agriculture policy:
Forms the foundation of secure and prosperous societies, healthy communities, and healthy people.
Provides access to affordable, nutritious food to everyone.
Prevents the exploitation of farmers, workers, and natural resources; the domination of genomes and markets; and the cruel treatment of animals, by any nation, corporation or individual.
Upholds the dignity, safety, and quality of life for all who work to feed us.
Commits resources to teach children the skills and knowledge essential to food production, preparation, nutrition, and enjoyment.
Protects the finite resources of productive soils, fresh water, and biological diversity.
Strives to remove fossil fuel from every link in the food chain and replace it with renewable resources and energy.
Originates from a biological rather than an industrial framework.
Fosters diversity in all its relevant forms: diversity of domestic and wild species; diversity of foods, flavors and traditions; diversity of ownership.
Requires a national dialog concerning technologies used in production, and allows regions to adopt their own respective guidelines on such matters.
Enforces transparency so that citizens know how their food is produced, where it comes from, and what it contains.
Promotes economic structures and supports programs to nurture the development of just and sustainable regional farm and food networks.
Our pursuit of healthy food and agriculture unites us as people and as communities, across geographic boundaries, and social and economic lines. We pledge our votes, our purchases, our creativity, and our energies to this urgent cause.
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Comments: 20
I would sign it any time!
Cristina
DRAT, I wish we had a way to edit comments w/o erasing them......sorry!
How much carbohydrate does it take to produce a gallon of ethanol?
How many acres of the nations farm land are required to keep cars on the road?
What percentage of the nations farm land is going over to crops for fuel?
I think you may find many of the answers you seek at
http://www.ambientediritto.it/dottrina/Politiche%20energetiche%20ambientali/politiche%20e.a/food_crops_lanzini.htm
Peace,
kmf
but I'll pitch the traditional view
Many people globally will go hungry
Look at this country, most folks are overweight due to too much food - but are lacking in some important nutrients due to inferior foods and junk.
Not to mention all of the poisins on/in conventially grown foods.
I want organic food.
I do NOT want GMO, I do NOT want cloned food, I do NOT want food that has been given hormones/antibiotics... .
Many folks have no idea what they are eating.
I grow most of my own so I know exactly how it was raised/grown.
If the quality of food were to be raised and the soil were treated as the living entity that it is - then no one would go hungry.
It is not lack of food that causes hunger, it is greed.
Organically Yours,
Diana
Let me first say I agree that we need better farming and livestock practices worldwide.
But, I find this declaration to be too broad and vague.
Let's just pretend for a moment that this declaration was enacted by several industrialized countries. Politicians would have a field day using this declaration to bolster their approval rating while not having to do much in the way of improving the world's food supply.
Also, allowing regions to adopt their own guidelines is a treacherous route. I've studied farming practices in several areas of the US and regional beliefs vary widely with little scientific basis with often deleterious results.
Please bear in mind that this is not the policies themselves. The key phrase to understanding this is "A healthy food and agriculture policy..." "Forms... provides ...prevents... upholds ...commits... " etc. So this is not a statement of policy, but a guide to what those policies should aim to accomplish. As such, it is intended to help find the solutions, not be the solution itself.
And the 2nd item you refer to:
"10. Requires a national dialog concerning technologies used in production, and allows regions to adopt their own respective guidelines on such matters."
Is intended to address the other side of the issue, such as in cases like in my state where Monsanto's lobbyists pushed a bill through our statehouse (and 23 others) that prohibits counties from banning GMOs.
Your thoughts are important to us though, and we want to hear them at FoodDeclaration.org. This is a living document, one we are striving to make as close to perfect as we can.
I fully understand that this is not meant to be policy. But, any politician who backed this and followed it to make policies wouldn't have to enact much to say they were following the Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture.
Move to eliminate food deserts, both urban and rural
Enact legislation that prohibits the patenting of lifeforms
Change CAFO practices to be more humane and less pollutiing
Drastically improve the food in our public schools, as well as the education about that food
Rolls back the recent relaxation of many environmental laws
Reformat the subsidies to work on a basis of biodiversity and conservation, rather than "get big or get out"
Populate the Ag. Committees in the House & Senate with more urban legislators
Permit, even require, GMO, clone, and rGBH labeling and enforce the recently passed COOL legislation
Improve local infrastructure to aid in developing effective, efficient local and regional food systems
I'd say that's a pretty good starting list that could result from adhering to the principles in this declaration.