Inequality – YourVoiz

Surging Hunger Levels Crush Years of Progress

Monica Piccinini

12 July 2023

The world is facing an alarming and deeply distressing reality as food insecurity reaches catastrophically high levels. Across the globe, countless individuals and communities are struggling with the crippling fear of not having enough to eat.

According to the latest findings unveiled in the United Nation’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published today, the data highlights a distressing state of global hunger in 2022, a year tainted by a combination of severe challenges, including a food price crisis, ongoing conflicts, and detrimental economic and climate disturbances.

This is a sobering wake up call, says the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, IPES-Food.

Jennifer Clapp, food security expert with IPES-Food and professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada, explained:

“The world is facing disturbingly high levels of hunger right now. Years of progress on improving food security and nutrition have been erased. Governments have failed to make food systems shock-resistant, to shield people from food price inflation, or to address the ticking time bomb of debt.

We desperately need a new recipe for addressing hunger – based on the right to food, less reliance on volatile global markets, and on countries producing more food for their own people.”

The SOFI data reveals an alarming picture, where food insecurity has reached unprecedented and catastrophic new levels with no signs of improvement on the horizon – setting the world back 15 years.

In 2022, approximately 735 million people (9.2% of the world population) faced economic undernourishment, while nearly 30% of the world’s population encountered varying degrees of moderate to severe food insecurity.

*Photo: ID 21810737 © Udra11 | Dreamstime.com*

The report also reveals that the hunger crisis intensified in 2022, with an additional 122 million people facing food insecurity compared to the pre-pandemic period in 2019. The compounding effects of COVID, conflict and climate change have highlighted the fragility and inequalities ingrained within the global food systems.

Moreover, the study warns that if substantial changes are not implemented, we are heading towards a future where 600 million individuals will continue to suffer from chronic undernourishment by 2030. This outcome would have severe consequences for the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), rendering them ineffective.

Olivier De Schutter, co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, IPES-Food, and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, mentioned:

“Low income countries are trapped in debt, unable to invest in combating hunger, and condemned to export cash crops rather than feed their own people.

To have any hope of reaching the sustainable development goals at transformation is needed – with social protection schemes that guarantee the right to food for the world’s poorest, debt cancellation, and investment in diverse, resilient agroecological food production.”

The impact of food insecurity is devastating, with families and vulnerable populations bearing the brunt of its consequences.

Hunger in Africa Continues to Grow

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The relentless increase of hunger in Africa persisted for the tenth consecutive year, affecting a staggering one-fifth of the continent’s population.

According to the SOFI report, in Africa, where the shares of the population that are food insecure and unable to afford a healthy diet, are among the highest in the world.

Million Belay, expert with IPES-Food and coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, AFSA, reacted:

“It’s shocking that hunger has risen in African for ten years in a row. But our exploitative global economic system has prioritised servicing debt over feeding people, exporting cash for crops over growing nutritious food for Africans, and burning fossil fuels over adapting to climate change.”

Fresh data from 11 African nations reveals that farmers and rural communities face greater vulnerability to fluctuating food prices and hunger than previously anticipated, while the consumption of processed foods in these regions is on the rise, even in rural areas. In rural areas, a notable 33% of individuals encounter moderate to severe food insecurity, surpassing the corresponding figures observed in urban areas.

The African Development Bank estimated that Africa’s net food imports reached $35 billion in 2015, and expects it to triple by 2025, reaching over $110 billion. Agricultural surpluses from the Global North are dumped on African markets, inundating local markets, driving down farmers’ incomes, weakening communities and local agricultural production.

Africa’s reliance on world food markets is damaging to food security, especially during times of crisis, like we’ve seen during the COVID pandemic.

“African countries have been left critically vulnerable to the blows of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change. Our governments are starved of cash to build the sustainable food systems we need to feed ourselves. The dominant food system is reducing people’s resilience to shocks and leading to perpetual debt and food dumping – this must change”, explained Belay.

Ultra Processed Diet

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The adoption of industrialised farming practices has led to a change in dietary habits, with a rise in the consumption of highly processed foods, which has had negative health consequences, particularly among low-income communities.

Additionally, this form of agriculture heavily depends on the widespread use of chemical inputs, including fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and antibiotics, with negative consequences for ecosystems and human health.

Based on the SOFI report, the increased accessibility of affordable, ready-to-eat, and fast food options, which are often high in calories, fats, sugars, and salt, can contribute to malnutrition.

Insufficient availability of fruits and vegetables for meeting the daily nutritional needs of the population is also a concern. Moreover, this trend has resulted in the exclusion of small-scale farmers from formal value chains and the loss of land and natural resources due to urban expansion.

The report also highlights the prevalence of child overweight at risk of increasing with the emerging problem of high consumption of highly processed foods and food away from home in urban centres, which is increasingly spreading into peri-urban and rural areas.

“Once again the world is plagued by hunger. A healthy diet is unattainable for nearly half of the world’s population – even while food manufacturers and giant agriculture corporations enjoy bonanza profits”, explained De Schutter.

The predicted cost of treating dietary related diseases is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030.

Global hunger can have severe consequences that go beyond the immediate lack of food. Key consequences associated with global famine include migration and displacement, health issues, economic impacts, as well as social and political unrest.

As the grip of food insecurity tightens, urgent action and comprehensive strategies are essential to alleviate this alarming situation, restore hope, and ensure that no one is left behind in the struggle for sustenance.

The time to act is now, as we must collectively confront the specter of hunger and work tirelessly to build a future where food insecurity becomes an unimaginable concept rather than a haunting reality.

We Need to Talk About Our Food Systems

Monica Piccinini

8 June 2023

Our global food systems are highly complex and serve many constituent parts. It’s responsible for making available fresh produce throughout the year in countries and regions that historically have been very limited in their food produce. Viewed in a positive light, the systems serve the needs of many.

However, as the global food systems have evolved over time, it has increasingly been focused on monetary gain for corporate stakeholders and less about serving the needs of the global populous.

The increasing focus on economic gain from the global food systems can be evidenced as a cause of wide scale sickness, hunger, poverty, sickness, homelessness, poisoning of our land, water, air, plants, animals, our bodies and minds.

The food industry is considered as a major drive of climate change, responsible for one third of world GHG emissions (IPCC 2019), land-use change and biodiversity loss (40% of earth’s surface), major user of freshwater resources (70% of global freshwater) and a major polluter of terrestrial aquatic systems through the use of chemicals.

During the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023 in London, Philip Lymbery, global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, highlighted the fact that we rely more and more on a small number of countries for the production of major crops on which we depend on. When certain world events occur, such as conflicts and the Covid-19 pandemic, and global supply chains are disrupted, the entire food system is impacted.

*Philip Lymbery at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London*

The countries we rely on, mainly in the global south, are forced to invest in “cash crops” for exports, not producing enough to feed their own population. They produce raw materials that we then process and sell it back to them in the form of finished food products, mainly as a result of their huge debt, explained Lymbery.

Food security is another issue, as we have witnessed in recent years a record high in food prices, global hunger and social inequities that result from the industrial farming systems, not just from conflicts and climate change. We are producing enough food to feed the entire world, but what we’ve seen is a mismatch between supply and demand, a financialisation of agriculture systems and markets, as well as an increase in power concentration.

Lymbery said, “These companies are taking our food systems hostage for their thirst for profits.”

“Food systems are often shaped by politics, rather than policies”, he added.

Our food systems are also impacting our health and making us sick. According to Marco Springmann, senior researcher in environment and health at the Environmental Change Institute at University of Oxford, the cost of treating diet-related diseases is projected to exceed USD 1 trillion by 2030, also putting a strain on health systems around the world.

“Food that brings you sickness and disease is not food, it’s poison”, said Dr. Vandana Shiva, Indian environmentalist, physicist and author, during one of her speeches at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023 in London.

*Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food*

Power Concentration

We are experiencing growing concentration in our food systems, as the number of corporations controlling everything, from inputs up through retail are getting smaller.

According to Jennifer Clapp, Canada research chair & professor, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at University of Waterloo, and IPES Food “Who’s Tipping the Scales” report, only top six agrochemical companies control 78% of the global market, the top six animal pharmaceuticals control 72%, the top six farm machinery control 50%, the top six seeds companies control 58% and the top five global grain traders control between 70-90%.

Jennifer Clapp at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food

Four major grain traders control approximately 80% of the trade in cereals worldwide, the ABCD firms, ADM (Archer-Daniels-Midland), Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus; and four major food processing and packaging companies dominate the global market, Nestle, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Bush InBev and JBS.

Since 2015, we’ve seen mega mergers in the seeds and agrochemicals industry, making these corporations even more dominant and powerful. Some of the mergers include Bayer and Monsanto, ChemChina and Syngenta, Dow and Dupont merged to form Corteva, Agrium and Potash Corp merged to form Nutrien.

Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and co-chair of IPES-Food, mentioned that giant dominant food corporations acquired the position in decision making to veto any transformative change.

According to him, “it’s not because of corruption of politicians or the finance lobbyists working on their behalf, it’s because they are the champions of economic gain of large scale production that global commodities markets demand.”

“This allows these corporations to say to politicians, “trust us”, we know how to produce food for mass consumption, … if you impose too strong regulations on us, you’ll be faced with higher prices that your voters will have to face. This is what allows them to have a privileged access to politicians”, he added.

He explained that these companies manage to get protection from legislators for intellectual property rights for the new “breeds” that they develop, as well as the new technologies that they promote. Additionally, they can very easily challenge environmental regulations. The State ends up in the hands of these economic actors and ends up working for them.

*Olivier De Schutter at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food*

These corporations also control the labour conditions of the food system worker, the products that end up in the supermarkets shelves, and have the power to shape government policies. Small-scale producers don’t stand a chance when faced with such powerful competition.

In order to democratise our food systems, we need to increase transparency and accountability.

It’s necessary to set up a worldwide robust anti-trust and competition legislation and food policy, as well as creating a lobby register, which is already in place in some countries, in order to limit the concentration of power of the big agrifood corporations

We should be listening to farmers and working with them to identify solutions that will not only be beneficial to them, but also to our health and the environment, instead of filling the pockets of greedy corporations.

“We also need more public support for alternative food systems, in particular, research and development money going towards agroecology and organic agriculture”, mentioned Clapp.

She added that it’s now necessary for the State to step back in like they did in the past, when they played a prominent role during the last transition to industrial agriculture with R&D and hybridisation in fertilisers and other sectors.

There’s a need control those actors that have the power to shape our policy spaces, including measures that prevent conflicts of interests, where corporate officials end up as regulators and go back to work in the corporate sector.

Lastly, there’s the need to create an autonomous space for civil society to determine and control the rules and governance they’d like to see happen.

It’s a Profitable & Greedy Business

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According to Planet Tracker, a non-profit think tank, nearly USD 9 trillion of private finance is currently supporting the global food system.

“Financial regulations have become weakened to the extent that they’ve allowed big financial institutions like banks and investment houses to create new financial products for investors to speculate on food commodities”, explained Jennifer Clapp during the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023.

The price of commodities can swing much higher or lower than supply and demand would normally indicate and this creates price volatility, consequently generating profit for these institutions.

“There’s another aspect of financial concentration, where asset management firms own huge portions of the global food systems. The ABCD firms, ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus, make huge windfall profits when food commodity prices swing. We saw this happening in 2008, and once again, in 2022, when Russian invaded Ukraine”, added Clapp.

Asset management firms, Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and Capital Group, manage people’s pensions, trillions of assets worth over USD 20 trillion in the global economy. They are buying shares in almost all the companies across the entire agrifood supply chain, which means they have a shared interest in those companies being profitable, therefore creating an incentive for collusion.

Clapp mentioned that economists are concerned about this issue, which is called common ownership, leading to a reduction in competition, as well as leading to higher prices and encouragement of mergers and acquisitions, creating even bigger companies.

The danger of this situation is the fact that it allows them to hold more power to shift food systems in a certain direction, enabling them to shape markets in a way that it can affect prices that consumers pay. Prices are kept low for the agriculture and livestock producers and high for consumers. They also have the power to determine what technologies are going to dominate the market.

Clapp proposed a few solutions to some of these problems, including stronger rules in the financial markets, rules to curb speculation, better reporting, better limits on financial actors in these markets, as well as rules limiting asset managers owning the entire scope of the food systems.

Health Hazards, New Pandemics & Antimicrobial Resistance

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Industrial animal production may be a driver of future pandemics. The confinement of high number of animal in small spaces, leave them much more susceptible to viruses and infections, with the potential to evolve into more infectious types, explained Melissa Leach, social anthropologist and geographer, director of the Institute of Development Studies, IDS, during the Extinction or Rebellion Conference 2023.

All recent infectious diseases outbreaks and pandemics are zoonotic, as they originate in animals. Wildlife domestic and farmed animals and humans all interact in intense interfaces where spillover can occur.

The World Health Organisation, WHO, describes antimicrobial resistance, AMR, as the overlooked pandemic. It contributes to treatment failures, increasing human vulnerability to a wide range of infections.

Some of the latest figures suggest that AMR will cause 10 million deaths by the year 2050, more than from cancer, diabetes and pneumococcal diseases combined.

“Key causes of AMR are the overuse of antibiotics in livestock to promote growth and routinely prevent diseases, especially in intensified livestock farming”, mentioned Leach.

*Melissa Leach at the Extinction or Regeneration Conference 2023, London – Photo Credit: Robbie Blake, IPES-Food*

A study published by The Lancet, Global Burden of Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance in 2019, estimates that there were 1.27 million deaths globally due to AMR in 2019, and 4.96 million deaths associated with AMR, compared with 6.9 million deaths globally from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

According to Cóilín Nunan, scientific adviser to the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, certain types of antibiotics used in animal farming have led to the rise and spread of livestock associated strains of MRSA and clostidrium difficile.

There’s also the resistance to colistin, used as a last resort antibiotic in human medicine for treating life-threatening infections on patients who don’t respond well to other antibiotics, added Nunan.

Scientists from Oxford University released a study showing Escherichia coli bacteria that acquired resistance to colistin in animal farming. According to Nunan, this is an issue of concern and may be more dangerous than AMR, as it may be more able to cause infections in humans.

In Europe, over 60% of antibiotics are used in farmed animals, rather than in medicine. Globally, the figure rises to nearly 70%.

*Photo: ID 118875273 © Petr Goskov | Dreamstime.com*

The health impact caused by our food systems is putting a real strain on health systems around the world. There’s been a rise in conditions, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression, cardiovascular diseases and certain types of gastro-intestinal cancer, amongst others, all related to our diets.

We can no longer deny the urgent need to embrace more sustainable food systems solutions, support and listen to our farmers, respect and protect Indigenous peoples, our land and the environment, which we are highly dependent on.

The concentration of power within our food systems should be limited and a new model replaced instead, to ensure there’s fairness and equality, access to healthy and nutritious food for everyone, everywhere, and that our health and the health of our planet is protected and respected.

Brazilian Scientists’ Hopes and Expectations for the Future

Monica Piccinini

10 May 2023

The election of Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ‘Lula’, in October 2022, brought a sense of relief and hope to the Brazilian scientific community.

Just over three months into his administration, Lula’s challenging task to fulfill all the promises he made before he came into power became apparent. The populous of Brazil, along with the rest of the world, is watching what happens next.

In the past four years, the country has faced considerable challenges, including budget cuts in science and technology, the spread of misinformation leading to the denial of climate change, anti-vaccine movements, and the use of ineffective drugs against COVID-19, amongst many others.

“Brazil is once again reconciling economic growth with social inclusion. Rebuilding what was destroyed and moving forward. Brazil is once again a country without hunger. While preparing the ground for infrastructure work that was abandoned or ignored by the previous government, Brazil is again taking care of health, education, science and technology, culture, housing and public safety”, declared Lula during the meeting at Brasilia’s Planalto Palace in April.

A group of five renowned scientists share their views and expectations about scientific policies in Brazil, published at Nature Human Behaviour this month.

Mercedes Maria da Cunha Bustamante, biologist, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado, doctor and psychiatrist, Lucas Ferrante, ecologist and researcher, Juliana Hipólito, biologist, and Mariana M. Vale, ecologist, highlight key areas of concern to be addressed by the current government.

Public Health & the Environment

*Illustration 144851985 / Brazil Public Health © Gunay Aliyevs | Dreamstime.com*

According to Lucas Ferrante, the past government was notable for the prominent role of scientific denialism. Ministers were chosen for their ideology, rather than their technical ability, and scientific advice was simply ignored.

The second catastrophic COVID-19 wave in the Amazon, making Brazil one of the global epicentres for the disease, could have been prevented if the past government had listened to scientific advice.

The absence of a technically oriented government under Jair Bolsonaro’s administration also increased deforestation in the Amazon rainforest at an alarming rate, threatening the environment, traditional and indigenous communities, as well as climate change goals, wrote Ferrante.

He also mentioned that despite the change in government, there’s the need to remember past events.

During Lula’s two previous terms as president (2003-2010), he showed worrying denialistic tendencies, ignoring scientific reports and scientists’ advice. An example of this was the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam disaster, which affected the Xingu River and traditional communities, causing a catastrophic socio environmental impact.

Essential plans should include blocking major infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest, such as the reconstruction of BR-319 highway linking Manaus to Porto Velho, which will affect traditional and indigenous communities, biodiversity and increase deforestation in the region, as well as agriculture production chains that could give rise to a new pandemic.

Brazil’s biodiversity is extremely rich, but lacks surveys of viruses circulating in its fauna, therefore a well established surveillance programme is required in order to reduce the risk of new pandemics emerging through viral spillover, declared Mariana M. Vale.

Nísia Trindade, Brazil’s health minister, mentioned during a lower house hearing last month that the country should be gearing up for future pandemics by investing in science, technology and Brazil’s national healthcare system, SUS (Sistema Único de Saúde).

*Illustration 98533932 / Brazil Environment © Cienpies Design / Illustrations | Dreamstime.com*

Juliana Hipólito highlighted another significant issue of concern, society’s lost value and interest of science in their daily lives. As a consequence, this lead to an increase in deforestation rates, climate change denialism, anti-vaccine movements and the use of ineffective unproven drugs against COVID-19.

The past government’s dismantling of environmental policies increasing deforestation and the approval of a large number of toxic pesticides is also something the science community expects to be reversed, she added.

According to experts, Brazil’s use of pesticides increased exponentially in the last few years, growing 300,000 tonnes since 2010. Approximately 80% of the pesticides authorised for commercialization in Brazil are prohibited in at least three countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the European community.

In the field of mental health, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado expects to see development of long-term projects to better understand the interfaces between mental health suffering and the profound social inequality and precariousness of life in Brazil.

According to him, urban violence, racism, stigma, gender prejudice, loss of childhood and adolescence and their relationship with human suffering, should no longer be marginal and must be included amongst the priorities of research. The long-term consequences of COVID-19 on mental and physical health also deserve special attention from researchers.

Investments, Social Justice & Equity

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Divestment is an issue of concern, as Brazil’s previous government cut considerably investment in scientific and educational organisations. There was a huge drop in investments in INPE (National Institute for Space Research), INPA (National Institute of Amazonian Research), CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), and federal universities.

According to Hipólito, budget cuts skyrocket during the past government. Research funding and the budget of leading science and technology funding agencies were reduced by 60% from 2014 to 2022.

Socio-economic conditions have been sacrificed as a result of the cuts, therefore affecting the country’s capacity for the innovation and economic diversification.

Mercedes Maria da Cunha Bustamante mentioned the urgent need to support vulnerable groups (women, the youth and the poorest – most of them people of colour) in Brazil with the demand for public policies that would put the country back on track towards social justice and equity.

Reducing poverty, combating climate change and biodiversity decline are intrinsically connected.

The current administration also needs to focus on improving education from elementary level, adds Bustamante. A similar scenario is seen at public universities, which were affected by budget reductions under the last government. Brazilian public universities account for most of the national scientific production and are major drivers of social inclusion.

It’s essential to increase diversity, she added, as it’s vital for addressing societal demands through the generation of new knowledge, making Brazil attractive again for young scientists and allowing science to have a more prominent role in policy making.

Vale pointed out that white male individuals still dominate Brazilian academia and highlighted the need to strengthen and improve existing policies on diversity, equity and inclusion in science, especially regarding black and indigenous people.

Brazil has seen a massive exodus of scientists, leaving their jobs to work abroad, where their skills are most valued. The current government should set up a development and retention plan, encouraging and supporting scientists across the country.

Although the scientific community remains confident and positive, it’s crucial that they continue to defend science, and that the general population are not deceived into thinking that a change in governance alone is sufficient to bring about the needed improvements in public health and the environment, mentioned Ferrante.

The voice of scientists who dedicate their entire lives to protecting and bettering our daily lives couldn’t be louder and should be heard. Perhaps it’s time for Brazilian society, politicians, institutions and corporations to fully support this community that has been undervalued for so long.

Who Controls What We Grow and Eat?

Monica Piccinini

9 May 2023

Similar to our current political & economic systems, the food system is no longer serving us; mainly driven by power, profit and greed, resulting in global food insecurity and impacting directly on our health and the environment.

We’ve seen a sharp increase in food insecurity worldwide, driven not only by climate change and multiple conflicts, but also by an unbalanced food system fuelled by corporate power.

As the world population is projected to reach 9.8 billion in the next 27 years, there’s an urgent need to address issues related to our food system, or we may be facing a worldwide famine sooner than expected. We’ve already seen signs of this in many parts of the world.

“The right to food is the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access—either directly or by means of financial purchases— to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear”, according to the United Nations.

Corporate Power

*Photo 77536321 © Daniil Peshkov | Dreamstime.com*

Giant agribusiness corporations hold the power and control over our food systems, with the ability to influence governments and decision-makers, through lobbying, with the direct intention of shaping policies in many ways.

Their objectives and tactics are questionable, with the tendency to favour their own interests, focusing on profits and maximising shareholder value, rather than addressing hunger and malnutrition.

According to ‘Who’s Tipping the Scales’, a report published by IPES Food, the international panel of experts on sustainable food systems:

“A bold, structural vision to counter the corporate takeover of food-related global governance – one that support central roles for people, governments, and democratic, public-interest-based decision-making, is urgently needed.”

It’s clear that the voices of the most vulnerable communities across the world, and mostly affected by hunger and environmental impact caused by this industry, must be heard.

These giant and dominant agribusiness corporations influence the global organisations we most trust, which should be there to defend our interests. To the surprise of many, agribusiness associations were sitting directly at the UN governance table at the 2021 UNFSS, UN Food Systems Summit.

One must also question the kind of relationship between the private sector and international governance bodies and institutions about potential conflicts of interest.

According to the IPES Food report, in 2020, a private philanthropic foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was the second largest donor to the CGIAR, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

Another partnership that raises some eyebrows is the FAO’s, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, partnership with CropLife International, CLI, an agrochemical lobby organisation, whose members include Syngenta, BASF, FMC and Bayer (acquired Monsanto in 2018).

PAN North America, Pesticide Action Network, mentioned that instead of putting the profit of CropLife International members before farmers and consumers worldwide, the FAO must invest in solutions, including agroecology and take stronger action on ending the usage of highly hazardous pesticides, HHPs.

We’ve also seen increase in consolidation, a large number of mergers and acquisitions, allowing these corporations to dominate the agribusiness sector. This allows these giants to have a profound influence on governance and the structure of our food system, resulting in anti-competitive market practices.

Our Health & the Environment

*Illustration 273587833 / Food Food © Altitudevs | Dreamstime.com*

These corporations have significant funding at their disposal to influence policies and regulations, such as pesticides, biosafety, patents, intellectual property, as well as trade and investment agreements.

Bayer AG spent over USD 9 million lobbying the US government in 2019, after it acquired Monsanto. At the time, they were reviewing the re-registration of one of the company’s main products, glyphosate (Roundup), which is considered a toxic herbicide. In the US, Bayer has been contesting billion of dollars in settlement claims to end lawsuits over accusations that glyphosate causes cancer.

They are also responsible for shaping science by sponsoring academic research favouring their corporate interests, influencing governance and policies. This was seen in the agrochemical and processed food sectors.

As proof of this, below is an internal email between Monsanto executives obtained by lawyers representing plaintiffs in the Roundup® litigation, where they suggest ‘beating the s**t out of’ a mother’s group expressing concern over the effects of GMOs and Roundup® on their children.

Monsanto also tried to influence science by sponsoring various ghostwriting academic articles questioning scientific studies that raised concern over its product’s safety, glyphosate.

Another very concerning issue related to the health of our children is the fact that this industry continuously lobbies against mandatory public health measures, including taxes on ultra-processed foods, UPF, sugary drinks and front of package labeling, as well as restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods to our children. This has a gigantic impact on their health and also creates pressure on our health systems.

A reported example of this was when a children’s cereal manufacturer attempted to sue Mexico after the country tried to amend a food packaging regulation called NOM-5, in order to protect their children from the marketing of unhealthy foods. The regulation established that certain unhealthy products would be prohibited from putting children’s animations and characters on their packages.

The invention of novel foods also raises some red flags. On March, The Defender, a publication defending children’s health, published a piece on Bill Gates’ latest invention, an edible food coating called Apeel, which is an odourless, colourless and tasteless coating for vegetables and fruit, which potentially extends the life span of these products, keeping it fresher for up to two times longer.

Apeel has already received the green light from US regulators, but some questions still remain unanswered surrounding the safety of the product, as the company is relying mainly on existing scientific studies, as no new science has been required to evaluate and test the product.

We seem to be completely exposed and reliant on these corporations to carry out their own safety studies, without the scrutiny of independent regulators and scientific studies.

According to the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies are expected to develop their own internal procedures to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address their impacts on human and environmental rights in global supply chains.

It’s clear that the way we grow our food has a massive impact not only on our physical and mental health, but also on our environment, affecting fauna and flora, the health of our soil, water and air.

Recently, we have seen a sharp increase of fungal disease in crops, affecting 168 crops listed as important in human nutrition, according to FAO of the United Nations. Despite spraying fungicides, farmers are losing between 10-23% of their crops to fungal disease every year, including rice, corn, soybeans and potatoes.

According to a study published at Nature journal, this issue is mainly because of the adaptability of fungi to meet modern agricultural practices. Monocultures entail vast areas of genetically uniform crops, an ideal ground for fast-evolving organisms, such as fungi. Another problem is the increasingly widespread use of antifungal treatments, leading to fungicide resistance.

The use of pesticides and toxic chemicals are increasing exponentially across the world, causing havoc to our health, the soil, polluting water sources, the air, animals and plants.

Industrial agriculture, including cattle farming, soybean, palm oil, sugar cane, corn, wheat, GMOs, monoculture production, is responsible for the deforestation of rainforests, the Cerrado, and many other parts of the world, causing destruction and degradation.

In Brazil, 2.8% of landowners own over 56% of all arable land, and 50% of smallholder farms have access to only 2.5% of the land. Overall, the land is in the hands of a small number of industrial farms.

We must rethink the way we grow our food and we all have the right to access nutritious and healthy food and decide what we eat.

Digital Farming

*Photo 225876642 © Andrey Popov | Dreamstime.com*

The agribusiness sector spends vast amounts on research and development, making it extremely hard for smaller companies to compete with them, capitalising on patent protection and intellectual property rights.

Why? Because they can!

Patent protection and intellectual property is another issue that should be catching everyone’s attention.

Giant tech companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, among others, entered the food sector focusing on power, control and profit. Small farmers and local food systems are struggling, as they can’t afford to use this high tech data gathering technology. They are also located in remote areas where these types of services can’t reach.

We can see an increasing movement of powerful integration and control between the companies that are supplying products to farmers, such as tractors, drones, pesticides, etc., and the tech giants. They feed and control farmers with information, and at the same time have direct access to consumers.

The aim is to integrate millions of farmers into a wide centrally controlled network by encouraging and forcing them to buy their products. This digital infrastructure is run by platforms developed by tech companies that run cloud services.

Fujitsu farm workers, located just outside Hanoi, carry smartphones supplied by the company, which monitors their every single movements, productivity, the amount of hours they work, etc., all stored on the company’s cloud. This is extremely worrying, as this practice could easily lead to labour exploitation.

Similar to Fujitsu, other companies investing heavily on this type of digital farming platforms include Microsoft’s Azure FarmBeats, Bayer’s Fieldview, BASF’s Xarvio, Syngenta’s CropWise, Yara’s Yaralrix and Olam’s OFIS, Olam Farmer Information System.

It’s essential to point out the extent of data gathering these platforms are capable of, including real time data and analysis on the farmers soil condition and water, crops growth, pests and diseases monitoring, weather, humidity, climate change, tractor monitoring, etc.

Some of these corporations are also trying to eliminate the “middlemen” by selling directly to consumers, which may be attractive proposition to many, if the idea is mainly to help farmers and small vendors directly, but somehow they may use digital platforms to increase their pricing power over farmers.

An important question we must ask these companies, regulators and our governments: who controls all this data, what do they do with it and who gives the advice?

The influence a few powerful corporations have in food governance must be scrutinised. Governments should be leading in the field of food security and not leaving it in the hands of those that put profit over longevity of life. It may seem a drastic change to the world as we know it, but it may be the only way to bring back a balance in the global food system and secure our quality of life and ultimately our survival.

The ‘Billionaires’ Club’ with a Mission to Change the Weather

Monica Piccinini

5 Dec 2022

Solar geoengineering, SG, is the latest billionaires’ techno-utopian dream to reverse the impact of climate change.

As we have shown little progress in coming to an agreement to use conventional and sensible measures of climate change mitigation and adaptation, a ‘privileged club’ appears to be pursuing a worrying and ambitious plan to change our global weather.

Politicians and fossil fuel giants may also use SG as a way to buy time and as an excuse to delay the switch to a neutral carbon economy.

What’s Geoengineering?

Goengineering is a set of technologies used with the purpose to manipulate the weather and the environment to counterbalance the impacts of climate change.

This technology is divided in two categories. The first one is carbon geoengineering or carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which seeks to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The second and most important one is solar geoengineering, solar radiation management (SRM), stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) or stratospheric albedo hacking (SAH), which seeks to reflect fraction of sunlight back into space to cool the planet.

This technology mimics a volcano eruption, where sulfate aerosol (or calcium carbonate, aluminum or diamond dust) is released into the atmosphere creating particles reflecting sunlight back into space, therefore cooling the earth. One of the ideas is to send high-flying aircrafts to inject sulfate dioxide particles into the atmosphere.

There are a considerate growing number of parties interested and invested in deploying this technology for a variety of reasons.

Investors

*Photo 37710625 © Syda Productions | Dreamstime.com*

Billionaires, financial and technology institutions within Silicon Valley and Wall Street are funding and supporting the research and governance of geoengineering technology. They consist of a group of individuals and organisations with strong ties to corporate power.

According to Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement, a group of seven organisations in the US have funded at least a couple of SG research projects in the last few years.

FICER is Bill Gates’ fund for geoengineering research, managed by Harvard Solar Geoengineering researchers David Keith and Ken Caldeira. Silver Lining is another firm funded by LowerCarbon Capital and First Round Capital with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan executives on the board.

Billionaire and co-founder of Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz, and partners Cari Tuna and Holden Karnofsky, formerly Bridgewater Associates, also fund a geoengineering project by Open Philanthropy Project.

Additional players funding such projects include EDF, Environmental Defense Fund, which have partnerships with Citigroup, GE, McDonald’s Shell, Tyson and Walmart. Others include Alfred P. Sloan Foundation of General Motors, Pritzker Innovation Fund, founders of the Hyatt Hotels, and VK Rasmussen Foundation, founded by the Swedish inventor and businessman Villum Kann Rasmussen.

As the fossil fuel industry refuse to commit and scale down production worldwide and transition to renewables, denying and ignoring the negative impact they are causing to climate change and continue to do business as usual, governments, investors and researchers see an extraordinary opportunity to push for geoengineering technology to be deployed sooner rather than later.

The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly

*Photo 46018102 / Earth Fire © Ig0rzh | Dreamstime.com*

What are the advantages of SG?

According to a few scientific studies, this technology would result in an immediate cooling effect worldwide, with a possibility of reducing the rise of sea level, extreme weather and heat waves.

Additionally, other studies also suggest that SG would be a financially attractive solution to climate change. Obviously, cost efficiency is extremely appealing to governments and corporations.

The Aspen Institute Climate Policy Enters Four Dimensions paper by David Keith and John Deutch, suggests that the direct costs of implementing SG appear to be “quite small, with the global annualised costs perhaps under $20 billion per year well into the latter half of the century. By comparison, the damage-reduction benefits could be 100 times this amount”. SG is a fairly inexpensive technology and politically practical.

“Solar geoengineering is not necessary. Neither is it desirable, ethical, or politically governable. The normalisation of solar geoengineering as a research topic and as a speculative policy option must be stopped”, said Frank Biermann, professor of global sustainability governance, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University.

In January, a coalition of over 370 academics, 30 organisations in 54 countries, signed a letter in calling for an international non-use agreement on SG. They argue that this technology poses an unacceptable risk if deployed as a future climate policy option. Signatories include professor Frank Biemann, Utrecht University, professor Melissa Leach, CBE, FBA, Institute of Development Studies, amongst many others.

To some, the proposal of spraying the stratosphere with aerosols to block incoming sunlight in order to cool the planet is allegedly a frightening and dangerous idea. Besides, this technology, which has not yet proven to be successful, could discourage the urgent need to reduce green house gas emissions and put a pause to climate action.

Various concerning negative impacts from SG have been discussed within the scientific community, including the disruption of the climate system, affecting rain fall patterns and increasing droughts. Agriculture would be hit hard and the world would experience extreme famine.

Sulfates injected into the atmosphere eventually come down as acid rain, which affects soil, water reservoirs, and local ecosystems. The spraying of this chemical into the atmosphere forms very fine particles that can cause respiratory illness.

This technology is not entirely understood and not proven to be successful, as research is entirely based on modeling and not on external experiments.

Once SG is deployed, we may be locked into it forever, without a reverse gear. It’s called “termination shock”. Furthermore, once SG is stopped, the natural cycle will take over once again and we will see a rapid rise in temperatures, therefore we would see a disruption of every major system on earth, without time for adaptation and resulting in the destruction of ecosystems.

Who gets to decide on the climate?

Perhaps another frightening aspect of SG relates to geopolitical risks and issues around governance. A single or combination of powerful nations may “lead the pack” and decide to deploy this technology, which will impact and cause immediate and direct harm to other regions.

This technology may be used as a war tool and a form of weaponisation, causing inequality, ramping up disputes and conflicts across the globe. We already live in a political system that has no ability to make collective, serious and fair agreements.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced that they are coordinating a five-year research plan to SG technology. Their focus is to develop a cross-agency group to coordinate research on such climate interventions, in partnership with NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Department of Energy.

“ You cannot judge what the country does on solar-radiation modification without looking at what it is doing in emission reductions, because the priority is emission reductions”, mentioned Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative.

“Solar-radiation modification will never be a solution to the climate crisis”, Pasztor added.

Political control over SG would affect and impact the poorest and most vulnerable countries. The poorer nations are extremely vulnerable to any changes in their environment and would be threatened the most by side effects that might result from the deployment of SG at a global scale.

We are working against the clock and can’t afford to make even bigger mistakes than we already have. We know what to do about climate change, and yet, the biggest polluters and fossil fuel giants refuse to accept the blame and make the necessary changes in order to reverse the effects of climate change.

For every crisis the world faces, window of opportunities unlock for the ones who have their eyes focused on power, control and profit. The hungry “visionaries”, a group comprising of politicians, capitalists, corporate power, billionaires and scientists, are trying to push for the deployment of an untested technology that my drive us into a steep dive towards a catastrophic and irreversible chaos.

Are we going to continue doing business as usual?

Seeds of Hope for the Global Food Systems and Biodiversity Crises

Monica Piccinini

31 May 2022

According to the United Nations projections, the world population will increase to 8.5 billion by 2030, as humanity faces one of their biggest challenges, food insecurity. Almost 193 million people in 53 countries suffered acute food insecurity in 2021.

Major producers around the world need to turn away from the damaging industrial agrochemicals and pesticides that are magnifying the current issues and explore new innovative techniques to ensure the world’s food security for the future.

Approximately USD 44tn of economic output – more than half of global annual GDP – is moderately or highly reliant on natural capital. Yet, humans have already transformed more than 70% of the Earth’s land area from its natural state, causing unparalleled environmental degradation and contributing significantly to global warming, according to UNCCD Global Land Outlook latest report.

“Our health, our economy, our well-being depends on land. Our food, our water, the air we breathe are all coming from the land, at least partially,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UNCCD, in a call with reporters. “Humanity has already altered 70 percent of the land. This is a major, major figure.”

If degradation of the land keeps increasing at this rate, scientists predict that there will be large-scale food supply disruption, increase in biodiversity loss, extinction, more zoonotic diseases and decline human health, giving rise to poverty, hunger and pollution.

“Time is short, and the situation is dire,” said Qu Dongyu, the Direct-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). He added there needed to be a “transformation of agrifood systems to be more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable”.

Agroecology & Biocontrols VS Industrial Agriculture & Pesticides

The world’s industrial food systems haven’t found a solution to the food and biodiversity crises yet, mainly due to the fact that the solution may not appeal to the agribusiness giants, including the agrochemical industry, governments and world development banks, who usually seem to set the agenda and policies for the sector.

According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Public Development Banks invest about $1.4tn per year in the agriculture and food sector.

A report by the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), ‘Who Will Feed Us?’, mentions that small-scale producers provide food to 70% of the world, while using only 25% of the resources.

After all, there’s a solution to these crises available, a solution that serves people’s interest and the environment, instead of agribusiness corporations, public development banks and governments. We should be supporting agroecology as the solution to the food and biodiversity crises.

According to UNFSS, we don’t need “sustainable intensification”, “climate-smart agriculture” or ‘nature-positive solutions,” which often greenwash corporate agendas. Millions of smallholder farmers, fishermen, pastoralists, agricultural and rural workers, and entire indigenous communities practice agroecology, a way of life and a form of resistance to an unfair economic system that puts profit before life.

Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN-UK) are the only UK charity focused solely on tackling the problems caused by pesticides and promoting safe and sustainable alternatives in agriculture, urban areas, homes and gardens. PAN-UK promotes agroecological practices, guiding and supporting farmers across the world.

Agroecology practices include putting farmers first, promoting soil health, biodiversity and natural ecosystem function, integrating science with knowledge and practice, promoting complexity over simplicity, minimising waste and optimising energy.

According to PAN-UK, less than 0.1% of pesticides applied for pest control reach their target pests (Pimental, 1995). Replacing chemicals that cause harm to our health and biodiversity, including soil degradation, is essential. Agroecology improves farmers’ profitability, yield, health, food security, and better opportunities for women farmers.

Pesticides can damage our health, biodiversity, wildlife, pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, soil, plants and everything else it touches. It’s also the cause of suicide and accidental deaths mainly in the global south. These toxic chemicals must be replaced with biological control or biopesticides.

Biocontrol

Biological control, or natural control, is a component of an integrated pest management strategy. It’s the reduction of pest populations by natural enemies, biological control of insects, weeds and plant diseases. Biocontrol is safer for the end-user and the environment.

The approval process and authorisation of innovative biocontrol is still slow, complex and differs from country to country. There is an urgent need to rethink data requirements on risk assessments and also create a worldwide integrated and simplified regulatory system, so every country is on the same page. This would also facilitate trade between countries and at the same time help to reverse biodiversity loss globally.

“We need a strong voice lobbying for biocontrols at the highest levels of government”, mentioned Nick Mole, PAN-UK policy officer at the World BioProtection Awards 2022.

Since Brexit, the UK’s deregulation plans on pesticides and GMO food have caused some concern, including possible free trade agreements with countries with lower food standards. The UK population may be consuming products with high level of pesticides, including unlabelled genetically engineered foods that may be available as early as 2023. Are we prepared to accept this?

“The indirect consequence is that people are starving in Africa because we are eating more and more organic products”, said, Erik Fyrwald, the CEO of Chinese-owned agrochemical giant Syngenta, to NZZ. This statement showed his opposition to organic farming.

Syngenta produces pesticides and GM seeds. The company’s Huddersfield factory exported a staggering 12,000 tonnes of the herbicide Paraquat and others in 2020. Paraquat was banned for use in the UK since 2007, as it’s been linked to be lethal to humans causing kidney failure, liver damage, DNA damage, Parkinson’s disease and death.

A very interesting move from Syngenta Crop Protection AG is their recent acquisition of two products, NemaTrident® and UniSpore®, from UK-based biocontrol technology developer Bionema. Is this a sign that change may be under way?

With the right support from governments, farmers are keen to accept more sustainable solutions to protect their crops, retailers and the public are open and interested in healthier products and protecting the environment, therefore legislators should be on their side facilitating this process, turning this into a win-win situation.

This is time for corporations, scientists, environmentalists, activists, farmers, growers, the public, governments, legislators, regulators, and the entire world to come together and accept that change is essential to our survival and it must happen now!

Chemical Explosion in Brazil

Monica Piccinini

2 Nov 2021

Pesticides are silent, invisible and ruthless killers. They are chemicals that can have a long lasting and tragic effect on one’s life as well as creating irreversible consequences to our precious environment.

These chemicals are sold in large amounts at huge profit by the callous agrochemical industry, without extensive, thorough, transparent and independent investigations.

Why is it that pesticides, which are a class of chemicals, do not have to go through a testing regime similar to the clinical trials that pharmaceutical drugs are put through?

Recently, the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) announced they will end the use of chlorpyrifos, a broad-spectrum chlorinated organophosphate, as it’s associated with neurodevelopmental problems and impaired brain function in children. Some countries continue to use this toxic chemical, including Brazil.

Brazil has been the country with the highest consumption of pesticides since 2008. In 2020 alone, the agrochemical industry’s turnover was over US$ 12.1 billion. The area treated with pesticides increased 6.9% in 2020, compared to the previous year, to an area of 1.6 billion hectares. A staggering 1.05 million tons of pesticides were applied in the country in 2020.

Fossil fuels and green house gases are great contributors to climate change, but Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHP’s), which affect the health of large parts of the population and our environment, have gone largely unrecognised.

Agrochemical organisations across the world, along with the agribusiness industry are making substantial profits at the expense of people’s lives and health, as well as contributing to damage to wildlife, water contamination, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.

Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Corteva and FMC, members of Croplife International lobby group, are the world’s five largest agrochemical companies.

Jair Bolsonaro’s Poisonous Package

The Pesticides Law in Brazil established in 1989, was defined as:

“The products and agents of physical, chemical or biological processes, intended for use in the sectors of production, storage, and processing of agricultural products, in pastures, in the protection of forests, native or implanted, and of other ecosystems as well as urban environments, hydrological and industrial, whose purpose is to change the composition of flora or fauna, to preserve them from the harmful action of living beings considered deleterious; and substances and products, used as defoliants, desiccants, stimulators and growth inhibitors”.

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has recently incorporated a Presidential Decree 10.833/2021, amending the 1989 pesticides law, by making the approval process of pesticides even more flexible, including the approval of chemicals that have already been banned in the US and Europe.

With the new amendment, chemicals that cause cancer, genetic mutations and fetal malformation, will be given approval to be used as well as manufactured, if a “safe exposure limit” is determined.

Additionally, the current Brazilian legislation does not provide for a minimum period for the renewal of pesticides licensing. Pesticides that have been in the Brazilian market for more than 4 decades are still being used today, without ever undergoing an assessment of environmental and health issues.

It’s a fact that the approval process of pesticides has never been made easier, as more power has been given to the Ministry of Agriculture on the decision making process, leaving ANVISA (National Health Surveillance Agency) and IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) excluded from the final decision.

There are currently a whopping 3,477 pesticides on the Brazilian market, 40% of all chemicals were approved in the last 3 years, all under Bolsonaro’s government. In 2020 alone, 494 products were authorised, totaling 997 new products in just two years.

According to a recent joint report by IPEN (International Pollutants Elimination Network) and ABRASCO (Brazilian Association of Collective Health), 53% of pesticides licensed in Brazil between 2019 and 2020 were manufactured in China, 22.1% in Brazil, 9.4% in India, 4.5% in the United States and 3% in Israel.

Another worrying issue is the number of illegal pesticides smuggled in from China. According to a study carried out by FIESP (The Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo), at least 25% of the pesticides in Brazil are illegal, smuggled through Paraguay with Chinese origin.

In January 2021, the Department of Border Operations (DOF/PM) apprehended 3.5 tons of smuggled pesticides in Maracaju, MS. The cargo was valued at approximately USD 1.2 million, according to Campo Grande News.

“The smuggling of pesticides is growing in the country at the rate that Brazilian agriculture grows… This smuggling has become a major concern as it is no longer a small market, but a large economy controlled by specialized gangs,” director of Brazil’s Institute for the Economic and Social Development of Borders (Instituto de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social de Fronteiras – IDESF) Luciano Stremel Barros, told the Brazilian Senate in September 2019.

Accidental Poisoning, Suicide, Violence and Deaths

Highly toxic chemicals that have already been banned in many countries, including in the European Union, are still being used in Brazil. Many of these products are used as a suicide and violence tool.

Aldicarb, a carbamate insecticide and an illegal rat poison, popularly known as “chumbinho”, is one of the chemicals used not only for suicides, but also for the practice of aggression.

My auntie, a farmer, committed suicide by swallowing “chumbinho” a few years ago. By the time she was found and showing regret about her decision, it was already too late, as she met a horrible and painful death. This is not an isolated case in Brazil, and it affects the most vulnerable.

In May this year, 60 rural workers were rushed to hospital with symptoms of pesticide poisoning in the metropolitan are of Goiânia, after a plane sprayed pesticides over the fields where they worked. Most reported headaches, vomiting, dizziness and some passed out.

In 2018, 475 pesticide poisonings were reported in the State of Goiás alone. In 2019, the number rose to 516. 18% of all poisoning were caused by glyphosate. It was also reported 99 attempts of suicide with pesticides.

The number of accidents and poisonings is far worse than reported. Workers are usually reluctant to report their cases to companies or to the Brazilian Social Security Institute (INSS). Many are afraid to denounce the companies or seek justice, as it risks their employment credentials in the future. Others take the word of campaigns aimed at convincing workers that pesticides are not dangerous and that their symptoms are instead caused by stress and tiredness.

For workers without a formal contract, the situation is even worse. “When intoxication occurs, the company sends the employee home with no rights or anything. The INSS cannot make the payment of sickness benefits because there is no proof of employment,” explained Gabriel Bezerra, president of the National Confederation of Human Responsible and Rural Employees.

Toxic Substances

According to the World Health Organisation and the FAO, HHP’s are described as “pesticides that are acknowledged to present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or the environment according to internationally accepted classification systems”.

The forms of exposure to pesticides can vary, through inhalation, dermal or oral contact, via spraying, contaminated food and water and also via a worker’s clothing. The main health effects are acute, when they appear fast, or chronic, when they appear after repeated exposure to small amounts over a long period.

Symptoms from pesticides exposure can range from mild sickness, such as skin irritation, burning, allergies, cough, chest pain, respiratory problems, mental confusion, depression, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, diarrohea, to extreme ones, such as, endocrine disruption, congenital malformations, neuro developmental problems, Parkinson’s disease, cancer and death.

Additionally, the intensive use of pesticides influences the immunological system and industrialised food production promotes obesity and the vulnerability to COVID-19.

Glyphosate is no doubt one of the most popular pesticides in Brazil, representing 62% of the total herbicides used in the country. Glyphosate is the key ingredient in the Roundup herbicide and was first patented by Monsanto in 1974. Bayer acquired Monsanto for USD 63 billion in 2018.

According to a survey by Princeton, Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) and Insper (Insper Learning Institute), the spread of glyphosate in soybean crops led to a 5% increase in the infant mortality in South and Midwest Brazil that receive water from soy growing regions. This represents a total of 503 additional child deaths every year associated with the use of glyphosate in soybean farming.

“It is absolutely clear that glyphosate can cause cancers in experimental animals”, affirmed former Director of the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Chris Portier, who worked on the IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer review of glyphosate. “And the human evidence for an association between glyphosate and cancer is also there, predominantly for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma”.

In the US, Bayer has been fighting billion of dollars in settlements to end lawsuits over accusations that glyphosate causes cancer.

Mexico has made the decision to ban glyphosate, which will take effect in 2024.

The list of active ingredients consumed in Brazil with the authorisation of ANVISA is alarmingly extensive, including acefate, chlorpyrifos, atrazine, 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), diazinon, metomyl, amongst many others.

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is also a broad-spectrum chlorinated organophosphate (OP) used in crops, vegetables, fruits, as well as households. Exposure to this chemical during pregnancy or childhood has been linked with lower birth weight and neurological changes, such as cognitive and behavioural performance.

The toxicity of CPF has also been associated with neurological disfunctions, endocrine disruption, cardiovascular diseases. It can also induce developmental and behavioural anomalies, genotoxicity, oxidative stress and hematological malignancies, as evidence by animal modeling.

CPF has been banned for use in the EU.

Atrazine has innumerous adverse effects on health, such as increased risk of miscarriage, reduced male fertility, tumours, ovarian, breast, prostate and uterine cancers, leukemia and lymphoma. It’s an endocrine disrupting chemical, causing havoc to one’s regular hormone function, causing birth defects and reproductive tumours.

A group of scientists, including Tyrone Hayes found that 10% of male frogs reared in atrazine water turned into females.

2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid is a widely used agricultural weed-killer and endocrine disruptor shown to have links to cancer, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It was first marketed in 1945 and one of the main ingredients in the Agent Orange, used to destroy forests during the Vietnam war.

Acute symptoms of exposure to 2,4-D include coughing, burning, loss of muscle coordination, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, nervous damage, fatigue, coma and death. Additionally, poor semen quality has been associated with exposure to the chemical.

Acefate is an organophosphate (OP) insecticide used on food crops, as well as a seed treatment. People can be exposed by breathing or on their skin. Acefate has been associated with TGCT, testicular germ cell cancer, particularly strong amongst Latinos, according to a study by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Brazilians are not the only ones being poisoned by toxic chemicals, in fact, you and your family could be consuming these toxic substances unknowingly, via products being imported into your country.

It has been reported that Germans are already consuming products containing pesticides that have already been banned in the European Union.

At the request of Greenpeace, tests were carried out at 70 Brazilian fruits sold in German cities by an independent German laboratory. 11 substances that have already been banned in the EU have been detected, totaling 35 different pesticides found in mangos, lemons, papaya and figs, 21 of those were considered Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHP’s).

In order to stop the world being poisoned by chemicals that affect our health and our environment, a tougher international regulatory system needs to be implemented, including proper thorough, independent and transparent assessments of such toxic substances.

It’s time for the greedy agrochemical industry and our governments to put our health and the health of our planet above their rapacious profit, once and for all!

Humanity’s Historical Ties with Eugenics

Monica Piccinini

10 Aug 2021

In recent years, the world and its leading nation states, appear to have experienced a fundamental change in social thinking. Evidenced by the reversal of globalisation towards isolationism, the move away from political leadership towards populism, and the move away from truth towards the mass use of mis-information for political gain, control and power.

With these changes in social thinking, major democracies have seen the worrying rise of a series of consequential symptoms: the far-right movement, white supremacy, widespread use of misinformation, discrimination, xenophobia, inequality, misogyny, homophobia, extremism, racism, denialism, and violence.

Is this fundamental change something new in society, or is it itself the result of actions and belief systems that originated in the distant past? An outstanding 2019 documentary on BBC4, “Eugenics: Science’s Greatest Scandal”, presented by science journalist and author, Angela Saini, and actor, presenter and activist, Adam Pearson, inspired my to write this piece.

Socially good intentions or not?

Eugenics (the word originated from the Greek for ‘good stock’ or ‘well born’), the term first used to describe a movement by Francis Galton, the British explorer and natural scientist, around the 1870’s, is the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations to improve the population’s genetic composition. It encouraged the most valuable people in society to procreate and discouraged it in those it considered less fit.

The world has perhaps unwittingly experienced ‘Eugenic’ ideals throughout its past 150-year history, with Eugenics featuring in some of the world’s most horrific historic events.

It appears that Eugenics continues to have an influence on policies being created by governments today and even more concerning is its resurgence within certain aspects of the scientific community. Combined with recent technological advances in genetic science, the effects on the future of mankind could be both dramatic and irreversible.

Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was a superb statistician (he discovered correlation and regression to the mean), also having contributed in the fields of meteorology, anthropology, geology, biology, psychology and psychometrics. He was highly inspired by Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” (1859) and dedicated his work into the study of inherited traits in human society. In Galton’s view, the best babies came from the intelligent and good-looking people.

It’s hard to know whether Galton’s work was malevolent at its core, however, eugenics laid the foundation for one of the world’s most horrific historic chapters, the Nazi genocidal project and sterilization programs across the world, as well as euthanasia programs and Aktion T4, colonialism, mass murder and racial oppression.

Recently, University College London (UCL) apologised publicly for having had a role in promoting eugenics in the past by having links to eugenicists like Galton. Francis Galton funded a professorship in eugenics at the university, the Francis Galton’s Laboratory for National Eugenics, where the focus was not only on disability, but also on race.

According to a recent Reuters report, the state of California has agreed to compensate all the citizens who were forcibly sterilized under old laws, aimed at people who were deemed unfit to have children between 1909 and 1979.

Atrocities influenced by eugenicists like Galton were committed around the world. In the early 1900’s, Germany’s imperial forces, called Schutztruppe, murdered around 80,000 indigenous people (Herero and Nama) in Southwest Africa (Namibia today), one of the first genocides of the 20th century. Medical experiments were performed where people were injected with tuberculosis and smallpox, and decapitated skulls were measured.

Galton’s protégé, Professor Karl Pearson, was an English mathematician and biostatistician and the first chair of national eugenics after Galton died. He was an anti-Semite and considered the Jewish population as physically and mentally inferior, and that the solution to the decay of the British population was to stop the Jewish immigration.

“If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan’s success depended.” – Karl Pearson (1901).

In 1910, Winston Churchill became Britain’s secretary of state and was also considered a strong eugenics advocate.

“I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place”, Churchill’s words in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission.

It’s interesting to point out that eugenics is still reflected in some parts of society today. One example of this is the 11-plus exams still being used in some English schools and a product of Cyril Burt’s work. Burt was an educational psychologist and professor at UCL, worked very closely with the British government. He believed that intelligence was innate and that children from rich parents scored better than poor children was mainly because their parents were more intelligent.

To this day, some schools in the UK still perform the 11-plus testing regime, a harsh and unfair experience for students aged as young as 11 and 12, and the results can be traumatic, as some of the students who do not perform well are asked to move schools.

Another famous name to enter the eugenics list was the well-known Marie Stopes, a feminist, author, women’s rights campaigner and trained paleobotonist. She opened Britain’s first birth control clinic. Stopes was also a eugenicist and advocate for controlled selective breeding, calling for the “hopelessly rotten and racially diseased” to be sterilised and opposed inter-racial marriage.

Stopes was married to Reginald Ruggles Gates, a Canadian anthropologist, botanist, geneticist and eugenicist, obsessed with skin colour. Gates believed African-Americans to be a mentally inferior race and that racial intermarriage was the cause of some disabilities.

Eugenics also influenced many sterilisation programs across the world. After WWII, sterilisation policies were carried out in many countries in order to improve racial purity. In 1975, pressured by the American government (Lyndon B. Johnson), Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, with the help of her son Sanjay, embarked on a mass sterilisation program, considered as one of the most troubling human rights violation the country has ever experienced. As a result, by 1977, over 8 million people in India were sterilised.

Some politicians, scientists and academics across the world continue to value and support the eugenics thinking. In 1974, British senior conservative politician, Keith Joseph, said in a speech, “the balance of our population, our human stock is threatened”, meaning the poor were breeding too fast, and the danger was they were going to swamp everyone else.

“If we are not prepared to predict and intervene far more early then there are children who are growing up, in families which we know are dysfunctional, then the kids a few years down the line are going to be a menace to society”, said Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister.

In the UK, there are growing fears about new legislation being put in place after Brexit. An example of this is the recently introduced bill that would allow authorities to criminally prosecute and jail asylum seekers who are intercepted trying to enter the United Kingdom without permission for up to five years.

Many other countries across the world have supported and adopted the eugenics thinking, including Brazil. In the first half of the 20^th century, Brazil debated on sterilisation of the “undesirables” to improve the race. Brazil did not pass any sterilisation law, however, in the 1920’s and 1030’s discussions on the subject were amongst doctors, intellectuals, politicians and eugenicists. During Getúlio Vargas government, new immigration policies were approved, preventing the entry of immigrants considered racially inferior. A sterilisation program was never implemented in Brazil, as it was considered a violation of the strong catholic tradition in the country.

Recently, in an audio broadcast, a professor at the faculty of medicine at Federal University of São Paulo, Unifesp, mentioned that blacks and indigenous people were “culturally backward”, trying to explain the notion of pure race.

The GM Designer Babies…

As genetic science technology advances, doors may be open to new forms of high tech eugenics through human genome editing, like CRISPR (the technique that enables precise DNA editing developed by scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna in 2012). This would create a non-accepting and more discriminatory society. The 1997 movie “Gattaca” exposed glimpses of what our world could look like if we take the wrong steps towards genetic modification, which will divide humanity against itself.

Nowadays, one has the option to select embryos without a faulty gene and implant it in the mother’s womb. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis, PGD, is a technique that involves testing cell(s) from embryos created outside the body by IVF for a genetic disorder. Tests are carried out for the specific disorder that the embryos are known to be at significant risk of inheriting.

CRISPR pioneer and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna said in her book on the subject of genome editing, “the power to control our species genetic future is awesome and terrifying. Deciding how to handle it may be the biggest challenge we have ever faced”. Doudna carried on saying, “we don’t have the ability to control the editing outcomes in a way that would be safe in embryos right now… It is very difficult to know how those edits will in fact affect the health outcomes of these kids“.

The World Health Organisation has recently released two new reports providing recommendations to help establish human genome editing as a tool for public health, with emphasis on safety, effectiveness and ethics.

“Human genome editing has the potential to advance our ability to treat and cure disease, but the full impact will only be realised if we deploy it for the benefit of all people, instead of fueling more health inequity between and within countries”, mentioned Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.

According to Stop Designer Babies, WHO’s reports on human genome editing spend many words to say nothing concrete and fail to recommend the obvious solution to the risks of unregulated creation of GM designer babies. The obvious solution, according to SDB, would be to ban on human germline genetic engineering altogether. Editing the human genome can lead to unintended consequences and can lead to an even more divided and unfair society.

In 2018, one specific event shocked the world when Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced he had altered the DNA of twin babies with the intent to prevent them from catching HIV. The result was Lulu and Nana, born not immune to HIV. Instead, they were both accidently given versions of CCR5 that are made up and do not exist in any other human genome in the world. Their genetic changes are still heritable and could be passed on to their children. Jiankui also broke the law by forging documents and misleading the babies’ parents about the risks involved. He Jiankui was sentenced to three years in jail for conducting “illegal medical practices”.

Clear signs of worldwide social, economic and political instability and division show that, as a society, we are swimming into very dangerous waters. The Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated existing issues in our society. Countries have retracted, adopting protectionist views and a colonial mentality, therefore creating more walls and discrimination.

It is essential for our society to embrace a compassionate, fair and ethical approach to decisions being made on how we are born as well as how we live our lives. There is an urgent need for a legislative framework to be set up by world leaders, with the objective to protect the most vulnerable ones in our society. We must make sure we do not commit the terrible crimes and mistakes made in the past. This will define the future of humanity.

Brazil: The Land of Impunity

Monica Piccinini

3 June 2021

“Impunity is safe when complicity is general”, once said Mariano José Pereira da Fonseca, Marquis of Maricá (1773-1848).

Visiting my family in the south of Brazil in my early teenage years was always an eventful trip, as I had the opportunity to spend time with my cousins and at the same time I had the freedom to go out with them without being questioned and monitored by my parents. My cousins had a very well established circle of friends; the children of families with influence, power and wealth.

One day, I was told that one of their friends had committed a terrible crime; killing his mother! I was in a state of shock and horror. His parents had been recently separated and his mother was known to be parading town with younger boyfriends, which made him extremely embarrassed. We were then told he had left town, only to return a few months later as if nothing had happened. No one ever questioned him nor mentioned the event. This is the very first time I realised that there were two different set of rules in Brazil, one for the powerful and wealthy, the other one for the remainder of the population. I soon learned the name for it: impunity!

Brazil is known for being a friendly and hospitable country. That aspect of the culture also extends to idolising and accommodating criminals from all over the world, no exception, including former Nazis like the “Angel of Death”, Josef Mengele and Franz Stangl; the infamous English criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963, Ronnie Biggs; a convicted fugitive Italian drug lord, Rocco Morabito, recently arrested in Brazil; one of the most important members of “Cosa Nostra”, Tommaso Buscetta; amongst many others.

It is worth pointing out that international criminals are a minority in Brazil, as the country is best known to be the land of impunity, a “safe heaven” for all types of local criminal activities committed by “businessmen”, politicians, the police, terrorists and drug lords.

“Corruption is not a Brazilian invention, but impunity is something very much ours”, once said TV presenter Jô Soares.

Corruption, violence and impunity are interconnected and run through every part of Brazilian society. Corruption leads to violence and impunity, an infectious disease affecting the most powerful in the country.

Published at Portal Brasil Empresarial, there are a few examples of violence, the fight for power, money, and impunity that has run through Brazilian politics for a very long time.

In June 1967, deputies Nelson Carneiro and Estácio Souto Maior, father of pilot Nelson Piquet, drew their weapons and exchanged fire in the Chamber of Deputies. With a .38 caliber revolver, Nelson Carneiro shot Estácio Souto Maior, who despite being wounded, managed to retaliate.

Four years earlier, on December 4, 1963, senator Arnon de Mello, father of the current senator and former president Fernando Collor de Mello, shot at senator Silvestre Péricles, who laid down on the ground and dodged the shots. One of the shots hit senator José Kairala, who died hours later. Fernando Collor’s father reacted to the threats, and during a speech in the Senate, he shot Péricles Silvestre.

In 1929, when the Federal Chamber was still headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, a discussion between deputies Sousa Filho and Simões Lopes resulted in death. Simões Lopes, who was armed, fired two shots at Sousa Filho, who died on the spot.

In all three occasions, all those involved were acquitted and were never held to account for their actions.

Crime-solving rates in Brazil are one of the lowest in the world. The country has loose criminal laws with soft penalties being applied to serious crimes, including incongruous criminal procedural legislation, which allows criminals to go free unpunished. Seven out of ten homicides are not punished in Brazil.

“An absolutely inefficient criminal law, unable to reach anyone who earns more than five minimum wages, has led us to build a country of rich offenders, a country in which people live on bid rigging, active corruption, passive corruption, embezzlement, money laundering. This was no accident. It spreads across the country”, said Luís Roberto Barroso, a Brazilian law professor, jurist and current Justice of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil.

Currently there are about 500 criminal cases in the Supreme Court, criminal proceedings as well as investigations, most of them against parliamentarians, mentioned Barroso at Jornal do Comércio.

Corruption and impunity work from top down in Brazil. The current president, Jair Bolsonaro, and his family have been involved in various criminal and corruption scandals, accused of money laundering, running a paramilitary death squad, and stealing from the population. These scandals often lack scrutiny and go unpunished.

Authorities in Brazil have always been a fortunate class. The privileged forum favours certain public authorities, unlike the majority of the population, encouraging white-collar crimes, corruption, and impunity to take place.

Developed countries usually have a few positions with privileged jurisdiction, but in Brazil over 45,000 authorities have this privilege. The factors that contribute to an individual or organisation to commit a crime is highly influenced by the possibility of it being tried and convicted by a justice system.

Impunity is also present in the police force in Brazil. The recent events of Jacarezinho in Rio de Janeiro, where an operation by the Civil Police that resulted in the deaths of 25 people, including one police officer, was news across the world. The victims were suspected of criminal activities, but no proof yet has been presented.

“It’s completely unacceptable that security forces keep committing grave human rights violations such as those that occurred in Jacarezinho today against residents of the favelas, who are mostly Black and live in poverty “, said Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil.

A study called “Labyrinthine Investigations”, published by Conectas, reveals that reports of violations committed by police officers tend to be ignored and shelved. A complex bureaucratic mechanism capable of silencing victims and protecting crimes committed by police officers was identified.

“The institutions work to justify the conduct of the police officers, to avoid investigation and punishment”, said Adilson Paes de Souza, a retired Military Police Lieutenant Colonel who has a PhD from the Institute of Psychology of USP (University of São Paulo).

“The existing doctrine in the Military Police is one of militarisation and war against the enemy, and this also spills over into the Civil Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary. When the judge clear signs of torture that a detainee has suffered, the message is the following: this is the enemy, damn it, no standards and guarantees for him”, added Souza.

Brazil is like an orphan lacking protection and direction; a country being constantly fooled, beaten, controlled and exploited by ruthless greedy individuals and organisations. It has been left to fend for itself. It is bruised and traumatised. The criminals responsible are left unpunished, exempted of their heinous crimes.

Brazil’s Relationship With Violence

Monica Piccinini

19 May 2021

It was late 1970’s in the beautiful and peaceful coastal town of Praia da Costa, Southeastern Brazil, and I was on my way back home from school. I couldn’t fail to notice frantic shouting coming from a mini shopping mall about 200 meters away from where I was standing. I suddenly realised what was unfolding right in front of me, a distressed man firing his gun innumerous times at someone. In my entire life, I honestly can’t remember running as fast as I did then. This vivid memory of violence has stayed with me up to today.

Brazil is one of the most violent societies in the world!

Violence runs through Brazil’s entire history. It has become deeply engrained in the psyche of the population. A society has evolved where fear is an accepted part of every day life.

In order to understand this evolution you have to look back through time and the origins of Brazil. A culture of violence can first be seen in the young colonial period of Brazil (1540-1822), when the Portuguese Crown used violence against the indigenous people taking over their lands and imposing their white European culture and later during the period of enslavement of African peoples. This was followed by the Old Republic (1889-1930), in which the colonels used force and violence against rural populations in order to maintain political centrality and territorial unity.

Sadly the trail doesn’t stop there. A culture of violence continued in Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) with the legitimisation of state violence through persecutions, end of individual freedom, political repression, torture, exile, etc.

The troubled past has created a Brazil that has the 9^th highest homicide rate in the world. Recently, the WHO published data revealing that Brazil has five times the world average of homicides.

According to data from the UN agency, deaths in Brazil reached 31.1 people per 100,000 habitants, compared to worldwide rate of 6.4 homicides for every 100,000 people. In Africa the rate is 10 deaths per 100,000, compared to just 3.3 per 100,000 in Europe.

In 2020, Brazil had the highest number of violent deaths in the world, 70,200 deaths, 12% of the total worldwide, surpassing violence in India, Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela.

This incredible headline number hides the suffering of many social groups within Brazil that face violence on an incredible scale. According to the Small Arms Survey, Brazil has the third highest number of deaths of women in the world. In 2018, a woman was murdered every two hours in the country.

A staggering 71.5% of people murdered in Brazil are black or brown, which evidences the correlation between violent death and high levels of social, race and economic inequality.

Children are also victims of violence. Between 2010 and 2020, at least 103,149 children and adolescent aged up to 19 years old died in Brazil, victims of aggression, according to a survey released by SBP, the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics. 2,000 of them were under 4 years old.

The list of affected groups within society goes on and on. Probably the longest suffering group being the indigenous population of Brazil, who have faced violence from the very first day of colonial settlers landing on Brazil’s shores.

“In cities like Rio de Janeiro, gang violence, the excessive use of force by the State, a system of Justice corrupt criminality, the militarisation of certain areas and the social accumulation of violence – where violence generates more violence – is what marks the extremely high homicide rates”, according to Small Arms Survey.

We can’t deny the fact that violence in Brazil is chronic, a legacy that has become a systemic problem. One has to question the reasons for so much violence in one single country. But they are countless, complex and interconnected.

Overall, the country has a flawed education system, a health system in desperate need of investment, serious issues of social exclusion, extreme racism, inequality, corrupt institutions, a failed judiciary system unable to maintain a rigorous protocol of punishment for violent crimes and unscrupulous and corrupt governance.

It has ineffective drug-fighting policies, serious arms and human trafficking issues and high circulation of weapons. Firearms accounted to 71% of crimes committed against the lives of Brazilians. From 1980 to 2016, nearly one million Brazilians died by gunshot wounds, according to Atlas of Violence.

With the levels of violence seen annually, it comes as no surprise that Brazil has one of the largest prison populations in the world, where more than 40% of prisoners have not yet been put on trial.

Sadly, there’s no quick fix to the issue of violence in Brazil. Violence is simply the symptom of so many deep problems. It will likely take generations of committed Brazilians to heal the patient. The support of the populist president, Jair Bolsonaro, with his radical and divisive policies, suggests this generation will not be one to start the healing process.

Global Food Crisis

Monica Piccinini

26 Jan 2021

A radical and collective rethink is required to re-engineer many of humanities core living systems, if we are to sustain our existence on the planet. With the global population having grown from 6.1 billion to 7.7 billion in 20 years, demand on the world’s resources is at breaking point.

Two powerful forces are magnifying each other’s effects, creating a hurricane, which will leave devastation in its path. These forces are not military or subversive in nature, they are basic human instincts; to feed ourselves and our families with healthy nutritious food, and the human desire for easy access to more food, more clothes, more products and more money.

The voracious demand of the worlds growing consumer base is fuelling and incentivising commercial greed, which in turn is feeding the demand within the world’s population. A tornado that is spinning faster and faster and getting bigger, as our population gets larger and older.

Less scrupulous organisations and individuals knowingly cut corners and standards to deliver more to more, at less and less. Often camouflaged in the respectable delivery of corporate profit and shareholder value. This is a race to the bottom, a race in which humanity will lose.

Industrial agriculture is one such villain responsible for degradation of the land, water, and ecosystems, high green house gas emissions, biodiversity loss, hunger and nutrition deficiencies, as well as obesity and diet-related diseases.

The world’s population is set to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, with huge concern on the need to ensure universal access to healthy food, but at the same time making sure food is produced in a sustainable way. Hunger and malnutrition is a result of the oligopoly control of the agrifood business supply chain. A high percentage of food is often lost along this supply chain before it even reaches the consumer.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, an estimated 2 billion people in the world did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food in 2019, putting them at greater risk of various forms of malnutrition and poor health. This forecast grew worse early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, with the World Food Programme (2020) warning on 21 April 2020 that the planet was facing a famine of “biblical proportions”.

More than 30 countries in the developing world, the UN agency cautioned, could experience widespread hunger, and 10 of those countries each already have more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation.

“We are facing acute, interconnected crises – hunger, malnutrition, biodiversity loss, the climate crisis, growing inequality and poverty. What we need are real solutions, not more greenwashing from agribusiness. Real solutions – public regulation for agroecology and Food Sovereignty – require dismantling corporate power, redistributing resources, re-localising food systems and ensuring small scale producers have control. Food is a human right not a commodity”, said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, from Friends of the Earth International.

Countries need to realise the urgent need to support small-scale food producers, such as family farming and agroecology, adopt measures to address food price volatility, better market linkages and shorter supply chain, improving coordination between producers and consumers. Agroecology contributes to reduction of greenhouse emissions and builds farming that is more resilient to climate change.

Family farming represents 90 per cent of all farms globally, and produce 80 per cent of the world’s food in value terms, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO. Family farmers combined with the practice of agroecology could be key to addressing global food security, as well as the conservation of ecosystems, considering they have full government support through adequate policy, resources, services, programs and regulations and their production methods comply with environmental standards. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has produced a document, “The 10 Elements of Agroecology”, a guide to transition to sustainable food and agricultural systems, offering a unique approach to meeting significant increases in our food needs of the future.

It is evident the dominance exercised by mega-corporations over food systems. A few corporate food empires control the majority of the food we consume and their practices have caused a serious impact on our health, environment, and farming communities. Their production is carried out on mass scales, based on intensive use of agrochemicals, hormones and antibiotics. They prioritise profit above all else.

These global agribusiness giants not only control the market price farmers get, but also what we eat, not to mention their contribution to poor health, food waste, soil erosion and soil acidification due to the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, wildlife destruction, ground water pollution, disease outbreaks, death, hunger and food insecurity, deforestation and climate change. According to the Climate Land Use Alliance, commercial agriculture drives 71% of tropical deforestation, posing serious risks to our global forests and climate.

On a report of Mighty Earth, more than one million square kilometers of the planet have been cleared of their natural vegetation to grow soy, one of the primary ingredients of animal feed used to raise meat. More than three quarters of the world’s soy is used to feed livestock.

Cargill, Bunge, JBS, ADM – Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson are the World’s largest agribusiness companies. Cargill is a US privately held company, found in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill. It was named the “worse company in the world”, according to an astonishing Mighty Earth Report. The company has been involved in scandals that go from fatal food poisonings, agricultural pollution, deforestation, contamination, to allegations of child enslaved labour. This large corporation still manages to keep a very low profile.

“The people who have been sickened or died from eating contaminated Cargill meat, the child laborers who grow the cocoa Cargill sells for the world’s chocolate, the Midwesterners who drink water polluted by Cargill, the Indigenous People displaced by vast deforestation to make way for Cargill’s animal feed, and the ordinary consumers who’ve paid more to put food on the dinner table because of Cargill’s financial malfeasance — all have felt the impact of this agribusiness giant.” These are the words of former Member of Congress and Chairman of Mighty Earth, Henry A. Waxman.

Cargill, the UK’s largest soybean importer, has been linked to the deforestation of 61,260 hectares of forests in the Brazilian Amazon and the Cerrado since March 2019. Cargill provides chicken to the UK market via Avara, the company’s joint enterprise with Faccenda foods. They supply chicken to Tesco, Nando’s and McDonald’s.

“British consumers have been talking loud and clear – they don’t want to be complicit in destroying Brazil’s precious forests. However, supermarkets are failing to protect them from eating meat fed with forest-destroying soy, ”says Robin Willoughby, director of Mighty Earth UK. “We are urging the CEOs of Tesco PLC, J.Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Morrisons and Aldi UK to take immediate steps to stop the destruction of Brazil and abandon Cargill.”

Brazil’s Cerrado and the Amazon rainforest are not the only regions that have been affected by the exploitation of Cargill. The Gran Chaco region, 110 million hectare ecosystem, spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, faced burning of their fields to make way to genetically modified soy. Home to communities of Indigenous Peoples, including the Ayoreo, Chamacoco, Enxet, Guarayo, Maka’a, Manjuy, Mocoví, Nandeva, Nivakle, Toba Qom, and Wichi.

Cargill also helped drive destruction of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire’s forests to grow cheap cocoa, buying cocoa grown through the illegal clearing of protected forests and national parks as a standard practice. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are the world’s two largest cocoa-producing countries. Many other countries across the world have also been affected by the greedy practices of Cargill.

“The agricultural sectors and livestock farming in particular must shift towards sustainability to enhance their contribution to food security, nutrition and healthy diets and build back better to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges”, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said on September 28, 2020, in his opening remarks to the 27th session of the Committee on Agriculture (COAG).

Many other factors affect the way our food is grown, such as the use of pesticides, which cause a huge impact on our health, soil, water and animal life. Chemicals considered harmful to our health, and also to the environment, have been sold by the world’s largest agrochemical companies: Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, and Corteva – members of Croplife International lobby group. These chemicals have been linked to increased cancer, liver disease, DNA damage, reproductive failure, endocrine disruption and also groundwater contamination, microbiome disruption, poisoning of birds, mammals, fish and bees. Although in European markets some of these dangerous products have already been banned, European companies can still produce and sell them to regions with lesser regulations.

Recently, the UK government has allowed farmers to use a poisonous bee-killing pesticide neonicotinoid thiamethoxam on beet crops, a chemical that has already been banned in the EU. Pesticides should be replaced with safer, agro-ecological and other appropriate non-chemical alternatives.

Another great concern is the fact that the largest technology companies, such as Amazon and Microsoft, are now entering the food sector, where we have seen a strong relationship being formed between companies that supply farmers with pesticides, expensive machinery, drones, etc., and those who are in control of food distribution and collecting and storing data. Farmers are being pushed to use their mobile phone apps, which feeds them with data as well as monitors their every movement. It is worth pointing out that small farmers can’t afford this high tech data gathering technology.

The largest agribusiness companies all have apps that cover millions of hectares of farmland, supplying farmers with information in exchange for a discount on their products. One example is Bayer, the world’s largest pesticide and seed company, where its app is being used in the US, Europe, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. This digital infrastructure is run by platforms developed by tech companies that run cloud services, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The aim is to integrate millions of small farmers into a wide centrally controlled network, making it easier for corporations investing in agribusiness to control and profit by encouraging and forcing them to buy their products. Profit is definitely the main and only purpose of these global technology companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, as well as agrochemical corporations, such as Sygenta/Chem China, Basf, Bayer/Monsanto, Corteva, including the involvement of international institutions supporting digital agriculture such as AGRA, CGIAR, FAO and the World Bank.

There is no question that something needs to be done in order to ensure the protection of biodiversity by developing sustainable agricultural practices. By dismantling the power of large agribusiness corporations and reconstructing sustainable agri-food systems, a more reliable, secure and healthy world will be the place where we will be able to live in harmony with the environment, and where it will provide us with our very basic human right: food. We are facing an urgent call from Nature!

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