Deep and fundamental transformation is needed to cut emissions and build climate resilience in the food system (see Fact Sheet: Climate change and the industrialised food system). As the corporate takeover of policy spaces in South Africa and around the world deepens, a range of false solutions are being pushed. They want us to believe the lie that all that is needed are a few tweaks to the existing system.
These false solutions must be avoided as they are a distraction from real changes and solutions and simply promise more of the same – they reproduce the same thinking and systems that are the cause of the ecological crisis, and they invariably reinforce existing patterns of power and inequality.
One such false solution is so-called “Climate-smart” agriculture (see Fact Sheet: Climate-smart agriculture). This false solution is being promoted internationally and in South Africa as a strategy to sustainably ensure food security while responding to the climate change crisis. The concept is gaining political support and has infiltrated both agricultural and climate change discourse.
“Climate-smart” agriculture uses the language and even some of the methods of ecological agriculture, thereby providing a veneer of sustainability for many interventions that continue to promote industrial agribusiness products and technologies, including synthetic fertilisers and herbicides, often together with herbicide-resistant GM crops.
“Climate-smart” agriculture and other false solutions must be avoided as they are a distraction from real changes and solutions and simply promise more of the same – they reproduce the same thinking and systems that are the cause of the ecological crisis, and they invariably reinforce existing patterns of power and inequality.
Join the Biowatch mailing list and support a just transition in the South African food system.