Ruchi Shroff – Voices from Clim’Act Camp

Ruchi Shroff, of Navdanya International, held a workshop on “False Solutions to Climate Change” at the International camp on climate change, which took place in Rome on 11 July 2017.

The camp was organized within the framework of the European project Clim’Act and coordinated by A Sud Onlus, Acción Ecológica, Environmental Rights Action – FoEN and ZaZemiata with the participation of dozens of activists from Ecuador, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Thailand and India. The objective of the camp was to build together a youth-driven climate justice international campaign towards the next UN negotiation summit on Climate COP 23 that will take place in November 2017 in Bonn.

This workshop followed the meeting with Dr Vandana Shiva which took place on July 10th, who explained the vision outlined in Navdanya’s publication Terra Viva, produced on the occasion of the Year of Soil 2015. The soil crisis, the agriculture crisis, the climate crisis, and the refugee crisis are all interconnected and we, at Navdanya, see that caring for the Soil and the Earth through ecological agriculture lie the solutions to the multifaceted crisis we face.

Dr Shiva also pointed out the general misconception that climate change only has to do with energy systems.  Of immense import, one left out of the equation, is that industrial agriculture is a fossil fuel based agriculture, with major emission factors, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen fertilizers, the running of huge industrial machines and transporting food over very long distances.

The workshop on False Solutions to Climate Change  addressed why the “techno-fixes” proposed by Industry, such as biofuels, trade emission market, carbon trading, sustainable intensification,  climate smart agriculture, among others,  are by no means effective solutions to climate change.  On the contrary they are simply ‘greenwashing’  corporate propaganda, hiding the next grabbing of the planet’s resources . The same model that is destroying small farmers, hijacking our seed and food sovereignty cannot provide the solutions.

“We have enough evidence to affirm that ecological farming and local biodiverse food systems, produce higher yields and chemical-free nutritious food, using fewer resources, while rejuvenating the soil, and preserving biodiversity and water conservation.”

She also pointed out that: “As the goal must be the overall health of ecosystems and people, the generating of livelihoods and healthy economies, and the creation of equity and justice, the climate crises must be framed in a much more holistic way in terms of food systems that are ecologically sustainable and regenerative, like agroecology, which both builds soil health and at the same time sequesters carbon.”

Also watch/read:

Meeting with Dr Vandana Shiva at Clim’Act Camp – July 2017

False Solutions from Industry – The Next Resource Grab – December 2015

Making Peace with the Earth – 17 November 2015

Navdanya at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food Meeting & Soil Carbon Conference

May 2017

Pact for the Earth, TERRA VIVA, EARTH DEMOCRACY – A people’s pact to protect the planet & each other

November 2015

Terra Viva – Our Soils, Our Commons, Our Future

May 2015

Agri-Corporations Attempt to Hijack COP21

By Dr Vandana Shiva – EcoWatch, 11 November 2015

Which Future of Food and Farming

By Dr Vandana Shiva, 15 October 2015