Pesticides, GMOs and Fires vs. Agroecology

Agribusiness has used pesticides, genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and Amazon fires to increase production in Brazil — increasing the threat of climate change. But small farmers and peasants have an alternative: agroecology. It challenges President Jair Bolsonaro’s falsehoods during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

What is Agroecology?

In the video below, our Brazilian partner the Landless Workers Movement (MST) shows how agroecology can be an alternative to pesticides, climate change, and fires in the Amazon.

Stop the AMazon fires: Use Agroforestry Instead

The video also offers a great look at some of the MST’s work with forestry in their communities. While big business is burning the Amazon to make room for their single-crop farms, movements like the MST are being good stewards for forests in order to grow food. We don’t need big farming to feed the world. We do need strong forests.

Winning Video for UN Climate Summit

This is the winning video for the UN Climate Summit’s Global Youth Video Competition. The Global Youth Video Competition shares inspiring stories of local action around the climate emergency, protecting biodiversity and land restoration. The finalists will be showcased during the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in New York in September 2019 and the overall winner for each category will attend the Climate conference in Chile in December 2019 as a youth reporter.

«The natural world – land, forests, habitats and ecosystems – support all life on the planet. Our food systems, nutrition, and health depend biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. However, our food systems are the greatest drivers of biodiversity loss… Loss of diversity in our food systems contribute to malnutrition and unhealthy diets which are major risk factors of noncommunicable diseases such as heart diseases and Type II diabetes.» — from the description at the Global Youth Video Competition’s website.

We can have more climate-friendly societies if we manage our natural resources better. How we grow what we eat is an important piece of that.