Greenwashing: The guest of honour at the United Nations 

Across the world, there are multiple types of food systems, which vary according to geographical and climate conditions, culture, political and economic contexts, and other factors. 

But one of them is dominant due to its economic weight and influence on politics: the industrial farming system. This is the system that uses the most natural resources and has the worst impact on the climate emergency. In short, industrial agriculture systems produce a lot of inequalities and not much food.  

Industrial agriculture: an inadequate food system  

Industrial agriculture food systems are based on monoculture production, characterised by widespread use of chemical inputs (fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides), long global production chains and significant concentration of power (whereby a small number of organisations control most of the value chain), to the detriment of small-scale farmers.   

There are numerous negative impacts of industrial farming systems. Monocultures reduce biodiversity among crops, while pesticides affect all sorts of species, including birds and bees, and even all microorganisms in the soil. Furthermore, the deforestation associated with industrial agriculture is a major contributor to the decline in wild biodiversity, while misuse of fertilisers renders soil less productive.   

Industrial food systems also emit a lot of greenhouse gases, thus worsening the climate emergency. In fact, this is the second most polluting sector in the world, accounting for around 1/3 of total CO2 emissions, without considering methane (livestock) and nitrous oxide (chemical fertilisers).   

As well as being associated with appropriation of land and resources, industrial farming systems do not win many points when it comes to human rights, either. Apart from being among the worst paid employees in the world, workers in industrial food systems sometimes work without protection when handling dangerous substances and receive little acknowledgement in labour rights and social protection systems.  

A strategic, problematic summit 

The UN Food Systems Summit will take place on 23 September in New York. Its aim is to transform food systems by proposing solutions, mobilising governments and implementing ‘multi-stakeholder’ coalitions that include multinationals from the private sector. Since it was announced by the UN General Secretary in 2019, preparations for the event have been long and complex. In this process, organisers have failed to include the voices of people on the front line of food systems, namely smallholders – who produce 70% of the world’s food – and those most vulnerable to hunger.   

Though the global health situation has certainly made it more difficult to ensure an inclusive process, the structure of the Summit has also fallen short in this regard. Its format puts stakeholders with very different levels of power and resources at the same negotiating table, with smallholders up against multinational companies. The voices of the least powerful are left unheard and the solutions they are calling for, which suit them the best, are not highlighted by the Summit. There seems to be a real risk of small-scale farmers’ decision-making power and room for manoeuvre being reduced. 

The false solutions proposed by multinationals  

To cite an example, the Summit promotes precision agriculture: an approach that seeks to limit the impacts of industrial agriculture, rather than transforming food systems entirely. It consists of reducing the amount of fertilisers and pesticides applied to crops, through means that include new technologies (drones, GPS, etc.) that indicate when and where to apply the products. This high-tech form of agriculture is not always suitable for smallholders, as they are forced to invest in new equipment and technologies and may be required to depend on external providers.   

Though reducing the use of chemical inputs is no bad thing in itself, the logic behind the approach is a problem: it seeks to make the industrial farming model ‘more acceptable’, while protecting the interests of its main promoters (providers of agricultural inputs, standardised seeds, machines, etc.).  

The Summit places a disproportionate emphasis on technological approaches and data in agriculture. Yet certain new technologies have not been proven to be effective or relevant for small-scale farmers. We must therefore ask ourselves who controls the data and whether agri-tech companies have a major financial interest.  

There are market information systems (MIS) that are highly useful for small-scale farmers, as they are available as a mobile app in local languages. These tools provide information on the price of different foods, thus preventing farmers in remote areas from being ripped off by intermediaries who come to buy their produce straight from the farm. Similarly, Action against Hunger collects and provides data on water and available pastureland in its project in the Sahel region, in partnership with livestock farmer collectives.  

In July, during the Pre-Summit on Food Systems, we published an open letter signed by more than 80 members of parliament and civil society organisations, which condemned private multinational companies’ influence over food governance.   

We support the counter-mobilisation led by civil society organisations across all continents. 

This Summit marks another step towards global food governance being controlled by a handful of multinationals that already have a monopoly over the sector. Fairer models, like those based on small-scale agroecology, are not promoted or supported much, especially in financial terms, even though they produce most of the world’s food. 

Small-scale agroecology: A solution for the future  

Small-scale agroecology has agronomic, economic, social and political facets. It therefore offers solutions to a great number of the challenges faced by our food systems (inequalities, climate crisis, nutrition and health) and provides alternatives to the dominant industrial food systems. Agroecology is a set of agricultural practices that respect the different seasons and regions and allow farmers to grow crops without chemical inputs, by working with ecosystems and making the most of interactions between plants, animals and soil. Agroecology is a science of ecosystems that values knowledge of the land and local farmers’ expertise. It is also a social movement, which puts smallholders and citizens at the heart of food systems, so that they have full control over what they grow and what they consume.  

Agroecology helps us to fight the climate emergency and adapt to it, while providing more diverse, nutritious food and focusing on paying smallholders properly: a winning solution on all fronts.    

What we are calling for 

Our food systems must be transformed to make them more sustainable and fairer and to feed the world population a healthy diet. For Action against Hunger, small-scale agroecology must be at the heart of this transformation and acknowledged as a social model.  

We call upon the French government to be vocal about the shortcomings of the UN Food Systems Summit, to publicly condemn its lack of inclusivity and to push for small-scale agroecology to be promoted thanks to its contribution to transforming food systems. Agroecology must not be dismissed as a greenwashing solution. It must be recognised for the social and political model it represents and the progress it makes towards ensuring the right to food.