Unlike monocropping, when farmers intercrop – planting a multitude of crops and varieites in the same field – they’re less likely to face crop failure

Industrial Agriculture
Multinational corporations have more control than ever over seed and agricultural inputs, as well as over purchases of agricultural products. The industrial farming approach they promote has benefited some farmers – most notably those working large, subsidized farms in rich countries – but small-scale farmers are losing out.

Industrial farms concentrate all their efforts on a single crop. With this approach, known as monocropping, farmers depend on the cash economy to survive, since the value of their crop only comes from selling to companies. They need large farms and plenty of money to buy the chemical inputs needed to make the crops grow well. This farming approach is hugely popular the world over, but the costs on the land, on biodiversity, and the environment are becoming increasingly evident.

All over the planet, small family farms are being bought up by larger industrial farms. The farmers that worked these farms become landless labourers, or move to the city to live in slums and wait for jobs that never materialize. And small farms that do try to adapt to the industrial approach face bankruptcy or worse if the crop fails. Debt, starvation, and suicide are not uncommon when promising but risky crops fail to produce results in local circumstances.

Biotechnology
Biotechnology is another huge threat to farmers’ control over their livelihoods. Biotech seeds are recognized as the legal property of the corporation that makes them. Just to be able to use the seeds, farmers now have to sign copntracts promising not to save, replant, or share the seeds.

This is a violation of farmers’ rights. For centuries, farmers have saved seed from year to year in order to ensure they had planting materials for the following season.

By agreeing to abide by these contacts, farmers will need to buy new seed every year; an added expense that many – in the global south at least – can ill afford. Moreover, Biotech seeds (AKA Genetically Modified (GM) varieties) are more expensive than traditional varieties, and also require specific chemicals in order to grow. The extra costs involved in switching to GM seeds mean that the failure of a biotech crop can be disastrous to a farm family’s income.

Climate Change
Climate change is not something for future generations to worry about – it’s already here. Today, in many tropical developing countries, rural communities across Asia, Africa, and Latin America are struggling to cope with extreme weather events and changing temperatures that are weakening their yields.

In places where lower crop yields means less food to eat, climate change is a real and present danger. By 2020, climate change is expected to reduce agricultural output in the South by 20 per cent!

Agrofuels
Whatever you call it – biofuel, biodiesel, agrofuel – fuel derived from plants is touted as an important answer to the oil crisis and climate change. But as the 2008 UN Human Development Report shows, even if we were to turn all food crops into fuel crops, the energy produced would only accommodate 20% of our world’s fuel needs.

And it’s causing more problems than it solves. Farmers are losing their land in the scramble to plant more agrofuels, which could claim as much as 12 percent of arable land in coming years – land that could otherwise be planted for food for local communities.

Resisting these threats, and taking back control over their farms and their livelihoods, is a key priority for the farmers we work with.