Just Transition: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 22:47, 9 June 2023
"We must build visionary economy that is very different than the one we now are in. This requires stopping the bad while at the same time as building the new. We must change the rules to redistribute resources and power to local communities. Just transition initiatives are shifting from dirty energy to energy democracy, from funding highways to expanding public transit, from incinerators and landfills to zero waste, from industrial food systems to food sovereignty, from gentrification to community land rights, from military violence to peaceful resolution, and from rampant destructive development to ecosystem restoration. Core to a just transition is deep democracy in which workers and communities have control over the decisions that affect their daily lives.
To liberate the soil and to liberate our souls we must decolonize our imaginations, remember our way forward and divorce ourselves from the comforts of empire. We must trust that deep in our cultures and ancestries is the diverse wisdom we need to navigate our way towards a world where we live in just relationships with each other and with the earth."[1]
Dr. Vandana Shiva outlines nine steps necessary to transition away from the status quo production of food as a commodity via chemical intensive Industrial Agriculture to a system of Food Sovereignty. The steps are:
The first transition is from fiction to reality: Moving away from the idea of corporations being people and recognizing there are real people everywhere that are facing nutritional crisis and there are people that can grow food everywhere. "Whereas the rise of industrial agriculture was based on the removal of people from the land, the emergence of the new agriculture paradigm is based on returning to the dirt, to the Earth, and to the soil: in cities and in schools, on terraces and on walls. There is no person who cannot grow food, and part of being fully human is reconnecting to the Earth and its communities."[2] Farming and Gardening can become revolutions everywhere as people begin to create real food systems made to protect the Earth and People.
The second transition is from mechanistic, reductionist science to an agroecological science based on relationships and interconnectedness: "It is the recognition that soil, seed, water, farmers, and our bodies are intelligent beings, not dead matter or machines... The old universities teaching chemical warfare as agricultural expertise are being replaced by farms servings as schools, where the knowledge of real farming to produce real food is growing. A transition away from the rule of corporations and profits is also a knowledge transition toward the emerging scientific paradigm of agroecology"[3] This new paradigm requires a knowledge commons where ideas, methods, and techniques can be openly accessed and shared. As we grow this knowledge commons the interconnectedness needed to proliferate agroecology will expand.
The third transition is from seed as the "intellectual property" of corporations to seed as living, diverse, and evolving: toward seed as the commons that is the source of food and the source of life: "The creation of community seed banks and seed libraries is part of the movements for seed freedom that are resisting the imposition of unscientific and unjust seed laws based on uniformity. Also part of this resistance are the scientific movements innovating with participatory and evolutionary breeding, which are offering successful and superior alternatives to industrial breeding."[4]
The fourth transition is from chemical intensification to biodiversity intensification and ecological intensification, and from monocultures to diversity: This involves removing chemicals and toxins as the main input into agriculture to chemical-free, agroecological systems. "This transition must also move away from the fiction of "high yield" to the reality of diverse systems outputs, including quantity, quality, taste, health, and nutrition. Not only are biodiverse agricultural systems more productive and resilient, biodiverse food systems are the best insurance against diseases linked to nutritional deficiencies..."[5]
The fifth transition is from pseudoproductivity to real productivity: This involves the decommodification of food and analyzing the cost of social, health, and ecological costs of chemical-, capital-, and fossil-fuel-intensive industrial agriculture, as well as the benefits of ecological agriculture for public health, social cohesion, and ecological sustainability. "... A real productivity calculus recognizes farmers' rights. In an ecological and living world, farmers are not just producers of food; they are conservators and builders of biodiversity and a stable climate, they are providers of health, and they are custodians of our diverse and collective cultures."[6] Agroecological food sovereignty projects around the world are working on creating this framework path towards transitioning away from industrial agriculture.
The sixth transition is from fake food to real food, from food that destroys our health to food that nourishes our bodies and minds: "This is also a transition from food as a commodity produced for profits to food as the most important source of health and well-being. The entire food and agricultural system treats food as a commodity to be produced, processesd, and traded solely to maximize corporate profits. The highest use value of food is in providing health and nourishment, and the primary contribution of food is to public health, not corporate profits. Commodities are based on quantity alone, irrespective of whether they are nutritionally empty or full of toxins and poisons. Food as a tradable commodity loses its use value of nourishment."[7]
The seventh transition is from the obsession with "big" to a nurturing of "small," from the global to the local: "Large-scale, long-distance food chains in an industrialized, globalized food system must become a small-scale, short-distance food web based on the ecological enlightenment that no place is too small to produce food. Everyone is an eater, and everyone has the right to healthy, safe food with the smallest ecological footprint. Everyone can also be a grower of food, which means that food can and must be grown everywhere." [8] A common argument for industrial agriculture is that large scale production is needed to feed people living in large cities. Dr.Shiva addresses this concern three fold:
1) "... large-scale farms are not producing food; they are producing commodities. Commodities do not feed people."
2) "... every city should have its own "foodshed" that supplies most of its food needs in the same way that cities have "watersheds" that supply water. Larger cities can have larger foodsheds. Planning for food needs, as well as integrating the city and the countryside through good food, should be part of Urban Planning.
3) ... "the new food and agricultural movement is exploding in cities. Urban communities are reclaiming the food system through urban gardens, community gardens, school gardens, and gardens on terraces and balconies and walls. No place is too small to nourish a plant that can nourish us."[9]
The eighth transition is from false, manipulated, and fictitious prices based on the Law of Exploitation to real and just prices based on the Law of Return: "In rich countries, citizens are questioning "cheap" food and what an over consumption of this food means for people's health. In poor countries, there are riots and protests and changes in regimes because of rising prices of food linked to free market polices. The Egyptian "Arab Spring," for example, started because of the rising prices of bread. Both the "cheap" food in rich countries and the rising costs of food in poor countries are based on a food system that puts profits about the rights of people to healthy, safe, and affordable food. This is based on the manipulation of prices by corporate giants and financial institutions through subsidies in rich countries, financial speculation, and betting on agriculture. Fair trade initiatives, on the other hand, allow farmers to get a fair and just return for their contributions to health and planetary care."
Dr. Vandana Shiva continues:
"The price of anything should reflect its true cost and true benefits: the high costs of ecological degradation and damage to people's health in the case of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture, and the positive contributions of ecological agriculture to rejuvenating the soil, considering biodiversity and water, mitigating climate change, and providing healthy, nutritious food." [10]
The ninth transition is from the false idea of competition to the reality of cooperation: "The entire edifice of industrial production, free trade, and globalization is based on competition as a virtue, as an essential human trait. Plants are put into competition with one another and with insects, including pollinators. Farmers are pitted against one another and against consumers, and every country is in competition with every other country through chasing investment performance and through trade wars. Competition creates a downward spiral from the perspective of the planet and people, and an upward spike for corporate profits. But the ultimate consequence of competition is collapse."
Dr. Vandana Shiva continues:
"The reality of the web of life is cooperation: from the tiniest cell and microorganism to the largest mammal. Cooperation between diverse species increases food production and controls pests and weeds. Cooperation between people creates communities and living economics that maximize human welfare, including, livelihoods, and minimze industry's profits. Cooperative systems are based on the Law of Return. They create sustainability, justice, and peace. In times of collapse, cooperation is a survival imperative."[11]
Sources
<http://www.ienearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/IENJustTransitionPrinciples.pdf>
- ↑ https://climatejusticealliance.org/just-transition/
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology, Page:127
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology,Page:127
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology,Page:128
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology,Page:128
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology,Page:128-129
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology, Page: 129
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology, Page: 130
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology, Page: 131
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology, Page: 131-132
- ↑ Dr.Vandana Shiva, Who Really Feeds the World:The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology, Page: 132-133