Organic Farming is Green Peace With Nature

["greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

ORGANIC FARMING IS GREEN PEACE WITH NATURE Greenpeace head
congratulates IFOAM, calls for co-operation against chemical and
biological pollution 

OXFORD 24th September. 1997 -- Presenting Greenpeace's cordial
congratulations on the 25th anniversary of the International
Federation of Organic Agriculture Movemements (IFOAM) Dr. Thilo
Bode, executive Director of Greenpeace International, called
organic farming one of the world's most sophisticated and
serious visions of sustainability. 

"Everybody talks about the fact that food production has to
dramatically reduce energy consumption, toxic output and
destructive methods that ruin soil and water resources and
threaten the worlds biodiversity," Bode told representatives of
the Organic Movement at their Conference in Oxford today, "But
you just do it. And that is the style we like!" 

By practically proving that green peace with nature was actually
possible, the organic movement was the most important beachhead
to sustainable agriculture of the 21st century. Referring to a
joint petition on a class of genetically modified plants
(containing genes of Bacillus Thuringiensis), which Greenpeace
and IFOAM filed against the US Environmental Protection Agency
last week, Bode warned the delegates: "Genetic engineering will
not solve the massive problems the chemical industry has
created, but rather add a new, fundamental environmental threat:
from chemical to biological pollution." 

Bode urged IFOAM to firmly stick to its present standards, which
generally prohibit the use of genetically modified organisms.
Bode congratulated IFOAM on the exponential growth of organic
farming over the past few years not only in industrialised
countries but also in the South, as well as their expansion to
new sectors such as textiles, wood and fisheries. 

"Your success will not be left unchallenged, because every
hectare that is converted to organic methods is a loss to the
new powerful agro-chemical transnational companies, who now call
themselves Life Science Industry," Bode warned, and suggested
that co-operation between environmental groups and the organic
community had to intensify and expand in the future.

As the most important restriction to further growth of the
organic sector and important field of co-operation Bode
identified the present global terms of trade and a price system
that did not properly reflect the costs of environmental
destruction: "We need realistic prices for energy and global
warming contribution, for toxic pollution and for the
devaluating destruction of soil, water-resources and
biodiversity."

While the industrial vision on future agriculture continued,
causing destructive overproduction at the expense of the
environment but also at the expense of rural employment and
livelihoods, organic farming offered hope for social
sustainability: "Organic farming is probably one of the most
promising global job creators", he said.

In a world where still 800 millions are hungry while more food
is produced and wasted than they can eat, the measure of
efficiency is not how to further increase productivity at all
costs, but how to provide access to food there is. The question
is not "How can we feed the world," but "How can the people of
the world feed themselves."

"Environmentalists have to make it clear," Bode concluded, "that
sustainable agriculture is not just an interesting alternative
or niche market but an ecological imperative."

Greenpeace International on the Internet
http://www.greenpeace.org