The corporate-driven and agrochemical-intensive food system contributes to the global health, climate, environmental, and economic crises. Almost one-fourth of greenhouse gas emissions are from industrial agriculture. Pesticide use is a major driver of biodiversity loss, particularly the decline of nearly half of insect species which are crucial to ecosystems and food production. Yet, the use of toxic pesticides grows due to the current neoliberal food system, prioritizing yields and profits at the expense of people and the planet. Meanwhile, land grabbing, deforestation, and unprecedented control of seed and agrochemical corporations over agriculture continue to give rise to monocultures and loss of agro-biodiversity and traditional seeds and knowledge worldwide. Dependence on toxic, commercial inputs for global food production that is increasingly unsustainable, homogenized, and unsafe continues to destroy farmers’ livelihoods and ecosystems and increase hunger, social inequity, and disease.
The death and destruction of people and the planet will continue unless there is a radical paradigm shift.
A truly modernized agricultural and food system is not just economically viable and socially just, but an ecologically sustainable one. Agroecology — a productive, resilient, and sustainable approach to farming— integrates cutting-edge science with local and Indigenous knowledge and practice. Rooted in the principle of people’s food sovereignty (or the power of people and communities to assert and realize the right to food and produce food), people-led agroecology can fight corporations and other forces that destroy people’s food production systems. In many parts of the world, rural communities are fighting for and upholding diverse, agroecological food systems through collective farming, replacing pesticides with non-chemical alternatives, seed conservation and sharing, and staunchly defending their rights to land and resources.
Each year, PAN Asia Pacific and our partners hold the 16 Days of Global Action on Agroecology to advance agroecology and people’s food sovereignty. The theme for this year’s campaign is Celebrating diverse, agroecological food systems. Coming at the heels of the successful Global People’s Summit on Food Systems, the 16 Days of Global Action highlights the need for just, equitable, healthy, sustainable, and diverse food systems amidst the corporate capture of the recently concluded UN Food Systems Summit. While states and corporations are gearing up for even greater trespass of our lands, rights, and planetary boundaries, so must the people gear up for greater struggles ahead. By celebrating diverse, local, and agroecological food systems, we celebrate the strength and resilience of rural communities that are holding the line, protecting the heritage and the future of food and farming.
How to join:
1. Social media action
Send photos of local, diverse, and agroecologically-grown food and/or pictures of yourself holding placards with our calls:
- Stop Pesticides Use!
- Transform Food Systems!
- Food Diversity, Not Monocultures!
- Right to Safe & Nutritious Food Now!
Use the hashtag #AgroecologyNow, and we’ll share your photos on our social media platforms! Tag us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
2. Local food festivals
Hold food festivals in your communities to celebrate diverse, agroecological food systems!
3. Online film festival
On October 15, International Rural Women’s Day, we’ll be holding CELEBRATE! Short films on people-led agroecology. Be part of an online film screening of short videos/films on agroecological practices and movements across the globe! Register here.
We are open to accept video/film submissions. Please send to info@panap.net on or before October 12, 2021.
4. Sign and share the petition to stop the #ToxicAlliance
We’re collecting thousands of signatures to urge the Food and Agriculture Organization to stop its #ToxicAlliance with the pesticide industry association CropLife, which imperils policy support for agroecology and gives the Poison Cartel more significant inroads to decision-making.
Sign and share the petition here! We’ll submit the signatures to FAO Director-Director General Qu Dongyu.
5. Use the campaign materials
Download the 16 Days of Global Action on Agroecology 2021 media kit and use the materials in your campaigns and activities. Included in the media kit are the poster, twitter and square banner images. Also in the kit are the PSD files which you may edit, translate in local languages and put your own logos.
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