Powerful corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Dean Foods,
Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and Tyson share a major - though largely
overlooked - role in fueling climate change. These giant multinationals
have seized control over much of the planet's food resources, dominating
the growing, processing and sales of meat, grains and oils. ADM and
Cargill now control 65% of the world's trade in grain. Monsanto and
Syngenta control 20% of the $60-billion market in bio-engineered seeds.
The corporate campaign to "patent nature" and control the world's food
supply has been so successful that today, 85% of US corn is genetically
engineered.
Agriculture - at least the high-input, chemical-dependent, fossil-fueled system favored by the Agribusiness giants - has become a major part of the climate crisis. In addition to producing food and fiber, agriculture produces a harvest of three major greenhouse gasses (GHGs) - carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and methane (CH4). Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels are burned for energy and transportation and in the production of chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Fertilizer manufacturing emits around 41 million metric tons of CO2 a year. Up to 60 percent of human-caused nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential of CO2) is released largely by the use of chemical fertilizers. Fifty percent of methane (with 25 times the GWP of CO2) is produced by industrial livestock operations. The impact is compounded by a global trade structure that was created to turn farming from a local enterprise into a planet-sized business.
Soils contain vast stockpiles of carbon in the form of organic matter. Industrial agriculture's practice of plowing the land for immediate gain rather than long-term sustainability releases land-stored carbon into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change. According to varying estimates, oil-dependent farming, livestock operations, destruction of carbon-storing fields and forests to accommodate farming, the use of chemical fertilizers and the combustion of fuel to process and distribute food all add up to between one-fifth and one-half of the human-caused pollution that is driving climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that, in order to avoid a climate calamity, the world's industrialized nations must cut GHG emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2050. The G-77 countries and the People's Climate Declaration have called for cutting emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 but neither pending US legislation nor the non-binding Accord signed at the end of the Copenhagen Climate Summit comes anywhere close to meeting this goal.
The industrialized nations are responsible for 7 of every 10 tons of CO2 emitted since the dawn of the Industrial Era - with much of that stemming from the conversion of land to large-scale commercial farming and the growth of energy- and chemical-intensive industrial agriculture. So far, the response of most of the industrialized world has been to insist that the solutions to world hunger and climate change lie in "more of the same" - agrofuels, genetically engineered "climate-ready" seeds, nuclear power, the Global Marketplace and "cap-and-trade" pollution-trading schemes. At the same time, the World Bank continues to increase its lending to fossil fuel projects around the world (up 165% in FY2008).
Read more: Agribusiness and Climate Change: How Six Food Industry Giants Are Warming the Planet
Agriculture - at least the high-input, chemical-dependent, fossil-fueled system favored by the Agribusiness giants - has become a major part of the climate crisis. In addition to producing food and fiber, agriculture produces a harvest of three major greenhouse gasses (GHGs) - carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and methane (CH4). Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels are burned for energy and transportation and in the production of chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Fertilizer manufacturing emits around 41 million metric tons of CO2 a year. Up to 60 percent of human-caused nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential of CO2) is released largely by the use of chemical fertilizers. Fifty percent of methane (with 25 times the GWP of CO2) is produced by industrial livestock operations. The impact is compounded by a global trade structure that was created to turn farming from a local enterprise into a planet-sized business.
Soils contain vast stockpiles of carbon in the form of organic matter. Industrial agriculture's practice of plowing the land for immediate gain rather than long-term sustainability releases land-stored carbon into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change. According to varying estimates, oil-dependent farming, livestock operations, destruction of carbon-storing fields and forests to accommodate farming, the use of chemical fertilizers and the combustion of fuel to process and distribute food all add up to between one-fifth and one-half of the human-caused pollution that is driving climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that, in order to avoid a climate calamity, the world's industrialized nations must cut GHG emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2050. The G-77 countries and the People's Climate Declaration have called for cutting emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 but neither pending US legislation nor the non-binding Accord signed at the end of the Copenhagen Climate Summit comes anywhere close to meeting this goal.
The industrialized nations are responsible for 7 of every 10 tons of CO2 emitted since the dawn of the Industrial Era - with much of that stemming from the conversion of land to large-scale commercial farming and the growth of energy- and chemical-intensive industrial agriculture. So far, the response of most of the industrialized world has been to insist that the solutions to world hunger and climate change lie in "more of the same" - agrofuels, genetically engineered "climate-ready" seeds, nuclear power, the Global Marketplace and "cap-and-trade" pollution-trading schemes. At the same time, the World Bank continues to increase its lending to fossil fuel projects around the world (up 165% in FY2008).
Read more: Agribusiness and Climate Change: How Six Food Industry Giants Are Warming the Planet
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