The future of farming

Today's agriculture industry is more like mining than farming.Its system compromises the very earth on which all our future food needs depend. Only about 16%of the world 's farmland remains free of problems such as chemical pollution.

Rather than growing food to meet the needs of local communities for a healthy,diverse diet,industrial agriculture produces crops to sell on world markets.This agriculture uses costly farm chemicals and machinery.While world crop production has trebled since the 1950s,more people go hungry now as 20 years ago.Small family farmers are driven off their land and local people cannot afford to buy what is grown.Too often,the result is a downward spiral of environmental destruction,poverty and hunger.