Synthetic Fertilizers destroys the Planet : Dr. Vandana Shiva

Humanity, merely 200 years of the age of fossil fuel has driven species and biodiversity to extinction destroyed our soils, depleted and polluted our water and destabilized our  entire climate system.  Five hundred years of colonialism have driven cultures languages, people to extinction and left a legacy of violence as the basis of production and governance.

Paris has emerged as the epicentre of the planetary ecological crisis and the global cultural crisis. There is a deep and intimate connection between the events of November 13 and the ecological devastation unleashed by the fossil fuel era of human history.  The same processes that contribute to climate change also contribute towards growing violence amongst people.  Both are results of a war against the Earth.

Indian agriculture is a fossil fuel-based system which contributes more than 40 per cent  of the greenhouse gases leading to climate change.  Along with the globalised food system, Industrial agriculture is to be blamed for at least 50 per cent of the global warming.

Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are based on fossil fuels and use the same chemical processes used to make explosives and ammunition.

Synthetic fertilizer, used for industrial agriculture, is a major contributor to climate change -    

it starts destroying  the planet long before it reaches a field. Yet the dominant narrative is that synthetic fertilizers feed us and without them people will starve.  The fertilizer industry says that “they produce  read from air”.  This is incorrect. Nature and humans have evolved many non-violent, effective and sustainable ways to  provide nitrogen to soil and plants.  Pulses and beans are nitrogen-fixing crops.

Returning organic matter to the soil builds up soil nitrogen.  Organic farming can increase nitrogen content of soil.  Organic farming not only avoids the emissions that come from industrial agriculture, it transforms carbon in the air through photosynthesis and builds it up in the soil, thus contributing to higher soil fertility, higher food production and nutrition and a sustainable zero-cost technology for addressing climate  change.

Ecologically, non-sustainable models of agriculture, dependent on fossil fuels have been imposed.  As soil and water are destroyed, ecosystems  that produced food and supported livelihoods can no longer sustain societies. As a result there is anger, discontent, frustration, protests and conflicts.  However,  land,  water and agriculture related conflicts are repeatedly and deliberately mutated into  religious conflicts to protect the militarized agriculture model, which unleashed a global war against the earth and people.