Challenging globalization of agriculture

The strong pressures for the globalization of agriculture are eliminating much of the genetic diversity of many crop plants and domesticated animals under market and commercial pressures to maximize productivity and profit. Many varieties and breeds, often evolved over centuries of local selection, have desirable features that adapt them to particular local environments, resist specific diseases or environmental extremes, or give them unique features, but that do not lend themselves to mass marketing. Today, strong pressures for the globalization of agriculture are eliminating much of this traditional diversity. Excessive globalization today could destroy much of the potential for better agriculture tomorrow.

The Agreement on Agriculture of the World Trade Organisation is one of the main reasons for the misery of small farmers in all the continents; the elimination of food security policies; the increasing concentration of productive resources in the hands of agribusiness and the introduction of genetic engineering in fields and kitchens all over the world.