SHOULD AGRICULTURE BE INTENSIFIED IN THE NAME OF THE ENVIRONMENT? (Collection Phosphore #1)
Should we produce industrially and intensively to preserve the climate, biodiversity and feed the world? Should we describe organic farming as the worst form of agriculture for the environment and fight agroecology on the grounds that its yields perpetuate world hunger? These political arguments seem quite counter-intuitive, yet they are widespread in high decision-making circles, and pushed by powerful and well-organized agribusiness interests. These arguments are based, often in a very caricatural way, on a non-negligible scientific corpus which values the economy of the earth, “land sparing”. This promotes the concentration of very intensive production in a minimum of space, to preserve the rest. Immersion into the heart of a scientific theory and its multiple limits, immersion into the heart of a controversy that configures the political debate and reinforces the inertia of a food system out of breath.