More and more of our food is now being produced, packaged and sold by large corporations through centralised industrial processes. And agribusiness is one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis in the following three ways.
Deforestation
Worldwide, large tracts of ancient forests are cleared in order to create farmlands. Any crop grown on a large scale, harvested by huge combiners and distributed solely for profits will slash down every other vegetation in its presence.
Food miles
When food is grown on a large scale, it needs to transported long distances for processing, packaging and selling. The fossil fuels they burn in the whole process is insanely enormous!
Packaging waste
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And what goes around comes around.
This is a lettuce farm in Kolkata poisoned by leachates from the city's landfill right next to it.
And landfills are a huge source of methane gas. |
A centralised food industry means preservatives and packaging to increase shelf-life and ease transportation. Unlike the west, where "everything it taken away out of sight to give us a clean city" India thankfully has uncleared garbage piles everywhere reminding us of the mess we have made for ourselves.
CLIMATE SANKALPA #1
Let us learn to identify local, edible weeds that are tasty, nutritious and grow in abundance all around us with no care or maintenance. (I will be sharing more on this soon. Stay tuned!)
Let us buy food without packaging from the local markets and community organic store that directly source from small and local farmers and producers. Here is a directory of responsible organic stores from across the country.
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