Food & Climate
Greenpeace proposes taking advantage of the current chemical fertiliser crisis, which is manufactured from fossil fuels due to the war in Iran, and switching to ecological farming, thus eliminating those products that are harmful to the environment and health.
FAO said that agroecology is a holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture and food systems.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, 2016. As the attacks expanded across the region, including Tehran’s strikes on energy facilities in the Gulf states, shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz was nearly halted, disrupting Middle Eastern exports, which account for approximately 30% of global oil and gas supplies.
The war negatively impacted the chemical fertilizer market, which relies heavily on gas, causing prices to rise sharply worldwide, particularly as factories in the Gulf states ceased operations.
It said: “Instead of buying expensive chemical fertiliser pellets from a factory halfway around the world, farmers can work with nature instead of against it”.
Greenpeace brings about change through direct action, creative confrontation, lobbying, investigations and mobilising large numbers of people. These tactics help it to protect nature and promote a green and peaceful future, according its website, that seen by Food & Climate.
Stopping dependence on chemical fertiliser has five advantages
Greenpeace said that by planting diverse types of crops, plants can naturally “fix” nutrients into the soil. This breaks the cycle of chemical fertiliser dependence and does five amazing things at once:
It saves money. Farmers slash their costs by eliminating expensive chemicals, which protects your food prices from global shocks.
It cleans the water. Ecological farming stops toxic chemical run-off from polluting the rivers and drinking water.
It protects wildlife – restoring space for bees, birds, and vital biodiversity to thrive.
It fights climate change. Transforming the way, we farm is critical to reducing the massive greenhouse gas emissions produced by the industrial food system.
It increases food security. Regenerative, ecological farming practices reduce our dependence on imported food that is vulnerable to external shocks.
It said: “The crisis in Iran’s Strait of Hormuz is a warning we cannot ignore: this dependence on chemical fertiliser and intensive livestock farming has made global food systems vulnerable”.
Right now, the attacks on Iran by the US and Israel have sparked a major shipping crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. You might be hearing that this “shipping jam” is the unavoidable reason that your grocery bills might be about to skyrocket again.
Fossil fuels repackaged as food
Behind the current crisis is a truth the agro-chemical industry doesn’t want you to know, according to Greenpeace. Our global food system is dangerously addicted to chemical fertilisers, which are essentially fossil fuels repackaged for the soil.
Fossil fuel and Big Ag giants use massive amounts of energy to turn gas and oil into synthetic nitrogen.
Then, they ship these chemical fertilisers across the globe on massive vessels, relying heavily on fragile chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, where the US and Israeli attack on Iran is already causing massive disruption.
This is a setup by Big Ag and fossil fuel billionaires. The industrialised, monoculture-based agricultural system they have imposed on the world depletes the soil and reduces biodiversity, forcing farmers to depend on fossil fuel-based fertilisers while corporate giants pocket the profits. Now, at the peak of the spring planting season in the Northern Hemisphere, the supply chain has snapped.
Farmers are trapped in a volatile global market they cannot control, facing difficult choices such as paying drastically higher prices for fertilisers, reducing application rates, or switching crops. Any of these decisions leads to the same outcome: likely decline in crop production. The consequences then ripple through global supply chains and ultimately retail food prices, leaving families to foot the bill for corporate greed. Again.
To make matters worse, the vast majority of these expensive, imported chemicals aren’t even used to grow food for humans. They are dumped onto endless fields to grow feed for factory-farmed animals.
The sheer, unsustainable scale of global industrial meat and dairy production supercharges this fragility. If we shifted away from resource-heavy, large-scale livestock operations and instead prioritised growing plants directly for human consumption, we wouldn’t be held hostage by these vulnerable supply chains.
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