“In defense of our farmers: we must feed the world tomorrow”

The title of this brilliant essay explains its purpose . “How feeding tomorrow the world as humanity continues to increase, it is becoming urban and grows, and to protect the planet? Farmers hold our future in their hands. They occupy two-thirds of the inhabited land and control solutions to meet the challenges of sustainable development: food security, climate change, biodiversity, renewable energy. But in France, they suffer from their working conditions, as critics they face. Many become discouraged. We risk losing our agricultural wealth. While 750 million people still endure hunger, French agriculture feeds the world with quality products yet. She is involved in the agro-ecological transition. Everywhere, the choices to be made, the challenges are crucial: seeds, pesticides, irrigation, livestock, and consumption of meat, long or short circuits, ariculture organic or not..”.

Professor Brunel has a worldwide experience of agriculture and stress that it is urgent to look at facts: The French ban on GMO is a tragedy since it means an increase of pesticides. Farmers are using less and less pesticides but bio agriculture will never be able to feed a rising population. Only good farmers are able to find new technologies to cope with pollution and governments should stop harassing them to please Greenies.

We expected more discussion on the property rights issues on the basis of Elinor Ostrom and Hernando De Soto seminal research

Ms Brunel was keynote speaker at our ICREI 9th International Conference (Aix en Provence, 2012) www.icrei.org video

Let’s hope that this book will be translated in English

Plaidoyer pour nos agriculteurs: Il faudra demain nourrir le monde…

Sylvie Brunel

Buchet Chastel, 2017, 123 pp

Max Falque