A few weeks ago, in one of our posts, we talked about the importance of the soil conservation in which agricultural activities are carried out. As non-renewable resource, soil should be worked in the less detrimental way. That implies that production techniques have to evolve and, also, agricultural sector have to stop using chemicals and pesticides that harm the degraded soil even more. All these changes in the agricultural production system have been implemented for several years in Europe, in a process that is known as ecological transition.
The greenhouse effect, high emissions of CO2, temperature increase and, in general, all the global warming consequences endanger the carrying capacity of the biosphere to produce enough food for the global community. Therefore, the negative impact on the agricultural production is direct and very significant.
Data are that they are, and seem to envisage that global warming is irreversible. In view of these predictions, the ecological transition must be real, effective and imminent. The transition of agricultural sector involve some changes in the production processes that should follow an implementation process. The chemical substances ban, decrease in the use of pesticides or development of the seasonal and local products consum are some practices that have been implemented in the interest of this transition.
However, this ecological transition of the agriculture must not only be in the agricultural sector. Consumers should change their consumption habits by rebalancing their diet and decreasing the excessive consumption of products. Pierre-Marie Aubert and Xavier Poux proved in their AgroParisTech Conference that, changing this consumer behaviour, the ecological agriculture could “feed the Europeans by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emmisions by 40% and recover biodiversity”.
This whole transition, which involves changes in all the gears of the food chain, bring us, once again, to the circular economy concept. Population must be aware of the importance of moving from mass consumption, where much of production is wasted, to conscious consumption that includes reuse and recycling of the products. In short, a change in the consumer lifestyle, production processes and political measures are needed to promote ecological transition and prevent the irreversibility of global warming.
