Page 50 - Climate Compliance

Relearning farming techniques
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Along with mobilising communities to protect the environment through clean-
ups, RVA carried out extensive research in St. Vincent about agriculture and food
security related topics. As a result, the research showed that:

• Local communities need to see the implementation of new farming
techniques in order to adopt them.

• Many health, social, environmental and economic benefits of buying and
eating local produce are currently being overseen by Vincentians.

• A few decades ago the people in SVG fed themselves with a variety of
organic foods. Today, the country imports US$40 million worth of food a

year, farmers use imported chemicals and the population can no longer feed
itself.

St. Vincent relies heavily on agriculture for rural livelihood and development.
1
However, local agricultural systems are affected by land degradation and climate
change, which threaten food production. Furthermore, globalisation has forced
the control of the nation’s agricultural production on to foreign food corporations.

1 “Land degradation is a process in which the value of the biophysical environment is affected by
combination of human-induced processes acting upon the land. [...] It is viewed as any change
or disturbance to the land perceived to be deleterious or undesirable”. Source:Knowledge Base.
Retrived from http://www.cawater-info.net/bk/5_e.htm.