Industrial agriculture continues to wreak havoc on soil, air, water, and communities around the world. This ever-growing industry already contributes to one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. It funnels the power to control the production and distribution of food into a few corporate hands, especially affecting vulnerable populations in the Global South. ASEED has identified synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, or fossil fertilizers, as a crucial point of attack to shift away from the current, destructive, and fossil-fuel intensive food system. Fossil fertilizers are a key component of the industrial agricultural model that:
- contributes to 20% of emissions in this sector,
- is entirely dependent on fossil gas for production,
- depletes the soil,
- hinders carbon sequestration,
- harms local biodiversity,
- traps farmers into dependence on continuous chemical input.
European fossil fertilizer companies are the largest corporate buyers of gas in Europe, and as such hold immense power over how our energy system will develop over the next decades. This industry spends a staggering amount of money on corporate lobbying (Norwegian Yara International spent €11.8bn from 2011 – 2019), and they are truly the “The Exxons of agriculture”—yet are largely unknown and go under the radar of social movements and civil society. While the multi-crises of increasing food and energy prices continue to spread economic uncertainty for marginalized groups, fossil fertilizer companies are more than doubling their profit margins. Hand in hand, the fertilizer and gas industry are lobbying governments to respond to these crises by deepening Europe’s addiction to imported fossil fuels and the geopolitical volatility they bring. 3-5 percent of the entire production of European fossil gas is used to produce fossil fertilizers.
We at ASEED believe this is the perfect moment to increasingly focus our campaign on fostering collective action and gathering power from below to instigate meaningful change. We see confronting the use and expansion of fossil fertilizers as a crucial arena to break the power of the industrial agricultural sector, take away its social license, shake investor confidence, and open the space for more decentralized and democratic food systems.
Fortunately, the real solutions are already all around us! Food sovereignty, agroecology, and peasant agriculture are all approaches that feed the planet and cool the earth. While large-scale agricultural production uses 70% of the global agricultural resources to produce only 30% of the total food supply, peasant-based food systems provide 70% of our food while using only 30% of agricultural resources. Agroecological farms that produce local and seasonal food:
- promote biodiversity and soil health,
- use fewer water resources,
- are resilient towards the shocks of a changing climate,
- offer the possibility to capture carbon in the living soil,
- and provide dignified compensation to farmers.
Our theory of change
ASEED believes that grassroots power leads to social change, and that fossil fertilizers are a key, untapped battleground where fights for food justice, energy justice and land justice converge. We believe that a well-connected, resilient movement with strong narratives that places farmers’ concrete solutions at the forefront can lead to powerful social change. Our goal is to help build a powerful emancipatory movement from below for a sustainable and just food system. Individual consumer choices will not adequately address the systemic root causes of unequal power relations in industrial agriculture.
ASEED has developed a theory of change that we believe complements and strengthens connections in the wider climate justice and food sovereignty movements. A useful tool has guided our planning, allowing us to better navigate and categorize the ecology of social movements:
(Drawing inspiration from George Lakey’s “How We Win”, 2018.)
Using primarily the “connect” and “break” strategies, our aim is to focus our work on filling an existing gap between anti-gas, climate, social justice, and food systems movements.
Our corporate campaign #Yarafertilizeschaos [https://aseed.net/yara-fertilizes-chaos/] aims to make Yara International known for their exploitative and destructive actions against the environment, peasants and workers, as an example of corporate control of the food system. As part of this, we work to:
- Expose the harms of the production and use of fossil fertilizers (environmental, social and neocolonial harms)
- Challenge their narrative of “feeding the world” by demonstrating the limits of fertilisers and highlighting existing alternatives.
To combat the fossil fertilizers and Yara International at this pivotal moment, ASEED has three core strategies in this part of the campaign:
- Shaping the narrative through social media campaigns and non-formal education.
- Coordinating and engaging in direct action aiming to disrupt business-as-usual and spark public debate.
- Building and coordinating national and international grassroots networks to create opportunities of convergence on the topic of fossil fertilizers.
Currently, our work on alternative forms of agriculture is done through our active participation in the Dutch Agroecology Network. We maintain a direct connection to the farming world, stay up to date on current topics, concerns, struggles, and integrate them in our work. We are neither farmers nor builders but have access to this world and play a supportive role.
To connect, strengthen, and promote existing fair and sustainable food system alternatives, ASEED works to:
- Amplify pre-existing local solutions to the general public
- Connect city-dwellers with semi-urban and rural projects and farmers
- Create more connections between Dutch agricultural and agroecological contexts and the climate movement
- Be a radical voice within alternative farming spaces, politicizing conversations and bringing in systemic thinking.
You can read more about previous campaign topics here [link], and the specific activities carried out within our campaign here [link].