Hello, welcome. In this video, we will talk about sustainable agriculture. Agriculture has changed dramatically since the end of the Second World War. Food and fiber production has increased significantly due to the mechanization, introduction of industrial fertilizers, pesticides, new technologies, and also policies that have maximized food production, and decreased food prices. So we have been for 70 years based our food production in conventional farming, and this has caused negative effects on the environment. These negative effects are for example: water scarcity, water pollution, soil pollution, decline in soil productivity, or loss in biodiversity. Moreover, the long-term viability of conventional farming has been questioned due to ethical, economic, and social reasons. Sustainable agriculture questions all these negative costs of conventional farming and tries to improve or at least maintain production while minimizing environmental damage. Sustainable agriculture has three concerns: environmental health, economic profitability, and social equity, and it doesn't give up in any of these three. Sustainable agriculture practices are meant to last over the long term and are based on the understanding of ecosystem services and functions. The principles of sustainable agriculture can be summarized in these four bullet points. First, we have to integrate biological and ecological processes into agricultural practices, that will improve the efficiency in the use of natural sources. Then we have to minimize the non-renewable inputs that are harmful for the environment, for the farmers and consumers health. Then it's also very important to promote collaboration and cooperation when we try to solve problems related with natural resources when we talk about agriculture. Then we have to use the expertise of farmers that will promote rural livelihoods and will increase social well-being. All these principles can be used as a base for developing national policies, strategies, and regulations that will guide the transition towards sustainability. Now, we can list some agroecological practices that are used in sustainable agriculture. Some of them are quite known and have been widely used for a long time. For example: organic fertilizers, reduced tillage, or crop rotation, whereas others are poorly integrated in the agroecological systems now, but have the potential to be implemented in the upcoming years. These are for example, bio fertilizers, intercropping, agroforestry, or the use of allelophatic plant. Now, I will talk about permaculture. Permaculture is a practice that shares the same core ethics, but goes beyond sustainable agriculture due to its complexity and holistic vocation. Permaculture can be defined as a conscious design system for ecological and sustainable living. The permaculture objectives are to restore communities and landscapes, and to maintain agricultural productive systems that work exactly like natural ecosystems in terms of stability, resilience, and diversity. The permaculture movement started in Australia, and Robyn Francis is one of its leading pioneers. She founded it in 1993, the Djanbung gardens, which are a site for learning, living, and also permaculture demonstration. Now, to finish this video, I will like to talk about food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. So it's the right of people to define their own food and agriculture system. The idea of food sovereignty was read for the first time during the World Food Summit in 1996 by the international peasant movement La Via Campesina. Food sovereignty is still now rooted on the ongoing struggles for the control of natural resources. Vandana Shiva is one of the most influential voices of food sovereignty, and she's a widely known ecofeminist, social, and environmental activist, although she's a physicist and she did her Phd in quantum theory. When Vandana Shiva argued about the green revolution in Asia, she says that the Green Revolution introduced in India the pesticides, industrial fertilizers, and baited seeds. These caused negative effects on soil fertility and on the farmers health. When the Green Revolution, the dependency of farmers on this seed chemical package increased, while the diversity of the seeds and indigenous knowledge were being lost. In 1982, Vandana Shiva founded the Indian Research Foundation for science, technology, and natural resources policy. This led years later to the creation of Navdanya. Navdanya is a freedom movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially seeds. They work on the promotion of the organic farming, education, and sustainability, and they have achieved to establish over 40 seed banks across India. That has been very good because that have helped the farmers to improve their income and their freedom, and that strengths food sovereignty and food security. So now, the final question as a citizen or as a part of a community is, what we can do? I will recall Maya Bertha Rothko. At least there is one thing is for sure, we still have the ability to make choices, so we can keep promoting food speculation or we could strive for food sovereignty.