Food Security and the Environment

Abstract

Written by a social communicator from Corporación Guardabosques, this article analyzes the emergence in Colombia during the 1990s of grassroots organizations linking food security with environmental protection. The author argues that world hunger does not stem from technological productivity limits but from political and economic conditions rooted in developed-country agricultural subsidies and an international regulatory framework favoring biodiversity privatization. The text contrasts the situation of Colombian smallholder farmers with liberalized international trade logic, presenting as resistance alternatives the consolidation of local markets based on trust between consumers and producers, and the conservation of native germplasm through farmer-managed seed banks.