Farming for the future: bringing the food economy home

A press conference was held by the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), the speakers were José Bové, French farmer, author and activist; Helena Norberg-Hodge, Director, ISEC; Michael Hart, Head of the Small and Family Farms Alliance; Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth

Following the recent release of their book in English, The world is not for sale, José Bové and François Dufour, joined ISEC at the press conference to highlight the problems of farming in the UK and the rest of the world. The focus of the conference was what are the root causes of the crisis in farming, and whether increasingly globalised agriculture can feed the world-and if not, what are the alternatives?

Helena Norberg-Hodge, Director of ISEC, said: "We urgently need to shift policies towards diversification and localisation instead of ever-larger monocultures for global markets. This is not a pipe dream: practical and successful demonstrations already exist."

ISEC is a non-profit organisation working to protect biological and cultural diversity. Food and farming are among its main concerns, see http://www.isec.org.uk/.