An Agribusiness Greenwashing Glossary

The global food system is broken. It is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and it is the leading driver behind the collapse of the world’s biodiversity. Meanwhile, 1 in 10 people around the world go to bed hungry, while hundreds of millions more suffer from diabetes, obesity, cancers and other health issues caused by unhealthy foods. The global food system is even a major factor in the emergence of new diseases and pandemics.

Social movements and communities have been struggling for decades to build and maintain alternatives. Many of these movements have come to identify themselves as part of a global movement for food sovereignty, in which food production is centred on the needs and cultures of local communities and on the protection of local environments and territories, not the profits of distant corporations. These grassroots agricultural practices pivot on knowledge that indigenous and small farmer communities have developed over generations and that offer concrete ways to confront the climate crisis. Many movements refer to these practices as “agroecology”.