Oliver Oliveros profile background image
Oliver Oliveros profile image

Oliver Oliveros

Interim Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food

Global Alliance for the Future of Food

Oliver Oliveros is interim director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food

December 05, 2022

In the pursuit of ever-cheaper food and higher yields, agribusiness has concentrated and industrialised the farming of crops and animals, without regard for the negative impacts on ecosystems and human health.

The intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides has degraded soils, depleted insect and other animal populations, and polluted streams and rivers.

Farms have expanded further and further into wild areas, driving devastating deforestation in critically important areas like the Amazon. Agricultural expansion is responsible for 80% of deforestation globally, and unsustainable practices like monocropping and heavy tilling are also contributing to the rampant destruction of biodiversity.