Good people, the month of June has come and gone but not without registering a historical landmark; the  1^stInternational Conference on Agroecology, Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems in Africa, which took place on June 18^th – 20^th, 2019, at Safari Park Hotel & Casino, Nairobi, Kenya.

• Pre-Conference preparations for this unique Conference articulated the “problem” of synthetic pesticides and the sustainable “solution” of agroecology during a Media Launch: The Launch attracted both local and international Media; See pics here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1thSWaitTrxuSdmGMzkJ8ADUkJijByDA4
• The Conference was a resounding success, attracting a star studded panel of global experts and practitioners of agroecology and related disciplines, who included genetic scientists, toxicologists, endocrinologists, integrative biologists, ecologists, entomologists, soil scientists, environmental experts, sociologists, a whole range of plant and animal scientists, nutritionists, epidemiologists, food safety and health experts: All these, in addition to agroecology input providers, farmers, traders, processors, retailers, consumers, UN bureaucrats, and policy makers, all under one roof!
• The “cocktail audience” provided robust evidence and shared case studies, based on field experience and findings, demonstrating that the current chemical industrial monoculture food system is unsustainable while presenting convincing evidence why agroecological farming systems is the alternative food system; It can can feed the world, sustainably, without destroying the ecosystem, including soil beneficial soil microorganisms.
• Is there evidence that glyphosate in Roundup, the most widely used synthetic agrochemical molecule, traded as Roundup, is a systemic biocide that kills everything it comes in contact with? YES. It does not even spare the "unpaid farm worker”, the earthworm… yet it is known that the presence of earthworms is an indicator of soil fertility and vice versa.
• Aminomethylphosphonic acid(AMPA) , one of glyphosate’s main metabolites, which persists in the soil, has been found to cause metabolic dysfunction in earthworms; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4726205/ ..finally killing them!
• The above evidence, adds to a long list of other life forms that glyphosate and its so called “inert” forms, kill…the “inert forms, are, shockingly, upto 100,000 times more toxic than glyphosate(Seralini et al, 2018).
• This biocide does not spare pollinator bees either: Here is the evidence: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/monsanto-weedkiller-harms-bees-research-finds
• This evidence and more, was presented at the Conference by various speakers, including a live video presentation, by Prof.  Gilles-Eric Seralini; some of the findings are shocking to the extent that Seralini recommends that Monsanto, the original manufacturer of Roundup, deliberately committed a monumental fraud by not disclosing this information to users of Roundup!

What is the way forward, Post Conference?

• A Call to Action (to be shared in next month’s article) reiterates the need for a transformational shift to more sustainable agroecological food systems, aligned and anchored on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which emphasize the need for a “ People, Planet and Profits…leaving no one behind” approach: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?
• It is increasingly evident that the current chemical industrial food systems, informed the paradigm the “warfare industry” aka the “killing industry”, is not sustainable and that there is an urgent need for a transformational shift to a system of “live and let live” or one in alignment with “sustaining life”, in harmony with nature, as opposed to being “at war” with nature.
• Top scientists, with opposing views, who participated in the Conference seemed to have a consensus that, there is need to feed the world’s population, without killing life, without using synthetic biocides, like glyphosate in Roundup; watch the TV interview here: