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On this page:
Why work on agriculture?
What WWF is doing
Why work on agriculture?
Growing food and fibre is the greatest source of livelihoods for the world's poor, and plays a key role in rural development.
However, agriculture has the biggest environmental impact of any human activity. Key consequences include the pollution of water, soil and air; land and habitat conversion; soil degradation; and the huge demand for water.
For example, agriculture draws 70 per cent of the world's freshwater - more than 90 per cent in some countries - and this contributes to the massive degradation that has taken place in the world's freshwater ecosystems, documented in WWF's Living Planet Report. Increasing food and fibre demands of the world's growing population will hugely increase this problem in future years.
To read more visit the facts and key issues page
What WWF is doing
Linking up around the globe WWF works at every level to raise awareness of the environmental impacts of the food we eat and the clothes we wear, to coordinate local partnerships and engagement with business and to undertake policy work to deliver agriculture that is better for people and nature.
Raising awareness - The food we eat accounts for a third of our environmental impact on the world. As a global environmental organisation WWF is keenly interested in what impact our consumption of food has across some of the world's most precious environments. WWF is using its global network and partners to explore problems and promote solutions.
Reducing agricultural water use - WWF works to reduce the water that agriculture uses and to improve the impact agriculture has on freshwater. Then there is more water available for other users and to support vital natural processes that make water available for people and the planet. Sugar, cotton and rice are major users of the world's water resources. WWF is working to increase the efficiency of water use and to reduce the other environmental impacts in these crops.
For more information about our work in this area visit WWF International's website.
Building partnerships to help growers - WWF is engaging with progressive 'agri-businesses' - investors, grower groups, other charities and transnational organisations that are committed to helping farmers improve what they do - so that they make money but have less impact on nature. When growers make more money, and land is fairly shared, the local economy prospers and more people escape poverty.
WWF is engaging with the growers, brand owners and global distributors of cotton and sugar. We are not only working to improve their environmental and water use practices, but to help them improve their social and financial performance. Using water less wastefully means that more is available for all, people and nature.
WWF-UK is supporting the development of an international Better Sugarcane Initiative to improve the key social and environmental impacts of sugarcane production.
See the Better Sugarcane Initiative section on the reports page for details of our work on building sugarcane partnerships.
Lobbying for changes to agricultural policies - National and international governments set the ground rules within which the food and farming business operates and as such have a major influence on the industry and its environmental impacts.
WWF lobbies actively for tougher environmental legislation, greater investments in the farmed environment and fairer international trade rules to allow farming to contribute more to poverty alleviation and environmental protection.
Read more about this on the reports and WWF in action pages. |
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Richard Perkins
Agriculture and Rural Development Policy Officer
Adam Harrison
Rural Development Policy Officer, WWF Scotland
WWF-UK
Panda House
Weyside Park
Godalming
Surrey GU7 1XR
t: 01483 426444
f: 01483 426409
e: info@wwf.org.uk |
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WWF-UK > Research > Issues > Agriculture
