We believe that the industrialization and globalization of food
and fiber imperils humanity and the natural world. Reducing
farming to a monocultural, synthetic, transnational corporate business threatens the health, nourishment, right livelihood,and spirituality of communities and the earth. It is insane to believe that we must poison land and water and waste the soil in order to feed and clothe ourselves. Five decades of the so-called Green Revolution have not only led to the destruction and contamination of water, soil, biodiversity, and human
communities, but exacerbated hunger worldwide.

One of the most critical impacts of industrial agriculture is climate change, which will destroy the natural basis of agriculture itself. The
patenting of life, corporate ownership and manipulation of our genetic heritage is one of the greatest threats ever imposed by industrial agriculture: the human right to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves and
our families is at stake.

Institutions and treaties such as the World Trade Organization, the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Codex Alimentarius, North
American Free Trade Agreement, the Food and Agriculture
Organization, and the European Union have accelerated the
process of agricultural industrialization and globalization
while promoting the rights of corporations over those of people.

We know that there are non-toxic and non-destructive
alternatives to global industrial agriculture, and we know that
these alternatives can provide more food. Farmers around the
world are farming in ways that respect their unique ecological
and cultural communities. Building on their wisdom, all farms of
the twenty-first century can be ecologically regenerative,
community sustaining, biologically and culturally diverse, as
well as energy conserving. We must not only build upon the
existing knowledge and vision of farmers, but we must expand
partnerships and create coalitions that serve to re-empower
them.

In order to rescue our food system, we need more skilled farmers
who have access to land, seed, and the knowledge of local
biological systems. Also essential to a healthy food system, is
clean land, air, water and soil and the right to save seeds to
ensure future harvests.

Scientific organizations and transnational corporations that are
experimenting with, and releasing poisons, synthetic compounds
and genetically modified organisms into the biosphere should be
held fully accountable for the safety of their practices and
products. Corporations, scientists and governments should honor
the precautionary principle and take preventive action in the
face of scientific uncertainty in order to avoid cultural and
ecological harm.

We affirm, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that
the right to food is sacred. The right to food transcends basic
nutrition and hunger and includes the right to produce one's own
food. We also affirm that consumers have the right to know where
their food comes from, what is in it, and how it was produced.

Furthermore, farmers and consumers have a right to maintain
local control over food production, distribution and
consumption.

Our bodies, our plants and animals, our air, water, land, and
soil, are not commodities and are not patentable. When a food
production system violates the rights of citizens and the
natural order of the planet's ecosystems, it is essential that
we the people make use of our inalienable freedom to correct
those abuses. We stand united on these points.

Vancouver Statement Signatories

Hal Hamilton, Center for Sustainable Systems, US

Ronnie Cummins, Pure Food Campaign, US

Tim Lang, Centre for Food Policy, U.K.

Carolyn Raffensperger, Science and Environmental Health Network, US

Candido Gryzbowski, IBASE, Brazil

Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, US

Victor Suarez Carrero, ANEC (Asociacion Nacional de Empresas

Comercializadoras Campesinas), Mexico

Alejandro Rojas, University of British Columbia, Canada

Steve Shrybman, West Coast Environmental Law Association, Canada

Jose A. Lutzenberger, Fundacao Gaia, Brazil

Miguel Altieri, University of California - Berkeley, US

Jeanot Minla Mfou'ou, Agriculture Peasant & Modernization Network, Cameroon

Herb Barbolet and Kathleen Gibson, Farm Folk/City Folk, Canada

Helena Norberg-Hodge, International Society for Ecology and Culture, U.K./US

Carolyn Mugar, Farm Aid, US

Gregor Robertson, Happy Planet Foods, Canada

Mika Iba, Network for Safe and Secure Food and Environment, Japan

Sigmund Kvaloy, Setreng Insitute for Ecophilosophy, Norway

Will Allen, Sustainable Cotton Project, US

Professor Nanjunda Swamy, Karnataka Farmers' Union, India

Franco Adriano Werlang, Fundacao Gaia, Brazil

Lori Ann Thrupp, World Resources Institute, US

Monica Moore, Pesticide Action Network- North America, US

Nancy Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farm, Inc., US

Wendell Berry, Lanes Landing Farm, US

Moura Quayle, University of British Columbia, Canada

Andrew Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment, US

Jerry Mander, Public Media Center, US

Kate Duesterberg, University of Vermont - Center for Sustainable

Agriculture, US

Brewster Kneen, "The Ram's Horn," Canada

Cathleen Kneen, "The Ram's Horn," Canada

Fred Kirschenmann, Kirschenmann Family Farm, US

Flavio Valente, Associacao para Projetos de Combate a Fome, Brazil

Karen Lehman, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, US

Kathy Ozer, National Family Farm Coalition, US

Anuradha Mittal, Food First, US

Peter Rosset, Food First, US

Laurie MacBride, Georgia Strait Alliance, Canada

Shirley Sherrod, Federation of Southern Cooperatives, US

Vandana Shiva, Research Institute for Natural Resource Policy, India

Dan Imhoff,Foundation for Deep Ecology, US

Dena Hoff, National Family Farm Coalition, US

Nettie Wiebe, National Farmers' Union, US

Martin Khor, Third World Network, Malaysia