Editorial – Green choices

By
23 September 2011

Preparations for Rio+20 are now in full swing.

In a recent meeting in Paris with experts from all over the world (among them several farmer leaders), FAO and OECD discussed the roadmap towards a Green Economy with Agriculture. It was widely agreed that the lack of sustainability of current food and agriculture systems makes change inevitable. Food security, resilience to shocks and equity within society and across regions need to be the guiding principles for change. More regionalised (or even localised) and diverse food systems are emerging all over the world: they provide a useful answer to these challenges and a way to respect and support family farmers.

They are local responses that can help inform the global debate. Consumer choice is playing a leading role in greening the economy, especially schemes that strengthen the links between consumers and producers of food. Sustainable diets based primarily on local products are healthier and can be an important lever for greener, more localised food systems. Diverse cropping (growing a large number of products in relatively small quantities) can better be commercialised through local markets and enhances smallholders’ resilience against market or climatic shocks.

There is mounting evidence that “ecological intensification” can significantly increase the amount of food produced, the incomes of farmers and could generate up to 200 million full time jobs by 2050. But the economic framework in which producers and consumers operate continues to encourage unsustainable practices. Producers are deterred from shifting to greener alternatives because of upfront transition costs, perceived risks, and misinformation. Many ideas for a greener food and agriculture sector are not new. What has changed is the recognition of the urgency of making fundamental changes to our global food system.

Among the experts gathered at the FAO-OECD meeting there was a consensus that the transition to greener and more localised food systems will require a cultural change, one that reasserts the centrality of the right to food, that embraces and reflects human dignity and guarantees decent livelihoods for all. It is up to us, as farmers, consumers, traders, policymakers or politicians to make right choices and be part of the change. (see www.fao.org/rio20 and www.timetoactrio20.org)

Text: Edith van Walsum, director ILEIA