A lot has happened since the first Agroecology Symposium took place in 2014.  The focus of international and local attention has clearly shifted from providing evidence on the validity of agroecological practices to enabling policies and legal frameworks. Thus, a perfect setting emerged for the launch of some refreshing publications that put policy reform at the heart of the debate.

The AgriCultures Network presented a collection of case “stories” and some pointed opinion pieces, drawing lessons for policy and practice from concrete experience on the ground. This special edition of Farming Matters is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the AgriCultures Network and IFOAM – Organics International. 

In the coming years the AgriCultures Network will continue to document and share groundbreaking experiences in the upscaling of agroecology, together with partners and allies. Having taken over the production of Farming Matters from ILEIA six months ago, the Network is now getting ready to produce it’s magazines in a renewed digital format. This makes it possible to share many more significant experiences, in a more targeted manner and with many more people. Right now we are still learning to use the new system; we are confident that in a few  months the digital platform will be a comfortable space for sharing.

We wish you an enjoyable reading experience!

Agroecology: a path towards the sustainable development goals 

The post A special edition of Farming Matters appeared first on Ileia.

Agroecology is about climate resilient family farming. What makes the strategies of agroecological farmers unique and resilient? In the December issue of Farming Matters in 2013, Jan Douwe van der Ploeg wrote an insightful article about ten qualities of family farming. With the help of his ‘ten qualities’ flower I will attempt a basic answer to this question.

Knowledge about agriculture and biodiversity: The family is a place for knowledge building. Family farmers share and build knowledge about crops, animals, trees, weather signals, seeds, insects, soils, risk management, and the landscape wherein they live. Men and women farmers hold different complementary knowledge. This knowledge does not exist in a vacuum, it is there because family farms exist. This knowledge is unfolding every day and is crucial for climate resilient farming.

Power balance: In the farm family there is cooperation and sometimes conflict. The aim of the farm family is to provide continuity over the generations. However, there may be a skewed division of labour, or unequal access to and control over resources between men and women, and between generations. Climate change can worsen imbalances and thus contribute to ‘resilience deficits’, i.e. farm families struggle to deal with crisis after crisis and land in downward spirals. It is crucial to invest in the resilience of family farmers as a core strategy in development, and to look for upward spirals to restore power balances within farm families.

Nexus between family, farm and agroecology: As Jan Douwe van der Ploeg says, the farm-family nexus is at the core of many decisions about the development of the farm. There is yet another connection here. The farm- family nexus provides an ideal setting for agroecological practices to be developed, tested and shared. Family farming and agroecology go well together. This does not mean that all family farms are agroecological or vice versa. But many stories published in Farming Matters over the years show that the ten qualities of family farming are coherent with the logic of agroecology.

Edith van Walsum (e.van.walsum@ileia.org) is the director of ILEIA.

The post Family farmers living with climate change appeared first on Ileia.

As you may be aware, ILEIA has to close its doors as an organisation on 1 July 2017, after more than 30 years of work to support family farming rooted in agroecology. The reason for this decision is that we did not succeed in raising enough funds to keep the organisation going in its present mode. Besides publishing Farming Matters, ILEIA has been the global Secretariat of the AgriCultures Network since 1997.

In a recent meeting of the Network the members have jointly decided to shift its Secretariat to Senegal so that it will get rooted in the global South. This happens at a moment when African agriculture is truly at a crossroads and the world needs strong and positive African voices in support of family farming and agroecology.

We are proud to inform you that Bara Gueye, director of IED-Afrique, the Senegalese member organisation of the AgriCultures Network, has agreed to take on this task and to steer the Network into a new phase.

With the Network we are also exploring new ways to carry forward ILEIA’s legacy and to continue supporting the practice, science and movement of agroecology and family farming.

During the past months we received encouraging messages from friends, colleagues, readers and authors of our magazine, policymakers, scientists and donor agencies.

We would like to thank everyone who has accompanied us over the years and take your recent advice to heart. Many of you told us that the world will be less diverse and less colourful without ILEIA, so we should try to find ways of continuing our work as an inspiring global connector, magazine maker and communicator.

That’s what we are doing right now and we look forward to keeping in touch with you.

At ILEIA we are now preparing the June issue of Farming Matters. This will be the final issue in our current constellation.

With warm regards from Wageningen,

Edith van Walsum – Director

e.van.walsum@ileia.org

The post An update from ILEIA appeared first on Ileia.

The post Access and benefit sharing of genetic resources appeared first on Ileia.

Many innovations led by women are based on agroecological principles such as increasing diversity, using fewer pesticides, or building new relationships with consumers. Through small experiments women learn, get organised and strengthen their autonomy. They gain increasing recognition and visibility in their communities and increase their self-esteem. This positive spiral can culminate into much larger processes of emancipation at the regional, national or even international level.

This issue of Farming Matters, dedicated to women farmers and agricultural workers, shows a variety of experiences, each of them inspiring in their own way. Women’s struggles are about much more than maximising the yield of rice, maize or beans- they are about creativity, dignity and autonomy, and the well-being of their communities.

A brief historical perspective

Long before the term ‘agroecology’ became popular, and much longer before the term ‘climate smart agriculture’ was coined, women and men farmers around the world were practicing agroecological principles. Women were not only doing most of the work in family farming, they were also highly knowledgeable and skilful in their work. Whereas men tended to have the broad overview of their farm, women kept expert knowledge about the selection and storage of seeds; multi-cropping systems of grains, tubers, beans and vegetables; the food and medicinal value of wild plants; and the raising of small animals.

Since the 1970s, scientists, development agencies, NGOs and policymakers have been paying increasing attention to the roles of women in agriculture. But globally, female farmers still receive only 5% of all extension services while they do 75% of the work in agriculture and produce 75% of the world’s food. Rural women’s major stumbling block continues to be their lack of access to and control over land as we learn from an interview with four powerful women’s rights activists from Asia and Africa (page 22). According to IFAD, women only own around 2% of all titled land world wide. Increasingly, farmer access to seeds is also endangered, which is especially problematic for women. If the world is serious about addressing gender inequality, it is important that we continue to address such deeper political and cultural issues.

One family, different paths

A general assumption is that if only women knew more about new crops and technologies their productivity would increase up to 20–30 percent (FAO). The risk of this thinking is that it suggests that women only have to catch up with men to produce more. Several authors in this issue of Farming Matters present a different, more complex picture where women do not automatically strive to follow men’s strategies, but choose their own pathway in agriculture and in life.

While men tend to invest most of their time and energy in crops for sale, women differentiate risk by mixing food crops that have different growth periods and purposes. The case of women farmers in Kenya (see box) illustrates this well. There are a continuous choices made in each farm family. We often see men strive for higher yields, more income and integration into regional or global markets, promoted by agricultural policies and regulations, education and extension. At the same time, women work towards maintaining a buffer against all sorts of risk, providing nutritious food, securing a home base for the family, a healthy family labour force and maintaining biodiversity. Many families strive to reconcile these different needs, but this does not always happen without tension and conflict.

So, rather than asking ourselves how can women be integrated into industrial agriculture and global value chains, we should ask women farmers what type of agriculture they want, and why.

Why women choose an agroecological path

From the articles in this issue, various reasons emerge that explain why women choose agroecology and become drivers of change.

Women’s agro-eco-logic: Agroecological practices are normally inexpensive, simple and effective; there is a minimal dependence on external inputs. The yields may be higher but can also be lower than those in conventional agriculture. What counts more for women is the total benefit they derive: enough diverse and healthy food to feed the family, a decent net income, fodder to feed the animals, and improved soil health. This becomes clear from the work of peasant women in Mozambique (page 36).
Creativity and innovation: Beyond just being a common sense approach to agriculture, agroecology is a more rewarding way of farming. Women emphasise that agroecological practices open space for creative change in the production system, while fostering solidarity and increasing productivity. This can be seen in the story from Malaysia (page 27). Similarly, experiences in the Himalayas (page 38) show that in harsh circumstances of climate stress and male outmigration, women use their creative skills to drive positive change through agroecological innovation.
Gender logic and a body logic: The System of Rice Intensification, a set of practices rooted in agroecological principles, benefits women (page 26) It has led to a significant reduction in drudgery and improvement in the wellbeing of women rice farmers who earlier used to stand for long hours in dirty muddy water to transplant the rice. Such benefits are rarely reported; yet, they are likely to be crucial factors explaining the spreading of SRI so far and for further spread in future. This challenges the assumption that agroecology generally increases women’s workload, and that women are not interested in agroecology as a result.
Living in harmony with nature: For women, choosing the agroecological path is ultimately a choice for autonomy. Women explicitly choose to follow a pathway with nature, not against it. In Spain, women farmers point at ‘life’ as the central aspect of their feminist approaches to agroecology that have transformed the food system of the city (page 14). Women’s proximity to nature is neither romantic nor ideological, it just is.
From communities to movements: Women fight for their autonomy, yet, at the same time they are committed to living and working in harmony with their family and the community. Agroecology brings these worlds together. Experiences in Brazil (page 10) and Colombia (page 32) show how women become drivers of peaceful agroecological change in situations of conflict.

Cash crop models disregard women’s knowledge

Traditionally, in the Kenyan drylands, women were engaged in food cropping and men devoted their time to pastoralism. From the 80s onward, however, the introduction of cash cropping enticed men into agriculture. So while the men grow crops for sale, women choose to work with agroecological practices. They cultivate a range of food crops to ensure that basic food needs are covered. Women plant food crops with different growing lengths together in the same plot to protect against risks of climate variability. Women nurture soil fertility by integrating excess organic matter into the soil after weeding and harvesting, and they conserve biodiversity through careful selection and conservation of seeds. Without this, the shift of men to cash cropping would not have been possible. Land fertility would be depleted by the mono-cropping required for cash crops. In the case of too little or too much rain, monocultures will not survive.

This example shows that commercialisation models disregard the knowledge about agricultural sustainability and resilience that is intrinsic in women´s agricultural practices. By not taking their knowledge seriously, these models disregard women farmers themselves and their crucial importance for family farming and food security.

The text for this box was provided by Martina Angela Caretta (martina.angela.caretta@humangeo.su.se) based on work from her recent PhD thesis (Caretta, M.A. 2015. East African Hydropatriarchies: An analysis of changing waterscapes in smallholder irrigation farming. Stockholm University).

New opportunities

Policies at all levels can support women in reinforcing their agroecological strategies. Sabrina Nafisa Masinjila (page 41) indentifies three key areas which we wholeheartedly support: Ensuring that women farmers remain at the centre of localised seed production systems; supporting farmer-led extensions networks; and ensuring access to land.

At the global level there are various opportunities to ensure the adoption of such policies. To name a few: the 2014 International Year of Family Farming has put the role of women in family farming firmly on the political agenda and an IYFF+10 process must ensure this translates into concrete commitments to support rural women.

The International Declaration on Agroecology drafted by global social movements recognised that women provide a principal social base of agroecology. This was presented at three regional seminars on agroecology organised by FAO in 2015 and needs to be followed up by governments in 2016.

Finally, the Sustainable Development Goals, recently launched by the United Nations, explicitly state the need to transform our food systems and to invest in critical agents of change, including rural women. Now is the time to utilise these and other policy arenas to implement grassroots policy proposals based on a wealth of practical experiences with women-led agroecology.

Women keep the farm and family going in times or crisis. Women hold the future – and agroecology can help them get there.

Edith van Walsum
Edith van Walsum is the director of ILEIA, the Centre for Learning on Sustainable Agriculture in Wageningen, the Netherlands.

The post Editorial: Women showing the way with agroecology appeared first on Ileia.

Nutrition has become one of the buzz words of the year, like resilience, and landscapes. What they have in common is that they refer to complex situations with political forces competing over the backs of rural and urban communities. The nutrition challenge is clear – with a billion hungry people on this planet and another two billion overweight – it is time to act. Persistent hunger and undernutrition are inexcusable in a world of plenty. But the crucial question is: who should act and how?

In this issue we explore the global and local context of today’s efforts to address hunger and malnutrition. And we take a fresh look at how family farmers and consumers take the initiative in their hands, regenerating food cultures, revitalising and rejuvenating mixed farming systems, and using political spaces to call for a different, rights-based approach to food and nutrition. We see in these stories from our readers, the trend of reversing monocultures and towards multifunctional, climate resilient agroecological systems. Driven by nutrition and economic concerns, family farmers are diversifying their crops and seeking local markets which gives both rural and urban communities a better variety of food on their plates. A clear example is the experience in Kenya (page 16). Yields and on-farm biodiversity increase, as does resilience against climate shocks and price volatility, and more diversification of employment and income .

Global forces

Initiatives to combat hunger and malnutrition are not new phenomena. Decades ago there were nutrition education programmes, school feeding programmes, kitchen garden initiatives, with some of them well-integrated into agricultural and rural development and social movements. The second International Conference on Nutrition has just ended, while the first one took place 22 years ago… But today, hunger and malnutrition persist. What has changed drastically are the power dynamics underlying global efforts to address hunger, with the corporate sector gaining ever more control over essential resources such as land, water and seeds.

Diversity from field to plate

As explored in Cultivating diversity (Farming Matters 30.1, March 2014), there is a strong link between agrobiodiversity, varied diets and balanced nutrition. Though the link appears obvious between the variety of food produced, that harvested, and better nutrition, it merits further research. Several articles in this issue show inspiring examples of local champions, such as traditional chiefs in northern Ghana (page 26), and a gastronomic expert in Peru (page 30). All are part of a growing movement that promotes the use of local diversity, and connects urban and rural communities, as seen in Ecuador (page 8). Essential in this new relationship are the short distances from field to plate, which also contributes to better nutrition.

Women: drivers of change for better nutrition

It cannot be emphasised enough: women are the strongest drivers of better nutrition. It is they who most directly link production to consumption. They take most of the key decisions on what to grow or raise and how. They are responsible for cooking and processing food, for sharing it in the family, and especially for feeding the children whose adequate nutrition is crucial for their future. They decide what to take to the market and what to keep for consumption at home. They teach their children about what to eat and how to cook, and so on. A study by IFPRI found that improving women’s education explained 45% of the gains in food security, compared with increased food availability (26%) and health advances (19%). Safeguarding women’s rights, including to land and other natural resources is crucial, as is recognising the essential knowledge women hold on seeds, food preparation and nutrition. A couple of articles in this issue, one on breeding guinea pigs in Bolivia (page 20) and another on renewing home gardens in Nepal (page 12), show how women are connecting production with consumption in their homes.

Nutrition sensitive strategies

Farmers must be central in strategies to improve food and nutrition security. We need to transform food and nutrition systems, and not continue with the mistaken assumption that modern industrial agriculture can ‘feed the world’ and fix nutritional deficiencies with food fortification and genetic modification. The story of ‘Golden rice’ is a good example, a genetically engineered variety developed by industry to combat vitamin A deficiency. But it has been shown that Golden rice may pose risks to human and ecological health, and could compromise food, nutrition and financial security of rural communities. This type of single-crop approach does not address underlying causes of malnutrition and could make (hidden) malnutrition worse as it encourages rice-based diets rather than increasing access to a more diverse range of fruits and vegetables. Ample evidence, some of it in this issue of Farming Matters, shows that it is far easier and more cost effective to achieve nutritious diets with local food systems and short value chains. Accelerating progress towards the eradication of hunger is less about new technologies and more about putting what is already known into practice, and providing people with the right to their resources. Success will hinge on basing all policies, programmes and action plans on evidence and proposals from the urban and rural grassroots, and on defining them within a human rights-based framework. The millions of dollars spent by the corporate and research worlds on expensive genetically modified ’nutrition sensitive’ crops would be better spent on empowering family farmers to further develop solutions that are already available and working, such as diverse, agroecological farming practices. At the recent International Nutrition Conference, civil society rightly emphasised the point that ‘nutrition can only be addressed in the context of vibrant and flourishing local food systems that are deeply ecologically rooted, environmentally sound and culturally and socially appropriate’. As this issue of Farming Matters demonstrates, there are many ways to develop such sustainable food systems that provide long-lasting food and nutrition security. In this last issue of 20

Edith van Walsum is director of ILEIA.
Email: e.van.walsum@ileia.org

The post EDITORIAL > BEYOND CALORIES AND VITAMINS appeared first on Ileia.

The ‘landscape approach’ has been increasingly promoted during recent years as a new perspective for addressing global problems. In the face of increasing and competing claims on the land, planners, scientists and policy makers have realised that sectoral approaches do not work. ‘Integrated land management’ or broad landscape level considerations have at last begun to supersede those restricted to water, forests, farming, etc., in national policies and development programmes.

The landscape approach promises to tackle the negative effects single sectors may have on the others when left to grow on their own, and it also promises to deliver complementary benefits by integrating different landscape elements. This holds the potential to improve livelihoods, food security, well being, climate change adaptation and delivering ‘environmental services’. But some serious challenges still remain in reconnecting agriculture to other functions of the landscape, and especially in finding a balance of interests in the face of unequal power relations.

Connecting to the landscape

For many family farmers, pastoralists, forest communities and fisherfolk, a holistic ‘landscapes perspective’ is not new. Their landscapes have always been shaped in dynamic interaction with others and the natural environment.

The interdependencies between different components are a given, and a logical daily reality that relates closely to the interdependencies within families and the communities they live in. Landscapes not only provide food, fodder, fuel, timber and medicine, but they also have cultural and religious significance. They are where people live, and provide the fundamental framework to all aspects of life.

Each person holds his or her own specific knowledge and perspectives about different parts of the landscape. She or he works with whatever is available in terms of highland or lowland, water sources, seeds, trees and so on, through practices that have been built up and continue to develop over generations. Women and men may use different pieces of farmland or forest for different purposes, and their animals may get a separate patch to graze. Such landscape elements are combined to fulfil various roles, often strengthening each other and the system as a whole but there is bound to be competition as well. Through these and other activities, family farmers maintain landscapes, many of which have been recognised as culturally and environmentally valuable.

Many communities however risk losing the knowledge and practices that make the landscape connection. For more than half a century, policy makers, extensionists and researchers have pushed hard for modern farming, promising that this would improve the lives of all. Production and livelihoods were seen as individual units in isolation from their environment. Focus was on maximizing productivity at farm level, and farmers were to specialise in single crops and seek growth in external, rather than their own, inputs and knowledge. Though this focus on single crops and farms may have contributed to short or medium term gains, in the long run it has contributed to degradation of landscapes and to unsustainable farming systems. In this issue we find several illustrations of such processes.

Finding balance in power

The landscape approach is hailed as inclusive, equitable and multi-stakeholder, as a new way of addressing and resolving conflicts in land and water management, but as practice shows, it is clear that the challenge of power remains.

While in some cases, such processes have resulted in agreements acceptable to all parties, all too often a seat at the table is not enough. Family farmers, local forest users and fisherfolk are confronted with powerful political and commercial interests. Even when facilitated in a fair and skilful way that addresses inherent power imbalances, the real decisions may be made behind closed doors. Or these communities are excluded from other land governance structures, natural resource management programmes or policy development that may be more decisive. This is especially the case when landscape perspectives and demands are in serious conflict, as is the case with mining or fracking. In such situations, real landscape democracy appears to be little more than rhetoric.

Reconnecting

Even when facing hugely un-level playing fields, farmers in the broadest sense, i.e. who may depend on crops, animals, trees, fish or other natural resources, are finding ways to score goals while running uphill. Where possible, they are taking control to ensure that they make the decisions about what happens in their territories. This issue of Farming Matters presents a selection of these experiences, concluded by a ten-year reflection on integrated landscape approaches .

Farmers have reconstructed and reconnected with landscapes often by building on local knowledge as a starting point for further development and innovation. We see them using their traditional knowledge in India  and organising themselves into an effective ‘landscape powerhouse’. In Nepal, biodiverse farming systems come to the rescue when their orange orchards are killed by a disease. Farmers turn to the water when climate change threatens their land in Bangladesh (page 18), and take up new knowledge to make the most of invasive trees in Djibouti . As argued eloquently by Million Belay (page 21), knowledge and historical memory that exist in communities are highly inspirational in this regard. John Liu also tells us about how we need more farmers in the landscape, not less , and Jeff Campbell explains that how they organise themselves into effective organisations is key.

These family farmers, pastoralists and forest communities have used the space they have as effectively as they can. They have also managed to expand it, amplify their voice and assert their rights by organising themselves and by forging alliances. In the Netherlands, farmers formed territorial cooperatives and collaborated with scientists and civil society to change policies and implement a self-governing landscape structure .

As we see from the experiences presented here, creating a political space for family farmers and community organisations is of crucial importance, while efforts should be made to harness women’s rich knowledge and organising capacity.

This issue of Farming Matters is a call for those involved to challenge top-down concepts that frame today’s landscape approach. But we should not seek an alternative. Rather, we must provide a better platform for those who need to be heard – the real managers of the land, our landscapes. Only with them can we shape a sustainable future.

Edith van Walsum and Nick Pasiecznik

Edith van Walsum is director of ILEIA – The centre for learning on sustainable agriculture. Nick Pasiecznik is editor of Farming Matters. ILEIA is also the secretariat of the global AgriCultures Network.

The post Editorial – Farming communities in living landscapes appeared first on Ileia.

The IYFF is intended to put resilient, innovative, multifunctional, creative, and productive family farmers in the spotlight – because they need more recognition. Most are small scale producers for whom farming is a way of life, with qualities well described by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg in the January issue of Farming Matters. This year aims to give long overdue credit to the 400 million producer families who feed 70% of the global population including themselves.

True appreciation of resilient family farmers should not just be a symbolic gesture of a few romantics. This year must be a wake-up call for the world’s policy makers, the entire agricultural research establishment, the private sector from village processors to multinational agribusiness, and in fact, for everyone who eats and produces food.

We need to think differently. A deeper understanding will result in mainstreaming effective strategies that address today’s major global challenges – poverty, hunger, environmental degradation and the negative impacts of climate change. How do we ensure that millions of farming families get out of the vicious trap of hunger and poverty? How can they (re)build their resilience? Turning them into vulnerable migrants filling urban slums cannot be an option. Further neglect and inaction will be far reaching, not only for farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists and forest dwellers, but for all of us.

This issue of Farming Matters presents some reflections on vulnerabilities and poverty in smallholder agriculture, and building resilience.

Edith van Walsum
director ILEIA

The post Editorial – A wake-up call appeared first on Ileia.

Resilience

The term ‘resilience’ has become fashionable in development circles, and when a word gets fashionable it tends to be used in many different ways. But clearly, it refers to the capacity of farming families to resist crises, natural, economic or social. What helps? An ability to anticipate, to have more options, to be able to better manage, and to have reserves to be to able to bounce back.

Resilience is about food sovereignty: having control over your food system, diversifying agriculture and ways to generate income, to innovate and share what we learn. Depending on the context, one or other aspect of resilience comes out stronger. Individual farm families can be resilient, groups of resilient farmers can form a movement. Resilience makes for virtuous cycles.

Why have vulnerabilities increased?

Farmers have become increasingly vulnerable as crises have multiplied, while policy support has been largely inadequate. In Haiti, already impoverished farming communities deal with the consequences of a devastating earthquake. In Ghana and the Sahel, governments focus attention on agricultural growth in high productive areas while dryland farmers suffer from lack of investment and recurring droughts. In India, small scale family farmers fall into debt, some after using ineffective pesticides and BT cotton seeds that did not deliver on their promises, with an alarming and increasing number of suicides. Increased vulnerability is the result of accelerated degradation of the natural resource base, increased outmigration, the aggressive role of agrochemical industries, policy neglect towards communities living in these areas, and on top of this, comes climate change and natural disasters.

What we see is a resilience deficit. Rural communities struggle to handle crisis after crisis. Eventually they have no reserves left. Poverty and hunger become ever-present threats or realities. A small crisis then becomes a big crisis. The response? Expensive disaster relief or preventive measures to enable farmers to better cope with future disasters!

Agricultural policies rarely appreciate farmers’ own inbuilt resilience, the essence of family farming. Farmers are approached as recipients of emergency aid, of ‘climate-smart’ crop varieties developed by plant breeders who have never talked to a real farmer. There is a gross underestimation of the self learning and self organising capacity of family farmers. Traditional farming practices are far from stagnant. Family farmers are supremely innovative, and with just a little of the right type of support, they will leap out of the poverty trap with incredible speed.

Today’s dominant agricultural thinking is grounded in a linear model of development, searching for higher and higher yields of a very limited number of crop varieties and animal breeds and produced by ever fewer farmers. In the Netherlands, one of the biggest agricultural exporting countries in the world, there are only 70,000 farmers left; in Germany, young farmers have to compete with multinationals for land.

There is an increasing focus on only one part of the global food and agriculture system without adequate consideration of the whole. Huge environmental costs are seen as externalities. And although highly vulnerable and unsustainable, this model has taken over in many countries in the developed world, has created severe imbalances in many Asian and Latin American countries, and is now being rolled out in Africa. As Million Belay says, this is a dead end road, and as a result, small scale farming families are going hungry. We need to look at agriculture as a system and see clearly the strong interdependencies of its component parts.

Change happens

Farming communities all over the world are moving forward and building their resilience. Some are capitalising on new democratic spaces generated by the IYFF. The agroecological movement in Brazil especially in the semi-arid Nordeste, the growing Non Pesticidal Management movement in South India, and Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration in the Sahel – these three serve as learning examples and as sources of inspiration for us all.

In such dryland regions, local knowledge is still more alive than in highly productive areas, and farmers and scientists are also co-creating knowledge and practices that build the resilience of farming systems.

Six more months left in the IYFF

A false notion of emergency has been created – we have to feed nine billion people in 2015. The reality is that there is enough food produced, but that it is unequally distributed, and with unacceptable amounts of food going to waste. There is still time to make a u-turn, however, and to start creating possibilities for poor rural and urban communities to access food, and to rebuild their capacity to resist shocks in a variety of very practical ways.

A resilient farming system starts with the holistic management of nutrient cycles, water, energy and biodiversity. Breaking out of poverty can only happen with nature, not against it. Without agroecology there will be no family farming. In the remaining half year of the IYFF this message should resound clearly, in the villages, in the cities, in Rome, Washington, and the world over.

Edith van Walsum

Farming Matters wants to give a wider voice and visibility to family farmers building resilience. Do cast your vote in the photo competition organised by World Rural Forum and the AgriCultures Network (from July 1st 2014 via the agriculturesnetwork.org website). Do write to us, and please tell us if there is other information you would like to see in the magazine, or ideas for new regular features. Do share our magazine with others. 

Email: info@farmingmatters.org

The post Turning vicious circles into virtuous cycles appeared first on Ileia.

Speaking at a recent conference in Dakar, our colleague Paulo Petersen from Brazil noted that the key to sustainable agriculture is farmer autonomy. To achieve this, he added, “we need to create political space for multifunctional peasant farming and build social and ecological resilience.” We hope that this issue will help our readers to appreciate the strong link between family farming and resilience, and between the family and their farm.

In contrast to what many believe, family farming is not outside, but part of the global economy. However, it relates to it in a different man- ner than other types of agriculture. In more and more places, young family farmers are discovering a future in agriculture by working with, rather than against, nature. Family farmers also connect with urban consumers, building new local and regional food systems that are transparent, healthy, fair, efficient and sustainable.

Throughout 2014, Farming Matters will highlight different aspects of family farming: agrobiodiversity, resilience, landscapes and nutrition. A common thread running through all these themes is gender. Men and women play different, but complementary, roles and strengthen the farm as a multifunctional system. But sometimes their roles can clash. This can happen when farmers move to more entrepreneurial modes of farming with a focus on specific cash crops and value chains. This may have negative implications for women’s autonomy with respect to food production, and for food security at the household level.

Many studies have shown that more income for the head of the family does not automatically turn into more nutritious food for the family. It may even lead to the reverse. Therefore, women need to be centre stage in the IYFF, and in decision-making on the future of our global food system.

Edith van Walsum
director ILEIA

The post Editorial – Women and ecology matter appeared first on Ileia.