Agrobiodiversity encompasses crop, livestock and fish species, varieties and breeds, soil biodiversity and pollinators and the diversity of farming systems and agricultural landscapes. It is the basis of the food we eat.

Agricultural biodiversity is also about how, over generations, people have drawn on their accumulated skills and knowledge, building on the natural environment and all its diversity, to utilise, develop and conserve these natural resources and their products − the seeds that grow into our food crops, the livestock and fish, the wild biodiversity that supports key functions of the agro-ecosystem, the diversity of landscapes, farmers and knowledge systems.

Agriculture depends on biodiversity. It is the DNA of the agricultural landscape, both literally and metaphorically, and the cornerstone of food and nutrition security, climate change adaptation, conservation and sustainable livelihoods. However, in practice the vast majority of the world’s agriculture and food systems are destroying the very biodiversity on which they rely at a very fast pace. Control over genetic resources is increasingly being placed in the hands of transnational corporations. Farmers’ access to these resources is at risk.

Industrial biodiversity?

One of the big debates around agrobiodiversity centres around “land-sparing” versus “land-sharing”: either the separation or integration of farming and natural ecosystems.

Proponents of land-sparing advocate intensive industrialised agriculture. They argue that this leads to more productivity per hectare, and leaves land for nature and biodiversity conservation. This approach has failed to nourish the majority of the world’s rural people, has polluted and depleted vast amounts of natural resources and biodiversity and displaced local communities. Moreover, the homogenisation of agricultural systems has resulted in the increased vulnerability of crops and livestock to the effects of climate change and to pests and diseases. The recent avian and swine flu epidemics are a clear reminder of the latter.

A land-sharing approach does not separate biodiversity from agriculture but acknowledges the intrinsic linkages between the two. This approach builds on the productive potential of agrobiodiversity combined with farmer knowledge, cultures and skills. A landsharing approach, translated into policy and support for scaling up, could safeguard the biodiversity base of our food and agricultural system and reduce the risk of (further) surpassing our planetary boundaries and risking the future of farming.

Small farmers, huge potential

According to the FAO, over 1.5 billion people in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa alone live on smallholder family farms. These farmers have the right to a sustainable livelihood in the areas they currently live in, and agro-ecological practices building on biodiversity can provide them with a strategy to claim that right.

Family farmers are, often by default, custodians of biodiversity. This especially holds true for those living in poverty, as building resilient farming systems is the most logical choice for them. This is clearly seen in the Deccan region of India .

Many family farmers who live on marginal land where climate change impacts and selection pressures are greatest, have become local experts in identifying crop species and varieties resilient to shocks and stresses. Particularly women and older farmers are active breeders of plants and livestock, conserving local landraces and traditional breeds, drawing on wild species and selecting their preferred and adaptive characteristics over generations. Building on the natural capacities of a diverse agro-ecosystem makes these family farmers less dependent on external (chemical) inputs. Agro-ecological practices are also well suited to the smallholder context, as labour use is flexible and used to optimise livelihoods rather than to maximise production.

However, farmers’ rights to develop, save, exchange and sell their landraces and traditional varieties is threatened. Under pressure from international trade agreements and conventions such as UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants), many governments have started to give intellectual property rights over seeds to transnational corporations. Legislation increasingly demands requirements of stability, uniformity, and distinctness on seeds that are sold and exchanged. Local varieties used by farmers often do not meet these conditions as they carry high genetic variability. This puts biodiversity, cultural heritage and farmers’ rights at risk and stifles the very innovation and development such agreements claim to stimulate.

Knowledge for transformation

Globally, there is a rich mosaic of locally rooted practices and initiatives that promote and enhance agricultural biodiversity. Together, they make up the ingredients for a transformation of the current system towards robust future-proof and farmer-centred agro-ecological systems based on agricultural biodiversity. But such a transformation will not happen by chance. Analysing case studies and learning from emerging successes of scaling up (see box) are essential for understanding the factors that could catalyse large-scale change. Farming Matters shows that many groundbreaking experiences are or can be the foundation for larger transformations.

For the past two years, a network of organisations and individuals in the agrobiodiversity@knowledged knowledge programme has started to address some of the questions around the transformation of our food system and the role of generating, sharing and promoting the uptake of knowledge on agrobiodiversity at different levels. We found that there seems to be a “glass house” that prevents the many positive examples from around the world from taking hold at a larger scale. Scaling includes both horizontal scaling out (spreading of practices) as well as vertical scaling up (uptake in policy and by institutions). The Network members identified five interlinked themes that constitute entry points for positive change: markets and trade; policies and governance; seeds, breeds and technology; information platforms, and community resilience.

Catalysing the process of scaling

 Scaling up in India
 
In January 2014, G.V. Ramanjaneyulu and his team at the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) in India received the Best Innovation Award for their work on sustainable agriculture, especially on ecological practices to reduce pesticide use. Many farmers have reported on the effectiveness of these practices, their economic viability and how they have increased their self-confidence.
 
Women farmer organisations have even demanded that the programme be initiated in their villages. CSA’s goal to mainstream an alternative to pesticides overlapped well with the government’s aim to improve livelihoods through cost reduction in farming. Bringing other actors on board scaled up individual islands of success. CSA is currently working in more than 11,000 villages! The Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission award holds further promise for the future, as the state aims to collaborate to scale up the experience in ten districts. Just one week later, CSA received another award, this time in Bihar. Their work clearly is convincing people and changing attitudes.

Why does change lead to transformation in some regions or systems, but not in others? Social and cultural norms form some of the strongest barriers, according to Michael Commons .

Many experiences show that interaction between researchers and local communities plays a crucial role in understanding how landscape and system transformations take place. Scientists can contribute by, among other things, making models for analysing data aggregations, bringing in new germplasm from other areas and providing technological support.

Communities naturally have a deeper knowledge and understanding of local conditions, including experience of historical events that have contributed to shaping the current system. And they outnumber the scientists. Their potential contribution to change is enormous. Such collaborations have shown to be effective in a number of experiences, as can be seen in Micronesia and Iran.

Furthermore, experience shows that with adequate support and investment from governments, agro-ecology can be efficiently scaled up. This requires political will and, ultimately, a real democratisation of agricultural and food governance. Political will can be created through positive experiences and pressure from civil society, as was the case in Brazil (box) and India (box). In other places around the world, farmers, indigenous communities, citizens and non-governmental organisations are mobilising to protect the right to save, exchange and sell seeds.

As this issue goes to print, farmers and citizens are contesting proposed seed legislation in Ghana and Brussels that would increase corporate control over seeds, threaten the sale of traditional and farmer varieties and, in the case of Ghana, allow the commercial sale of GMOs. Farmers and citizens point at the high cost of GM seeds and the failed promises of better yields and lower pesticide use in surrounding countries. Several months ago, Colombian farmer organisations successfully protested against a resolution that would have made it illegal for farmers to save seeds and handed all control over seed markets to private companies. At the international level, civil society pressure has led to the ambitious reform and significant democratisation of the decision making processes of the FAO’s Committee on Food Security.

We found that it is fundamentally important to invest in knowledge building and sharing among different stakeholder groups and to tailor your messages and means of communication to different audiences. The use of participatory approaches that bring different knowledge systems together is particularly important, as is the building of partnerships based on trust and equality. This is what we learnt from the work of EkoRural with farmers in Ecuador.

Similarly, in Uganda, Ankola Longhorn cattle keepers have played a crucial role in documenting and sharing their knowledge on the importance of animal genetic diversity .

The road to success and scale cannot always be thoroughly planned in advance. Sometimes you need to grab an opportunity when it presents itself by making use of champions, as in the case of Ecuador, or by recognising windows of opportunity. The Deccan Development Society celebrates successes among women farmers and the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in India used the opportunity provided by a well-known talk show host to share its case.

The future holds promise

A transformation towards an agricultural system powered by biodiversity and farmer communities is possible and already happening. Its scaling requires inclusive, community-oriented and knowledge-based approaches that put farmers, rather than corporate interests, centre stage. It builds upon readily available resources: people, their labour, their knowledge and their local natural resources.

Local and informal sector networks and initiatives are not only important for promoting biodiversity-based agro-ecological farming and sharing knowledge and skills. They also matter for enhancing farmers’ capacity to stand up for their rights at local, national and international fora. The International Year of Family Farming is an excellent opportunity to acknowledge, celebrate and support such networks and initiatives, and to put their successes in the spotlight. We hope that this issue of Farming Matters is a good start and will be an inspiration for many.

Gine Zwart, Sarah Doornbos and Willy Douma

Gine Zwart, Sarah Doornbos and Willy Douma work on the joint Hivos/Oxfam Novib knowledge programme agrobiodiversity@knowledged, which has been operational for the past two years. They work with a large group of organisations and individuals from around the globe to generate and share knowledge around agricultural biodiversity. This issue of Farming Matters has been compiled in close co-operation with the agrobiodiversity@knowledged programme.
E-mail: ginezwart@oxfamnovib.nl; s.doornbos@hivos.nl; w.douma@hivos.nl

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Land is a crucial asset for people all over the world. But land is not only

an economic asset: it is the means to ensure sustainable livelihoods and the economic is just one of its numerous values.

However, when others, such as foreign investors, arrive with other legal frameworks, titles become of immense importance. These titles and ownership structures differ from common practice in the countries where land grabs are going on at this very moment.

Clashing systems: the common good and the individual interest

Many non-Western cultures and value systems are built on the premise that what is good for the collective is good for the individual, and this is constituted in customary systems. Customary land tenure is made up of rules that regulate behaviour and relations towards land, including trees or watering holes, which have been built upon local and often traditional social norms and networks. As described by Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel laureate for economics, these tend to be embedded in the desire for a sharing of resources for the good of the community, rather than for the individual. This is very different from the system of individual ownership and capital accumulation that comes with the current wave of so-called investments and land acquisitions.

Pastoralists, fisher folk, indigenous people, or most people in rural areas, know no better than that natural resources belong to everyone, or to some spiritual unit, and are not to be tampered with. It is an eco-centric outlook on life whereby people are part of nature, as opposed to the anthropocentric approach which dominates Western cultures, whereby people are at the centre and nature is there to serve us. The “we belong to the earth” or “the earth belongs to us” paradigms are very deeply entrenched, resulting in fundamentally different beliefs and value systems. These different worlds and value systems are now meeting each other very rapidly and creating huge and unprecedented tensions to the detriment of those living in poverty.

Are we in a necessary transition period, which will lead to us having the best of both worlds? Or will one model win over the other, leaving damage control as the only option? The current land grabs give one the feeling that the latter is the case: the western/capitalist/ individualistic model will win, and the best we can do is to reduce the ensuing damage. However, the optimistic picture is that the multiple crises we are in, especially in Europe and North America, are a massive call for sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and for dismantling corporate power. Researchers, academics and, notably, many practitioners, are collecting evidence and arguing that our system of individual ownership and capital accumulation is not necessarily the best system or the highest achievable: other systems can work very well, and in many cases, even better. All this gives hope.

Common sense and common economic wisdom

Common sense tells us that everybody needs to eat, and if food prices go up, one still needs to eat. Food is not like a mobile phone or a new dress whose purchase can be postponed. People need to eat everyday. Common sense tells us that 1 billion people living in poverty is unacceptable. Common sense tells us that if we put food into our cars, food prices will go up. Common sense tells us that we all want a good future for our children.

Conventional economic wisdom teaches us the opposite. It teaches us that economic growth is an essential means for the creation of wealth; conventional economic wisdom teaches us that it is OK to plunder the world’s natural resources, to individualise profit and socialise losses. Common economic wisdom teaches us that, at the end of the day, everyone will choose for their own short-term benefit (as Garret Hardin argued in his 1968 “Tragedy of the Commons”).

As argued earlier, there are other value systems that lead to very different ways of looking at wealth creation, particularly in Africa. We see value systems there that are based on re-distribution of wealth, and not so much on growth. These value systems are based on the common good, but also on deriving rights. They define human existence on the basis of relationships and not just on the basis of property. These systems are based on cycles of life in which creation/birth, preservation and destruction/death are all equally important. Again, this is rather different from a system in which individual property and individual ownership are the highest achievable aims. Combined with our linear and result-oriented thinking, this view has led to vicious circles: wealth for a few, poverty for many, waste and injustice. The fact that communal, water, pasture, tree and village rights in many non-Western societies are not understood and are described as being complex, difficult and not secure, should not be the problem of people living in poverty. It should be our problem.

Common economic wisdom is based on the theory that social dependencies and relations can be replaced by market relations, and that this is desirable and essential. This is where things go wrong. But replacing mutual dependency with market relations is not desirable at all. The current economic crisis is blatantly showing us this.

The crises we will be facing if the commercialisation of natural resources, including the current “grabs”, continues at its current speed, are predictable and, arguably, permanent. More people are starting to agree. Yet most seem to see this as some kind of accidental oversight or lack of research, rather than an outcome of historical processes and systems of unspeakable injustice and power imbalance.

The “smart lane”

As mentioned, the various crises have shown that “business as usual” will only add to the existing problems, and that economic logic based on individual freedom will lead us to a situation that was not acceptable even when we were not so many – and which will be intolerable with 9 billion people. Fortunately, hunger and poverty is no longer the sole domain of organisations like Oxfam, the charities, and the “do-gooders”.

While it may be true that what gets measured gets managed, we can’t manage everything. So what should we measure on a finite planet? Tonnes of produce per hectare land, or the number of people lifted out of poverty? One thing is clear: if environmental and societal costs continue to be neglected and not measured, the costs in the long run will severely outweigh the profits at present. This means we need to shift our thinking: from maximising any one variable to optimising several key ones; from short-term profits to long-term benefits; from linear reasoning to cyclical thinking. In short, we need a massive value change, for which we need to learn from other value systems.

To a large extent, the systems that produce our food are based on highly industrialised, high-tech, often subsidised and mechanised large-scale production systems which need a lot of money and are easy to invest in: this is the “fast lane”. At the other end we find the small-scale, often labour intensive production systems which sustain millions of people, based on centuries of local knowledge. These people do not receive subsidies, are often hungry and are being pushed into dependence on charity: this is the “slow lane”. What we need is the best of both worlds: not a “fast lane” or a “slow lane”, but a “smart lane” instead.

We need to freeze the footprint of food and make the large-scale industrialised model more sustainable by developing these other “smart” models. The good news is that these other models exist, and in huge numbers: they are practiced by millions of smallscale farmers, pastoralists, fisher folk and artisans. These are entrepreneurs pur sang, continuously finding creative and innovative solutions to survive. They are part of extremely complex networks of knowledge, practice and potential.

Their work is seen in many great examples: in those following the System of Rice Intensification (first “discovered” in the 1970s in Madagascar and now used on a wider scale in Asia) or in the “greening” process currently seen in the Sahel. Many more examples are known and have been described in this magazine, including grain banks; indexed-based weather insurance schemes; participatory plant breeding or the re-establishment of dams and wells. All of them share a people-centred, labour-intensive and long-term approach. They also need considerable investments, but are all exceptionally economical if we include all the benefits they yield in terms of food security, institution building and poverty reduction.

What is required to make this smart lane work is, first and foremost, courage and creative thinking. It requires intelligence, people, financial arrangements and network structures that we are not used to seeing. It requires listening to people and investing in them, instead of taking away their access and opportunity to earn a livelihood by “investing” in land.

In contrast to the conventional economic wisdom of the 20th century, we have to make sure the 21st century goes into history as the century of common sense – and that the smart lane becomes the new fast lane.

Text: Gine Zwart

Gine Zwart is a Senior Policy Advisor at OxfamNovib.
E-mail: gine.zwart@oxfamnovib.nl

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