More than ever before, evidence is piling up to support the claim that agro-ecological systems are productive, resilient and sustainable. Yet the inability to see the strengths of family farming continues to be widespread. As a result, the future of many farming communities around the world is under unprecedented threat. How do we cross the river? It is to be hoped that the discussions in Rio will focus on how we can promote the transition to more sustainable food systems, rather than on whether we should promote such systems. There is a widespread feeling that there is no time to lose, but we should be careful not to let this sense of urgency lure us into the trap of seeking technological quick fixes, often presented as the only option to feed the world by 2050.

Back in 1992 our magazine (then called the ILEIA Newsletter) featured articles about the very same issues that we are discussing today. Food sovereignty was a key theme. La Via Campesina had not yet coined the term, but the ideas were very much there, in the minds of farmers and the authors of the articles in our magazine. Holistic resource management, increased synergy between pastoralists and farmers, and the strengthening of local seed systems were advocated as crucial strategies to beat desertification. So what’s new in our contributions to the climate change debate? The energy issue (which form of energy to use – fossil, human or bio?) was also squarely on the agenda and the expert knowledge of women farmers was acknowledged.

Twenty years later, there is an abundance of successful experiences, yet often these experiences have remained localised. Up-scaling has been a major challenge and continues to be so. One important reason for this is that agricultural policies continue to encourage farming that is dependent upon external inputs and technologies. But there are examples of sustainable farming approaches that have truly been up-scaled; think of the System of Rice Intensification, first developed in Madagascar in the 1980s. We published an article about it in 1999, and many positive reactions came from readers who tried it out for themselves. SRI is now practiced by millions of farmers in around 50 countries. There are well-documented claims that it leads to a doubling of yields and to a halving in the use of water. Yet, many rice scientists continue to question this method. Why?
There are profound changes happening that are barely visible, escaping our eyes. Let’s open our eyes more widely and be perceptive to a myriad of changes that form part of a much bigger and unstoppable process. This process, triggered by family farmers and their organisations, represents a coherent response to the deep agrarian crisis generated by the agroindustrial model.

We dedicate this Rio+20 special edition to all those farmers around the world who have made the shift to ecologically sound agriculture, to those who are making the shift, and those who want to make it. This issue is a joint production of the AgriCultures Network: our editors from Brazil, Peru, Senegal, India and the Netherlands have tried to present the most inspiring stories from around the world. We hope you will enjoy reading them, in Rio and at home!
Text: Edith van Walsum
Director, ILEIA

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Food security remains a major challenge in Sri Lanka, particularly in the northern region which has been ravaged by the long civil war. In 2007, the national government initiated a campaign called Api wawamu rata nagamu (“Let’s grow and build the country”) to promote the adoption of home gardens, already a tested and effective approach.

During the past 2 years, different programmes have helped set up more than 300 home gardens in the war-affected areas. These programmes primarily target disadvantaged households, including the resource poor, resettled, and women-headed families.

Home gardening is an age-old practice in Sri Lanka. Nowadays, these home gardens help to improve food and nutritional security and livelihoods in many different ways.

Home gardens and livestock production provide easy access to food throughout the year at a fraction of the cost it takes to purchase them from the local market. They increase household’s access to a diverse array of food stocks, including fresh vegetables, fruits, roots and tuber crops, and livestock products.

In addition, some participating families have managed to start a domestic enterprise by selling their surplus produce.

The adoption of simple value addition techniques such as processing and packaging can further enhance the marketability and net value of home garden products, helping families to earn extra revenue.

In addition to these core benefits, home gardens have other advantages. They demand fewer resources than commercial agriculture, they can be easily managed and have higher energy efficiency rates.

The productivity of home gardens can be systematically increased through eco-friendly practices which also reduce some health and environmental issues commonly experienced in the northern region.

Good household waste management can convert kitchen waste and animal manure into organic fertilizers and mulch for the home garden. Simple Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices such as incorporating flowering plants, medicinal plants and herbs and diversifying crops, help to reduce pest and disease infestations, to conserve biodiversity and natural enemies and enhance ecosystem services.

The north of Sri Lanka has a long dry season and many marginal lands. The integration of organic material will increase nutrient levels and enrich soil quality and moisture. Simple technologies like “vertical gardening” have made home gardening possible both in urban and rural areas where there is a shortage of land. In the long run, such environmentally sound practices will not only result in sustainable food production, but also strengthen a number of ecosystem services.

The home garden initiative also aims to strengthen local communities and help build peaceful communities. The long civil war was very detrimental to the welfare of the people in the north and home gardens may offer a viable platform to institute solidarity, social justice and equity, especially for the disadvantaged and vulnerable sections of the population.

Text: Dilrukshi Hashini Galhena, Gunasingham Mikunthan and Karim Maredia

D. Hashini Galhena Dissanayake is a Graduate Research Assistant (Food Production and Food Security) at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Michigan State University, U.S.A. E-mail: galhenad@msu.edu.

Gunasingham Mikunthan works as Professor and Head of Agricultural Biology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Jaffna, Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

Karim M. Maredia is Professor and Director of the World Technology Access Program (WorldTAP), College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Michigan State University, U.S.A.

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Little has been done to enhance the adaptability of industrial agriculture to changing and extreme weather events, except for a focus on “magic bullets” such as genetic modification, with crops that are expected to produce under stressful environments.

Almost no work has been conducted on designing management practices that enhance the resilience of monocultures to climate change. But there is ample evidence that agro-ecological designs and practices contribute enormously to this.

In fact, many studies reveal that small-scale farmers who follow agro-ecological practices cope with, and even prepare for, climate change, minimising crop failure. Results from various studies suggest that these practices provide a higher resistance to climate events, reduce vulnerability and make farms more sustainable in the long-term.

Based on this evidence, various experts have suggested that reviving traditional management systems, combined with the use of agro-ecologically principles, may represent the only viable and robust path to increasing the productivity, sustainability and resilience of agricultural production. In this paper we explore a number of ways in which these strategies can be implemented through the design and management of agro-ecosystems, allowing farmers to adopt a strategy that, in the end, provides more economic benefits.

Diverse farming systems

REDAGRES
The Red IberoAmericana de Agroecologia para el Desarrollo de Sistemas Agricolas Resilientes al Cambio Climatico, REDAGRES, is a network of scientists and researchers spread across 8 countries. Its objectives are to promote the exchange of knowledge and information related to agriculture and climate change. In addition to analysing the impact of climate change on agricultural production, REDAGRES places special emphasis on exploring different adaptation strategies to extreme climatic events, and applying agro-ecological principles to the design and scaling-up of agro-ecosystems that are resilient to climate change.

A few months ago, REDAGRES launched a two year project involving a survey of small-scale farming systems in selected regions of Latin America. The aim is to identify those systems that have withstood climatic events (recently or in the past), and understand their main features. The emerging principles are being shared with family farmers in neighbouring communities and others in the region via field days, cross-visits, short seminars and courses. It is also being used to develop a farmer-friendly manual that will explain how to assess the level of resilience of a farm, showing what to do to enhance this.

Detailed analyses of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events have revealed that resilience to climate disasters is closely linked to the level of on-farm biodiversity.

A survey conducted in Central American hillsides after Hurricane Mitch showed that farmers using diversification practices (such as cover crops, intercropping and agroforestry) suffered less damage than their conventional monoculture neighbours.

A survey of more than 1,800 neighbouring “sustainable” and “conventional” farms in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, found that the “sustainable” plots had between 20 to 40% more topsoil, greater soil moisture and less erosion, and also experienced lower economic losses than their conventional neighbours.

Similarly, those coffee farms in Mexico which exhibit high levels of complexity and plant diversity suffered less damage from Hurricane Stan. And forty days after Hurricane Ike hit Cuba in 2008, researchers found that diversified farms exhibited losses of 50%, compared to 90 or 100% in neighbouring monocultures. Likewise, agro-ecologically managed farms showed a faster recovery in their production than monoculture farms.

These are only a few examples that show how complex agro-ecosystems are able to adapt and resist the effects of climate change. Agroforestry systems have been shown to buffer crops from large fluctuations in temperature, thereby keeping the crops closer to their optimum conditions. More shaded coffee systems have shown to protect crops from low precipitation and reduced soil water availability. This is because the overstory reduces soil evaporation and the roots increase soil water infiltration.

At the same time, intercropping enables farmers to produce various crops simultaneously and minimise risk. Polycultures exhibit greater yield stability and less productivity declines during drought. A study of the effect of drought (Natarajan and Willey, 1986) on polycultures showed that intercropping is enormously successful. Quite interestingly, the rate of overyielding actually increased with water stress, showing that the relative differences in productivity between monocultures and polycultures increase with greater stress.

Another example is that of the intensive silvopastoral systems (ISS), which combine fodder shrubs planted at high densities, trees, palms, and pastures. High stocking levels are achieved through rotational grazing, which allows for the natural production of milk and meat in these systems. At the El Hatico farm, in Cauca, Colombia, a five story ISS composed of a layer of grasses, leucaena shrubs, medium-sized trees and a canopy of large trees has, over the past 18 years, increased its stocking rates to 4.3 dairy cows/ha and its milk production by 130%, as well as completely eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers. 2009 was the driest year in El Hatico’s 40-year record, and the farmers saw a reduction of 25% in pasture biomass, yet the production of fodder remained constant throughout the year, neutralising the negative effects of drought on the whole system.

In response to the extreme weather, the farm had to adjust its stocking rates. In spite of this, the farm’s milk production for 2009 was the highest on record, with a surprising 10% increase compared to the previous four years. Meanwhile, farmers in other parts of the country reported severe animal weight loss and high mortality rates due to starvation and thirst.

The combined benefits of water regulation, a favourable microclimate, biodiversity, and carbon stocks in such diversified farming systems, not only provide environmental goods and services for producers, but also greater resilience to climate change.

Enhancing soil organic matter

Crop productivity under dry land conditions is largely limited by the availability of water in the soil. The percentage of soil organic matter, or SOM content, is a reliable index of crop productivity in semiarid regions because SOM improves the soil’s ability to store and transmit air and water.

Adding large quantities of organic materials on a regular basis is another key strategy used by many ago-ecological farmers. SOM management is at the heart of all efforts to create healthy soils with a high level of biological activity and good physical and chemical characteristics.

Increasing the SOM enhances resilience by improving the soil’s water retention capacity, enhancing tolerance to drought, improving infiltration, and reducing the loss of soil particles through erosion after intense rains. SOM also improves surface soil aggregation, holding the soil particles tightly, protecting them against rain or windstorms.

At the same time, organically-rich soils usually contain symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, which are a key component of the microbial populations influencing plant growth and soil productivity. AM fungi are important as they improve plant-water interactions, and thus increase resistance to drought. Some specific fungus-plant associations increase drought tolerance and are of great interest for areas affected by water deficits: AM fungi have been reported to increase nutrient uptake in water-stressed plants and to enable plants to use water more efficiently.

Protecting the soil from erosion is also a fundamental strategy for enhancing resilience. Cover crop mulching and green manures offer many advantages. Stubble mulching protects the soil surface with residues and inhibits drying of the soil. Mulching can also reduce wind speed by up to 99%, thereby significantly reducing losses due to evaporation. In addition, cover crop and weed residues can improve water penetration and decrease water runoff losses by 2 to 6 fold.

Throughout Central America, CIDDICO, Vecinos Mundiales and other NGOs have promoted the use of grain legumes as green manures, an inexpensive source of organic fertilizer and a way of building up organic matter.

Hundreds of farmers along the northern coast of Honduras are using velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) with excellent results, including corn yields of about 3,000 kg/ha, more than double than national average. These beans produce nearly 30 tons/ha of biomass per year, adding about 90 to 100 kg of N/ha per year to the soil. The system diminishes drought stress, because the mulch layer left by Mucuna helps conserve water in the soil, making nutrients readily available in periods of major crop uptake.

Today, well over 125,000 farmers are using green manures and cover crops in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Hillside family farmers modified the conventional notill system by leaving plant residues on the soil surface. They noticed a reduction in soil erosion levels, and also experienced lower fluctuations in soil moisture and temperature. Repeated applications of fresh biomass improved the soil quality, minimised erosion and weed growth and improved crop performance. These novel systems rely on mixtures for summer and winter cover cropping which leave a thick residue on which crops like corn, beans, wheat, onions or tomatoes are directly sown or planted, suffering very little weed interference during the growing season.

During the 2008-2009 season, when there was a severe drought, conventional maize producers experienced an average yield loss of 50%, reaching productivity levels of 4,500 kilos per hectare. However the producers who had switched to no-till agro-ecological practices experienced a loss of only 20%, confirming the greater resilience of these systems.

Adding social resilience

More diverse plant communities are more resistant to disturbance and more resilient to environmental perturbations derived from extreme climatic events. Undoubtedly, crop diversification represents a viable long-term strategy for farmers experiencing erratic weather. The use of diversification within agricultural production systems can significantly reduce their vulnerability and protect their livelihoods. Farmers that use diversity as a crop management strategy usually add copious amounts of organic matter into their soils, further increasing water retention capacity. Managing cover crops and green manures improves the soil cover, protecting the soil from erosion, but also adds biomass, which in turn contributes to increased levels of SOM.

Such strategies to enhance the ecological resilience of farming systems are essential, but in themselves are not enough to achieve sustainability. Social resilience, defined as the ability of groups or communities to adapt to external social, political, or environmental stresses, must go hand in hand with ecological resilience. To be resilient, rural societies must have the ability to buffer disturbance with agro-ecological methods adopted and disseminated through self-organisation and collective action (Tompkins and Adger, 2004).

Reducing social vulnerability through the extension and consolidation of social networks, both locally and at regional scales, can further increase the resilience of agro-ecosystems. The vulnerability of farming communities depends on the development of the natural and social capital that gives farmers and their systems resilience against climatic (and other) shocks. This adaptive capacity resides in a set of social and agro-ecological conditions that influence the ability of individuals or groups, and their farms, to respond to climate change in a resilient manner. This capacity to respond to changes in environmental conditions exists to different degrees within communities but the responses are not always sustainable.

The challenge is to identify the responses that are sustainable and to upscale them, enhancing the reactive capacity of communities to deploy agro-ecological mechanisms that allow farmers to resist and recover from climatic events and reducing their vulnerability. Social organisation strategies (solidarity networks, exchange of food, etc.) used by farmers to cope with the difficult circumstances imposed by such events, are thus a key component of resilience.

Text: Clara Ines Nicholls and Miguel A. Altieri

Clara Ines Nicholls is the co-ordinator of REDAGRES, the Red IberoAmericana de Agroecología para el Desarrollo de Sistemas Agrícolas Resilientes al Cambio Climático.
E-mail: nicholls@berkeley.edu.

Miguel A. Altieri is the president of SOCLA, Sociedad Científica Latino Americana de Agroecología.
E-mail: agroeco3@berkeley.edu

References:

Lin, B.B., I. Perfecto and J. Vandermeer, 2008. Synergies between agricultural intensification and climate change could create surprising vulnerabilities for crops. BioScience 58, 847-854.
Natarajan, M, and R.W. Willey, 1996. The effects of water stress on yields advantages of intercropping systems. Field Crops Research 13: 117-131
Tompkins, E.L and W.N. Adger, 2004. Does adaptive management of natural resources enhance resilience to climate change? Ecology and Society 9(2): 10.

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Smallholder farmers are, by definition, scattered, and so they generally need to bulk their produce in order to access urban markets or the processing industry. This bulking has a strong logistical component, and requires working capital (trade finance) and a cost-efficient organisation that can control transactions.

Successful collective marketing has built organisational assets that make their life easier. Farmers’ organisations regularly fine-tune their internal management and aspects of their transactional relationships (with members and non-members), relating to pricing, payments and quantity or quality requirements. Through learning-by-doing processes, they have developed internal rules, contract conditions and control systems that have proven to be effective and feasible in the prevailing market conditions.

The ESFIM programme (Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets) tries to capture and share this knowledge through a website and database containing specific case-studies (www.collectivemarketing.org). This website provides crowd-sourced knowledge on internal organisational regulations that can make life easier, providing solutions to common challenges that groups face when developing their marketing activities. As these solutions will always be contextspecific (depending on the product, the support of institutions, or the scale of the organisation), this crowd-sourcing is facilitated by a comparative framework that helps others to find solutions or lessons relevant to specific types of challenge.

Challenging the tensions that can break organisations

Collective marketing is characterised by a number of basic tensions. All organisations will be affected by some of these tensions, though they will not necessarily experience them as being problematic.

Typically, a farmers’ organisation will only become aware of them at times of change or crisis, when decisions have to be made to resolve problems, prevent damage, or to mediate conflicts – factors which force them to redefine their internal regulations.

By organising their experiences according to the type of tension, we facilitate a process whereby users can find useful lessons on those aspects that are most relevant to them at that particular point in time.

By searching for and double-clicking on an experience that seems interesting to them, more detailed information will appear, with the reference to the document or source describing the experience. These are not presented as “best practices”, but as “inputs for learning”.

The box (right) presents eight areas where the tensions between members and the organisation tend to be found and which, if badly handled, may even cause the disintegration of the group.
Many organisations have found (often quite innovative) ways to overcome these threats to group cohesion: solutions that may inspire other organisations to implement similar approaches to resolve their specific challenges.

ESFIM is looking for examples of this organisational intelligence to add to the www.collectivemarketing.org website. Many practitioners who work with farmers’ organisations may already have such information at their disposal, as most project activities are internally documented.
We ask you to share these stories with us. They can be sent to giel.ton@esfim.org. All quality submissions will be included on the website. The most relevant examples will be considered for inclusion in a planned hard-copy publication.

We welcome unstructured stories and will extract the relevant organisational solutions for the database and website.

However, we would welcome even more stories that document how farmers’ organisations have coped with these tensions, and which highlight the following features:

• The context: tell us about the group’s activitiess and the problems that led them to come up with their solution.
• The mechanism: tell us about the organisational mechanisms used to resolve the tensions between group and individual interests.
• The outcome: what was the result of the introduction of the mechanism? How did it change the behaviour of the members, or affect the way that the group performed its functions and activities?
• An evaluation: would you recommend this solution to other farmers’ organisations? Are there any preconditions to be met in order to introduce and use this mechanism? Or, can you suggest better ways to cope with similar problems?

Join and contribute to ESFIM by submitting your stories!

Text: Giel Ton
Giel Ton works as senior researcher at the Agricultural Research Institute (LEI), Wageningen, and is co-ordinator of the ESFIM programme (www.esfim.org).
E-mail: giel.ton@esfim.org

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Call to action

La Via campesina

In this short but powerful paper, La Via Campesina argues that the root cause of the current global crises is the predominance of “capitalistic ways of thinking”. It argues that nothing has been done since the Earth Summit in 1992 to tackle the problems that the world faces, and the measures implemented so far have merely served as tools to institutionalise the capitalisation of natural systems. The concept of a “green economy” presented in the preparations for the Rio+20 conference is based on the same logic. Therefore they roundly reject the “green economy” ideas and call for a re-definition of the global economic system on the basis of ideas such as local food systems, food sovereignty and agro-ecological food production.

Rio+20: What are the options when “business as usual” is not an option?

Time to Act

This document, signed by more than 30 civil society organisations from all over the world (including AS-PTA and ILEIA) calls for a major paradigm shift in the global economic system. It proposes putting agriculture at the core of the Rio conference negotiations, arguing that this can be the main solution to the crises that we face today. The manifesto advocates a transformation of agriculture so that it is based on an agro-ecological approach and is rooted in the ideas of food sovereignty. The document offers a number of policy

Introducing the big picture

The green economy coalition

The Green Economy Coalition has prepared an on-line presentation explaining its position regarding the concept of a “green economy”. The first part of the presentation analyses the current global crisis. The main symptoms of the crisis are the decline of the world’s ecosystems and persistent global inequalities. These result from the prevalence of markets that do not account for externalities, and from “short term thinking” about the environment. The second part of the presentation offers a vision of the economic system needed for a better future. The core issues within it include: recognising the value of all natural resources and allocating these in an equitable manner.

A just and fair green economy

Greenpeace

The position paper prepared by Greenpeace was submitted to the UNCSD committee as an input for the Zero Draft of the outcome document of the Rio+20 Conference. In the opening sentences, Greenpeace expresses its discontent with the slow progress in the implementation of the sustainable development agenda agreed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and puts the blame on governments. It calls for ending unsustainable practices, such as the use of nuclear energy and energy from oil and coal, and argues for a sustainable development agenda: reducing consumption, addressing corporate power and setting new Sustainable Development Goals. The report endorses the recommendations of the IIAASTD report and recommends implementing them.

Nourish our people, nurture our planet

Nourish our people, nurture our planet documentSwiss Agency for Development and cooperation, Millenium institute, Biovision, Stiftung Mercator Schweiz

This Declaration was prepared for the High Level Roundtable on Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture. It outlines the main problems with industrial agriculture, and proposes scaling-up resilient farming systems as an alternative. It concludes with policy recommendations, which include: establishing a Committee on World Food Security (to strategically lead the required changes in agriculture), providing economic incentives for scaling up alternative production systems, internalising the costs of conventional agriculture, the evaluation of the dominant production systems and the rigorous definition of indicators for sustainable agriculture.
The scaling up of agroecology: spreading the hope for food sovereignty and resiliency

Sociedad Científica Latinoamericana de Agroecología (SOCLA)

This paper makes the case for agroecology as the way forward for sustainable agriculture. Its first part discusses the numerous, interconnected problems related to industrial agriculture, while the next paragraphs focus on agro-ecology as “the basis for the new XXI century agriculture”. Its authors explain the concept of an agro-ecological system as an agricultural production system where external inputs are replaced by natural processes, presenting the main principles for the design and management of such systems. They also present numerous examples of studies that very positively assess the performance of agro-ecological projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Such projects result in increased food security, farm diversity, farmer’s health and resiliency to climatic extremes. In response to the question of how can agro-ecology “be multiplied and scaled up” the authors underline the need for reforms in policies, institutions, and research and development agendas. However, they emphasize that scaling up local agro-ecological innovations cannot be left only to the political will of governments: everybody has a role to play.
Link: http://agroeco.org/socla

Agricultural Transition: a different logic

The More and Better network

This refreshing paper looks at what transition to a different and more sustainable agriculture is about. It is all about changing mindsets, not just those of other people and institutions, but first of all our own. The authors argue that the perpetuated idea of the poor small-scale farmer is wrong, and say that the biggest confusion has been to imagine that peasants function with the same logic as business entrepreneurs. They explore how fear and a constructed emergency (“we are in a hurry because we have to feed nine billion people in 2050”) are in the way of seeing the real answers. And the answers are there… but we have to learn to see them. Instead of searching for new solutions, we should look at viable forms of farming that already exist in different parts of the world. The paper proposes the creation of a pro-peasant platform and a twelve step approach to trigger change in the perception of small-scale farmers resulting in transition to better food production systems.
Link: http://www.moreandbetter.org/en

People’s sustainability treaties

Various authors

Drawing inspiration from the NGO Alternative Treaties, drawn at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, a group of NGOs initiated the People’s Sustainability Treaties (PST) project. PSTs are a series of independent collective agreements produced in parallel to the official 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, and are intended to serve as collection of proposals for governments negotiating for official outcomes. The project management and secretariat is hosted by the Centre for Environment and Development (CED). With the contribution of many civil society actors, several treaties have been drafted including the Treaty on Equity, Treaty on Consumption and Production, Treaty on Sustainable Economies, Treaty on Radical Ecological Democracy, Treaty on Sustainable Development Governance, Treaty on Rights of Mother Earth, and the Treaty on Sustainable Development Goals.
Link: http://sustainabilitytreaties.org/draft-treaties

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Year: 2009; venue: Copenhagen. The Climate Summit is going on. One of the distinguished speakers invited by the United Nations to address the plenary is Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of the North American state of California. Many of the participants (including myself) got a bit confused when he started speaking about his contribution to mitigating global warming, and he mentioned that (a) he has started heating his Olympic sized swimming pool with solar power instead of electric power, and (b) he converted his fleet of SUVs into “hybrids”. Perhaps even more surprising was that the entire Assembly gave him a standing ovation.

Apart from the ridiculousness of inviting Mr Schwarzenegger to address the plenary, when no farmer or indigenous person was invited to speak, worse was the fact that no-one ever thought of questioning why a family of two uses an enormous swimming pool and so much energy (renewable or otherwise) for heating its 2,500,000 litres of water.

No-one questioned why he needs to drive a fleet [half a dozen or more] of cars… It is this interpretation of what is “green and good” that baffles those who work with people who cannot even afford a bus fare, let alone a stable of cars. And to my mind the contribution they make in mitigating climate change and cooling, or feeding, our planet it, is far larger. It is the same apprehension I carry when the idea of a “green economy” is discussed, and which becomes especially relevant when thinking of the millions of people who live in very difficult conditions – and when we think that economists are supposed to help them overcome poverty.

Definitions

But how do we define poverty? I remember the schoolboy who, when asked to write about poverty, mentioned that “I am poor, so I know about it. My driver is also poor. My cook is even poorer. My gardener is also poor.” If the idea of a “green economy” is linked to the poverty of millions of persons, will we be forced to live with another farce such as that of Mr Schwarzenegger? Most definitions of poverty have a monetised interpretation.

A typical example is that of the Indian Planning Commission, which put the poverty threshold at Rs. 27 per capita. This kind of calculation is always done on the basis of one’s contribution to national GDP. But GDP is in itself another hoax. As Devender Sharma says, if a tree is standing, it does not contribute to GDP. But the moment it is cut and made into tradeable timber, it adds to GDP.

So what contributes to what? In another UN conference, this time focusing on the concept of Gross National Happiness, the former Prime Minister of Bhutan, Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, said that ,i>“We have to think of human well-being in broader terms. Material well-being is only one component. That doesn’t ensure that you’re at peace with your environment and in harmony with each other… The GDP-led development model that compels boundless growth on a planet with limited resources no longer makes economic sense. It is the cause of our irresponsible, immoral and selfdestructive actions.” Thinley added that “The purpose of development must be to create enabling conditions through public policy for the pursuit of the ultimate goal of happiness by all citizens.”

“GNP (Gross National Product) by itself does not promote happiness,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent development economist at Columbia University in New York, and also author of the World Happiness Report. “The U.S. has had a three fold increase of GNP per capita since 1960, but the happiness needle hasn’t budged. Other countries have pursued other policies and achieved much greater gains of happiness, even at much lower levels of per capita income.” In other words, we should not let the new concept of a “green economy” just be confined to “business-as-usual”.

A view from DDs

The Deccan Development Society, a grassroots organisation with which I have been associated with for the last 25 years, works in the Medak district of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, right at the centre of semi-arid India. DDS works with about 5,000 very small-scale women farmers who primarily belong to the socially excluded groups. These are people who suffer multiple forms of marginalisation.

In the urban-rural divide, as rural people, they are marginalised. Being poor, in the economic divide they are marginalised. Being dalits, in the social divide they are marginalised. And as women they face severe marginalisation in the gender divide. Working with this group has been a challenge.

A quarter of a century ago, our initial aim was simply put as “poverty alleviation”. But as we started listening and looking carefully at the people we were working with, our own idea of what constitutes poverty changed. This transformation has led us to now look at poverty from a much broader perspective, moving away from monetary perspective towards a sovereignty perspective; from a “rights” perspective to an “autonomy” perspective. This has led us towards promoting autonomous and community-controlled food production systems; autonomous healthcare systems; autonomous markets; and an autonomous media.

How are these initiatives related to poverty? That is where I would like to revert back to the definition of poverty. In a rural area, if a woman from a dalit community is able to take care of her food needs and of her health needs in a satisfactory manner, and if she is able to be a member of an autonomous market set up by her group, and if she is able to air her views in a public space through the community radio station, and make her own films through initiatives like the Community Video Collective, should she be called a woman in poverty just because her monetary income is less than the classical US$ 2 per day? If she moved to earning US$ 3 per day but depended completely on an external market for her food, nutrition or healthcare, and had no media space to air her views and opinions, would that woman be considered as having escaped poverty?

It is this analysis which makes me say that the small-scale farmers with whom we work have escaped poverty. In terms of food production and consumption, these are small-scale farmers with an average holding of about 2 acres. They have adopted biodiverse farming systems and are able to produce all the cereals, legumes and oilseeds they require for an entire year’s consumption. Nowadays,

• the daily per capita consumption of an average DDS family stands at 500 g of cereals and 50 grams of pulses. According to the latest Economic Survey of India, these families are eating 20% more cereals and nearly 40% more of pulses than the rest of India.
• in terms of money spent, nearly 85% of these households spend less than Rs.100 per person per month on food (compared to the average Rs. 400 spent per capita by rural households in the state of Andhra Pradesh), since most of them are producing their own food. Thus, for every household of five, DDS families are saving Rs.1500. They also sell nearly 70% of the pulses produced on their farms and 60% of the fodder, earning an additional income.
• all DDS communities have established their own Public Distribution System. They grow nutritious millets which are culturally and agro-ecologically adapted to local conditions. Through this system, they not only take care of small and marginal farming families, but also of the landless people in their communities. A few years ago, they did a hunger mapping of their villages and identified the less fortunate among them, and started community food kitchens for them. From food receivers, they became food providers.

It can also be said that their agriculture does not rely on expensive fertilizers and pesticides. They use farmyard manure, biofertilizers produced at the household level and other family-made botanical formulations for plant care and plant growth. All the seeds are their own, saved year after year.

Having no expenses at all in terms of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, they save an average of Rs. 2,000 per acre per season. They use no external energy, produce no greenhouse gases, and keep a clean energy balance sheet.

In terms of their healthcare systems, each community has its own health worker, usually a volunteer. This person normally cures all minor illnesses in her community; and anyone can approach her. She charges nothing for the services she offers. She makes only herbal medicines. In the last decade, DDS health workers have saved their community of 50 villages, up to Rs. 7.5 million every year. In addition, communities have established 29 medicinal commons, with each commons having more than 50 plant species, all with a medicinal quality. Anyone in the community can access these commons and the plants to make their own formulations. No money is charged for them.

DDS communities also run their own market, the Market of the Walkouts. This is a co-operative market headed by a committee of 11 women. It makes all its decisions democratically, including those regarding the prices paid to the farmers who supply produce to them. Every member of this market is privileged to receive 10% more than the external market rate for every produce she sells to her market. She also gets a 10% discount for everything she purchases. Every year, the co-operative distributes dividends!

Nearly 80% of the DDS women are engaged in some form of “eco-enterprise”, at the heart of which are the animals they raise. Each family has a goat or a buffalo, a bullock and at least half a dozen poultry (or a combination of all these). Their earnings through milk and meat averages close to Rs. 2,500 per month. In addition, cattle are also a great source of manure. Most families produce biofertilizers (an average of 1.5 tonnes per year, sold at nearly Rs. 6 per kg). The cattle produce nearly 6 tonnes of farmyard manure: a saving of up to Rs. 1500 per year. Finally, since 1990, DDS communities have planted over a million trees in about 35 locations raising neighbourhood forests (or “community commons”). These forests have more than 80 plant species in each, from which families can get fodder, fruits, fuelwood and timber.

A valid alternative

I am mentioning all these factors in order to underline the fact that DDS has chosen to go beyond the classical “income generation” model, striving to work in harmony with the ecological perceptions of a community. This has helped this district to become an agro-ecological oasis in the region, and it is now recognised as an Agrobiodiversity Heritage Site by the National Biodiversity Authority. In this process, our work has not just enhanced the food and nutritional security of these communities, but has also enabled them to live a life of dignity and honour, understanding and trusting the ecological role they are playing.

While I cannot recall any major crippling challenges, there are several reasons behind our success, starting with the fact that DDS kept a very low profile right from the beginning. DDS followed the agenda set by the women and never tried to set its own agenda.

DDS never tried to “represent” the people it was working with. People represented themselves. Therefore, the struggles were fought by the community and won on their own strengths. What could have worked against the DDS was that it did not engage with the rich and powerful sections of the communities. But by the time these groups realised that the strength that the women were acquiring could work against them it was already too late. The women had empowered themselves.

To conclude, I would like to say that work has shown that it is possible to improve the well-being rural communities and overcome poverty without adopting monetised goals. As Nagamma, a 70 year old community elder from the village of Tekur says, the alleviation of poverty in rural areas “has to be like a river. Other organisations are like monsoon streams who burst onto the scene flow forcefully and disappear within weeks. We flow full and calm, bringing life all around us.” Should this not be the goal of a truly “green economy”?

Text: P.V. Satheesh

P.V. Satheesh is the Director of the Deccan Development Society, Andhra Pradesh, India.
E-mail: satheeshperiyapatna@gmail.com

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A small farm of 3.8 acres run by Birendra Kumar Roy and Paromita Sarkar Roy in the village of Kamalakantapur, near Santiniketan, shows that excessive use of chemical inputs and land degradation is not the only option.

Their SAKRIA (meaning “active” in Bengali) organic farm sustains the needs of the family, is profitable, and allows their child to grow up in an environment free of pollution, chemicals and pesticides.

The farm grows a variety of seasonal crops and vege tables, with special focus on traditional varieties, appropriate to the conditions and the climatic situation. The different varieties of organic fruits grown on the farm ensure proper nutrition, providing the necessary vitamins and tasty food to the family. A variety of fishes are grown in the farm pond, completing the family’s nutritional requirements. Perennial trees are used as natural barriers against extreme weather conditions.

Farm yard manure and mulched leaves are used to fertilise the soil. Leguminous pulse crops are intercropped in the orchards and grown on a rotational basis, ensuring soil nitrogen fixation and also green manuring. No chemical pesticides are used.

The manual removal of weed goes hand in hand with the use of organic pesticide solutions and strategic intercropping (even though they face the serious problem of pests drifting onto their farm from other farm lands).

After meeting all the nutritional requirements of the family, the excess paddy, oilseeds, vegetables and pulses are either used for the preparation of valueadded products or sold to small retailers and families in the vicinity. This source of income allows the family to employ four full-time labourers and eight to ten seasonal labourers.

The farmers’ consistent extension efforts in the last fifteen years have led to many neighbouring farmers cultivating more varieties of crops and intercropping them with legumes. The soil condition in the area surrounding the farm has improved. The population of earthworms has substantially increased on SAKRIA farm, resulting in soils with a higher water holding capacity. The variety and diversity of plants and trees has also resulted in noticeable changes in area’s wildlife.

The SAKRIA organic farm may be a small family farm in a remote dry land area of West Bengal, but it demonstrates what can be achieved through love for the land and nature, self-determination, innovation and hard work. The success lies in the fact that the farmers have neatly interwoven their traditional knowledge with “modern” techniques. The main constraint they face is that customers are not ready to pay extra for their organic products, especially since organic certification services are lacking in the area. Most farmers feel that the organic certification processes are complex and expensive.

There is thus a need to enhance facilities and the availability of services for organic certification, and to help small-scale farmers so that they better market their products. If the farmers could also achieve higher prices for their produce, the benefits seen in SAKRIA would be even greater.

Text: Sabyasachi Roy

Sabyasachi Roy works at the National Dairy Development Board, VIII Block, Koramangala, Bangalore, India.
E-mail: sabyaroy@gmail.com

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At times, energy has been overlooked in the development debate, but recently it has again been receiving greater attention. Some people talk about “energy poverty” and point out that better access to energy by “energy-starved” people can significantly contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Energy access can reduce extreme poverty (MDG 1) by enabling new income-generating activities, and reduce time spent on collecting firewood. Electricity makes it possible to study more (MDG2), watch TV and use mobile phones.

Studies have shown that girls, in particular, take advantage of the extra study hours (MDG 3). Access to energy can reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and help combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases (by, for example, providing clean water). Replacing firewood with biogas or electricity reduces respiratory diseases (MDGs 4, 5 and 6). And, better access to energy can improve environmental sustainability by reducing deforestation (MDG 7).

The link between energy and climate change is now widely recognised, but increased access to energy does not have to result in climate change. For a start, energy use does not have to be as wasteful as it has often been in industrial agriculture. Instead of treating energy as a consumable item, purchased from outside, we need to think in terms of energy flows, as we do with nutrients and water in agriculture. How can we reduce energy waste? How can we increase energy efficiency? How can we re-use energy?

While conventional agricultural production systems rely heavily on fossil fuels, both for machinery and for the production of fertilizers, the majority of small-scale farms use a minimum of fossil-based inputs. The benefits of such an approach are many and include a minimal environmental impact, less money spent and increased resilience to fluctuations in fossil fuel prices.

Aiming at universal access?

The burning of wood, dung and crop residues accounts for one third of the energy used in developing countries. Households, however, find it increasingly difficult to find wood or dung, so it is important to focus on other energy sources. Some alternative energy solutions such as biogas, micro-hydro dams and wind power have matured and are spreading fast. Modern solutions like photovoltaic (PV) solar panels have dropped significantly in price over the last few years and are becoming competitive with other sources of energy.

However, many of these technologies require heavy investments upfront. Many poor people who could benefit from these alternative forms of energy are not in a position, for example, to adopt PV solar panels – which can easily cost up to US$ 500 for one household. Even with less costly options, like the micro-hydropower systems seen in Nepal, the upfront costs are too high for communities to shoulder by themselves.

At the same time, many countries have laws in place to protect national electricity suppliers by outlawing private micro-grids. At present the current level of investment in “soft” energy provision is only one-fifth of that required to provide access to electricity for all by 2030. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that by 2030 there will still be 1.2 billion people without access to electricity unless policies change significantly.

Many people are afraid of what universal access to electricity would mean in terms of global warming. However, the provision of universal access to electricity by 2030 would only increase global demand for fossil fuels by 0.8% and increase CO2 emissions by 0.7%. This is due to a combination of the low energy requirements among people who are currently off-grid and the expectations that many will be served by electricity generated from alternative energy sources.

Looking for alternatives

The majority of the poorer regions of the world are net importers of fossil fuel. At the same time they have abundant resources of untapped alternative energy. A lack of skills and capital, subsidies on fossil fuels and a lack of supportive policies have prevented significant development of alternative energy technologies in many countries. The major exceptions are Brazil, China and India.

After decades of dedicated government support for research and development Brazil is one of the global leaders in bio-fuel production. The latter two countries are both leaders in decentralised renewable energy provision from wind, small hydro units, biogas, and solar water heating. Most other governments have taken little initiative in developing sources of alternative energy.

Biodiesel and plant oils can act as substitutes for diesel and ethanol as a substitute for gasoline. They can power existing vehicles. This is unlike other alternative fuels, such as electricity or hydrogen, which involve replacing existing vehicles with new ones. Even in rich countries, the adaptations required are prohibitively expensive. When fossil fuel prices went through the roof it seemed very attractive to get farmers to produce bio-fuels which would only require upstream investment to relatively simple processing facilities. It was a dream of a quick and easy switch to a fossil fuel free future, but was not rooted in reality.

The latest bio-fuel hype started around 2005 and saw many governments, together with NGOs and private investors, jump into large projects without doing the necessary homework. In particular, the production of Jatropha curcas was promoted in places where it cannot grow well and farmers were encouraged to produce in places where no markets existed. Information about the right agronomic practices was rarely provided, and nobody paid attention to the importance of creating valuable by-products from the press cake. Unsurprisingly, the yields have been poor and the resulting backlash has been just as large as the hype a few years ago. Today the bio-fuel sector is facing a tough time, both economically and politically.

Examples from different countries show that, as with all sources of energy, it is important to look at the social and economic consequences of every option, the environmental impacts of energy use, and take into account the entire process of distribution. Large-scale hydroelectricity plants, or the large scale production of bio-fuels, may have enormous social, economic and political costs such as displacing people living in an area. The “sustainability” of bio-fuels depends on the energy that is required to produce biofuel crops (for example, whether agrochemicals are used) and on what type of land the crops are grown: if it replaces carbon-rich land, such as natural forests, or other (food) crops, questions need to be asked about the net benefits.

Small-scale solutions

Fossil fuels have played a large role in agriculture, powering generators, pumps and vehicles, the production of artificial fertilizers and allowing supply chains to grow progressively longer. However, several alternative energy sources have emerged which are technically and economically viable and are currently being adopted at a large scale. Each technology has its advantages and disadvantages.

For instance, wind power is cheap but intermittent, i.e. it only works when the wind blows. Small hydroelectric power stations can produce energy on demand but are too expensive for most communities. Bio-gas produces slurry that is a good fertilizer but is difficult to handle and transport. Photovoltaics are durable but can only power light loads. Bio-fuels can directly substitute fossil fuel, but can compete with other crops for labour and land. Solar water-heaters are relatively cheap but prone to clogging if dirty water is used.

Despite the great benefits offered by alternative energy sources, a focus on increasing access to energy can overlook the importance of the techniques and equipment used by many family farmers – and the real energy demand of agriculture. All over the world, farmers are experimenting with the many low-tech energy saving and energy providing technologies that are already available.

Many examples have been documented in this magazine over the years. The kind of energy source used depends largely on availability and price, but also on tradition and personal preferences. Most importantly we should look not so much at the demand for energy, but more at the efficiency of its use. These examples show that small-scale farmers can not only achieve high yields: they are also more efficient than intensive farmers in terms of their energy use.

Text: Flemming Nielsen

Based in the Netherlands, Flemming Nielsen works as an independent researcher at Banana Hill. E-mail: fnielsen@ bananahill.net

References

OECD/IEA, 2011. Energy for all: Financing access for the poor. UNDP, 2009. Expanding energy access in developing countries: The role of mechanical power.

UNDP, 2011. Decentralized energy access and the Millennium Development Goals: An analysis of the development benefits of micro-hydropower in rural Nepal

The Worldwatch Institute 2005: Energy for Development: The potential role of renewable energy in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

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Agricultural biodiversity is about many things: about the genes of the wide variety of plants and animals; about individuals and the systems of which they are part, about policies and practices. What does agrobiodiversity mean in practice? And how can the wide knowledge and experience that exists contribute to better policies and practices?

Farmers, policy makers, financial institutions and businessmen need to know what the opportunities and possibilities are when talking about biodiversity in agriculture. We need to know how to enhance agricultural biodiversity and the existing (and potential) incentives and disincentives for doing so.

Many organisations, governments and businesses have been dealing with this complex set of issues for some time, and have developed specific approaches to it. “Agricultural diversity includes the components of biological diversity that are essential for nourishing human populations and improving their quality of life,” says Zachary Makanya of PELUM-Kenya. “Such diversity is the result of thousands of years of farmers’ and breeders’ activities, land and forest utilisation, combined with millions of years of natural selection. It is essential for our existence.”

Understanding agricultural biodiversity

“Food security means that good quality seeds at affordable prices are made accessible to farmers at the time that they need them. The approach should be to build and strengthen seed supply sources locally as much as possible.” A.V. Balasubramanian, Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems (CIKS), India.
 
“It is urgent to strengthen the indigenous systems for managing resources, and for the conservation of agricultural biodiversity, and that local farmers and farmers groups are encouraged to continue to conserve their time-tested local and indigenous seeds. Stop the introduction of GMOs since they destroy the local seeds systems and make farmers depend on corporations for their seeds.”
Zachary Makanya, Country Coordinator PELUM‑Kenya and Chairperson of the board of the Africa Biodiversity Network (ABN).
 
“Sustainable development can only be achieved by conserving and developing agricultural biodiversity, and through it enhancing food security, livelihoods and resilience in the face of climate change. Appropriate policies need to be put in place so that they lead to and support practical actions.”
Tenaw Hailu Tedela, Executive Programme Officer for the Sustainable Land Use Forum (SLUF)

The organisations involved in the Agrobiodiversity@knowledged programme focus on different aspects of the concept of agricultural biodiversity. The Sustainable Land use Forum (SLUF) in Ethiopia, for example, has been advocating for an integrated approach to agriculture and land use for years.

Tenaw Hailu Tedela says that agrobiodiversity gives us different benefits. “It provides the basis for the production of food. And an area’s biodiversity also means organisms that contribute to many diverse ecosystem services, from pest and disease regulation to carbon sequestration. Time and again, farmers show that it is the basis for food security and a sustainable livelihood. This is our most important incentive to preserve it.”

In India, the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems (CIKS) aims to ensure that traditional knowledge on different species is used in contemporary agricultural systems.
“Agrobiodiversity is very important: just think of the number of varieties that are resistant to droughts, pests, and diseases,” says A.V. Balasubramanian. “Agrobiodiversity has helped us produce food in a way that is adapted to our local requirements, traditions and conditions. This does not only mean resistance to drought or pests – it also means higher yields.”

Current initiatives

CIKS started a community seed bank project in Tamil Nadu. Lost biodiversity has been brought back at the community level, as more than 130 varieties of paddy and 50 vegetable varieties are being sown in farmers’ fields and experimental farms. “Agrobiodiversity has to be locally conserved, and not only in cold storage rooms run by researchers”, explains A.V. Balasubramanian. “By creating awareness in the communities about the diversity and importance of traditional seed varieties, communities can continue benefitting from them, and ensure that the future generations will do so too”.

PELUM-Kenya and other like-minded organisations are currently rolling out the Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) Initiative. “PELUM-Kenya is coordinating this pilot initiative to promote ecological agriculture, and we will show that this is the kind of agriculture that will help solve Africa’s perennial hunger and poverty,” Zachary Makanya states. The aim is to mainstream organic agriculture into the national agricultural production systems by 2020 – by scaling-up best practices, increasing the visibility of ecologically grown food and through multiinstitutional partnerships.

The next steps

All these organisations agree that we need to pay more attention to agrobiodiversity. “We need not only to acknowledge its importance, but also increase our understanding of how to transform agriculture or, in other words, scale up successful programmes” says Gine Zwart of Oxfam Novib. The idea of a “green” economy is now high on the agenda, but many questions remain. What does “green” really mean? Who will govern this green economy? Do we need more knowledge to shape new policies and practices? Many high level policy makers may feel that this knowledge is hidden. However, it is right there in front of us if only we take the time to look and listen carefully to those who work with nature on a daily basis: farmers, fisherfolk and livestock keepers.

For more information please write to Gine Zwart (e-mail: gine.zwart@oxfamnovib.nl), Willy Douma (w.douma@hivos.nl) or to the participating organisations themselves: A. V. Balasubramanian at CIKS (info@ciks.org), Zachary Makanya at PELUM (makanya@pelum.net) or to Tenaw Hailu Tedela at SLUF (tenaw.hailu@gmail.com).

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Learning AgriCultures aims to stimulate a culture of learning about sustainable smallscale farming, one that sees the farm as a system rather than made up of separate components. Learning AgriCultures is a learning resource particularly aimed at educators seeking support material for teaching about sustainable agriculture in their courses, at a university or college level, in special NGO training courses or other professional environments.

This material will feed into and provoke discussions and deeper reflections about the important contributions that small-scale farming makes, and what sustainability means in different contexts. Courses in which this series could be useful include agriculture, rural development, environmental studies, research & extension, and agricultural policy-making. They are primarily, but not exclusively, aimed at educators and students working in developing countries.

The Learning AgriCultures series has seven modules, each focusing on a theme connected with sustainable family farm systems, such as soil, water, livestock, marketing and knowledge.

These themes are explored from different angles, from the perspective of
1. the farm,
2. key issues in the wider context, and also
3. governance issues that affect farming sustainability.

All the modules include thought-provoking questions, details of educational support materials: practical cases, exercises, games, photos, videos, checklists for farm visits as well as further references (free books and websites).

The series takes a global perspective with practical cases from all over the world. The different contexts in which small-scale farmers work mean that they face very different problems and opportunities: a family living in the Andean highlands farms in a different way from a family in the Sahel.

Their regional or national governance systems can provide very diverse contexts in which family farmers have to survive. In spite of the tremendous diversity, small-scale farmers share some common characteristics. The Learning AgriCultures series focuses on these commonalities and highlights the differences, from which people all over the world can learn from.

Educators and university lecturers around the world are now using the Learning AgriCultures series: they build on the key concepts and draw inspiration from the practical exercises and case studies, adjusting them to their own context and target groups. They do this independently or in conjunction with ILEIA.

For more information, please us an e-mail: ileia@ileia.org

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