Farming Matters | 33.1 | April 2017

This issue of Farming Matters is about food sovereignty: a self-organised, grassroots response to today’s problematic food and farming system. Diverse people, such as producers, consumers, peasants, migrant farm workers and urban citizens are uniting around initiatives to regain control over their food and natural resources.

The experiences presented in this issue address interwoven issues related to production, processing, trade and consumption of food. Together they highlight the value of tackling policy at multiple levels while taking practice into one's own hands.

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Farming Matters | 32.4 | December 2016

This issue of Farming Matters explores the different ways pastoral societies are joining forces to challenge the policies that undermine their culture and way of life.

For millennia, pastoralist societies have managed the rangelands of the world’s most challenging environments, producing food and providing ecosystem services for millions of households.

The experiences, opinions and perspectives presented in this issue highlight the importance of pastoral societies for agroecology and the transformation of entire food systems.

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Farming Matters | 32.3 | September 2016

This issue of Farming Matters explores innovative ways to demonstrate that agroecology provides critical solutions to the challenges of our time.

Agroecology is gaining recognition for its potential to address climate change, biodiversity loss and malnutrition, and many successful examples exist.

The experiences, opinions, and perspectives featured in this issue show how farmers, researchers, policy makers and consumers are using new lenses to track change.

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Farming Matters | 32.2 | June 2016

This issue of Farming Matters looks at the growing number of initiatives that aim to revive the potential of traditional plant species, and illustrates that these plants can strengthen resilient family farming rooted in agroecology and diversity.

Traditional plants and crops strengthen nutrition, culture and food sovereignty and thereby build resilience and resistance – for farmers, and for anyone who eats. However, they have largely been neglected in mainstream agriculture and food.

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Farming Matters Special Issue | April 2016 

This issue of Farming Matters presents cases that demonstrate the limited extent to which family farmers have been able to benefit from the ‘formal’ ABS process. It also uncovers some of the effective principles and mechanisms for access and benefit sharing such as community seed banks, and successful collaborations between researchers and farmers.

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Farming Matters | 32.1 | March 2016

This issue of Farming Matters illustrates how the collective creation of knowledge lies at the heart of agroecology rooted in family farming. It presents stories of farmers, scientists, urban citizens, government officials, NGOs, and others who have jointly created agroecological solutions that are suited to their own, local contexts.

The magazine presents inspiring examples from Costa Rica, Brazil, Ecuador, Iran, India, the Netherlands, China and Zimbabwe, as well as expert perspectives on the challenges and possible solutions.

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Farming Matters | 31.4 | December 2015

This issue of Farming Matters presents stories about women from all over the world who are forging positive change through agroecology on their farms and in their communities.

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. 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.

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Farming Matters | 31.3 | September 2015

This issue of Farming Matters reveals how family farming based on agroecology is key to better water management. These pages document stories of farmers that have created their own solutions together with others, by building upon traditional practices or by adapting and creating new techniques.

Moreover, local experiences are connected to regional, national and global contexts with stories about innovative water governance and struggles for water justice and water rights.

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Farming Matters | 31.2 |June 2015

This ‘twin’ issue of Farming Matters and Urban Agriculture Magazine, produced together by ILEIA and the RUAF Foundation, looks at some existing experiences with strengthened rural–urban linkages and what they teach us about improving food systems for both consumers and agroecological farmers.

This issue shows how agroecology is a consistent thread in building stronger connections between the rural and the urban. We see alternative marketing arrangements and the strength of rural identities in urban contexts for solidarity between farmers and urbanites.

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Farming Matters | 31.1 | March 2015

This issue of Farming Matters presents the experiences of farmers who are working successfully, together with others, to improve the health of their soil and their lives. The stories on these pages show that healthy soils increase farmers’ autonomy and long-term productivity. And, healthy soils also contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

We see that farmers are making use of local resources to build soil carbon, and in the process they are reducing their dependence on external inputs.This issue makes a call to listen to farmers and learn from their experiences on the land.

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