This is the basis of a knowledge programme that has recently been started by Hivos and Oxfam Novib.

It aims to develop concepts and ideas about agricultural biodiversity, smallholder livelihoods and climate change, building on and adding value to existing resources, and also leading to change. This is a three-year programme that includes action research, network development and the establishment of a platform for public debates.

Preparatory steps

Over the past few months, the Stockholm Resilience Centre has been working to provide us with an overview of the theory and praxis with regards to agro-biodiversity and smallholder resilience, and to identify possible knowledge gaps. One of their main observations was that farmers’ knowledge and experiences in agricultural biodiversity have not (yet) been adequately translated into the policies and strategies relevant to development organisations working in the South. A related constraint is that existing policies are often perceived as inadequate, or even conflicting, while the lack of technical knowledge was rarely mentioned as a constraint.

The outcomes of this initial exercise were discussed at a workshop in Kenya, which sought to identify areas where improvements could be made. One image that emerged from the discussions was that of a “glasshouse” that is limiting the scaling up, institutional embedding and horizontal extension efforts of an approach to agriculture that promotes biodiversity and resilience.

Can we break through the walls and the ceiling of the glasshouse around agro-biodiversity? During the coming three years we will share experiences, information and knowledge around this topic, and develop a network of experts and practitioners.

As part of this programme, the next 8 issues of Farming Matters will carry provoking articles, challenging debates, opinion pieces and general information, for which we welcome your contributions. You can post your ideas and comments on our website, or send an e-mail to the editor (j.chavez-tafur@ileia.org), to Gine Zwart (prd@oxfamnovib.nl) or Willy Douma (w.douma@hivos.nl).

In 2014 we will invite you to join us in harvesting the results, with a full issue of this magazine.

The post Agro-biodiversity @knowledged appeared first on Ileia.

All over the world farmers work together, in both formal and informal settings. Collective action can help farmers to have their voices heard in the political and commercial arena, to minimise risks, to strengthen their capacities and to secure property rights – all extremely challenging things for individuals to achieve working alone.

By grouping together, farmers can build strong track records which can help them obtain financial support. Farmers’ organisations can be instrumental in buying, selling or processing agricultural products in bulk – and they can do this in a sustainable way.

Farmers’ organisations can play important roles in developing supply management schemes and various income insurance programmes. Farmers can learn from each other, about production, marketing, rights, etc., and join a platform to learn about others’ experiences.

As a group, farmers can exercise more political pressure for change. Yet, even though there are many potential benefits for small-scale farmers who become organised, the logistics and governance of farming organisations can be problematic. Farmer organisations do not automatically benefit everyone in the community: are they, for example, open to everyone, including female farmers?

The UN has declared 2012 the International Year of Co-operatives – a common type of farmers’ organisation. Farming Matters will also pay special attention to farmers’ organisations in the September issue. In what different ways do farmers organise? What problems exist in farmers’ organisations and how are these dealt with?

Please visit our website and leave your suggestions, comments and ideas on articles for this issue. Articles for the September issue of Farming Matters should be sent to Jorge Chavez-Tafur (j.chavez-tafur@ileia.org), editor, before June 1st, 2012.

The post Call for articles: Farmers and their organisations appeared first on Ileia.

Fear of insects is widespread, and based on an incomplete or distorted understanding of what insects do in an agro-ecosystem. This fear has been fuelled by agrochemical companies, the global seed industry and more generally by the type of thinking that underlies modern “industrialised” agriculture.

Small-scale farmers have been made to believe that all insects are evil creatures and that the only effective way to deal with them is to kill them all by spraying them with pesticides. Or by using genetically modified seed that has an in-built resistance to certain (but not all) insect pests, such as Bt cotton.

Modern agriculture has estranged farmers from their natural environment, and from their own knowledge about this environment. This is one of the main causes of increasing impoverishment of small-scale farming communities around the world. This is why knowledge about insects is important. Knowledge about agro-ecosystems – the crops and their larger environment – empowers farmers to think beyond short-term solutions.

Insects show us how all parts of the system are interconnected and how deadly the consequences can be if we unnecessarily tamper with them. There are effective ways to deal with pests and diseases that do not destroy ecosystems but work with them. They are well-known but do not get sufficient policy support.
The message to be taken to Rio+20 is that a “green economy” can only exist with an agriculture that respects people and ecosystems – including insects! Einstein (quoted in this issue of Faming Matters by John Wightman) had it clear when he said that “the bee is the basis of life on this earth.” It’s time to think, and to act. Now.

Text: Edith van Walsum, director ILEIA

The post Editorial – The bees’ message to Rio appeared first on Ileia.

Insects are closely related to many different human activities. Among these, agricultural production is probably the one that gets most attention, as insects can cause significant losses. Millions of dollars are spent every year in order to minimise the presence of insects in the field and avoid such losses.

However, farmers are usually unaware of the huge diversity of insect species to be found on their farm, and their functions within the agro-ecosystem. Most farmers react to insects by looking for ways to eliminate them.

This simplistic behaviour has contributed to the ever-growing use of pesticides, with all their attendant side-effects. The need to “control” the presence of insects is also one of the main arguments used by those promoting GMOs. Insects play many different roles within an ecosystem: some are phytophagous species, others pollinate crops, other species feed on detritus.

Farmers are most familiar with the phytophagous species. Yet only a small part of all phytophagous insects (less than 3%) occur as pests; the rest are regulated naturally by entomophagous species and entomopathogens and other natural factors. All species are linked to each other as part of a complex food chain, and have different relationships with each other, acting as parasitoids, predators and hyperparasites.

As a result, in a natural ecosystem, the population of the insects we think of as pests is generally kept in balance, and remains stable. In contrast, in agricultural systems involving a high degree of human modification, this natural balance is disturbed and lost, with some phytophagous insects coming to predominate.

From insects to pests – and back

The intensification of agricultural production has been the main reason why some insect species have become pests. This occurs through a co-evolutionary process, driven by two main factors. First, the reduction of a farm’s biodiversity, with one crop (or only a few species) being grown over large areas, often year after year. This provides the perfect environment for one or a few species of insects to thrive. Second, conventional agricultural production helps drive the evolutionary selection of new populations of phytophagous species, as the use of pesticides, fertilizers or the soil preparation system, gives rise to populations that are tolerant and resistant to these external factors.

The increasing difficulties that farmers face in “controlling” insects could be the best argument for a drastic change in the world’s agricultural production systems. An alternative approach, however, should not just seek to minimise the damage caused by pests, but rather to enhance all ecosystem services in order to achieve higher and more sustainable yields. Thus, there is a need to “unlearn” the old approach of “protecting” or “defending” crops by focusing on pest control, and to adopt an approach that looks at the system, the interactions that take place within it – and the benefits that farmers do, and can, get from insects. Insects play a very important role in every farm system.

Bees and apiculture are perhaps the best known example. Honey is produced and consumed throughout the world, and this contributes to the income of millions of farmers and the diets of millions of people. Bees also are important pollinators. As Sanagorsky  shows, bees (and other insects) play a crucial role in the sexual reproduction of plants – something we only seem to acknowledge when it is not happening. Sam Adams describes another role of insects which is generally overlooked: their contribution to improving the soil.

Again, this may be difficult to quantify, even if there is no doubt that better soils directly contribute to higher yields. As predators and parasites, insects also play a key role in controlling the populations of other insects.

Helping those who help us

Acknowledging the many benefits that insects bring is the first step. But farmers, together with many other professionals, can help ensure – and increase – these benefits. One widely used strategy is biological control: the selective breeding and release of species that regulate the populations of phytophagous insects. This is widely practiced in Cuba, where there are more than 200 Centros de Reproducción de Entomófagos y Entomopatógenos run by the Ministry of Agriculture. These centres produce 9,000 million Trichogramma wasps every year, which are then released (in doses of 30-50,000 individuals per hectare) in order to regulate the presence of pests in pastures, rice, sugarcane, vegetables and other crops.

On a smaller scale, there are also production units that breed specific types of parasitoids (Braconidae, Chalcididae, or Eulophidae) and predators (Coccinellidae, Anthocoridae or Reduviidae) that can be released to control various insect pests. Some farms have “on-farm reservoirs”, a source where insects can be collected and taken to other fields. For example, the remains of banana plants are used to encourage the multiplication of colonies of a predatory ant (Pheidole megacephala), which are then taken to sweet potato or banana fields. A recent survey found that such reservoirs are used to protect some 16,000 hectares of these crops, reducing the presence of two of the main pests that attack these two crops.

It can be equally beneficial to simply encourage the presence of a wide variety of insect species within a farm by paying attention to factors such as the presence of weeds. Often maligned, weeds can play a positive role on a farm by regulating a farm’s microclimate and reducing soil erosion. They can sustain large populations of phytophagous insects, but also their natural regulators, another important role in the cycle.

Farmers in the western region of Cuba tolerate the presence of the weed known as “sour broom” (Partenium hysterophorus) in their fields, and even encourage it in the borders and other areas, as these plants provide an important habitat for predators of the Coccinellidae family (like parakeets or ladybirds) which feed on several species of aphids. The shrub known as “piñón florido” (Gliricidia sepium) serves as a host to seven species of phytophagous insects (of which only one, the bean aphid or Aphis craccivora, is a pest) but also hosts 21 species of entomophagous insects, of which 19 are known to regulate populations of phytophagous pests in vegetables and grains.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s Programa de Agricultura Suburbana is thus promoting the wider use of piñón as live fences in all urban and peri-urban agricultural plots. These different approaches are further described by Holland. The evidence shows that insects provide many benefits. Isn’t it only logical to change the way we look at agriculture and encourage their presence?

Text: Luis L. Vázquez Moreno
Luis L. Vázquez Moreno works as a researcher at Cuba’s Instituto de Investigaciones de Sanidad Vegetal (INISAV), in Havana.
E-mail: lvazquez@inisav.cu ; llvazquezmoreno@yahoo.es

The post Theme overview – Insects, farmers and farm management appeared first on Ileia.

Although beekeeping can contribute enormously to alleviate poverty, Mrs McLeod pointed out that it is “usually overlooked as a marginal activity not worthy of investment and attention”.

Bees for Development is an organisation that works to overcome this lack of attention. Describing itself as “the hub of a network of beekeepers all around the world”, it encourages and promotes sustainable apiculture, and particularly focuses on poor and rural areas.

Bees for Development has developed a series of educational and training programmes that facilitate the spread of knowledge about bees and profitable and sustainable beekeeping methods: practices that increase beekeepers’ incomes without jeopardising bee populations and local biodiversity.

“Our organisation’s view”, Mrs McLeod says, “is that the most important thing for beekeepers is information”. The organisation has developed a huge, free-to-use, online database about all aspects of bees and sustainable beekeeping – their “Information Portal”. But, as we all know, the best way to learn is by doing. Mrs McLeod explains that “what commonly happens is that an experienced beekeeper is approached by others who want to get involved”.

Bees for Development also support training, workshops and meetings, offering Resource Boxes (packs of explanatory material such as booklets, posters and the Bees for Development Journal), the content of which can be varied according to the needs and purposes of those taking and running the trainings.

Bees for Development was founded in 1993 in Monmouth, South Wales, U.K. The standard price for Resource Boxes is £50, but those who cannot afford it can receive a Sponsored Resource Box free of charge. Further information about all the current initiatives of the organisation is available at www.beesfordevelopment.org.

Mrs McLeod went on to emphasise that the training activities also aim to stimulate and strengthen beekeeper organisations: “When beekeepers can organise themselves into co-operatives or collective marketing groups, they can improve the terms of trade with other people. This is a significant element of our training: teaching people how to form effective associations to represent their own interests”.

This is all crucial for beekeepers, as demonstrated in a recent training programme in Uganda: “When we got to Kampala we noticed that, notwithstanding the presence of many local beekeepers who produce excellent honey, the majority of what is consumed has been imported. The issue in Uganda is that producers cannot meet their national market”.

Bees for Development started working with a co-operative, providing trainings for local beekeepers. “Now, we can proudly say that the co-operative we were working with has been invited by a supermarket supplier in Uganda to start supplying their stores and even to export to Kenya. Their produce is being very well received.”

Text: Nicola Piras

Illustration: Fred Geven

The post Learning about … All you need to know about bees appeared first on Ileia.

Honey bees are amazing creatures. They can navigate, communicate, air-condition their hives, detect and segregate contaminated pollen, repel invaders… and collaborate. They pollinate about 90 kinds of crop plants – and of course there is also the honey. But they are dying by the millions.

I wonder if the teachings of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman can help us understand what is happening. He highlights an unfortunate facet of our psyche: that we react to challenges or threats in two ways. First is a “fast” response, which basically involves (a) denial (“Oh, that can’t be right…”), ( b) doing nothing and hoping the problem will go away, or (c) applying a solution that may have worked for another problem. A second or “slow” response may follow: it is called rational thought. It involves time and effort and the collection and analysis of evidence. Guess which category the majority of decisions fall into.

I have been telling myself that the world population of honey bees just cannot be under threat. Bees are just too important and cannot disappear (= denial). But all the time, more evidence is coming in from all around the world saying “think again”. Beekeepers inspect their hives one day and find the bees have gone. What we now call Colony Collapse Disorder keeps on happening. And more location-specific bee challenges keep on being reported: another species is displacing the honey bee across the Pacific Region; there is a beetle from Africa that destroys honey in Australian hives; a “new” bee parasite was reported in California this year.

But what exactly is happening? There are so many “fast” responses. Some say that the parasitic Varroa mite and/or the pathogens it transmits have mutated. Plausible, but these pathogens have been around forever and are not pandemic. “It must be insecticides”: the neonicotinoids (such as imidacloprid) are certainly implicated. But these products have been available since the 1980s. Why are they only now having an effect? Hives are often moved long distances to pollinate specific crops. Do the bees get pathogen-induced travel stress? Such bee movements have been “normal” for many years. So it must all be due climate change then…?

Please someone – is there an international organisation that can apply slow response thought processes to integrating a search for global solutions? If the bee disappears from the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. That is what Einstein said, and he was a real slow response thinker.

Text: John Wightman

Based in Australia, John Wightman promotes landscape development and the enhancement of natural control as the basis of sustainable pest management. He has worked on rearranging farming systems across Africa, South-East Asia, and the Pacific.
E-mail: javinm@gmail.com ; intipm@ipmmaleny.com

The post Opinion: Goodbye bees – and thanks! appeared first on Ileia.

The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) are involved in many country projects that seek to reduce rural poverty and food insecurity in Asia and the Pacific.

People working on these projects acquire valuable knowledge and a wealth of practical experience. However, their knowledge is often “lost” when projects end.

By developing capacities to share knowledge, the FAO-IFAD programme helped ensure that projects build on proven successes and avoid repeating errors, that the voices of a wide group of stakeholders are included, and that knowledge is properly documented and well communicated, so that it can have the greatest impact.

Working with regional organisations (such as, for example, ICIMOD in Nepal), the programme offered “hands-on workshops” focusing on participatory techniques and tools for knowledge sharing, and on writing skills. In total, more than 380 people participated throughout the year, representing projects being implemented in countries as diverse as China and the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Focusing on “a methodology which facilitates the ongoing description and analysis of the processes and results of a development project”, the programme paid specific attention to a systematisation process. This meant presenting some basic principles (such as involving as many stakeholders as possible, or identifying the general conditions needed), and then actually starting a systematisation process for sharing knowledge. The work of some of the participants, such as Abdul Qayyum Abbasi, describing and analysing the Community Development Programme in Pakistan, has already been published and shared.

One of the most interesting lessons learnt was about the use of videos. Participants discussed the challenges that practitioners face in using images in a systematisation process. This doesn’t necessarily need expensive tools and materials – hand held devices such as mobile phones can be adequate. Videos are not only useful as a way of presenting a final product: they can also be used for collecting information (e.g. in interviews), for highlighting someone’s opinion, and for asking feedback from other participants.

Training future trainers

The programme also organised a three-day “training of trainers” session, with the objective of scaling up and sustaining the process. Some project staff who had attended the previous training events were invited to a workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal, in December 2011. The main objective was to present and discuss the issues that trainers (or facilitators) should consider when organising a systematisation process. Our discussions started by focusing on the necessary logistics and the general objectives. Participants discussed the advantages that such a process can bring in terms of advocacy, or simply by helping to “avoid re-inventing the wheel.”

We looked at the importance of carefully selecting participants, in a way so that they contribute to and benefit from the process as much as possible. Beyond considering different groups or stakeholders, and considering specific criteria (such as being associated to an IFAD project), we also looked at other regularly occurring issues: the difficulties of inviting and managing a large group, and thus the need to to select those who represent a large community, and the difficulties when having different “categories” working together (politicians with farmers, extension agents with the director of an organisation) which can lead to some participating much less than others. The discussions paid special attention to the role of the trainer, who plays an influential role in every systematisation process. Trainers need to decide their level of engagement: will they just provide the necessary resources for a process to take place, will they try to “catalyse” it, or will they actually take charge of it all? Each of these choices has implications for the selection of participants, and may mean providing mentoring, apprenticeship or coaching possibilities. Trainers also need to think about the different tools or techniques they will utilise and what, if any, incentives to provide to participants.

Finally, the participants looked at the steps that are common to all documentation processes, regardless of the methodology followed, and at ways of addressing the most common problems:

• How to select the “case” to be documented, which requires considering the audience who will benefit from the documentation process.
• How to collect data and information, and the importance of finding what information is already available, or of going to the field, and asking participants and stakeholders in situ.
• The need to encourage participation and involvement: (i) before the workshop, by selecting the “right” participants, (ii) during the workshop, by using different tools, defining people’s roles and responsibilities and defining and explicitly mentioning all expectations, and (iii) after the workshop, providing incentives, or inviting participants to contribute to any subsequent publication.
• The dissemination of the results, which starts by identifying the target audience and then deciding what type of document is best (a policy brief, an article in a journal, etc.). Such documents can always be reinforced and made more accessible by using different media tools, such as press releases, the internet, street theatre, posters, or radio programmes.

The last step involved a short discussion about the need of scaling up and sustaining these efforts and also every systematisation process. This meant looking at the necessary requisites (support, resources), and at the steps to follow. Jun Virola, from the Philippines, highlighted that “this workshop was a systematisation process in itself. We looked at where we are, what we have been doing, and we described what we want to happen. At the end we were able to prepare and share our action plans.” The first steps have been taken: many trainers are up and ready to start training their colleagues.

Text: Denise Melvin and Jorge Chavez-Tafur

Denise Melvin, Communications Officer at FAO, worked as Programme Coordinator on the FAO-IFAD Programme for the Development of Knowledge Sharing Skills (e-mail: ks-asia@fao.org).

Jorge Chavez-Tafur facilitated the training workshops in the Philippines, Nepal and China.

The post Knowledge management within IFAD: Training the trainers appeared first on Ileia.

In January, the Zero Draft of the outcome document (which provides the basis on which the final resolutions of the conference will be agreed) was published on different websites.

Even though this Zero Draft gives an impression of what the outcome document of the conference will look like, much can happen between now and June, so the outcome is not set in stone. Governments, UN agencies and civil organisations will continue to negotiate over the text of the final document, and campaign to put their issues on the policy agenda.

Many parties are still working hard to ensure that small-scale sustainable family farmers are not left out of these discussions.

Zero or minus twenty?

There has been a truly mixed response to the Zero Draft document. Generally, it is considered a major step forward, in that it talks about sustainable development indicators that go beyond GDP, proposes a Sustainable Development Council, an Ombudsman for Future Generations, and a reform of environmentally-harmful subsidies, including those for agriculture.

Yet, many believe the document is too vague and open to too many interpretations. There are also some important omissions. The document does not mention sustainable agriculture or family farming. How can a document seeking to set the direction of a future “green economy” leave out 400 million farm families? So, what is a “green economy”, and what is the role of sustainable family farming within it? There is a growing conviction that for the economy to become green, it has to be totally redesigned.

Hans Herren, one of the authors of the IAASTD report, says that cosmetic changes like “climate smart agriculture” and “sustainable intensification” are not enough, and while the Zero Draft document talks about green jobs, there is nothing about better working conditions (and returns) for self employed farmers.

This suggests that a “green economy” is only about the “money economy”. Vandana Shiva points out that sustainable family farming is about much more than money. It is about decent rural livelihoods, about the management of biodiversity and about democracy and freedom. La Via Campesina is arguing that ecosystems cannot be treated as economic goods. And Olivier de Schutter is making the case to establish a mechanism of accountability regarding the right to food.

Recognition

"The Zero Draft is a minus twenty draft" Vandana Shiva, Indian scientist and environmental activist

The key message to be taken to Rio is that sustainable family farming needs recognition. This was the conclusion of a recent global meeting of small-scale farmers’ organisations at IFAD in Rome. They are not alone.

All over the world there is a growing consensus among organisations of family farmers, scientists, civil society groups and influential actors within the UN institutions that sustainable family farming is key to the future of the planet.

Major global problems – hunger, climate change and environmental degradation – cannot be solved without recognising and supporting family farmers.

The momentum of alliances that support this view is stronger than ever before. Yet, in spite of tireless lobbying, campaigning and dialogues, it is not clear how strong this message will come through in the outcome document of the Rio conference. There is still fierce resistance from numerous individuals and institutions who do not see sustainable family farming as having any potential. Even within the UN institutions that do support sustainable family farming there are very different perspectives.

Some within these institutions still see large-scale agricultural systems as the best option, believing that “low input, by definition, means low output”. Others attempt to subvert the notion of sustainable innovation in agriculture by advocating nanotechnologies and genetic modification. Whom will policy-makers (at Rio and after) listen to? And who will benefit from their political support?

In the fields and in the streets

"Sustainable family farming is the core of a green economy but it is not mentioned in the Zero Draft. It’s really a joke"
Ulrich Hoffmann, UNCTAD

The Outcome Document of the Rio+20 Conference will provide a general policy framework for several years. The outcomes of Rio will not be binding on governments, so the “follow through” will depend on the voices and actions of the people in the streets and in the fields: farmers, consumers and civil society.

Influential thinkers like Ulrich Hoffmann, Head of the Trade and Sustainable Agriculture Section at UNCTAD, believe that the needed paradigm shift has already started: many positive developments are happening in the sustainable and organic agriculture spheres, millions and millions of farmers are practicing and developing sustainable methods every day. But this shift requires more time and more formal support.

A Brazilian civil servant, involved in the organisation of the civil society event that will take place parallel to the main conference, said this with conviction: “the major decisions are made in the streets”. Many farmers already made many decisions in their fields. Change is under way, and we have to document and share the experience. Rio+20 has to be owned by the people, not just by policymakers.

Your voice is important

Some of our readers may travel to Rio, but most of you will not be there. Even so you can make an important contribution. If you have a message to share please send it to us. We will compile and publish all the messages to Rio that reach us, and take them to Rio.

And… do send us your best photos of family farmers, women, men and youth, in your area. We want to show the many faces of family farmers to the people that will be meeting in Rio. We hope to get thousands of pictures and to paste them on a very long wall! Send your contributions to info@farmingmatters.org

Text: Edith van Walsum and Marta Dabrowska

The post Sustainable family farming needs recognition appeared first on Ileia.

Most frequently, smallholders lack sufficient access to information, timely analysis and feasible, legal and technical proposals that can support their “voice”. As a result, their position is weak – especially when compared to other economic and political interest groups, such as agricultural companies, importers and exporters of commodities, agro-processors, retailers, or even consumers.

Yet smallholder farmers are important. There are millions of them worldwide, and they play a key role in household and national food supply and economic development. At the same time there is a huge concentration of poverty in rural areas.

Decision-making on agricultural and food security issues often favours the interests of consumers, and the interests of smallholders are rarely considered in regional and national discussions. This reflects the way in which food security policies are usually responses to short-term problems, rarely looking at the medium to long term development of the agriculture sector – further aggravating a situation of food instability and insecurity. Strengthening the voice of smallholders can help to re-balance these policies and interventions in ways that provide smallholders with incentives to invest in their farms and in value-adding activities, thereby structurally improving food security in both rural and urban areas.

ESFIM in Peru
 
Peru has a strong advocacy platform called CONVEAGRO, an influential alliance of farmers’ organisations, NGOs and research institutes. The majority of the involved farmers’ organisations do not engage in collective marketing services, although some of them do. This group wanted CONVEAGRO to pay more attention to economic issues and to make them more effective at advocacy. To this end they formed a sub-group that partnered with ESFIM. During the first ESFIM workshop in 2009, they identified three priority areas where research support was needed: government procurement procedures; quality requirements and internal control systems, and management challenges in collective marketing.
 
The platform undertook a critical reflection on the government procurement policies. Peru has an extensive legal framework related to government procurement from small-scale farmers. The most prominent programme is PRONAA, a national initiative that procures for nutritional programmes, which has the explicit mission of acquiring products from smallscale farmers.
 
However, reality is more complex, with middlemen brokering deals with buyers and collecting false certificates that show that farmers supplied them with the products. As a result of this and other malpractices, many farmers’ associations and cooperatives are excluded. In addition, government programmes take a long time to pay and the procedures are complicated. Farmers’ organisations find it hard to get access to capital because of their lack of collateral.
 
To analyse this, and further develop the advocacy agenda on government procurement policies, in-depth case-studies were commissioned to examine successful experiences, where organised producer groups have managed to sell their produce to government procurement programmes. These studies are now being used by CONVEAGRO and others to lobby in favour of changes that will give smallholders better access to government programmes and as learning material for organisations that want to benefit from this market.

Defining the agenda

The ESFIM programme is designed to tackle this. It seeks to reinforce the capacities of farmers’ organisations to articulate their members’ needs and interests, through a process of collaborative research.

The identification of specific research priorities and strategies is determined at a national level, usually through a series of participative workshops, involving key organisations and their members. These workshops are enriched with the input of government officials and NGOs, helping participants identify critical and strategic issues.

This process of setting priorities is designed to maximise learning within all the participating organisations. With funds from IFAD and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, AGRINATURA and local consultants have provided research support and helped participating organisations to refine their proposals. Local research institutes and independent consultants are subcontracted by farmers’ organisations to develop the thematic issues discussed in the national workshop.

At the moment, activities are in full swing in ten countries. In the Philippines, for example, the aim is to establish an Agricultural Commodity Exchange System to improve the co-ordination mechanisms between stakeholders throughout the country.

In Benin, specific attention is being given to maize value chains, aiming to make them “more competitive, sustainable and inclusive”. The National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi is working towards improving the seed supply system. The ESFIM website (www.esfim.org) presents news and results from each of the participating countries.

Coming up

ESFIM intends to scale-out its approach to other countries, and link these national experiences in evidence-based advocacy at the regional and global level, through regional networks of farmers’ organisations.

Key findings and experiences were recently presented at the Farmers’ Forum organised by IFAD in Rome, and will be discussed extensively in an international seminar planned for mid-2012.

ESFIM wants to stimulate farmers’ organisations to exchange their experiences on advocacy strategies that empower smallholders. This exchange will not be restricted to the organisations that are working with ESFIM funding, but will also include other similar or complementary organisations, initiatives and activities.

We plan to use Farming Matters as a platform to facilitate this exchange and outreach. More news in the coming issues!

Text: Giel Ton

Giel Ton (giel.ton@wur.nl) a senior researcher in the Agricultural Research Institute (LEI), part of Wageningen UR, is the ESFIM Programme Coordinator. More information about the programme and about the participating organisations can be found online at www.esfim.org

The post A farmer-driven programme to reinforce advocacy capacity appeared first on Ileia.

Iran: Neem in the Gulf

Researchers have identified more than 2000 plant species which, because of their specific properties, are or can be used as part of an Integrated Pest Management programme.

Their use, however, is not new. More than a thousand years ago, Persians were using pyrethrum species, and in particular species of the genus Chrysanthemum, to control the presence of insects in their fields and also against lice (preparing what is still known as “Persian powder”). Iranians are now also benefitting from the neem tree.

Some twenty years ago, neem trees were seen in the Qeshm and Kish islands in the Persian Gulf, and also in the Bandar-Abbas county (all of them part of the Hormozgan province). Since then, they have spread in these areas, and farmers have started to see why this tree is known as the “village pharmacy” in India, or why others refer to it as “the tree to solve global problems”.

Researchers are now exploring whether neem can be cultivated in the country’s other provinces, beyond the Persian Gulf, and provide the basis for a new Persian miracle.

More information?
Contact Ahmad Mahdavi at the University of Tehran / Sustainable Agriculture and Environment.
E-mail: biomahda@gmail.com

Brazil: Trees and predators

The presence of trees has a positive effect on many crops, whether this is because of their contribution to soil fertility, the retention of water, or because of the resulting microclimate. More trees, in general, also means more insects, birds and bats, resulting in higher pollination rates and therefore in higher yields.

Do trees also help in terms of biological control? This was one of the questions posted by researchers at the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture in São Paulo, Brazil. The incidence of the leaf miner (Leucoptera coffeella) is high in most coffee fields in the Pontal do Paranapanema region.

As part of the Café con Floresta project, small-scale farmers in this region are encouraged to grow coffee within an agroforestry system. The presence of trees in their one-hectare fields has encouraged a dramatic increase in the number of miner predators (wasps of the genus Brachygastra, Polistes or Polybia) in their fields.

Working together with farmers, researchers have also found a direct relationship between the number of tree species present in each field and the number of parasitoids (and a lower incidence of Leucoptera). The message seems to be clear: the greater a farm’s biodiversity, the better the balance between the species living in it.

More information?
Contact Paulo Rogerio Lopes and his colleagues at the Luiz de Queiroz College of
Agriculture.
E-mail: biocafelopes@bol.com.br

Senegal: Better recipees

In many parts of the world, neem oil is used as a safe, cheap, and effective alternative to pesticides. In many cases, all it takes is to emulsify several spoonfuls of neem oil in a few litres of soapy water, and spraying the mix. Yet, many farmers feel that its efficiency could improve.

Farmers in the Bakel region in Senegal joined a group of researchers with similar concerns. Together, they looked at ways for grinding enough of the ripe seeds to ensure sufficient oil in the mix. Another improvement they identified was to make sure that the mix is soapy when sprayed. This guarantees that the soap, a potent insecticide on its own, ifs fully functional.

Yet another was to use the mix before the chemicals in the neem are degraded by the soap. The options included adding specific ingredients, such as onion or garlic extracts, that have also been shown to help repel insects. The picture that emerged is broad. With or without neem, farmers have the capacity to produce cheap and effective insecticides. It is scientists who have to match the local knowledge and local possibilities.

This project was conducted through USAID and the National Cooperative Business Association.

More information?
Please write to Paul Wojtkowski.
E-mail: trigo123@hotmail.com

Ethiopia: More hives, more bees

The Tigray region in Ethiopia consists of several different ecological zones, has a large and diverse flora, and therefore has a huge potential for beekeeping.

More and more farmers in this region are interested in beekeeping, seeing it as an environmentally friendly business – especially given the relative lack of farmland and the rewarding results which beekeepers have seen in the past few years. Yet there are also challenges, like finding ways to market the produce and identifying the specific techniques for increasing the number of hives in a given area.

The Relief Society of Tigray, REST, is working with many different co-operatives in the region to tackle these difficulties, organising a series of capacity-building courses and providing technical advice. Rearing centres for Queen bees have been established to respond to the growing demand. These also serve as research centres where local adaptations of the “splitting method” are tried.

Helping others by increasing the number of hives is now becoming profitable: different co-operatives, such as the Mayilingo Honey Processing and Marketing Co-operative, are now earning higher incomes from their bees than from their honey.

More information?
Please contact Abraha Lemlem at the Relief Society of Tigray, Ethiopia.
E-mail: labraham356@yahoo.com

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