A Viable Food Future: Updated and Revised Version November 2011
A Viable Food Future: Updated and Revised Version November 2011
A Viable Food Future: Updated and Revised Version November 2011
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The Development Fund is an independent Norwegian non-governmental organisation (NGO). We support environment and development projects through our local partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America. We believe that the fight against poverty must be based on sustainable management of natural resources in local communities.
Contents
Key messages Process and acknowledgement I. IntroductIon II. tHE MuLtIFunctIonALItY oF AGrIcuLturE Who are the small farmers? Women play a major role III. IS It PoSSIBLE to FEEd 9 BILLIon PEoPLE? IV. unSuStAInABLE PrActIcES In AGrIcuLturE depletion of ecosystems and natural resources V. EcoLoGIcAL AGrIcuLturE: Key paths to a viable future Ecological agriculture is widely practised Ecological agriculture is based on science and lived experience Ecological agriculture expands and builds on our choices Ecological agriculture can build strong economies Ecological agriculture is key to address climate change Ecological agriculture: based on values of equity, justice and respect for the earth and its people VI. tHE WAY ForWArd Food sovereignty Wealth and the development of new indicators Global governance of food and agriculture Some recommendations rEFErEncES 50 51 51 53 56 60 65 6 8 9 13 14 16 17 26 27 39 40 40 44 45 48
A Viable Food Future, Part I, introduces the concepts of ecological agriculture in the third millennium. Part II looks more in-depth into some of the issues introduced in Part I, giving additional information on on-going initiatives, existing knowledge and paths ahead. It also contains a reference list and recommended literature on the main themes.
Key messages
WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO IGNORE THAT The food, fuel and economic crises are connected and related to an unprecedented ecological crisis of the earth We cannot continue the overexploitation and destruction of natural resources. Our ecological footprint now overshoots the earths biocapacity by more than 40percent. Hunger is not acceptable Almost 1 billion people suffer from hunger, yet enough food to eradicate hunger is produced in the world. Food production must increase in the coming years. Small-scale ecological food producers can feed a population of 9 billion people or more. Unsustainable practices of food production1 are no longer an option Industrial food systems pollute soils, water and air, and contribute to climate change. Industrial food systems impoverish millions of small-scale food producers, creating increasingly bigger waves of poverty, hunger and migration. The present food system destroys peoples health Unhealthy foods and diets cause obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, affecting 2billion people and serious pandemics are likely to occur in the near future. The use of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and antimicrobials can have enormous consequences on the health of humans and other living organisms. We are at a crossroads and have the opportunity to embrace a different direction Food systems that produce enough and healthy food, create vibrant communities and fair economies, reduce climate change and sustain the planet are possible. We need to shift our thinking and actions towards favouring agricultural2 practices that maintain and enhance ecosystem services and natural resources, while producing sufficient and nutritious food. There is an existing wealth that has gone unnoticed, unsupported, even marginalised and ignored. More resilient and sustainable models of food production exist. They have evolved and adapted for millennia in traditional forms of agriculture and are more relevant than ever as viable tools in alleviating hunger and unemployment worldwide. They can be combined with latest science on sustainable forms of production. Field research has demonstrated that at least double digit increases in production can be obtained in developing countries without using chemical inputs like synthetic fertilizer and pesticides.
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In this report food production includes harvesting and gathering if nothing else is specified or clear from the content. In this report agriculture includes cropping, livestock husbandry, pastoralism, fisheries, forestry and other natural uses for food production, gathering and harvesting in urban and rural areas if nothing else is specified of clear from the content.
It is possible to produce enough food while applying agroecological principles The high productivity of small farms in terms of output per unit of area has been demonstrated, and sustainability-enhancing practices provide evidence of the potential to increase production and, at the same time, preserve the environment and cooling the planet. State of the art research on soil biology and the beneficial effects of soils rich in micro-organisms, presents a significant and still untapped potential for resilient production systems. Shifting towards resilience and sustainability implies also a shift towards democratic access and management of resources There are 3 billion small-scale food producers worldwide (including their families) and they are the ones producing 70percent of the worlds food. Policies supporting small-scale producers and transferring decision-making power to them on the use and management of resources have a big potential to help create vibrant communities endowed not only with food but also vivid economies, well-being and the possibility to plan for a long-term future. A shift in support and regulations is necessary for viable food production Stricter regulations of industrial agriculture are needed to shift away from damaging production systems. The real external costs (environmental and social) must be internalised in the cost of production. Small-scale ecological food production must be actively supported and promoted. The orientation of policies, support and research must be more innovative and creative in the search for approaches that blend traditional millennia-tested knowledge and state-of-the art contemporary knowledge adapted to the changing conditions.
I. IntroductIon
The aim of this report is to provide scientifically based facts, arguments and ideas for what is needed to meet some of the most important challenges in the world today. This report is about food and agriculture, it sees food as more than calories that fill peoples stomachs, and it sees agriculture as more than producing and harvesting food. Our way of life, our well-being, our culture and interactions with the people we love and care for are intimately linked to how and where food is produced, what is produced, how we buy it, how we prepare it and how we eat it. The future of humanity depends on how food is and will be produced and provided. As actors or observers, we witness with both our minds and hearts, the domino of unfolding crises. In a relatively short time, we have had the whole range of possible alerts to the health of our planet. The food crisis in 20072009 increased the number of people suffering from hunger by 150 million, reaching, for the first time in human history 1 billion people with between 20 and 30 thousand peopledying of hunger related causes every day. As this is written, in August 2010, grain prices are again increasing dramatically, Russia has stopped all grain exports to secure enough food for its own population, floods and droughts are threatening food production in many parts of the world. All of this could add up to a new food crisis, with a dramatic increase in the number of people suffering from hunger. The climate crisis together with other environmental crises such as loss of biodiversity and soil fertility, the overuse of water and the extinction of fish stocks, already are having devastating effects on people and the environment. The fuel crisis in 2008 led to steep price increases, serving as a dramatic reminder that the oil age will come to an end within a few decades and a warning of how this will affect the economy and food production, if green alternatives are not developed in time. The financial crisis of 2008 and the economic crisis of 20092010 pushed hundreds of millions of people into unemployment, led to dramatic reductions in social welfare in many countries, while billions of dollars in government funds were used to support banks and financial institutions. The poverty crisis continues to affect about half the worlds population who are living in poverty, and more than one out of five persons living in extreme poverty.
As crises increase in number and depth, they effect increasingly bigger segments of the world population and show the limitation of our structural policies and practices. Individuals and entire communities real people are directly suffering while the choreography of the international community attempts to reassure and patch up with urgent fixes. This report recognises that these are not short-lived crises. They are symptoms of unsustainable modern economy, industry and food production practices. It is now clear that humanity is at a crossroads and that it is urgent to rethink the shape of our very existence on earth. Healthy food systems are at the hart of a viable future for humankind. Food production at a crossroads Agriculture at a Crossroads the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), the most comprehensive study ever made of agricultural science and technology, reached a prophetic conclusion: Business as usual is no longer an option. The IAASTD co-chair, Hans Herren, suggest to reformulate our questions as follows: How do we rethink our global food systems so that they can feed people, create healthy communities and economies and sustain the planet?3 IAASTD was initiated by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). About 400 scientists, experts and development specialists worked on it for four years. In 2008, 58 governments approved the Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report. When the Global Footprint Network published Ecological Wealth of Nations in April 2010, it reached a similar conclusion in its calculation of the earths biocapacity, or
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Hans Herren, co-chair IAASTAD Supporting a True Agricultural Revolution 12 May 2010, Ottawa Canada
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the level at which society uses natures assets. It compared humanitys ecological footprint, meaning the demand that consumption puts on the biosphere, with the earths biocapacity, meaning the biospheres ability to meet this demand, resulting in a kind of bank statement for the planet. The figures are staggering. According to its estimates, our ecological footprint now overshoots the earths biocapacity by more than 40percent, a foreboding reality. This overshooting is only possible for a limited time. We only have one planet. We can eat into our ecological savings temporarily but it cannot go on forever. There just are not enough resources in our fisheries, forests, fields or atmosphere to continue on the same course of depletion. Of course, there is a choice: follow the same course in the direction of collapse, or take a new course, one that works with nature, not against it, in an effort to secure human well-being for both current and future generations. What kind of food production? As the social and environmental externalities of industrialized agriculture are being videly documented, it is increasingly realized that this agricultural model which seemed so promising will not be able to reduce hunger and poverty. In reality, industrial food production is highly damaging to human health, pollutes the soil, the water and the air, contributes to climate change, kills fauna and flora, and reduces biological diversity and the fertility of soils. In addition, there is a serious concern in the scientific community about this model being the crucible of potentially devastating pandemics. Industrial agriculture also has pushed millions of peasants into poverty and migration, and become the root of conflicts and unrest, while the economic system has failed to provide food for those who cannot afford to buy it or who lack access to resources to be able to produce food. Yet, it is possible to take a more sustainable path to development, possibly to reverse the present trend that focuses on industrial agriculture and, instead, preserve and rebuild the rich fabric of dynamic communities and societies coevolving in nature-rich and culture-diverse territories. Around us, in the villages, in the cities, in the urban neighbourhoods, within the communities in the countryside there is a wealth of knowledge, natural and human resources which are de facto those that are feeding most of the people in the world today. These resources could be managed differently, coupling traditional and contemporary knowledge, with new practices still to be invented, with a step-by-step transition towards more viable ways of using them. Instead of constantly ignoring existing initiatives, marginalising them, ghettoing them and letting magnificent knowledge-rich, labour-intensive agriculture systems go extinct, policies and public and private research and investments could be reoriented to take advantage of this existing wealth. Hunger can be eradicated Close to 1 billion people are suffering from hunger the highest number in human history. Hunger is not a fatality. It is possible to end hunger and halt the agrarian crisis. Let this be the last era of peak hunger, and let the countryside be a better place to live. Time has come to unleash a potential loaded with benefits, benefits for the environment, for the climate, for the local communities, merging proven cutting-edge knowledge of ecological and traditional agricultures that have survived for millennia with state-of-the-art science oriented towards the well-being of the world communities. With solidarity and hope, with young generations taking over, making succession and success possible.
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The report Although some of the background for this report may seem grim, the main message in it is very positive and optimistic. Above all, the report focuses on agriculture. Pastoralism, gathering and fisheries are included, but are not looked upon in depth. This Part I is accompanied by a more extended Part II which gives additional information on on-going initiatives, existing knowledge and paths ahead, with more detailed descriptions of selected fields including chapters on fisheries, livestock and pastoralism. The report does not attempt to deal with all policies and actions needed to change the dominant course of development in food and agriculture into a social, environmental and economic sustainable course. Instead, it focuses on which models of production should be supported and promoted, and which should not. In 2009, social movements, NGOs and individuals from all over the world together developed the working document Policies and actions to eradicate hunger and poverty (see references). It proposes comprehensive policies for facing hunger and poverty issues. It is meant to stimulate discussions among decision makers, professionals working with food, agriculture, environment and development, activists and individuals, and lead development changes in a direction of a viable future for humankind.
DeFining hUnger
Undernutrition1 is the result of prolonged low levels of food intake and/or low absorption of food consumed. Generally applied to energy (or protein and energy) deficiency, but it may also relate to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Undernourishment or chronic hunger is the status of persons, whose food intake regularly provides less than their minimum energy requirements. The average minimum energy requirement per person is about 1800 kcal per day. The exact requirement is determined by a persons age, body size, activity level and physiological conditions such as illness, infection, pregnancy and lactation. Malnutrition is a broad term for a range of conditions that hinder good health, caused by inadequate or unbalanced food intake or from poor absorption of food consumed. It refers to both undernutrition (food deprivation) and overnutrition (excessive food intake in relation to energy requirements). chronic hunger. People who are chronically hungry are un1 http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/
dernourished. They dont eat enough to get the energy they need to lead active lives. Their undernourishment makes it hard to study, work or otherwise perform physical activities. Undernourishment is particularly harmful for women and children. Undernourished children do not grow as quickly as healthy children. Mentally, they may develop more slowly. Constant hunger weakens the immune system and makes them more vulnerable to diseases and infections. Mothers living with constant hunger often give birth to underweight and weak babies, and are themselves facing increased risk of death. Every day, millions of people around the world eat only the bare minimum of food to keep themselves alive. Every night, they go to bed not certain whether there will be enough food to eat tomorrow. This uncertainty about where the next meal will come from is called food insecurity. FAO defines food insecurity as: A situation that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life.
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social
economic
income
Food production
valuation environmental services
Marketing Trade
environmental
Source: IAASTD: Global Summary for Decision Makers. www.agassessment.org/
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Source: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/es/Hunger_Portal/Hunger_Map_2010b.pdf
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To the almost 1 billion undernourished we must add the fact that, each year, our planets population increases by about 74 million people. From 7 billion in 2011, population will reach 8.3 billion in 2030 and, by 2050, the number will be 9,1 billion, according to the UN Population Division.7 The Right to Food is a basic human right, but with the reality of the looming population growth, can this right be fulfilled for all? Is it possible to produce enough to feed everyone? Feeding people does not refer to the passive action of handing out food. Eradicating hunger is about much more than making sure food is available and accessible to all. Eradicating hunger begins with preserving and creating viable communities where people have control over their own lives and livelihoods. Then it is about producing food producing enough food and producing the right food. There is enough food today Adding up the numbers of todays global food production tells a positive story that there is more than enough food produced to provide every person on the planet with an adequate diet. The edible crop harvest in the world is more than 4600 kcal per every person per day.8 However a lot of the food gets lost after harvesting, in use as fodder and in waste (see box). Available food per person increased almost 18.6 percent between the mid-1960s and 2007, to 2796 kcal9 per day per person (latest figures available as of October 2011), which meets the needs of an average adult man.
7 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospect: The 2008 Revision. Population database. http://esa.un.org/unpp/p2k0data.asp 8 Lundqvist, J., C. de Fraiture and D. Molden. Saving Water: From Field to Fork Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain. SIWI Policy Brief. SIWI, 2008. 9 World Health Organization (WHO) and FAO data, www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index.html ; http://faostat.fao.org/Portals/_Faostat/documents/pdf/world.pdf; http://faostat/ DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=368&lang=en#ancor ; http://faostat.fao.org/site/368/DesktopDefault. aspx?PageID=368#ancor 24/10/2011
A schematical summary of the amount of food produced, globally, at Source: Lundqvist, J., C. de Fraiture and D. Molden. Saving Water: From Field to Fork field level and estimates of the losses, conversions and wastage in the Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain. SIWI Policy Brief. SIWI, 2008. food chain. Source: SIWI Policy Brief: Saving Water: From Field to Fork
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Yet, there is no automatic relation between increased availability of food and reduction of hunger (see box). Between 20072009, the number of people suffering from hunger increased about 150 million a dramatic increase not linked to any decrease in food production, but rather to a steep increase in world food prices, mainly caused by increased oil prices, speculation and competition between food and fuel crops. It is well known that food is neither produced nor distributed equally around the world. Yet, calories available per person in developing countries average only about 15 percent lower than world average and 20 percent lower than in industrialised countries, so food availability and distribution do not explain the hunger situation. How much must food production increase? The declaration of the World Summit on Food Security held at FAO in November 2009, stated that: To feed a world population expected to surpass 9 billion in 2050, it is estimated that agricultural output will have to increase by 70 percent between now and then.10
This 70 percent figure is now the most common figure used when it comes to estimating how much food production must increase in the next 40 years. However, others, such as the Norwegian government, estimate the need to double food production by 2050 to meet population demands (Norwegian Government budget proposal, 2010). These calculations are based on projections on current trends in consumption and population growth, expected to increase by about 32 percent from now to 2050. However, the projections mainly consider the increased intake of calories, including increased meat consumption, while there are several other factors that need to be considered. What we eat matters. It is both correct and incorrect to state that enough food is produced today to feed everyone in the world. It depends on what we eat. For instance, meat consumption in the USA is about 120 kg per year per person, world average is 43kg, and in India, it is 5kg. A lot of the meat production in the USA is dependent on grain which is fed to the animals. Thus, USA grain consumption is 800 kg per person per year, while in India, it is 200 kg. This means that current grain production provides enough for 2.5 billion people with a USA diet, but 10 billion people with an Indian diet (FAOSTAT, November 2008). Food losses and food waste.11 Studies on global food losses in high/medium income countries and low income countries requested by FAO and carried out in 20102011 suggest that one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year. Much more food is wasted int he industrialized world. Estimates are per capita food waste in Europe and North-America of 95-115 kg /year and in Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia 6-11 kg/year. In developing countries more than 40% of the food losses occur at post harvest and processing levels, while in industrialized countries, more than 40% of the food losses occur at retail and consumer levels. Food waste at consumer level in industrialized countries (222 million ton) is almost as high as the total net food production in subSaharan Africa (230 million ton).
10 FAO. 2009. Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security 11 Global Food Losses and Food Waste, SIK, FAO 2011
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Food waste. Industrialized countries waste enormous amounts of food. Tristam Stuart, author of the book Waste, calculated that the hunger of 1.5 billion people could be alleviated by eradicating the food wasted by British consumers and American retailers, food services and households.12 In its publication Who will feed us?, ETCgroup found that in the USA, waste rose from 28percent of the total food supply in 1974 to 40percent in 2009 an average per capita waste of 1400 kcal a day,13 which is more than half of the calories needed for an adult person per day. How much more food will be needed to meet the needs of a population that will be 32 percent larger by 2050 depends on the factors above. If industrialised countries reduce their meat consumption, if post-harvest losses can be reduced, then there will not be a need for the 70100 percent increase in food production that has been estimated. With more sustainable food production systems and consumption habits, a 2050 percent increase could be sufficient. From food exporters to food importers The majority of the 50 least developed countries and the majority of all developing countries were net food exporters until the 1980s when they became net food importers. There are clear political reasons for this. Developing countries were forced by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), other finance institutions and rich countries to open up for import of highly subsidised food from rich countries, mainly USA and EU, and to produce cash crops, such as coffee, tea and flowers, for export. Known as structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), they also required cutting down government spending in areas such as extension services for farmers, ending price guaranties for farmers and consumers, and closing public food storage facilities, as well as cutting down on public expenses for education and health care. There is a need for many developing countries to produce more food to end hunger. They have natural and human capacities to do so, yet political and economic structures, poverty, and rules such as the WTO Agreement on Agriculture make it difficult. It is also often not a matter of national priority. The Zero Hunger Project, initiated by Brazils President Luiz Inzio Lula da Silva in 2003 which is credited with contributing to a 27 percent reduction in poverty in the country, is a good example of what dedicated leaders can achieve.
12 www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/08/food-waste 13 ETC-group: Who will feed us? with reference to Economist, Environment: A Hill of Beans, November 28 2009.
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Hungry food producers Half of the almost 1 billion people suffering from hunger are small-scale farmers and their families. If they could increase their own production to provide enough healthy food for themselves, it would be the most successful reduction of hunger in human history. There are many reasons why so many small-scale farmers cannot feed themselves, and any attempt to simplify the explanation would do a disservice to the situation. The same is true with identifying ways to change the situation. A whole range of policies and actions must be put in place, many of which are spelled out in the workingdocument Policies and actions to eradicate hunger and malnutrition (see reference list). Improving farmers access to and control over resources, such as land, seeds, water and credit, is the most important. Improvement of storage facilities, infrastructure and local markets are also among the most important goals as well as access to information that will help smallholders improve their own production with ecological methods. Small-scale ecological agriculture can feed the world Small-scale food producers produce at least 70percent of the food consumed in the world today and have a huge potential for increasing this production even more. Large-scale studies show potential production increases from 79 to 132 percent, while small-scale studies have shown the potential for a fivefold increase in production (see box and chapter 5). The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, presented his report on agroecology and small scale farming14 to the Human Rights Council in March 201115 which was presented by the press under the title: Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production in 10 Years, says new UN report.16 The report emphasizes the fact that: To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming
14 De Schutter, Olivier. 2010. Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food to the Human Rights Council Sixteenth session Agenda item 3 (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/ docs/A-HRC-16-49.pdf ) 15 http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/press_releases/20110308_agroecology-report-pr_en.pdf 16 http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/press_releases/20110308_agroecology-report-pr_en.pdf
techniques available, and Todays scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments. In the report, the UN Special Rapporteur makes reference to scientific research that shows the high productivity of agroecological and other forms of ecological agriculture. A good example is the research commissioned by the Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project of the UK Government17 which reviewed 40 projects in 20 African countries where sustainable intensification was developed between 2000 and 2010.By early 2010, these projects had documented benefits for 10.39 million farmers and their families and improvements on approximately 12.75 million hectares. Crop yields more than doubled on average (increasing 2.13-fold) over a period of 3-10 years18 Hans Herren, co-chair of IAASTD, states very clearly there should be no doubt about the capacity for ecological farmers to feed the world: The evidence in support of low input, ecological or conservation agriculture is undeniable, from the IAASTD, to the Union of Concerned Scientists to a recent UNCTAD report that states organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional productive systems, and is more likely to be sustainable in the long term. And evidence that sustainable, ecologically based agriculture can provide the nutrition and income to the billion plus poor and hungry of today, and the 2 billion newcomers by 2050, is now well proven.19
17 Foresight, The Future of Food and Farming (2011). Final Project Report. The Government Office for Science, London. 18 De Schutter. 2010. Op.cit. 19 Hans Herren, op.cit.
1 http://www.nff.org.au/farm-facts.html 2 Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, At a Glance, 2010. 3 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Natural Resource Management on Australian Farms 2006-07
4 Australian Government Department of Climate Change, National Inventory By Economic Sector 2006 5 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Natural Resource Management on Australian Farms 2006-07 6 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Year Book Australia, 2009-10 7 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Natural Resource Management on Australian Farms 2006-07
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This premise is usually overlooked in discussions on how to end hunger and feed future generations, even though it has been tirelessly repeated by the small-scale farmers themselves, as well as many NGOs and scientists. The fact that increased support to ecological agriculture can substantially increase food production has to be the principal strategy of any move from unsustainable industrial agriculture to a viable, multifaceted small-scale agriculture that can feed future populations. (See box for further documentation) Can industrial agriculture also feed us? Large-scale industrial agriculture produces only around 30 percent of the food consumed globally, while small-scale food producers produce at least 70 percent (ETC-group. Who will feed us?). Expansion of industrial food production on a scale necessary for meeting the current demand of the majority of the worlds population, not to mention the extra 2.2 billion who will join the ranks by 2050, will cause enormous environmental problems. This is explained in the next chapter. Industrial agriculture can be transformed Confronted with the increased deterioration of natural and social environments, more and more producers are now reorienting their production systems towards achieving greater sustainability. Large plantations in countries such as Chile, Argentina and Brazil are now being rethought with a different paradigm based on circular systems with reduced input and energy consumption rather than focusing solely on linear approaches and on increasing throughput. Though the diversity of crops and the integration animal-crop may be less obvious than it is on small plots of land, the same overall principles apply. In countries like Australia, New Zealand, United States and the United Kingdom, interest has grown to transition towards more holistic systems such as permaculture and agroecological systems. Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature and it is being applied at a large scale. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs; its a system of design where each element supports and feeds other elements, ultimately aiming at systems that are virtually self-sustaining and into which humans fit as an integral part. Mollison has described permaculture as a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single project system.
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Source: FAO 2011. The State of the Worlds Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW). http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/022/mb213e.pdf
medium farms plunged into crisis and were eliminated, adding to the growing rural exodus, unemployment, and rural and urban poverty. Developing countries. The situation in industrialised countries is very different from the situation small-scale farmers meet in many developing countries. There are no, or very few, expanding industry and service sectors in most developing countries. It is not possible for most peasants to find other employment when they are pushed out of food production. They are pushed into more severe poverty and urban slums.
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Expansion of agriculture is the most important cause of deforestation, especially in areas cleared for livestock, soya and agrofuel crops. In the humid tropics, expansion of the different forms of agriculture and animal husbandry is responsible for nearly 85percent of deforestation (Lanly, 2004). According to the key findings of FAOs most comprehensive forest review to date, around 13 million ha of forests were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes each year between 2000 and 2010 as compared to around 16 million ha per year during the 1990s (FAO. 2010a). This forest loss compares to losing an area the size of Greece each year for ten years. Land and soil degradation Land degradation can take a number of forms, including nutrient depletion, soil erosion, salinisation, agrochemical pollution, vegetative degradation from overgrazing and the cutting of forests for farmland. According to International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC), 46.4percent of soil is experiencing an important decrease in productivity, and another 15.1percent of soil no longer can be used for farming as its biological functions have been seriously depleted and it would take large investments to restore them. About 9.3million ha of soil (0.5 percent) is irreparably damaged and no longer has any biological function.20 In Africa, 128 million ha 26 percent of its degraded soils are classified as strongly or extremely degraded, meaning that the terrain would require major investments and engineering works for reclamation, while another 5 million ha are irreclaimable. Overgrazing is the most important cause of soil degradation in Africa, accounting for 49percent of the area, followed by agricultural activities (24 percent), deforestation (14percent) and over-exploitation of vegetative cover (13 percent) (WHO and UNEP. 2010). A document21 based on the full report of the The State of the Worlds Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW)22 was presented at the FAO Conference (37th Session, June-July 2011) and contains a a map of the global distribution of risks associated with main agricultural systems. It also highlights the need to focus on those production systems where scarcity of land and water resources are further constrained by unsustainable agricultural practices and presents a table with a broad typology of the land and water systems requiring priority attention. Water use Water, a key factor in agriculture, is affected by both climate change (GECHS and The Development FundNorway, 2008) and overuse, which threaten future food production in many parts of the world. Climate change makes the weather less predictable and more variable rain might come early or late, it might be much more or less than normal, and extremes such as droughts and floods come more frequently. Overuse of water is a rapidly increasing problem. In many countries,
20 Information from www.goodplanet.info/eng/Pollution/Soils/Soil-degradation/(theme)/1662 21 http://www.fao.org/bodies/conf/c2011/en/ 22 the full report will be released end Nov 2011 and available at: http://www.fao.org/nr/solaw/solaw-home/ en/
lOss OF DiversiTy
Only about 150 plant species are grown commercially around the world. Of these, global crop production concentrates on just 12 of them, namely maize, rice, wheat, soybeans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas and plantains, sorghum, cassava, millet, sunflowers and canola. Some estimate that 75 percent of the biodiversity in agriculture was lost during the last 50 years of the twentieth century, and up to 90 percent of the most common species (ETC-group, GRAIN and ITDG. 2002). This loss of diversity is also happening in domesticated animal breeds used for food and agriculture. According to FAO. there are 6536 local breeds, of which1080 are transboundary breeds for food and agriculture. Of all the known species, 9 percent already have become extinct, 20 percent are at risk and 35 percent not at risk, while the status of the other 36 percent is unknown (FAO. 2007c). The Stern Report states that around 1540% of species will face extinction if there is a 2C increase in average global temperatures (Stern Review, 2006).
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more water is extracted from rivers, lakes and groundwater sources than the inflow. This situation cannot go on forever (see box). Fish stocks Achim Steiner, Director of UNEP, has warned that commercial fishing might become history within 50 years.This is no science-fiction scenario. This can happen within the lifetime of a child born today.23 Stocks of the top ten species are fully exploited or overexploited. Overall, 80 percent of the worlds fish stocks for which assessment information is available are reported as fully exploited or overexploited, requiring effective and precautionary management (FAO. 2009d). Only about 20 percent of stocks were moderately exploited or underexploited with perhaps a possibility of producing more (FAO. 2009d). A widely reported, though controversial, study by Worm, et al., predicts that if present trends continue, most fish stock will collapse by the middle of the century. (Worm et al., 2006). Energy use For thousands of years, agriculture has produced food and fodder by relying only on renewable resources. Now, the introduction of industrial methods has turned agriculture into an energy consuming system dependent on fossil energy. One of the huge challenges for agriculture is to reduce the use of fossil fuel and other non-renewable resources. The new industrial farming has replaced thought-intensive technologies in use for so many millennia with fossil fuel energy-intensive technology. There are different calculations of the energy used in different food systems. Some estimate that it takes industrial food systems an average of 1015 calories to produce and distribute one calorie of food (GRAIN, Seedling, July 2007). An ETC-group study, citing Pimentel (2009) reports that the total energy in the food system in the OECD states is approximately 4 kcal invested to supply 1 kcal of food, while in the global South, the ratio is approx. 1 kcal invested to supply 1 kcal of food.24 Grain-fed beef requires 35 calories for every calorie of beef produced an effective reversal of what had been the reason to develop agriculture in the first place.
23 Aftenposten (Norwegian newspaper) 23.05.2010 24 Quoted from ETC-group (2009): Who will feed us. Original source: Pimental, David: Energy Inputs in Food Crop Production in Developing and Developed Nations, Energies 2(1) 2009, pp1-24 http://www. mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/1
cOllapse OF Fisheries?
Most of the stocks of the top ten species, which together account for about 30% of world marine capture fisheries production in terms of quantity, are fully exploited or overexploited. Overall, 80% of the world fish stocks for which assessment information is available are reported as fully exploited or overexploited, requiring effective and precautionary management (FAO 2009d). In 2007, about 28% of stocks were either overexploited (19%), depleted (8 %) or recovering from depletion (1%), and thus yielded less than their maximum potential owing to excess fishing pressure (FAO 2009d). A further 52% of stocks were fully exploited and, therefore, produced catches that were at or close to their maximum sustainable limits with no possibilities for increasing catches (FAO 2009d). Only about 20% of stocks were moderately exploited or underexploited with perhaps a possibility of producing more (FAO 2009d). Commercial fisheries might have become history by 50 years from now (Worm et al. 2006).
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Climate change Industrial agriculture consumes large amounts of fossil fuel, with a direct greenhouse effect, mainly because of mechanisation and massive use of inputs, in particular fertilizers (the production of synthetic nitrogen is a high consumer of fossil energy). To this we need to add the large amounts of fossil fuel used in the corporate chain of which industrial agriculture is a part. This includes transport of goods to the farms (seeds, chemical inputs, implements), and then from the farm to distant markets (grain transported for further processing for animal food, for biofuel or for human food, and transport of processed goods to wholesale distribution channels. On average the food we have in our plate has travelled 6,400 km. In the case of sustainable smallscale production, there is practically no use of fossil fuel when the food is processed and consumed locally. On the other hand, small farms have a great potential for carbon sequestration. Industrial agriculture and the global food system contribute substantially to climate change, totally about 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions. The negative impact on climate directly from agricultural production is about 13% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The production and use of chemical fertilizer are the main sources for this. Deforestation because of expansion of agricultural land, mainly for production of fodder for the expanding meat industry and for biofuel, counts for another 15-18%. Processing, packing and transport of food contributes another 10-12% . These(GRAIN, 2009) negative impact can be avoided with a different production model and localized food systems (see box on page 51). Unhealthy food The health implications of industrial agriculture have been widely documented (Gauker, 2009). It is now known that the chemicals commonly used in industrial agriculture (pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and antimicrobials) cause endocrine disruptions and cancer in humans. The excessive use of antibiotics in livestock contributes to antibiotic resistance among humans. Synthetic growth hormones have been a major concern for decades as they alter normal human hormone levels and functions. In addition to the chemicals used to grow food, industrial meals have invaded the planet. Processing foods can add months and even years to the shelf life of products, allowing for global food trade. Humans have an inherited preference for energy-dense food, as natural selection has predisposed us to the taste of sugar and fat. It is the increased energy density of processed foods that is causing the Type II diabetes and obesity now affecting 400 million people worldwide and an additional 1.2 billion who are overweight. Overall 2.7 million deaths annually are attributable to low fruit and vegetable intake, which is the cause of 19 percent of gastro-intestinal cancer, 31 percent of ischemic heart disease and 11 percent of strokes (WHO, 2003). Pandemics The account of the evolution and expansion of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, chillingly demonstrated how strains of animal disease can develop on smallholdings can spread to industrial settings which are ideal populations for supporting virulent pathogens. Industrial agricultures use of genetic monocultures of domestic animals removes whatever immune firebreaks would have been available to slow down transmission, and the larger population sizes and densities facilitate greater rates of transmission. At the same time, the crowded conditions depress immune response. High throughput, a part of any
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industrial production, provides a continually renewed supply of susceptibles, the fuel for the evolution of virulence. (Wallace, 2009). Industrial animal agriculture may bode disaster in terms of landscape destruction but also and above all because of pandemic risk. It is currently estimated that a severe pandemic would cost around 3 trillion USD, because of societal disruption, much worse than a combination of 10 severe earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones or the melting of the North Pole taken together. Yet, relatively little is done about it. (Jan Slingenbergh, personal communication 2010). Biotechnology A 2009 Union of Concerned Scientists evaluation reported by Gurian-Sherman on the overall effect of genetic engineering on crop yields demonstrated that there were no significant increases in yields. In addition, although it was thought that genetic engineering would reduce pesticide use by creating plants resistant to insects and other pests, a 2000 study by the United States Department of Agriculture revealed that there was no overall reduction in pesticide use with genetically engineered crops. Meanwhile, biological and genetic pollution are very real facts. Researchers found that release of only a few genetically engineered fish into a native population could make species extinct, and that pollen from GM corn engineered to produce its own insecticide could be fatal to beneficial insects. Research also show that GM-plants might be dominant to indigenous species and therefore a direct threat to diversity. A major fear was that if a pest- or herbicide-resistant strain were to spread from crops to weeds, a superweed could result that would be nearly impossible to stop. In fact, this may have just proven to be the case in the southern USA where more than 100,000 acres in the state of Georgia have been seriously affected by a new superweed, called pigweed. More than 10,000 acres have had to be abandoned and Georgia faces the threat turning into an unmanageable wasteland. According to University of Georgia researcher Stanley Culpepper, these superweeds emerged after farmers had undertaken intensive cultivation of Monsantos GM soybean and cotton. This weed has also appeared in other states such as South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri. Synthetic biology25 Synthetic biology, the construction of novel life-forms using synthetic DNA made from off-the-shelf chemicals, is no longer science fiction. This extreme genetic engineering is now a reality. In May 2010, the journal Science announced that the J. Craig Venter Institute and Synthetic Genomics, Inc. had made the worlds first selfreproducing organism whose entire genome26 was built from scratch by a machine. According to the journal, this organism could be a boon to second-generation agrofuels making it theoretically possible to feed people and cars simultaneously. The article further suggests that Synthia, as the new organism is called by ETC -group, or synthetic biology, could help clean up the environment, save us from climate change, and address the food crisis.
25 This section build on ETCgroup. 2010. Synthia is Alive and Breeding. Panacea or Pandora's Box? and a book in press by Pat Mooney, BANG. 26 Genome: All of the genetic information, the entire genetic complement, all of the hereditary material possessed by an organism.
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Pat Mooney, the director of ETC -group who has followed biotechnology issues closely for decades, says that It is much more likely to cause a whole new set of problems governments and society are ill-prepared to address. Building artificial life and the implications of the largely unknown field of synthetic biology raise many ethical questions. But there still remains no proper national or international oversight of new high-risk technologies that carry vast implications for humanity and the natural world. ETC group and other organisations have demanded a formal, open and inclusive oversight of synthetic biology, and have called for a global halt on research pending the development of global regulations. Geo-engineering 27 A wide range of geo-engineering proposals have been put forward, large-scale schemes that intend to intervene in the earths oceans, soils and atmosphere with the aim of combating climatechange. Large-scale experiments have taken place for several years. Examples of geo-engineering include blasting sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the suns rays, dumping iron particles in the oceans to nurture CO2-absorbing plankton, firing silver iodide into cloudsto produce rain, genetically engineering crops to have reflective leaves, spraying seawater into clouds to make clouds whiter,dumping large quantities of plant matter into the ocean or turning it into charcoal for burying in soils. The issue of large-scale geo-engineering experimentation and their potential impacts is not technical, but instead about rights, responsibilities and the future of the planet. These experiments can lead to irreversible processes with dramatic negative consequences for humanity and the environment. The precautionary principle must therefore be followed. It is vital that governments and the public receive information and knowledge about geo-engineering and that wide public debates take place. To avoid possible catastrophes, governments and international institutions must immediately
27 This section builds on Agriculture and Climate Change Real Problems, False solutions.2009 and Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.2009. Retooling the Planet?
The Local Economy Three-quarters of the worlds farmers either grow locally-bred varieties or save their own seed. At least 1.4 billion people depend upon farmer-saved seed. 100% of farmer-based research is devoted to environmental sustainability, productivity and nutrition. 85% of global food production is consumed close to where it is grown much of it outside the formal market system. Approximately 70% of the worlds population is cared for by community health specialists using local medicines.
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put a ban on such experiments and take actions to make sure the ban is efficient and respected.28 The Green Revolution Beginning in the 1960s, the Green Revolution, a variant of the contemporary agricultural revolution but without the large-scale motorization and mechanization, developed widely in the developing countries, particularly in Asia. It was essentially based on the selection of high-yielding varieties of rice, maize, wheat and soya that required a heavy utilization of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and, in some areas, irrigation. Governments encouraged the adoption of these technologies by enacting policies of agricultural price supports, subsidies for inputs, preferential interest rates for borrowing, and investments in the infrastructures for irrigation, drainage and transport. Global production of wheat, rice and maize, the main crops of the green revolution, more than doubled in 25 years in 1986 the production was 229% of the production in 1961. There were several reasons for this steep increase and the figure did not account for the fact that mixed-cropping systems were abandoned and there was a parallel loss of yield for other crops. However, while there is no doubt that the Green Revolution did play an important role in increasing the yields for some of the major crops, the notion that it played an important role in reducing the number of hungry people, is not correct. While the social and environmental problems of the Green Revolution have been widely documented (Dao, 2007; Shiva, 1992), many governments, foundations and institutions now support the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), initiated and massively financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. Unsustainable models of production that increase the dependency of on external inputs such as synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and make small scale farmers dependent on increasingly tight enclosures, especially seeds, can lead to increased indebtedness and have tragic consequences. This has been the case in India where some 199,132 farmers have committed suicide since 1997 according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2009. Another 40% are trying to quit agriculture if given a choice (59th Round of National Sample Survey Organisation, Govt of India, 2005). These suicides have been directly attributed to the Green Revolution. Hans Herren, co-chair IAASTAD, recently talked about this New Green Revolution and the experiences from Asia: Most of the buzz these days is around a Green Revolution for Africa, using essentially the same thinking we saw for Asia three decades ago. The Green Revolution in Asia was premised on a single dimension: increasing agricultural yields through modern technology to boost food production and feed people. And it was indeed successful. Yet we now know that this partial success came at a great cost: Badly depleted soils and water supplies, lost crop diversity, poisoned ecosystems and farmers becoming indebted from the high costs of inputs increased inequity and accelerated rural-to urban migration. In addition, we werent calculating the carbon footprint of high-input agriculture, but today we know that this industrial form of agriculture is responsible for up to 14 percent of the planets greenhouse gas emissionsnot counting the deforestation that adds another 18 percent (Herren, op.cit).
28 See more information in Agriculture and Climate Change Real Problems, False solutions, Retooling the Planet? and the book in press BANG- What Next? Collusion, Convergence or Changes in Course? by Pat Mooney, Director of ETC-group.
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Agrofuels29 Growing plants and trees to make agrofuels and replace the declining fossil fuel reserves was initially presented as an opportunity for farmers. However, the reality has become a generalized situation of human and natural resources exploitation and devastation. For example, production of agrofuel crops competes with production of food crops, and was one of the recognised causes of the 20072008 world food price crisis. Jean Ziegler, during his term as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, classified agrofuels as a crime against humanity30. Both he and his successor, Olivier de Schutter, have called for a five-year moratorium on the expansion of industrial production of biofuels31. It is impossible to produce agrofuel in quantities that could possibly replace fossil fuels or even replace substantial parts of the oil which is being consumed. In fact, it would require more agricultural land than exists on the entire planet to replace only the gasoline and diesel used for transport (see box on opposite page). Scientist debate over the extent to which different kind of production and uses of agrofuels have positive or negative impacts on the climate. Considerable research now indicates that the impact of agrofuel use on greenhouse gas emission is at the best negligible, but more likely negative. For some of the agrofuel production methods, effects are clearly negative, such as production of palm oil on plantations in former rainforest areas.
29 Agrofuels is here used as GRAIN (www.grain.org) and others have defined it: biofuels produced from crops cultivated in industrial plantations. 30 Jean Ziegler in United Nation, New York, October 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7065061. stm) 31 Biofuels are any kind of fuel made from living things, or from the waste they produce.
lanD graBBing
Source: UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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However, it also must be noted that small scale production of fuel from plants can play a positive role if the production is locally controlled and used by the small-scale farmers and communities. Then the production can take place on lands the communities do not need for food production and the straw and other residues from food production can be used in the fuel production process. Land grabbing There has been a fast increase in the leasing and buying of land in developing countries, especially in Africa, by multinational companies and foreign governments. Fertile land is being bought and leased by investors, often at giveaway prices set by governments together with investors and local chiefs. This land grab32 was spurred by the events surrounding the food and financial crises of 20072008. Countries and governments do not trust that the global market can provide food as before, making food a lucrative object for speculation. There are no verified figures of the amount of such land sales or leasing. A report recently presented to the UN Committee on world Food Security33 present estimates between 50 and 245 million ha have been sold or leased out in such big land deals the recent years - areas between the size of Spain and the combined size of Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, German and Poland. This section on landgrabbing has been placed in the chapter on unsustainable agriculture for several reasons. As a result of landgrabbing, peasants and pastoralists are forced off the land they have used for generations, with increased poverty as a result. This is not socially sustainable, and the farming methods used by the foreign companies are usually environmentally unsustainable. Howard G. Buffet describes the land grab in the foreword of the report (Mis)investment in agriculture (Daniel, et al., 2010): There is no disguising what is happening right now, on our watch. It is estimated that 50 million hectares have already been leased to foreign entities with at least 20 African countries considering similar deals. Some of these leases (99 years at $1 per hectare) are unbelievable deals. But they are only available to a select few. Local farmers (people who struggle to feed their families) are not eligible for the deals being promoted in countries where millions of people remain dependent on food aid.
32 More information : http://farmlandgrab.org/ 33 HLPE, 2011. Land tenure and international investments in agriculture. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security, Rome 2011. http:// www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE-Land-tenure-and-internationalinvestments-in-agriculture-2011.pdf
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protects diverse varieties of potatoes, the stunning green patches of desert oases that support infinite varieties of fruits and vegetables, the citrus terraces on the slopes of the Mediterranean, multilayered agroforestry gardens of Zanzibar where vanilla and pepper are intertwined with an extraordinary diversity of trees, vegetables and spices, green patchworks dotted by sheep and cows grazing on steep hills on small diverse farms in Norway with a mix of forests, crops and grazing lands all are vivid testimonies to an anonymous patrimony of humankind across the generations and centuries.
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farmers have been able to get out of debt because they do not need to buy chemical fertilizers. By 2008, the Tigray Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development (BoARD) found that soil erosion in the region had been reduced by over 60% since the project started in 1996.
More information: FAO 2010b.
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Badgley et al. (2007) published their research on organic agriculture and global food supply, reporting that: The most unexpected aspect of this study is the consistently high yield ratios from the developing world. These high yields are obtained when farmers incorporate intensive agroecological techniques, such as crop rotation, cover cropping, agroforestry, addition of organic fertilizers, or more efficient water management. Several other case studies, including several mentioned in this document have shown spectacular result on the potential for increased food production with sustainable farming. The Real Green Revolution, Greenpeace (Parrot, et al., 2002) provided examples of increasing maize yields between 20 and 50 percent by using green manures in Brazil) , of farmers in Nepal increasing yields 175 percent through agro-ecological
12,5% 30%
7,5% 50%
Share of worlds food that comes from the industrial food chain
Food First3 published in 2008 an article from M. Altieri with the following figures: At present, small farms (2 hectares and less) produce the majority of staple crops for urban and rural inhabitants across the world - in Latin America 17 million peasant farms produce 51 percent of the maize, 77 percent of the beans, and 61 percent of the potatoes consumed domestically; 33 million small (mostly female-- run) farms in Africa, representing 80 percent of the farms, produce a significant amount of basic food crops with virtually no or little use of fertilizers and improved seed; and in Asia most of the rice consumed is produced by more than 200 million small farmers. Worldwatch Institute estimates that urban agriculture produce 15-20% of all food in the world.4 Other institutes use similar figures, but the studies do not cover the whole world. FAO estimate that urban agriculture provides the food for about 700 million people.5
Expert Meeting in Greening the Economy with Agriculture, Paris, 5-7 September 2011. Draft: 12 August 2011. 3 http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2115 4 Worldwatch Institute. 2011. State of the World 2011 5 FAO Newsroom, 3. juni 2005: Farming in Urban Areas Can Boost Food Security
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management practices, and of farmers in Tigray, Ethiopia, whose composted plots had yields three to five times higher than those treated only with chemicals. IAASTD also reported that agroecosystems of even the poorest societies have the potential through ecological agriculture and IPM34 to meet or significantly exceed yields produced by conventional methods35, reduce the demand for land conversion for agriculture, restore ecosystem services (particularly water), reduce the use of and need for synthetic fertilizers derived from fossil fuels, and the use of harsh insecticides and herbicides (IAASTD, Synthesis Report). Cutting-edge yet low-risk technology All sustainable forms of agriculture, which include traditional forms of agriculture and agro-ecology, make optimum use of available resources while reducing risks and social and environmental externalities. Agro-ecologists recognize that intercropping, agroforestry and other diversification methods mimic natural ecological processes, and that the sustainability of complex agro-ecosystems lies in the ecological models they follow. By designing farming systems that mimic nature, optimal use can be made of sunlight, soil nutrients and rainfall. The great advantage of small farming systems is their high levels of agrobiodiversity arranged in the form of variety mixtures, polycultures, crop-livestock combinations or agroforestry patterns. Modelling new agro-ecosystems on such diversified designs can be extremely valuable to farmers whose systems are collapsing due to debt, pesticides, in terms of both the cost of the input and damage they can cause, or from the effects of changing climates. Such diverse systems buffer against natural or human-induced variations in production conditions. There is much to learn from indigenous modes of production, as these systems have a strong ecological basis, maintain valuable genetic diversity, and lead to regeneration and preservation of biodiversity and natural resources. Traditional methods are particularly instructive because they provide a long-term perspective on successful agricultural management under conditions of climatic variability (Altieri, 2008).
34 [Intergrated Pest Managementeditors note] 35 [here the meaning is using chemical fertilizer etc editors note]
85% of the worlds food is grown and consumed within national borders or the same eco-regional zone where it was produced, even if not within the 100 mile diet Most of this food is grown from peasant-bred seed without the industrial chains synthetic fertilizers (ETC-group, 2009).
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peasanTs cOUnTing Up
According to official statistics, the world has some 1.5 billion smallholder farmers (including family members). However, the more realistic figure is probably double that number when full account is taken of the urban gardeners and livestock keepers, nomadic pastoralists, fishers and forest-keepers around the world. Urban gardeners often move back and forth between town and country and fishers often farm as well (ETC -group, 2009). Globally, the statistics look like this: 1.5 billion [peasants] on 380 million farms 800 million more growing urban gardens 410 million gathering the hidden harvest of forests and savannas 190 million pastoralists 100 million peasant fishers In addition, 370 million of these are also indigenous peoples. Together these peasants make up almost half the worlds population and they grow at least 70% of the worlds food. More than any other group, they feed the hungry. If we are to eat in 2050 we will need all of them and all of their diversity. Source: ETC-group, 2009.
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Nepal and Viet Nam have more than 50% of their traditional varieties grown by only a few households on relatively small areas.
Source: FAO. 2009b.
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underemployment in most global South countries. Because small farms use more labour (and often less capital) to farm a given unit of area, a small farm model can absorb far more people into gainful activity and reverse the stream of out-migration from rural areas (Rosset, 1999). When practiced in an enabling environment, small-scale agriculture not only produces commodities, it also contributes to livelihoods, nurtures or maintains cultures, and provides ecological services. This indicates that the products of farming cannot be treated the same as other goods. The benefits of small farms extend beyond the economic sphere. By preserving biodiversity, open space and trees, and by reducing land degradation, small farms garden landscapes provide valuable ecosystem services to the larger society. Provide employment for billions of people When we add up the number of smallholder farmers, urban gardeners, livestock keepers, nomadic pastoralists, fishers and forest-keepers around the world we reach the astronomic figure of 3 billion people (including family members),almost half the population of the planet today. Farming and the web of employment it creates in the rural communities and increasingly in urban agriculture is more extended and complex than we realize. They embody diversity, stewardship of natural resources, equitability through empowerment of communities with farmers relying on local business and services for their needs, they are nurturing places for families and children thereby expanding on family networks and institutions including education and health, they open local market possibilities that connect consumers with nature and with the people growing their food and they represent the vitality of local economies. A common notion is that developing countries will or should follow the same development path as the industrialised countries. This foresees there will be the same reduction of numbers of farmers from 4080 percent of the population down to 13percent, and that most of these farmers will get jobs in industry and services. However, there are not many such jobs in most developing countries, and the majority of farmers will end up in unemployment and deeper poverty if they have to leave their land. It also should be noted that if the production and consumption globally had been the same in the developing world as in the industrialised countries in recent decades, the environmental damage, including climate change, would have been so severe that it would have been impossible for billions of people to survive. Urban peasant food production actually may be quite substantial, according to an estimate cited by Canadas International Development Research Centre (IDRC), 25% of the entire global food output is grown in cities. Undertaken before the recent food crisis, it is likely that this figure significantly underestimates the current level of urban food production. History shows that urban agriculture production rises with food prices. Some years ago, UNDP estimated that at least 800 million urbanites produce some of their own food, including at least 200 million urban families that sell some of their produce in local markets. Again, these figures are probably much higher today. Almost 18% of the land in downtown Hanoi is used to grow food.30 In Quito, about 35% of urban land is used for agriculture and in the Argentinan city of Rosario, 80% of the land grows some food. In Abomey and Bohicon, two cities in Benin, half of the population in the peri-urban area is growing food as their primary activity (ETC-group, 2009).
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peasanTs
breed and nurture 40 livestock species and almost 8000 breeds. breed 5000 domesticated crops and have donated more than 1.9 million plant varieties to the worlds gene banks. fishers harvest and protect more than 15,000 freshwater species. and pastoralists maintain soil fertility is 18 times more valuable than the synthetic fertilizers provided by the seven largest corporations.
Adaptation to climate change There is consensus on the overall negative impact of climate change on agriculture. Studies indicate that South Asia and Southern Africa are the two hunger hotspots likely to face the most serious impacts from climate change. The crop with the single largest potential impact is maize in Southern Africa. Maize is the most important source of calories for the poor in this region and, with the effects of climate change, its yield could be reduced up to 30 percent by 2030. In South Asia, where roughly one-third of the worlds malnourished live, several key crops including wheat, rice, rapeseed, millet and maize have more than a 75 percent chance of incurring losses from climate change (The Conservation of Global Crop Genetic Resources in the Face of Climate Change. 2007). The uncertainty of future rainfall patterns, coupled with the likely increase in extreme rainfall or drought events and the emergence of unfamiliar pests and diseases, demands a form of agriculture that is resilient, and a system of food production that supports knowledge transfer and on-farm experimentation through building the adaptive capacity of farmers (Ensor and Berger, 2009; GECHS et al., 2008). Resilience to climate change in agricultural systems requires presence of overlapping elements: agro-ecosystem resilience refers to the persistence and sustainability of yield from the land or sea in the face of a changing climate;
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livelihood resilience achieved through livelihood strategy diversification, such as introducing fish into rice paddies or planting a wider variety of crop species; reduced dependence on external inputs; and decoupling of agricultural practice from volatility and changes in other markets, while retaining assets on-farm. Many traits found in indigenous breeds will become increasingly important as climate change alters the environment and the pattern of pathogen spread between and within countries (Smallstock in Development, 2010). Their protection, along with the local knowledge that is critical to their management and breeding, is critical for the future. Of course, small-scale farming can provide diversified diets including a wide range of pulses, beans, fruits, vegetables cereals and animal-derived products. In addition to being good for consumers health, this diet also has its implications for climate change mitigation. A more vegetarian diet is responsible for fewer greenhouse gas emissions over a lifetime. Think about it: an average of 25 kcal fossil energy is used per kcal of meat produced, compared with 2.2 kcal for plant-based products (Pimentel and Pimentel, 2003). If developing countries were to consume as much meat as industrialised ones, we would need two-thirds more agricultural land than we have today (Jackson et al., 2007). A comparative analysis of energy inputs on long-term trials at the Rodale Institute found that organic farming systems used 63 percent of the energy required by conventional farms, largely because of saving the energy input that would have been required for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser (Pimentel et al, 2005). The majority of climate change mitigation activities are cornerstones of organic agricultural practice, meaning that organic production systems arguably serve as the best widespread examples of
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low emissions agriculture to date. Organic systems also tend to be more resilient than industrial in terms of withstanding environmental shocks and stresses including droughts and flooding. Various other assessments that have reviewed whether low emissions agriculture can feed 9billion people have incorporated data from the certified and non-certified organic, agro-ecological and biodynamic farming movements, which are the bestdefined bodies of intentionally sustainable, whole farm systems. Their results show an overwhelming concordance in the positive impact on climate change mitigation while ensuring sufficiently high levels of food production. As shown in this report, this dual potential and challenge of sustainable agriculture to mitigate climate change and feed the population by 2050 has become widely recognised.
Ecological agriculture: based on values of equity, justice and respect for the earth and its people
Ecological agriculture is community based and embedded in local cultures. The anthropologist Pablo B. Eyzaguirre, Bioversity International, describes the fundamental role of culture: To the anthropologist culture is the fundamental instrument and process by which humans adapt and evolve. It guides the development of institutions, decisions, social cohesion, rights and collective action. Culture contains and transmits bodies of knowledge. As long as agriculture will be seen primarily as a technological process for using soil, water and biodiversity to produce good and commodities, we will continue to have hunger in the face of overproduction, malnutrition coupled with overnutrition and a growing population that is increasingly dependent upon an ever narrower portfolio of crops and livestock to meet its needs (Eyzaguirre, 2006). In ecological agriculture, local communities use culture and nature to meet their food and livelihood needs. Ecological agriculture is grounded in locally available resources and builds on past and present knowledge systems and practices. This temporal dimension also has a spiritual dimension that connects rural communities to the earth, whereby peasants become the stewards of nature, grounding evolution the evolution of the human species in a more extended dimension of time. Even when they are forced to migrate to slums and urban neighbourhoods, small farmers transpose their knowledge to their knew environments as well as their seeds planting and producing non-negligible amounts of food. For the population in many parts of the world, this intimate relation to the earth has been lost, together with the understanding of what is being eaten and where it comes from. As the consumers and producers have become farther apart, the bridges between them have become weak or nonexistent and the values of equity, justice and respect for the earth and for the people, deeply rooted in rural communities, have faded away.
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Food sovereignty
Policy space for governments and people is needed to transform the currently dominant food system to a more viable and sustainable system. Food sovereignty will create that space and offers a way forward. There is not one common definition of food sovereignty, but the different definitions do all go along the same lines. The IAASTD Synthesis Report has this short definition: Food sovereignty is defined as the right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural and food policies. Since it was introduced internationally by the peasant movement La Via Campesina at the 1996 World Food Summit organised by FAO. food sovereignty has gained wide support from social movements, NGOs, institutions and some governments all over the world. Food sovereignty challenges the dominant model for food and agriculture and outlines an alternative model.
Brought together, these measures would lead to reduction and sequestration of one-half to three-fourths of current global GHG emissions. This would also lead to decentralisation of production and distribution, effective support for agricultural practices based on agro-ecological processes, biodiversity and local knowledge, and profound agrarian reform.
Source: GRAIN, 2009.
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Earthworms often form the major part of soil fauna biomass, representing up to 60% in some ecosystems. Several soil organisms can help plants to fight against aboveground pests and herbivores. The elimination of earthworm populations can reduce the water infiltration rate in soil by up to 93%. The improper management of soil biodiversity worldwide has been estimated to cause a loss of 1 trillion dollars per year. The use of pesticides causes a loss of more than 8 billion dollars per year. Soils can help fight climate change.
A project group established by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2006 to give advice on food security and hunger, with representatives from a wide range of organisations, institutions and companies concluded that, despite different opinions on food sovereignty, it has a lot of positive elements and that Norway should stimulate debates and research on the concept (NORAD, 2007). One of the most common definitions of food sovereignty used by peasants organisations and other social movements and NGOs is the one from Peoples Food Sovereignty Network (2002) Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self reliant; to restrict the dumping of products in their markets; and to provide local fisheries-based communities the priority in managing the use of and the rights to aquatic resources. Food Sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to food and to safe, healthy and ecologically (Windfuhr and Johnsn. 2005). More than 500 delegates from more than 80 countries took part in the Nylni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty37 in Mali, where food sovereignty was developed further and concretized (Nylni Synthesis Report) The civil society conferences held in parallel to the World Food Summits in 2002, 2008 and 2009 were all based on and promoted food sovereignty.
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Colin Seis and Daryl Cluff initiated this idea about 15 years ago and since that time Colin Seis has spent much of his time perfecting this technique. Colin discovered that it is possible to grow many different types of winter and summer growing crops, without destroying the perennial pasture base, while sequestering large amounts of carbon. Over 1000 farmers across Australia practice pasture cropping in a whole range of climate zones. Over the years there were more advances with the technique As a direct result of the ongoing work and the landholder education these same pasture cropping methods are now being used in such diverse places as Scandinavia, USA and south American countries. Mob grazing3 Opposing the accepted view that grazing results in higher methane emissions, a New Zealand agronomist promoting the mob grazing concept has collected empirical evidence that shows the opposite: that grazing systems have up to 40% lower carbon footprint than intensive systems when all the external inputs and activities are evaluated (Philips T. Milk Production Carbon Footprint Summary. Pasture to Profit www.pasturetoprofit.co.uk).Mob grazing is being practised by the Carbon Farmers of America and of Australia (http://www.carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au). Key to mob grazing and soil carbon capture is the presence of glomalin, a recently-discovered glycoprotein compound produced by mycorrhizal fungi as they supply water and nutrients from the soil to the plants in return for plant sugars. Glomalin contains 3040% carbon (compared to 8% in humic acid), or 27% of the all soil carbon, and can survive in the soil for more than 40 years. Without a healthy population of arbuscular mycorrhiza in soils, glomalin cannot accumulate, and plants cannot thrive. Water harvesting and soil conservation The goal of the Jordan Valley Project was to demonstrate the potential for improving human and environmental conditions using low-cost, low-tech approaches on a 4 ha site under high salinity and drought conditions.This droughtstricken, desert land was greened within a year to create a productive food system and, in doing so, also became a carbon sink.
3 Mob grazing and water harvesting examples taken from the work of Julia Wright March 2010
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at better ways to quantify the costs of using natural goods such as biodiversity and ecosystems services, in order to account for social and environmental externalities. A number of initiatives are developing series of indexes and indicators of production systems that will reflect their energy efficiency and their impacts on the environment and communities. For the moment the negative costs of some agricultural practices on human health and the environment are still paid by societies. As an example, think of the cost to public health services of providing massive quantities of vaccines against pandemic risks, of having to treat victims of chemical contamination, food poisoning and nutritionrelated diseases, or of the cost to societies of massive cullings of animals to thwart spread of disease, or of the cost of antipollution treatments of water streams, water tables, soil and air, to mention only a few, and only the short-term ones. The time has come to establish accounting systems that better reflect the fact that nature is a finite resource and that we need to reverse the trend which today is to consider that natures goods and services are free, and their use or misuse create the wealth of nations. It is time to pay for the use of resources or for the pollution of these resources, to reward those who conserve them, and to base the wealth of nations on the conservation and enhancement of natural resources and ecosystem services. Mechanisms are still to be invented, defined and applied that could be suggested as a next step. But this same goal was emphasized in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and as shown in the Beyond GDP Initiative. Too often we fail to understand that most of the worlds conflicts, wars, mass poverty and migration stem from conflicts and lack of rights, especially common property rights over natural resources, and that todays financial, fuel and food crises are the symptoms of a profound ecological crisis of the earth. The summer of 2009 saw the long-awaited release of the Stiglitz Report commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. Produced by a team that included several Nobel Prize-winning economists, the report proposed new national indicators of progress, including an Ecological Footprint. The Stiglitz Report was not an isolated phenomenon, but one of many signs of a broader awareness of ecological indicators. In 2009, Ecuador adopted the Ecological Footprint, becoming the first country to set a formal footprint target. In July 2010 Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched a new poverty measure that gives a multidimensional picture of people living in poverty. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) looks beyond income at a wider range of household-level deprivation, including whether a household has a decent toilet, clean drinking water within 30 minutes on foot, electricity, school-aged children enrolled in school and whether any member of a household is malnourished. The MPI will be used by UNDP in the 2010 Human Development Report. New measurement and indicators of both poverty and well-being can become important tools in to create a viable future. At the same time, there is no doubt that there is enough knowledge to act now to eradicate hunger and poverty. Support for small-scale farmers Though great progress has been achieved in the analytical realm, and farmers have demonstrated in the field the great potential of traditional knowledge coupled with contemporary sustainable practices, much remains to be done to support small farmers and peasants and to follow-up on major initiatives such as the Millennium Ecosystem
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Assessment and IAASTD. Shifting investment and financial support towards more sustainable management of the earth will need massive mobilization of communities and more accessible tools and instruments that better reflect the reality and enable polices to be adjusted accordingly.
adapting mechanization to the size and needs of farming systems the example of egyptian agriculture along the nile
In Egypt where agriculture is mostly concentrated in the Nile Valley, the mean size of the Nile Valley family farms is less than one ha. A field study undertaken by Roudart (Roudart 20011) shows that the mean size of the plots is 0.5 ha, and that the irrigated areas often have a surface under 0.1 ha. Despite these very small sizes of land plots, the agriculture of the valley was producing enough to cover the energy needs of a population of close to 60 million human beings, an astounding record. Roudart has analyzed the evolution of the agrarian systems and demonstrated that the Egyptian agriculture of the Nile Valley is a model of modern and intensive agriculture, reaching productivity levels higher than those obtained in most developed countries. The study was undertaken during different periods in time. The yields in 1995-1998 reached 5700 Kg of wheat per ha, 7400 Kg of maize per ha, 8400 Kg of rice per ha, the world highest mean yields. These yields are comparable and even higher than those of industrialized countries. During the same period the yields of the same crops in the US, France and Netherlands were lower. Regarding livestock, 70 percent of animal production is big cattle which represents 2.3 heads of cattle per ha, higher than the most efficient systems in the world such for example the 1.6 heads of cattle
1 Jouve, A.M., Abaab A., Anthopoulou, T., Arnalte, E., Bouderbala, N., Civici, A., Dogan, O.,El Twab, S., Elloumi, M., Estruch, V., Hajji, A., Napoleone, C., Roudart, L., Shali, Z. & Y.Tekelioglu. Terres Mditerranennes- Le morcellement, richesse ou danger? Paris: Karthala, 2001.
per ha reached in the Netherlands. Small farms are those with most cattle, and the most sophisticated animal-crop integrated systems. Egypt is also very advanced in terms of motorization and has adapted mechanization to the size and needs of its farming systems. Most of the soil preparation work and water pumping and grain threshing is mechanized. This works well because of a very active renting system for the machinery which allows farmers, including small farmers, to have access to the equipment they need at the right time. The small size of plots is not an obstacle to mechanized water pumping as water is brought by gravity to the third level canals where it is usually pumped and brought to private canals running along the land parcels. This small size of plots is not either an obstacle for the different farming activities as mechanization facilitate some works during pick periods of the year (such as threshing and land preparation) thereby allowing for an additional planting season to begin. FAO data shows that there is one tractor per 26 ha in Egypt, which compares to one tractor per 48 ha in France, one for 11 ha in the Netherlands and one for 90 ha in the US. The in-depth analysis of the evolution of this agrarian system and detailed field interviews have shown that decent living condition could be reached for a family with a plot of good land of a size between 0.5 to 0.8 ha, with the appropriate mechanization and animal-crop integrated systems.
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Trade Organisation (WTO) operating under quite different mandates than the UNinstitutions for food and agriculture, and by uncontrolled economic and financial actors. While the 20072009 food crisis elicited a variety of reactions by the international community, some tended to perpetuate or exacerbate the mistakes of the past rather than opening up alternatives. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) undertook a reform process in 2009 which is currently in application, and points in an innovative and promising direction. The framework document of the new CFS places global decision making on food security firmly within a UN system, setting up one-countryone-vote, endowing it with a mission of defending the right to food of the worlds population with unprecedented participation by civil society and social movements. It is important that governments defend CFS and support its evolution into an authoritative policy space able to: help change the dominant wisdom and strategies of agricultural development and food systems in the directions advocated in this report on a viable food future; introduce enforceable accountability on the part of governments, multilateral institutions and private sector actors; promote and build links between multi-stakeholder policy spaces at national, regional and global levels with meaningful participation by small-scale food producers organisations and social movements.
However, reform of the CFS alone will serve no purpose unless it sets off a dynamic that can lead to redesigning the entire multilateral institutional architecture governing food systems and defending the public sphere from encroachment of private and special interests into global policy decision making. Further reform of the UN system for food and agriculture is needed. A process should be started to evaluate and propose how the UN and other international institutions for food and agriculture could improve cooperation and coordination of their activities, possibly also merging some of them, namely FAO. World Food Programme (WFP), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAP) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
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The righT TO aDeqUaTe FOOD is a Basic hUMan righT anD gOvernMenTs is OBligeD TO FUlFill iT.
Also other UN conventions and declarations are important for the issues this report is dealing with, especially: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa on the Rights of Peasants and Small Farmers on the Right to Water
Governments, institutions and organisations should support the initiatives for these.
Some recommendations
Nothing is more important than to end hunger and severe poverty, stop climate change and stop the destruction of the natural resources that are so critical for the future of humanity. Drastic changes of policies and actions in many areas are needed, but long journeys always start with small steps. There are many actions that can be taken immediately to move in the direction of a viable food future. The recommendations below only deal with the most pressing, immediate issues namely some policies and actions directly linked to the production and harvesting of food. For more comprehensive policies, please see the working document Policies and actions to eradicate hunger and malnutrition. In addition, note that the recommendations below are explored and explained in greater detail in Part II of this report. The report and the recommendations are based on the human right to adequate food which imposes a number of clear obligations on States (De Schutter, 2009). Governments must fulfil their human rights obligations, and respect and follow the UN conventions and declarations they have signed not only in words, but in practice.
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ernments for agricultural production must be stopped immediately. The land grabbing underway in developing countries pushes local people off of land they use and need for their survival, undermines local and national food security, and promotes unsustainable production models and practises. Re-direct funding for climate change to support small-scale farmer solutions A funding window must be established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to support small-scale food production and provision as a means of reducing global greenhouse emissions. Food and agriculture sectors should be excluded from carbon offsetting schemes, flexibility mechanisms and the carbon market. Putting the worlds food supplies at risk in such highly speculative and unreliable schemes is unacceptable. Stop the extinction of fish stocks Over exploitation of fish stocks and extinction of species threaten future food provision for a growing population, and must be stopped. Industrial fishing must be regulated more strongly and governments should prioritize artisanal fisheries.
examples of empowering research that can bridge traditional knowledge and modern science
Orca The ORCA concept has been developed jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Italy), Tufts University (USA) and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (Switzerland). The Organic Research Centres ALLIANCE consists of a number of partners sharing the same interests. The informal ORCA Research Centre for Climate Change for example, is already pooling the expertise of a dozen institutions worldwide. The proposed Organic Research Centres Alliance intends to internationally network and strengthen existing institutions with scientific credentials and empower them to become centers of excellence in transdisciplinary organic agriculture research. The objective is to ensure that environmental, economic, and social benefits accruing from organic research are shared worldwide. The ORCA concept is designed following a research paradigm that heavily draws on traditional knowledge, then adds scientific investigation and shares it widely. Research centres may be physical laboratories or institutions without walls, formed through alliances between producers and scientists, as well as twinning between developing and developed countries institutions. ecOlOgical science TO DevelOp ecOagricUlTUre 1 An analysis of Ecoagriculture challenges and Critical Issues Requiring Scientific Research has been proposed by S. Scherr, Ecological science needed to develop ecoag1 L.E. Jackson et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 121 (2007) 196210 table 2 p. 204
riculture concepts, i.e., strategies to increase agricultural productivity and save the biodiversity of wild species and their ecosystem services would benefit farmers and farming communities seeking to protect, manage or restore biodiversity resources in their dynamically changing and fragmented agricultural landscapes, and provide missing additional ecological knowledge; DeMOcraTiZing research IIED, following a series of conversations with farmers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, policy-makers and representatives of social movements between 2005-2007 led the formulation of a major multi-country initiative to enable citizens to exercise their democratic imagination to decide on the kind of food and agricultural research they want. This international initiative has now become an action research project: Democratising the Governance of Food Systems. Citizens Rethinking Food and Agricultural Research for the Public Good. Rather than offer ready made solutions this Democratising Food and Agricultural Research initiative supports a decentralized and bottom up process whereby farmers and other citizens can decide what type of agricultural research is needed to achieve the right to food and food sovereignty, and also organize to collectively push for change in policies and practice.
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Stop gambling with the future Humankind cannot allow some governments, scientists or companies to gamble with the very existence of life on earth.Research and funding for genetically modified plants, trees, fish and animals in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture must be redirected. The de facto moratorium, agreed by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, on the release and commercial sale of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTS), known as terminator seeds, must be upheld. Real-world experiments and deployment of geo-engineering, such as ocean fertilization, restructuring of clouds and blocking of solar rays through stratospheric barriers must be stopped and forbidden. No products of synthetic biology should be released into the environment. Governments and multilateral institutions must immediately put in place regulatory bodies and control mechanisms to govern experiments on nanotechnologies and synthetic biology. Support and implement food sovereignty Governments, institutions and organisations should build their food and agricultural policy on food sovereignty and implement it. It is important to understand that problems related to food are not only about production systems, and that other global measures related to access to resources, trade or governance are needed. Food sovereignty proposes specific measures to target all these problems as a whole.
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Ensure a decent income for all peasants and farmers There is a strong need for developing food price mechanisms and support for farmers and other food producers which provide them an assured income, commensurate with a decent livelihood. Such systems must be based on the work and real needs of the food producers living under very different natural conditions. Establish new international trade rules International trade rules, in the WTO and under bilateral and regional trade agreements, must be changed to support rather than undermine local small-scale ecological food production for local and national markets. International trade rules for food should only deal with produce that crosses borders. Each country must have the right to decide its levels of self sufficiency, and its ways of protecting and supporting sustainable food production for local and national consumption. All direct and indirect subsidies on export production in the industrial countries must be banned. Develop an index for well-being and sustainability Governments, international institutions and civil society organisations should work together to develop new indexes which reflect the development of wellbeing for people, societies and nature. Setting the UNDP Human Development Index was a big step forward from only measuring progress and setbacks for societies in economic terms such as gross national income and gross national product. However, new indexes are needed to reflect the holistic situation for people, societies and nature. Explore new innovative possibilities for supporting ecological food production Innovative networks and methods are needed that will support and promote ecological food production. How can better links and cooperation be built between small-scale farmers and scientists? How can business people contribute? How can modern information and communication technology be used to share experiences and information among small-scale farmers? How ... ? We encourage all who reads this to brainstorm and put up ideas for discussion on new and innovative possibilities for supporting ecological food production.
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Rosset, Peter. 1999. The multiple functions and benefits of small farm agriculture.( http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pb4.pdf ) Shiva, Vandana. 1992. The violence of the Green Revolution. Shiva, Vandana & Panday, Poonam. 2006. A new Paradigm for Food Security and Food Safety. Biodiversity based organic farming. Navdanya (www.navdanya,org) Small E. & Catling, P.M.. 2008. Global Biodiversity The Source of New Crops. Biodiversity 9 (1&2) (http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ esdb_archive/eusoils_docs/Pub/Biodiversity.pdf ) Smallstock in Development, Domestic Animal Diversity, (http://www.smallstock.info/issues/diversity.htm#contrib) Smedshaug, Christian Anton 2010: Feeding the World in the 21st Century. A Historical Analysis of Agriculture and Society (http:// www.anthempress.com/index.php/subject-areas/featured-product-international/feeding-the-world-in-the-21st-century.html) STERN REVIEW. 2006. The Economics of Climate Change. (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury. gov.uk/media/F/F/Chapter_3_How_climate_change_will_affect_people_around_the_world_.pdf ) The conservation of Global Crop Genetic Resources in the Face of Climate Change. Summary statement Bellagio meeting September 2007. (http://www.croptrust.org/documents/WebPDF/Bellagio_final1.pdf ) The Royal Society. 2009. Reaping the benefits, Science and the sustainable intensification of global agriculture. (http://royalsociety.org/reapingthebenefits) UK Food Group Briefing. 2010. Securing future food: towards ecological food provision. (http://www.ukfg.org.uk/Securing_future_food.pdf ) UNEP 2010: Dead Planet, Living Planet. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration for Sustainable Development. (www.grida.no/_ res/site/file/publications/dead-planet/RRAecosystems_screen.pdf ) UNEP. 2009. Towards sustainable production and use of resources: Assessing Biofuel. (http://www.unep.fr/scp/rpanel/pdf/assessing_biofuels_full_report.pdf ) UNEP - UNCTAD. 2008. Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa. UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity-building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development. ( www.unep-unctad.org/cbtf/publications/UNCTAD_DITC_TED_2007_15.pdf ) United States Department of Agriculture (USDA ). 1998. National Commission on Small Farms: A Time to Act. (www.csrees.usda. gov/nea/ag_systems/pdfs/time_to_act_1998.pdf ) Union of Concerned Scientists. 2009. Failure to Yield. Gurian-Sherman, Doug. (http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_ and_agriculture/failure-to-yield.pdf ) Wallace, Robert. 2009. Breeding influenza: the political virology of offshore farming Windfuhr, Michael & Johnsn, Jennie. 2005. Food Sovereignty: Towards Democracy in Localized Food Systems. World Health Organization (WHO). 2003. The world health report 2003 shaping the future. World Health Organization (WHO). 2005. Eco Systems and Human Well-being. Synthesis. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (http://www.who.int/globalchange/ecosystems/ecosys.pdf ) WHO & UNEP. 2010. Health and Environment Linkages Initiative (http://www.who.int/heli/risks/toxics/chemicals/en/index.html) Worldwatch Institute. 2004. State of the World. More efficient use of water. Postel, Sandra & Vickers Amy. Worldwatch Institute. 2011. State of the World 2011 Worm et al. 2006. Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services. Science 314 (3): 787-790. Wrights, Julia. 2010. Feeding Nine Billion in a Low Emissions Economy Simple, though Not Easy. A review of the literature for the Overseas Development Institute. Se Part II of this report for more references
Organisations that have contributed directly to this report: Canada: USC; India: Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security, and Navdanya; Italy: Terra Nuova; Spain: Veterinarios sin Fronteras; USA: Food First, Oakland Institute; UK: Practical Action; and International organisations: ETC-group, Friends of the Earth, GRAIN, More and Better, La Via Campesina and The International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture.
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