Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

This member contributed to:

• 

  Harnessing the benefits of ecosystem services for effective ecological intensification in agriculture

  Consultation

  30.11.2015 - 21.12.2015
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    Jeff Buderer

    Full Circle Earth

    United States of America

    16.12.2015

    1. In your experience, how can the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of field and landscape interventions be maximized?

    This is the great challenge to develop efficiency without sacrificing ecological or human health.

    This is why intensification - if it can be done sustainability - could be so important. The key is whether intensification such as through greenhouses and more intensive crop farming such as Grow Bio-Intensive or No Till can be developed into comprehensive approaches that can rapidly replace obselete and ecologically destructive industrial models.

    The basic elements of high efficiency sustainable farming models is that reduce costs, inputs and steps to farming.

    1. No till is one example. If you reduce the time to clear the fields then your reducing both energy and labor inputs.
    2. Greenhouses are another possible example. With sophisicated climate control greenhouses using recycled biomass nutrients and renewables we can see major gains in sustainable agricultures intensity and competitive if the costs of production can be brought down through improved processes and technology.
    3. With animal husbandry again by using byproducts from farming and agribusiness operations as well as dated food from distributors we can empower smallholder farmers by reducing conventional feed costs

    A major movement towards a sustainable farming model that has rates of production similar to conventional ones would involve better sharing of information and best practices globally such as through information technology social networks and databases.

    In addition to needing to better evaluate the best available technologies and practices, we also must consider better methods for research financing their refinement as well as effective deployment and dissemination in the field.

    With many promising programs and innovations, funding and execution is an issue that often slows their development. We have to make sure no world changing technologies fall through the cracks. This often is a problem with a lot of major NGO foundations like Rockerfeller and Gates, supporting many mainline programs that discourage significant deviations from the conventional industrial agriculturel model.

    2. How can policy measures – at all levels - be designed in order to capture links between field and landscape management and the promotion of ecosystem services? Based on your experience, do you have any example of such policies?

    The problem is that even in places like Europe there is great pressure to push out the smallholders to make their economies more globally competitive to the multinationals who dominate the global agribusiness sector.

    So policymakers may have sympathy to smaller farmers, in many cases their policies are seen as stifling the "free market" especially to conventional classical economists. So we see a counter-movement in which many compelling programs that could help the small farmer become more price competitive and efficient with large production ag schemes, being under-funded and discouraged.

    A major reform that can counteract these trends of globalization and neoliberalism is the use of more full accounting measure to calculate the real cost of food as is now being discussed by NGOs like Foodtank.

    The question would be how would such a regime be put in place to phase a real cost accounting of the actual value of those ecosystem services on the one hand and how a intensive agricultural operation might be producing food while preserving or even adding to those ecosystem services as compared to mainstream farming operations which usually degrade those services.

    Its clear we have the technologies and modelling systems to begin to target regions that have the highest level of sustainable farming investments and to start the research there. Thus I do hope the outcome of this work would be to seek a comprehensive program to both aggregriate compelling best practices of sustainable intensive farming practices globally, while also targeting prime regions for the holistic dissemination of those technologies.

    3. From your knowledge and experience, how aware are European farmers of the relevance of ecosystem services for agricultural production? Do you have any examples of and/or suggestions for best practices for outreach activities to raise awareness on ecosystem services and ecological intensification

    My knowledge of Europe is limited. I do know they have stricter standards than the US in the use of agricultural chemicals and GMOs. The Nederlands is known for its innovative use of greenhouses. Germany has done valuable work in waste to energy focusing on biogas production. European countries particularly the northern ones do have a record of environmental protection and promotion of sustainable technologies that is leading the world right now.

    In terms of outreach as mentioned in my response to first question, possibly more work can done integrating the leadership and innovation in the various regions of Europe as well as the world. The role of information technologies is vital not only for managing the content and modeling trends based on this, but also for measuring the indicators of ecosystem and farm soil health in real time.

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