"Prevailing agricultural practices such as mono-cropping decrease soil moisture content, causing tremendous stress on water resources. Agriculture, today, accounts for almost 70 per cent of the world’s freshwater consumption. The use of external inputs by adoption of uniform, hybridised, and genetically modified crop varieties erodes genetic diversity of seeds, and...

This issue brief maps the social, economic and environmental impacts of the Government of Andhra Pradesh’s (GoAP) Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) programme vis-à-vis specific targets under each Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Once rolled out across the state, ZBNF could help Andhra Pradesh and India make significant progress towards almost a...

“Arrecifes”, located in the Pampas region, has undergone an intense process of soybean production in the last 20 years, due to its higher economic profitability, which could have led to negative balances of nutrients and loss of soil carbon. This degradation of natural capital would involve a "hidden cost" that has not...

Sustainable agriculture production systems aim to maintain the stock of natural capital, but cropping in the Pampean Region can lead to natural capital degradation because evaluation of alternatives activities is done by simplified cost-benefits analysis, which neglects ecological cost and overestimates profitability. The objectives of this paper were: a) to...

Rooted in discriminatory gender norms and laws and shrouded in impunity, gender-based violence (GBV) occurs in all societies as a means of control, subjugation and exploitation that further reinforces gender inequality. This publication establishes that these patterns of gender-based abuse are observed across environmental contexts, affecting the security and well-being of nations, communities and individuals, and...

In January 2019, 59 civil society organizations published the position paper “Strengthening Agroecology”. It calls to use agroecology for a fundamental transformation of agri-food systems and to exploit the potentials of the concept to combat rural poverty and to adapt to the climate crisis. The Federal Office for Food and Agriculture (BLE) is...