Forum global sur la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition (Forum FSN)

It has been a remarkably informative and wide-ranging discussion addressing the three key questions – with many additional elements reinforcing the larger challenges and diversity of contexts from where the 36 contributors and 15 countries have responded.  Despite the busy holiday season many found the time to thoughtfully contribute and interact with other submissions, building layers to the debates.

Insights gathered here are useful for practitioners, researchers and policymakers – as they seek to address root causes, and to craft policy responses that reflect the coupled social and ecological dimensions of ecological intensification. Discussion around which technical field- and farm-level measures are effective was also linked to what incentives and other market mechanisms might be developed to reward farmers’ production of positive externalities (PES), among other policy entry points raised; around awareness raising and capacity-building, taxation, subsidies, certification, and spatial planning.   

So too were thorny questions aired around the quality and complexity of relationships between producers and consumers, and the societal challenges of defining value systems and other dimensions essential to envisioning and implementing transitions toward greater sustainability in  global (and local) food systems.  The case studies and other research referenced will provide participants and others reading the archive ample opportunity to further explore the arguments and weigh for themselves the evidence needed to change practice and policy, and to build a base for further research needs.  Thanks to all who joined us!

Arthur Getz Escudero

co-facilitator of the online discussion

We would suggest to refer to "Integrated crop and livestock systems in Western Europe and South America: A review", European Journal of Agronomy, Jean-Louis Peyraud, Miguel Taboada, Luc Delaby, Fed. 2014

- in particular, section "4. Possibilites for reconnecting livestock and crop production: prospects, limitations and the need for innovation", showing that mixed-farming systems can potentially achieve high level of production, conserve natural and non renewable resources, attenuate the greenhouse effect, produce ecosystem services, and halt biodiversity loss through integration of crop and animal production and ecological engineering."

- and section "3.2. The case of territories specialized in intentive crop production", showing that the disappearance of livestock and associated grassland is generally accompanied by a reduction in ecosystem services.

The Animal Task Force (since 2011) is a European public-private platform of research organisations and farmers and industry organisations, working together on a sustainable and competitive European livestock production sector by fostering knowledge development and innovation in the whole animal production chain. For more information: www.animaltaskforce.eu.

A peer-reviewed study published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition, a leading international journal of nutritional science, showed that organic crops and crop-based foods are between 18 to 69 percent higher in a number of key antioxidants such as polyphenolics than conventionally-grown crops. Numerous studies have linked antioxidants to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers. The research team concluded that a switch to eating organic fruit, vegetable and cereals – and food made from them – would provide additional antioxidants equivalent to eating between one and two extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day, full report at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/poisoned-food-poisoned-agriculture-getting-... dmill/5485076

I have provided the required evidence to support Jomo's presentation, contributed earlier.

Warm regards

Subhash

Attached is a report of Dec 5, 2015, putting soil degradation on par with the effects of climate change.

I am taking the liberty to reproduce Jomo's presentation in Rome, Nov 2015, as Nutrition through agriculture needs to be our focus if we are to achieve the development goals this time around.

Better nutrition for better lives

Rome, 26 Nov (IPS/Jomo Kwame Sundaram*) -- Food systems are increasingly challenged to ensure food security and balanced diets for all, around the world.

Almost 800 million people are chronically hungry, while over two billion people suffer from "hidden hunger," with one or more micronutrient deficiencies.

Meanwhile, over two billion people are overweight, with a third of them clinically obese, and hence more vulnerable to non-communicable diseases.

Overcoming hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century does not simply involve increasing food availability, but also improving access, especially for the hungry.

Creating healthy, affordable and sustainable food systems for all is the most effective way to achieve this.

Since 1945, food production has tripled as average food availability per person has risen by 40 per cent. But despite abundant food supplies, almost 800 million still go hungry every day, of whom most live in developing countries.

Many more go hungry seasonally or intermittently. Hunger affects their ability to work and to learn. Clearly, the problem is not just one of food availability, but also of access.

The health of over two billion people is compromised because their diets lack essential micronutrients, which prevents them reaching their full human potential.

"Hidden hunger," or micronutrient deficiencies, undermine the physical and cognitive development of their children, exposing them to illness and premature death.

Ironically, in many parts of the world, hunger co-exists with rising levels of obesity. Over two billion people are overweight, with a third of them deemed obese.

This, in turn, exposes them to greater risk of diabetes, heart problems and other diet-related non-communicable diseases.

FOOD SYSTEM: PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

Food systems must become more responsive to people's needs, including food insecure, socially excluded and economically marginalised households.

Mothers, young children, the aged and the disabled are especially vulnerable. Adequate nutrition during the "first thousand days," from conception to the child's second birthday, is especially critical.

Our challenge then is not simply to produce and supply more food, but to ensure that better food is consumed by all, especially those most in need. And this has to be sustainable in terms of the environment and natural resources to ensure the capacity of future generations to feed themselves.

Increasingly intensive industrial farming systems and massive food wastage are often simply unsustainable.

Food production has often put great stress on natural resources - exhausting fresh water supplies, encroaching on forests, degrading soils, depleting wild fish stocks and reducing biodiversity.

We need to recognize and deal with these challenges urgently. Fortunately, we also have the means to transform food production systems to make them more sustainable and healthy by empowering local communities.

HEALTHY FOOD SYSTEMS FOR HEALTHIER PEOPLE

Strong political commitment is required to prioritize nutrition and to improve food systems.

Food system policies, programmes and interventions should always strive to improve diets, nutrition and people's access to and consumption of foods adequate in quantity and quality - in terms of diversity, nutrient content and safety.

Food production research and development should focus on ensuring more diverse, balanced and healthy diets, including more nutrient-rich foods, as well as ecological and resource sustainability.

Natural resources must be used more efficiently, with less adverse impacts, by getting more and better food from water, land, fertilizer and labour.

Nutrient dense foods, such as milk, eggs and meat, are improving diets for many, while livestock continues to provide livelihoods for millions. Yet, livestock production and consumption need to be more sustainable, with far less adverse effects on climate change, disease transmission and overall health.

Such food system reforms need to be accompanied by needed complementary interventions, including public health, education, employment and income generation, as well as social protection to enhance resilience.

Governments, consumers, producers, distributors, researchers and others need to be more involved in the food system.

SMART INVESTMENT

Better nutrition also makes economic sense. About five per cent of global economic welfare is lost due to malnutrition in all its forms owing to foregone output and additional costs incurred.

Expenditure to address malnutrition offers very high private and social returns. Yet, only about one per cent of the total aid budget is allocated for this purpose.

The follow-up to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) in Rome late last year provides a historic opportunity for political decisions and concerted interventions to enhance nutrition for all through better policies and international solidarity.

Currently, less than one per cent of foreign aid goes to nutrition. It is hard to justify not making the desperately needed investments in better nutrition for better lives.

[* Jomo Kwame Sundaram is the Coordinator for Economic and Social Development at the Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, and received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.]

Dear Colleagues,

You will agree that the Green Revolution's dramatic increase in crop production of the past 50 years has come at high Environmental costs - Soils Degradation, Mal Nutrition, Hunger, Poverty, Climate Change and Suicides, in the 'Long term'.

According FAO, Twelve million hectares of agricultural soils are lost globally through soil degradation every year. Currently, about 33 percent of world soils are moderately to highly degraded. Forty percent of these soils are located in Asia, South America and Africa and most of the remaining amount are in areas afflicted by hunger, mal nutrition poverty.

2015 is the FAO’s International Year of Soils. The FAO has released a template on “Agro ecology as it Reverse Soil Degradation and Achieves Nutrition and Food Security” in the long term. Agro ecology is part of FAO's Strategic Framework and states that agro ecology has proven to be an effective strategy to meet the global challenge of how to produce the increasing requirements of safe and nutritious food for a growing population in the context of climate change, guaranteeing environmental restoration whilst contributing to economical development and growth.

Following the Agro ecology of the area, integrating forestry, multiple crops and livestock, restores soil health as it increases soil organic matter year after year, facilitates soil biodiversity, by building on successful farmers’ knowledge and season after season research and adaptation, thus reducing hunger, Mal nutrition, poverty, .suicides and the effect of climate change whilst improving net incomes/ purchasing power and livelihoods of the rural poor producer communities.

Link to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO):

http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/news/news-detail/en/c/317402/

also reproduced below.

Agroecology, which restores ecosystem functioning by maintaining soil health, is an effective strategy to achieve food security in the areas of the world where it is most needed.

The challenge

The dramatic increase in crop production of the last 50 years has reduced the number of chronically undernourished people. However, these massive production gains have come at high environmental costs, which have affected soil and ecosystem health.

Currently agricultural policy is increasingly expected to face the combined challenge of producing sufficient food for a growing population while guaranteeing environmental restoration. Therefore, policy-makers are more frequently asked how to address the urgent need for soil and environmental restoration when millions of people are still hungry.

Food security and soil degradation

“The world produces more than enough food to feed every member of the human family, yet 1 in 9 people do not have enough to eat”. This was the opening sentence by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, for the launch of EXPO 2015 in Milan, Italy.

Despite hosting almost all food production, rural areas also hold the majority of the world’s food insecure people. Soils that are well managed by family farmers help ensure the four dimensions of food security: availability, delivering nutrients for crop growth; access, by improving family farm income through more reliable harvests; stability, by conserving water to support nearly year-round cropping; and utilization, by harvesting healthy nutritious food from healthy soils.

Soil degradation consists of biological, chemical and physical degradation. Currently, about 33 percent of world soils are moderately to highly degraded. Forty percent of these soils are located in Africa and most of the remaining amount are in areas that are afflicted by poverty and food insecurity. The strong relationship between soil health and food security calls for strategic and immediate actions especially at the local level to reverse soil degradation, in order to increase food production and alleviate food insecurity in the areas where it is most needed and in the context of climate change.

Agroecology as a strategy to reverse soil degradation

By understanding and working with interactions among soil, plants, animals, humans and the environment within agricultural systems, agroecology encompasses multiple dimensions of the food system, including ecological restoration, political and social stability and economic sustainability. The agroecological approach starts by restoring soil life in order to re-establish and/or enhance the multiple soil-based biological processes. This requires:

* Increasing and monitoring soil organic matter: Soil organic matter is considered the most common deficiency in degraded soils and the main indicator for soil quality. Practical, accessible indicators can support local decisions and larger landscape monitoring and analyses for district level implementation.

* Facilitating and monitoring of soil biodiversity: Soil biological communities are directly responsible for multiple ecosystem functions.

* Build on local farmers’ knowledge: Participatory scientific approaches to soil ecosystem management, such as Farmer Field Schools, are of great importance to inform farmers’ knowledge with researchers’ scientific principles in order better locally adapt agroecological systems.

Farmers: The Ecosystem managers for soil restoration

Degraded soils have lost their capacity to sustain food production as many ecological processes provided by soil biological communities such as maintenance of soil structure, soil-born pest regulation, nutrient and water cycling, have been overlooked or replaced by the use of external inputs. Many farmers across the globe have deep, experiential knowledge of their local soils. They have tested, adapted and discovered agricultural practices that restore soil life and the associated ecosystem services. These farmers are the main ecosystem managers and are at the centre of agroecology.

Agroecology as a strategy to restore soils and ecosystem stability

Agroecology applies specific strategies based on temporal and spatial diversity, which guarantee local, stable and diverse year-round production and income. These strategies include:

Polycultures and agroforestry systems: The design of appropriate crop mixtures is more stable than monocultures as polycultures build on diverse crop resistance to soil pests and diseases and complementary uptake of soil nutrients and water in order to facilitate recycling of biomass and nutrients. The complementary traits of trees and crops enhance the efficiency of the whole systems, while litter mulch and the position of the trees along contour lines reduce erosion and soil degradation potential.

Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) is a specific agroforestry strategy in which annual and perennial crops are grown between contoured rows of leguminous species. SALT has been extensively tested and implemented in farmers’ fields and experimental plots in Southeast

Asia and has proven effective for reversing soil degradation while improving crop yields and farm’s profitability.

Cover crops: Cover crops are usually leguminous crops grown to improve soil health by guaranteeing permanent soil cover, adding organic matter to soil and fixing atmospheric nitrogen. These help reverse soil degradation even in densely populated areas where long term fallows are simply no longer possible.

The use of Mucuna spp. as a cover crop in different African locations has increased soil organic matter, improved nitrogen availability in soils and positively affected yields.

Crop-livestock integration: Integrating livestock with crop production can tighten up nutrient cycles and diversify production, especially for smallholder family farms. In mixed farming systems, crop by-products are fed to livestock while manure is applied to cropland to sustain benefits from soil organic matter and nutrients availability.

In Ethiopia and Tanzania the design of mixed farming systems, which include multi-purpose legume species such as Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea)–a drought tolerant multi-purpose legume–or Faidherbia albida –an indigenous leguminous nitrogen–fixing species with pods palatable for livestock, and leaves used as fertilizers-are well known to be effective in reversing soil degradation by controlling erosion, providing nitrogen-rich residues and increasing soil organic matter.

Time for action

The design of diverse agroecological systems rooted in local ecological knowledge and based on system diversity and ecological synergies can significantly improve soil quality and reverse soil degradation while increasing the production of nutritious food.

Agroecology has already proven to be an effective strategy to address the global challenge that agriculture is facing as it accommodates the socio-political characteristics of food security with the need for restoring ecosystem functions.

Agroecology is part of the Strategic Framework of FAO, in particular the Strategic Objectives of making agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable, increasing the resilience of livelihoods and reducing rural poverty. To facilitate a dialogue about Agroecology, its benefits, challenges and opportunities focusing at regional and national level, FAO is involved in regional conferences (held in 2015 in Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and the Pacific). Furthermore, FAO supports farmers’ research networks to integrate scientific innovations with traditional farmers’ knowledge.

Key facts

• 12 million hectares of agricultural soils are lost globally through soil degradation every year.

• Soils with soil organic matter content lower than 0.8 percent are unproductive and often abandoned.

• Agroforestry systems can reduce soil erosion by as much as 100 times in steep slopes.

• Growing Faidherbia albida in association with millet (Pennisetum glaucum) increased grain yields by 50 percent in Burkina Faso and Senegal.

• In Honduras, the adoption of soil conservation practices tripled or quadrupled maize yields for 1,200 families.

First let me wish you good health and happiness during 2016 and hope that the extraordinary effort being made by FAO (FSN) during 2015 to put in place 'Sustainable low cost low risk systems (Agro ecology) in the long term and farmer producer orgs/ company on top of the table and ensure their access to nutritious food at little or no cost, will hugely reduce the subsidy burden and contributing hugely to growth and development of the developping world.

An important step towards achieving the above is creating capacity among school children and college students by introducing this subject as part of their curriculum, thus ensuring that only those who are really interested apply for admission in Agriculture colleges, not because they are unable to get admission elsewhere, as is in most cases.

Prof Dr Amar Nayak has developped a curriculum for colleges/ universities, attached.

Here are links to courses for schools with a brief write up by Nyla Coelho, the author of the curriculum.

Our Land Our Life - An educational programme for children in India

Nyla Coelho, http://www.peakoilindia.org/resources/,

is the curriculum framework for an educational programme for children with specific emphasis on farming and farm related activities. It’s design provides a hands on approach to learning both academic and farm related topics. The document was prepared by the Organic Farming Association of India, Taleemnet and the Natural Farming Institute with other collaborators to serve the needs of the rural and the farming communities of India. Although the emphasis is on the above, others too, specially home schooling children and alternative schools will find the document useful. The programme is the outcome of a yearlong research based on inputs from pioneer educators, organic farmers and academicians from across the country.

Download PDF http://www.peakoilindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Our-Land-Our-Life...

Also links to workbooks prepared by The Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi, with the same title as our book. These work books are teacher guides as well as student workbooks that can be used for teaching in India with modification/adaptation as applicable to the local soil and agro climatic conditions.

http://www.ueec.org.in/in_english.htm

Our Land, Our Life, 6-8 class workbooks in English currently running in Government Schools of Uttarakhand

6TH CLASS: 7TH CLASS: 8TH CLASS:

CLASS 6 CLASS 7 CLASS 8

Our Land, Our Life, 6-8 class workbooks in English VI to X class

6TH CLASS , 7TH CLASS , 8TH CLASS , 9TH CLASS , 10TH CLASS

Tending a Schoolyard Garden: Nyla Coelho, is a teacher handbook that attempts to encourage educators to use available land for school gardens . Written in an easy to follow style with step-by-step instructions and plenty of illustrations, it offers teachers the necessary wherewithal as well as the confidence that it is doable. This book is the outcome of field tests of the Our Land Our Life curriculum (see above). Download PDF: http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/schoolyard-nyla.pdf

For print copies of Our Land Our Life and Tending a Schoolyard Garden, write to:[email protected]

Warm regards

Subhash

1. In your experience, how can the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of field and landscape interventions be maximized?
   
   In small-scale (UN-UNCDAT, 2013) and even at mid-scale farming  agroforestry offers a set of techniques for the described puropose. Yet these are knowledge-,  and human-labour intensive and localized methods. Diverse agroforestry (50+ edible plants cultivated) can be applied in certain level in existing sylvicultures as well.
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?
   
   In our experience small-scale farmers, especially small-scale agroforestries (e.g. members of Agroforestry Research Trust) tend to be more open about learning and experimenting with ecological methods, especially cost-effective ones.
   
    
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?
   
   In our experience big-scale farmers are not aware of the relevance of ecosystem services for agricultural production. Again mid-, and especially, small-scale farmers and so-called "new-farmers" (eco-conscious small or sometimes even tiny) groups are more aware. Besides the new movements and experiments of no-tilling, no-pesticides etc., the following book is certainly valuable: UNCTAD: Wake up before it is too late. Make agriculture truly sustainable now for food security and changing climate. Trade and Environment Review 2013.
   
    
4. Unasked contribution: We believe such an program (even we can call it agricultural reform) also has to deeply study the ongoing revolution in nutrition-science. By now it can be said that western-like diet are harmful for human health (Carrera-Bastos P et at.,2011) and there are also concerns around fabeles. Diverse, fruit-, and leaf-rich diet are proposed by most official dietetic-recommendation, so (extreme-)diversity in cultivation is also an important aspect to be added to LIBERATON.

   References:

   UNCTAD Wake up before it is too late. Make agriculture truly sustainable now for food security and changing climate. Trade and Environment Review 2013 (2013).

   Wild, M.: Peak soil: it's like peak oil, only worse, Energy Buletin, 2011.

   Milton, K. Back to basics: why foods of wild primates have relevance for modern human health. Nutrition 2000;16:480-3.

   Ceballos, Gerardo, et al. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction Science Advances 1.5 (2015): e1400253.

   Carrera-Bastos P, Fontes-Villalba M, O’Keefe JH, Lindeberg S, Cordain L. The Western diet and lifestyle and diseases of civilization. Research Reports in Clinical Cardiology 2011;2:15-35.  

   Gurven M, Kaplan H. Longevity among hunter-gatherers: a cross-cultural examination. Popul Dev Rev 2007;33: 321-65.  

   Bribiescas RG, Hickey MS. Population variation and differences in serum leptin independent of adiposity: a comparison of Ache Amerindian men of Paraguay and lean American male distance runners. Nutr Metab (Lond) 2006;3:34.

   Chivers DJ, Hladik CM. Morphology of the gastrointestinaltract in primates: comparisons with other mammals in relation to diet. Journal of morphology 1980;166:337-86.

   Milton K. Diet and primate evolution. Scientific American 1993;269:86-93.

   Gerwin, M.: Food and democracy, Introduction to food sovereignty, Polish Green Network, 2011.

   Giampietro M., Pimentel D.: The tightening conflict: Population, energy use, and the technology of agriculture, 1994.

   Womack, James P.; Daniel T. Jones . Lean Thinking. Free Press. 2003

   Shibu Jose, H.E.  : Agroforestry Systems The Springer Journal, 2012

   Renting H., Marsden T. , Banks J.Understanding alternative food networks: exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development. Environment and Planning A 2003, volume 35, pages 393 – 411, 2003
   
    

Farming systems across Europe can vary markedly from place to place. A range of factors can influence what types of production are practiced in any one place. However, climate and soil type are especially important in dictating the type and intensity of management that is possible.

As a result of these physical limits on production, the possible management practices tend to be geographically differentiated. Hence most of Europe’s lowlands are capable of supporting relatively intensive arable, permanent crop, dairy and beef systems, while soil and climatic constraints in the uplands generally means that farming is based on extensive livestock grazing of natural and semi-natural vegetation.

While there can be marked differences in the environmental challenges facing lowland and upland farming systems, water quality and flooding concerns are not only common to both but management decisions and land use change in the uplands can have important implications for the lowlands. In addition, climate change mitigation and adaptation will strongly influence future lowland and upland farming systems.

Lowland farming systems can offer greater returns on financial investment, but although important for food security the resulting intensive systems of production are also associated with ongoing concerns about diffuse pollution, biodiversity loss and adverse impacts on soil and water resources.

In contrast, although upland farming systems are recognised as being important for the maintenance of many habitats and species of high nature conservation importance, the limited number of livestock produced for market each year and the associated current reliance on agricultural support policies for a major component of income makes them very vulnerable to changes to market prices and Common Agricultural Policy support mechanisms.

There can therefore be marked differences in the issues, and the scale at which they need to be tackled, between lowland and upland farming systems. But all have one thing in common - in order to be truly sustainable into the future the farming systems being practiced will need to change markedly. In particular, whether in the lowlands or uplands, our future farming systems will need to involve more sustainable use of resources and greater integration with other land uses. This will not only help diversify the inputs and income sources on those farms but will also serve to increase their resilience to future climatic, economic and resource supply changes.

A two-day conference being held in Edinburgh on 1st and 2nd of March 2016 will seek to address these issues and encourage debate on the benefits to be gained from more sustainable resource use and greater integration of different land uses on lowland and upland farming systems. The conference is the 11th in a series of biennial Agriculture and the Environment conferences organised by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), in association with the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), Forest Research, the James Hutton Institute (JHI) and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH).

The detailed programme is in the process of being finalised, but it will feature a total of twenty-four presentations across four major themes:

How can landscape scale improvements in water quality and soil health be achieved in practice? Examples of presentations in this session include:

• Approaches to solving diffuse pollution in agricultural and forestry catchments

• Are Scotland’s soils physically degrading?

• Achieving multiple benefits from Rural Sustainable Drainage Systems

What scope is there for integrating woodland, wetland and biodiversity management effectively into upland farming systems? Examples of presentations in this session include:

• Economic and environmental benefits from woodland and wetland creation in the Cairngorms National Park

• How can commercial woodland production be integrated into upland sheep systems?

• Developing upland agri-environment measures

Does sustainable intensification have a role to play in our future farming systems? Examples of presentations in this session include:

• Achieving trade-offs between food production, greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity in lowland arable farming systems

• Is ecological intensification feasible in intensive farming systems?

• The impact of land management on livestock productivity and implications for human and animal health

How does the policy landscape need to change to help a move to more sustainable farming systems involving greater integration of other land uses? Examples of presentations in this session include:

• The importance of audits of supply chains in providing an essential wider context for developing sustainable farming systems

• How can agricultural production systems also be used to tackle climate change and enhance natural and social capital?

• Developing transformational change in farming, food and land use systems

Registration for the conference is now open and bookings can be made by contacting:Karen McCracken on [email protected] or by phone on 0044 (0)1292 525 282. Additional information and updates about this conference will be posted at www.sruc.ac.uk/srucsepaconf

The conference aims to present the best possible scientific understanding of the complexities associated with how best to achieve such an integration in practice. It will also include case studies of good practice farming, agro-forestry and agro-ecology systems.  Finally, it will provide a forum to discuss how researchers, land managers and policy makers can help develop and support multi-functional agriculture and wider ecosystem services within a healthy and thriving rural economy.

Professor Davy McCracken (SRUC and Chair of the Conference Organising Committee)

AGROECOLOGY – PUTTING FOOD SOVEREIGNTY INTO ACTION

by WhyHunger

http://www.whyhunger.org/getinfo/showArticle/articleId/4137

Preface

This publication is not a technical guide to agroecology. It does not discuss or share the science behind agroecological farming, and it does not include examples of farming practices. This publication does not try to present agroecology as a new technological fix or as a set of farming practices that can be learned and replicated with a “how to” manual. Instead, this publication shares the perspectives of members of social movements and grassroots organizations that are building agroecology and highlights the social, political, cultural, nutritional, and spiritual meaning of agroecology to their communities.

La Via Campesina, a global social movement, says, “the origin of agroecology is the accumulated knowledge of rural people, systematized and further developed through a dialogue of different kinds of knowledge: scientific knowledge, knowledge of organizing communities, and the everyday practical knowledge of agroecology and food production.” This publication embodies the ongoing dialogue of grassroots knowledge and features peasant and indigenous men, women, and youth who are the stewards of agroecology in the US and the Global South. Agroecology belongs to communities, so we hope that the knowledge summarized here will help to generate dialogue in other communities and among consumers and food producers. And further we hope this publication will expand our collective struggle for justice and international solidarity and support the leadership of communities around the world facing the impacts of the commodification of food and the growing influence of international agribusinesses in our food system.

"Scaling Up" Agroecology

The question of how agroecology can make an impact at a greater scale has been at the center of the debates among NGOs, scholars, and policymakers at national and international levels. The question of how to increase the number of people and places impacted by agroecology everyday is important, and we must recognize that peasant and small farmer communities are at the center of agroecology, both as a science and as a way of life. Bringing agroecology to scale means both “scaling up” and “scaling out” agroecology — scaling up agroecology by increasing research, training, and supportive policies; and scaling out by supporting the dissemination of peasant-led agroecological practices through peasant-to-peasant exchanges and training. Specifically, scaling agroecology up and out needs:

·         Increased funding for social movements’ priorities.

·         Support for the rights to land, seeds, and water of local   communities.

·         Substantial government commitment, away from policies that subsidize international agribusinesses and toward significant funding for technical assistance for farmers; farmer-led research of agroecological practices; and basic infrastructure of roads, schools, and other services still lacking in many rural communities.

·         Democratic reviews of free trade agreements and other international agreements that disregard and even curb farmers’ rights to multiply, store, and share seeds.

MNCs are Globally Controlling and Monopolising Seeds - A threat to nutritious food and health security as these are high cost high risk - not sustainable in the long term