Both events purposefully overlapped: the final plenary session of the Farmers’ Forum was open to IFAD governors and the participants of the Farmer’s Forum were invited to the session of the Governing Council with observer’s status.

Moreover the Synthesis of Deliberations of the Farmers’ Forum was delivered to the Governing Council on the first day of its meeting. Prior to these meetings there was a specific event with young farmers, culminating in a powerful statement on the future of agriculture.

The Farmer’s Forum was attended by about 95 delegates from farmers’ and fishermen’s networks and an equal number of observers attended the forum. They represented a range of perspectives, from mainstream to radical and various colours of green in between.

Family farmers deserve a greater acknowledgement for the contribution they make to feeding and maintaining the planet.

The focus of the meeting was on institutional strengthening of the farmer’s organisations and on building strategies to ensure greater participation of those organisations in policy processes. Involvement of youth and women in agriculture also received much attention.

The IFAD Governing Council meeting was a high profile event. Among the participants were: President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, Mario Moti, the Italian Minister for International Cooperation, Andrea Riccardi and Bill Gates.

These events were an opportunity to reflect on the involvement of the farmers’ organisations in IFAD activities and in national policy-making processes. IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze speaking at the opening session highlighted the importance of collaboration. "Partnerships are central to IFAD’s work. And farmers from developing countries are our most important partner of all. They are the experts and the agents of change in ensuring enough food for an ever-growing population. We need them and their knowledge to do our job – to help grow more food and increase the resilience of smallholder farmers worldwide who currently feed one-third of the global population."

President Nwanze explained that 90 per cent of IFAD’s projects have benefitted from the input of producers’ organizations since the last meeting of the Farmers’ Forum two years ago. “But we are well aware that there is still more to do in terms of inclusiveness and consistency in these partnerships” he added. Speaking about recent climate shocks and the run up to the Rio+20 conference in June he emphasised that IFAD and its grassroots partners including youth organisations must strengthen their collaboration.

Several speakers stressed the need for more direct involvement of small-scale producers in the design and implementation of rural development plans at all levels.

Estrella Penunia Banzuela of the Asian Farmers’ Association asserted that the UN Year of Family Farming scheduled for 2014 will be meaningful only if it involves smallholders in policy advocacy.

The West African producers’ network ROPPA listed a series of specific policy questions that must be answered as a prerequisite for rural transformation. For example, how will smallholders gain access to credit and markets? And how can we empower rural women and youth, and build the capacities of producers’ organizations?

Jean-Philippe Audinet, who leads IFAD’s work with the Farmers’ Forum, stated that climate change solutions require technological, policy and behavioural responses and stressed that farmers' organisations play an important role in representing smallholders in policy development. “Solutions to climate-related challenges and the enhancement of environmental sustainability is not only a question of technology, but also one of the right policies. Farmers’ organisations play a central role in representing smallholders in policy dialogues to ensure that policies respond to their needs and realities.”

In his presentation, Bill Gates made a plea for sustainable intensification based on technological approaches. He expressed his strong believe, that ‘there is a chance for another revolution in agricultural productivity’ and that ‘sustainable yield increase can lead to better life for farmer’s families’. He also explained that ‘to meet ambitious productivity targets we have to think hard about how to start taking advantage of the digital revolution that is driving innovation in many places’. In particular, he mentioned genomic science and information technology emphasizing that ‘a huge part of the job we share is bringing today’s breakthrough agriculture science and technology to help the farmers’.

Sustainable agriculture and small-scale farmers were the main focus of the session of IFAD’s Governing Council, entitled ‘Sustainable smallholder agriculture: feeding the world, protecting the planet’. The session focused on ‘sustainable intensification’ of the food production with the view of the growing demand for food in the future. Taking the idea of ‘using natural processes and mix of new and traditional technologies’ as a starting point, different approaches to sustainable agriculture were discussed.

Those included: conservation agriculture, Integrated Pest Management, organic agriculture, sustainable forest management, improved crop varieties, balanced fertilization and bio fertilization. Ways to scale-up sustainable approaches were another important and related topic of the session. Here, several options were considered: creating s level playing field for sustainable agriculture, providing financing, ensuring clear land rights, investing in building resilience of the small-scale farmers, engaging private investments, enhancing cooperation and providing small-scale framers possibilities to acquire new skills and knowledge.

The Farmers’ Forum has several sessions with a specific focus on sustainable and organic agriculture. Discussions were lively and showed that many farmers’ organisations give a growing importance to agroecological approaches.

Another side event focused on the Rio+20 Conference. It was an opportunity for the participants to share their views on the Zero Draft document. The discussions revealed a strong and shared discontent with the fact that the document pays no attention to family farming and the importance of agroecological approaches in the context of a green economy.

This side event was an opportunity to discuss different strategies to approach the Rio+20 conference. It became clear that there are many roads leading to Rio, but there was a clear consensus about the key message to be taken to Rio: Family farmers deserve a greater acknowledgement for the contribution they make to feeding and maintaining the planet.

These two events in Rome showed once more that there are two ways of thinking about the future of the agriculture and the gap between them is difficult to bridge.

As Roger Leakney from James Cook University in Cairns, Australia phrased it: “Agriculture suffers from widely polarized views of how to go forward from ‘agribusiness and GMOs are the magic bullet’ to the most extreme civil society and organic viewpoints”.

Formal and informal discussions that took place in Rome demonstrated that the latter is also true for the UN system where views concerning what actually is sustainable agriculture can be radically different.

As one UN worker said: “People in my organisation call me partial. Yes I am, because I am pro-people and pro-environment”. It would be a positive step forward if farmers’ organisations took the lead and showed the rest of the world how the gap between different ways of thinking about agriculture can be bridged, without compromising the future of millions of family farmers.

Text: Ellen Naughton and Marta Dabrowska

The Farmers’ Forum was initiated in 2005, with the first meeting taking place in 2006, to institutionalize the continuous dialogue between smallholders and rural producers, IFAD and governments of its Member States. The Forum is an on-going, bottom-up process of consultation and dialogue between small farmers’ and rural producers’ organisations (FOs), IFAD and governments, focused on agricultural and rural development and poverty reduction.

Vandana Shiva expressed her great disappointment with Zero Draft and called the conference ‘Rio -20’. She explained that there are three things that worry her. Firstly, Zero Draft is not building on earlier commitments from two previous Earth Summits. Secondly, the document lays too much emphasis on biosynthetic technologies. Finally, it leaves sustainable agriculture out of the piorganicture and hardly mentions this type of agriculture in relation to ‘big’ issues of the conference such as water, green jobs, biodiversity, land degradation, cities. At the end of her speech Vandana Shiva suggested that achieving greater integration of the findings of the IAASTD report in the Rio+20 outcome document should be the goal for farming organisations in the preparation process to the conference in June.

Hans Herren emphasized that Rio conference is the moment when the world will decided about its future. Farming organisations should help policy-makers choose the right way forward which, according to him, is sustainable agriculture based on multifunctional, agro-ecological, and organic approaches. He also warned that organisations such as World Bank try to introduce ‘Troyan horse’ of biosynthetic technologies into the system. He made a concrete proposal for creation of the international institution that focuses specifically on agriculture. He also called for organized effort to change consumers’ behavior, including support for diets that are based on grains and vegetables rather than meat.

Nadia Scialabba and Ulrich Hoffman explained position of the international organisations, such as FAO and UN towards greening economy. According to Nadia Sciabballa, with the shift from food quantity-focused towards food quality-focused thinking, FAO realized the importance of the sustainable agriculture, especially with regards to issues such as food and nutrition security and creating decent rural livelihoods. Also Ulrich Hoffman noted that food crisis in 2008 started a paradigm change towards more quality oriented approaches within the UN system. However, he shared the reflection that there is still little political willingness for drastic change and that the majority of the policy-makers want to ‘produce more with less’ but not in a different manner.

Ulrich Hoffman was strongly disappointed that Zero Draft of the Rio+20 outcome document does not recognize conventional farming as a problem and listed many issues that are missing in the document. Among others, the document does not make commitments to drastically reduce the impact of the conventional agriculture, recognize sustainable farming approaches as innovation systems, support local knowledge rather than biosynthetic solutions and push for eco-functional intensification.

Speaking from the perspective of farmers, Thilak Karijawasam noted that Zero Draft focuses on corporate farmers and is not sensitive enough to the problems of the small-scale farmers. Especially, he was concerned about the lack of effort to tackle issues related to trade barriers affecting the farmers. Criticism and feeling of disappointment dominated in the speeches delivered during the workshop.

The speakers shared the opinion that Zero Draft ‘green-washes’ old system and does not provide sufficient framework for system redesign. They all worried about the lack of recognition of the detrimental effect of the conventional agriculture, attempts to present biosynthetic technologies as a solution to the global problems and disregard of the sustainable agriculture based on agro-ecological, multifunctional approaches. The official response of the IFOAM is in preparation. Let’s hope that this time it is better heard by policy-makers.

Read more on Rio+20.

Text: Marta Dabrowska

Beyond talks of GDP, and other economic tools to measure growth, how can we really understand the value of nature, and put this into a language that decision makers as well as businesses understand? To what extent will the new economics of ecosystem services change our attitudes towards sustainable development? In front of the Rio+20 earth summit, the United Nations conference on sustainable development, these are some of the questions the panel raised.

Ecosystem services "give us our basic needs", said Claire Brown, a Senior Programme Officer for Ecosystem Services and Assessment at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and they have monetary and social value. But the term value remains subjective, which represents, according to Will Evison, environmental economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and lead contributor to the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Report for Business (TEEB) the importance nature has for individuals and society.

To translate the value of ecosystems in economic terms, economists have different tools. While it's easier to put a price (fair or unfair) on food or fuel, items that are traded on a daily basis, more abstract concepts such as climate regulation, carbon sequestration or seed dispersal is harder to translate into monetary value, and furthermore determine who should pay. Such things as the value of mangroves, which act as a sea defence or the waste treatment provided by wetland habitats avoiding health costs can be determined with the cost based approach, which looks at the costs of avoidance, replacement and clean up. But with all these tools, the question remain how will this help the public and private sector to make wise decisions?

In times of economic downturn a question that was raised by the panel was how this valuation of nature will connect to mainstream politics when governments are trying to cut spending and create jobs. Professor Watson brought in the well documented case of the Catskills mountains in New York. The restoration of the rural nature of the Catskill watershed from which New York city gets most of its water cost less than the construction of a water purification plant.

Professor Watson also talked about the importance of schemes aimed at conserving ecosystems by paying the caretakers of the land and environment. Such initiatives have already started with REDD, the UN programme aimed at Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing countries, in which governments finance developing countries' strategies to keep their forests standing while everyone benefits are universal : climate regulation, conservation of biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

With assessments taking place worldwide like TEEB and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment the international attention has been drawn to the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. As a result of these initiatives, the importance of these services, whether they are environmental, spiritual or social argued professor Sir Robert Watson, chief Scientific Advisor to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is beginning to be recognised. More importantly, the value of ecosystems need to be determined before they disappear as their value is often better understood once they have vanished.

Moving forward, the green economy in times of economic, environmental and political change and volatility is all about risk management. Ian Dickie, director of the Aldersgate Group, on a final note argued that partnerships will be needed between all sectors of society; between natural scientists and economists, private and public sectors, countries from the south and the north. The panel remained hopeful that the conclusion that ecosystems are degrading, which constitutes a threat to human beings will brought us together, fuel technology sharing and bring the motivation to find solutions and use resources more efficiently.

The next Earth Debates will focus on:

• 22 February 2012 Beyond GDP – how to measure progress?
• 14 March 2012 Green cities in a green economy - how to pioneer a sustainable transition?
• 11 April 2012 Food security – how to feed the population in 2050?

Text: Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu

So how can we challenge this misperception? Julia Wright makes two points for action: making more information on agro-ecology available (promoting agro-ecological literacy) and challenging widespread, conventional agriculture mindset. What does it mean in practice? Agro-ecological literacy starts with making more information and evidence about benefits of sustainable agriculture available. It also means creating educational system that emphasizes linkages between different elements of ecological, economical and social systems (holism).

To change conventional agriculture mindset we need to understand fear that make it so powerful. Fear that mainstreaming agro-ecological approaches will result in lack of food, loss of control and widespread starvation.

To tackle those fears we can refer to solutions rooted in eco-psychology science. It all starts with showing respect and assuring people that there are not the only ones who are worried about world’s situation and who care about starving populations. We also need to convince them that there is a potential for change and arouse feelings of the responsibility for negative impacts of conventional agriculture and empathy for ecosystems that are being damaged. This requires understanding of ongoing mechanism and good evidence supporting our claims. Finally, there is a need for guidance from people with a lot of authority.

Thus, bringing agro-ecology on the political agenda is not a one-step process. It requires skills, strategic thinking but also empathy and understanding of fears of people who doubt about potential of agro-ecology. Let’s start now!

For those who want to lobby for their ideas, inspiring can be also TEDx talk by Nancy Durante on making presentations for great ideas.

Further reading:

• The Oxford Real Farming Conference
• Julia Wright’s presentation

Text: Marta Dabrowska

The report is the result of an extensive research project on the global commercial pressures on land, coordinated by the ILC and conducted by more than 40 stakeholders. The report presents the evidence – so far – of these different stakeholders monitoring large scale-land deals, including the voices of land users themselves. It describes the key features of land grabs, or “land rush” as it is put in the report, as well as the outcomes, contextual factors and responses needed from government, civil society and development partners.

Land grabbing is not new, but it happens in much more different ways than was previously assumed and on a much larger scale, particularly since the food crisis in 2008. This was also recognised in the report recently released by Oxfam, “Land and Power”, for example, as can be read in the new issue of Farming Matters: “Securing the right to land” (Robin Palmer provides an interesting overview of recent coverage on land grabs in his column). Despite increased attention, the problem seems to be getting out of hand.

The ILC report states that the costs of the global land rush are “disproportionately carried by the rural poor”. The report confirms that the rural poor are not only evicted from their lands in some land deals, but often their livelihoods suffer because they lose access to common property like forests or grasslands.

Women are particularly vulnerable, as their land rights are not recognised or they have little influence on decision making. Moreover, governments often make tax exemptions for foreign investors, which eliminates the major public benefit from what is in fact an exploitation of natural resources. The acquisitions of natural ecosystems – forests, grasslands, mangroves – which are then converted to farmland, mines or areas for tourism, lead to a loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity.

The myth that large scale land acquisition is needed to produce food for an increasing population, is set right by the ILC report: around 80% of the deals of which the commodity is known, are for not for food production but for biofuels, mineral extraction, industry, tourism or forest conversions. Another argument for these land deals that the report undermines is that the investment in land will bring about new jobs. The study found that the estimates for new jobs created are often exaggerated, since the jobs that are made available are often low-paid and insecure.

Population growth and growing consumption by a minority in the world are the main drivers for the increasing competition for land, the report states. Speculative capital also plays a major role (as is explained further in the column by Eric Holt Gimenez).

However, in the report much attention is given to the role of (poor) governance in exacerbating the problem of land competition, or at the very least in allowing it to affect so many people adversely. The decision-making over land and investments are failing to prevent these negative impacts. Where governance is weak and democratic participation and accountability are lacking, the elite have the power to make decisions and be the ultimate beneficiaries of land acquisitions.

Also, agricultural development policy, both nationally and internationally, systematically benefits large- scale commercial ventures over smallholders. The abilities of smallholders to compete against these large agri-businesses and to influence agricultural and trade policies are further disabled in a vicious circle where the land grabs only worsen their situation.

“The competition for land is becoming increasingly global and increasingly unequal,” ILC director Madiodio Niasse writes in the foreword to the report (also read an interview with Mr Niasse). Resources are getting increasingly scarce, so the choices made today have a huge impact on the opportunities of the future. That is why action has to be taken today. It is astounding how these facts about land grabs can be known and still governments promote foreign or other large scale investments in land as something that will “benefit the population”. Not the poor rural population, that is for sure. At least not as long as they are not included in a serious way in decision-making and recognised as valuable and rightful users of land.

Luckily, the report comes with ready policy recommendations. Of course, policy makers must start from the assumption that there is no “idle” or “unused” land. The users of all land must be considered and regarded as having “a moral right of possession”. Also, efforts must be made to provide the majority of the rural poor, who do not have (legal) entitlements to land, with legal individual or communal ownership of land and water resources. But even if national or international laws are put in place, transparency in land acquisitions are needed to be able to hold people accountable to laws, contracts and guidelines.

So what if (international) policy fails small scale land users? The new issue of Farming Matters explores responses by people and organisations to ensuring land rights in the face of increased competition for land, not just governments. There are examples of farmers taking matters into their own hands (van den Berg et al.), but the impeding environment makes it difficult for them. Land rights need to be recorded and recognised. Local authorities play an important role in this, as Thea Hilhorst explains.

The conclusion of this report is that we are at a crossroads: the future of rural societies, land based production and ecosystems are pushed in a direction that is “far from optimal”. Something has to be done.

Text: Laura Eggens

ln recent years, GRAIN has been at the forefront of documenting, and condemning, the rapidly accelerating phenomenon of land grabbing.

In their acceptance speech, GRAIN coordinator Henk Hobbeling said "There is much to be done. But GRAIN would like to use this opportunity, here in the Swedish Parliament, to call for one specific action. We want an immediate end to the global farmland grab - an urgent and massive "recall" of land grabbers, like what food safety authorities do to get contaminated food out of the food supply. We call on everyone to do whatever is possible to stop the international flow of money for the global acquisition of farmland. And to restitute lands to all affected rural communities. Stopping land grabbing is not just about what is legal. It is about what is just."

Stopping land grabbing is not just about what is legal. It is about what is just.

A seminar with GRAIN took place in Stockholm while they were there to receive their award. The seminar was entitled Land Grabbing and the Global food crisis. The following questions were directed at Mr. Hobbelink by participants at the end of the event.

Q: When did this problem start?

It started off in 2008 with the food crisis and financial crisis. When on the one hand with the food crisis there were a number of wealthy countries but lacking food, like the Gulf states and China as well. They realised in the food crisis that they could not rely on the food markets anymore to supply their food. Therefore they started looking for land in Africa and Latin America and Asia. Over time, what we had seen clearly also because of the financial crisis, banks, investment houses and pension funds have started to look at land and the food commodities as a "safe haven" where they can invest their money in times of crisis.

Q: So food has become the new gold?

Exactly. On the exchange markets food is put in the same bag as gold. Food is a commodity, like gold and oil, and like others which are being negotiated on. The impact of these kind of negotiations are the speculations; the price goes up and for poor and hungry people it becomes impossible to buy food.

Q: You said that it is relatively new thing. Is that why we haven't heard so much about it?

There were always conflicts and fights over land. But what is new, is that we have new actors now. We have banks, we have investment funds, we have pension funds who in the past didn't necessarily want to touch land as a commodity, because it was too complicated to cultivate the land. But in the times of climate change, in the times of when land becomes the scarcest commodity in their view, it's becoming very profitable for these actors to invest in land.

Q: Who are among the biggest land investors?

We usually only read or hear about Gulf states or China investing in farmland, but some of the biggest investors are much closer to our home. The three main pension funds with the biggest investment in agriculture are from the Netherlands, the US and Sweden. Despite the fact that a percentage of the total funds they manage it is not large (1% - 3% of their portfolios, with the figure expected to rise to 5% by 2015), but in terms of their impact on small farmers it has a tremendous impact.

Q: Do we have any date of how many land is under the investors control?

The data, information and the contracts are very hard obtain, but current estimates are that 60-80 million hectares of land have fallen under the control of foreign investors for the food production in the last couple of years only. To illustrate, this is equal to half the farmland of the EU.

Further reading:

• The Right Livelihood Awards are awarded annually and are widely known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize."
• Acceptance speech - GRAIN calls for end to land grabbing at Swedish Parliament
• GRAIN website - www.grain.org and www.farmlandgrab.org

Text: Urška Merc

Some experts, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), argue that food production needs to increase by 70 per cent by 2050, whereas others argue that it is a matter of re-distribution, blaming a wasteful system where 30-50 per cent of food produced worldwide is thrown away, never consumed, or left to rot in fields. By the same process, not only food but water and energy go to waste as well.

We are facing two main challenges : We must find the means to provide a more equal and accessible supply of food to a growing world population; at the same time, we must aim to minimize waste and create solutions that do not result in damaging effects on both the climate and ecosystems.

A global UN study carried out between 2000 and 2005 has shown that the natural systems on which we all depend are now so critically stressed - through over-exploitation, invading species, and environmental pollutants- that they are losing their ability to supply benefits to our societies and secure human welfare in the form of ’ecosystem services’.

This degradation is critical, as human activity - like agriculture - relies on a number of ecosystem services such as water purification, natural pest control and maintenance of soil fertility. Part of the problem is also that traditional agriculture is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, through transport and the production of fertilisers and pesticides and therefore dependent on the energy prices, which are always fluctuating, and expected to increase.

Although organic agriculture - a practice that uses non-synthetic nutrient cycling processes, excludes or rarely use synthetic pesticides, and sustains or regenerates the soil quality, and optimizes animal and plant interactions - is no cure-all solution, it could constitute a useful approach. While opponents have often claimed that organic agriculture could not possibly produce enough food to feed the world’s population, a recent study refutes these claims.

Published by scientists from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University in 2006, the study’s estimates indicated that organic methods could provide enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. In fact, the study revealed that yields in developing countries could increase dramatically, doubling or tripling in some cases by switching to organic farming.

Further studies have also proven that organic agriculture reduces the vulnerability of farmers to the negative effects of climate change and variability as it reduces input costs and increases the diversity of income sources. Production under organic agriculture systems is less prone to extreme weather conditions such as drought ; this is due to the maintenance of nutrients and the increase of soil organic matter which stores more water than conventional cultivation.

An example of the benefits that can result from organic agriculture is Project Tigray in Ethiopia, initiated by the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) in association with the Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BoANR) of Tigray, in partnership with the Mekele University. This project began in 1995 in one of Ethiopia’s most food insecure areas. The aim was to improve productivity and food security in a fast-growing and predominantly rural population while reinvigorating the environment. The results and data collected from the Tigray Project confirmed the claim that organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries as low-intensive methods on the same land.

The Tigray project is proof that human activity, in particular agriculture, can actually support and enhance rather than disrupt the natural cycles that allow for the healthy functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. Farmers, development agents, and ISD staff have identified a number of positive effects including increased biological diversity, improved soil fertility, decreased incidence of weeds, whereby the seeds are killed when the compost heats up during the decomposition process, decreased vulnerability to drought, higher resistance to pests, and lower costs for farmers compared with buying artificial fertilisers. The project also demonstrates that a little money can really go a long way when farmers take advantage of the free services that nature has to offer (e.g. composting, a varied crop rotation, inter-cropping of several different species of crops on one field and collection/storage of rainwater). The project is affordable, farmer-led, community-based, and builds on the local technologies and knowledge without creating relationships of dependency.

The project was particularly beneficial for women and women-headed families, who were given priority throughout the program. Effort was made to enhance the position of women in the communities by training and providing women with seeds and seedlings for plant nurseries, organizing study trips, and facilitating the purchasing of sheep, goats and cows in order to be more self-sufficient. As a result, local communities have been empowered, and have in turn developed legally-recognised bylaws to govern their land and other natural resource management activities.

The results of the project were so positive that the government has now adopted a similar approach as its main strategy for combating land degradation and poverty in Ethiopia. The successes of the project have led to its expansion to include many more communities in Tigray and in other parts of the country.

Access to and increased development of local markets, as well as local processing capabilities and export infrastructure are an important step in making organic agriculture a viable and beneficial strategy in the Global South. Wider recognition of the potential of organic agriculture is needed and further research must take into account different climatic conditions and approach each situation with cultural sensitivity.

Organic agriculture, with the aim to preserve natural nutrients and enhance biodiversity, can provide for seven billion people while maintaining and utilising the ecosystems services. More importantly, the project raised, probably for the first time, the question of paying farmers, not only for what they produce but for providing important ecosystem services such as maintaining biological diversity and absorbing greenhouse gases. The current devaluation of ecosystem services can at least partially explain present environmental problems in agriculture, as farmers have no incentives to protect ecosystems or use the services they provide in a sustainable way.

What would agriculture look like if farmers made their living not only on how much food they produce, but also based on how much their farming practice enhances nature?

Further reading:

• The Tigray experience: a success story in sustainable agriculture
• Healing the earth: an Ethiopian story
• A new paradigm for the FAO
• The 9 billion-people question?

Text: Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu

NOTE: This post reflects the views and opinion of the author, but not necessarily those of the AgriCultures Network.

The idea of the conference was that students from several European Life science universities would have the opportunity to present their Bsc or MSc research projects. To present at an international conference was for many of the students a new experience which they did with great enthusiasm. The message was clear at the conference ‘business cannot continue as usual’.

We have at this moment huge global problems related to food and agriculture, firstly we got the two opposing problems, under nourishing and obesity. On top of this we got climate change, lack of water, pollution and a financial crisis. If we should be able to feed a rapidly growing population we might have to ask ourselves ‘how do we grow food?, what do we grow? and what do we eat?’. Questions that many of the students tried to answer in their research.

If agriculture will not feed us, what then?

During the conference important points were made about the unequal accessibility and availability of food. It was mentioned that there might be a need for a production slowdown and a better focus on if a region can feed its population rather than globally aiming for a new green revolution.

The student presentations I personally found inspiring emphasized that innovations and the need to work together over the scientific disciplines are essential aspects of continuous life science research.

The final impressions from the conference was a discussion about the need for a vision on how we want the world to be like since this will determine how we do things, also agriculture. Another thing that stayed was the provocative statement ‘Why do we want to feed the world?’ which made the audience in the room very quiet.

For more information about the yearly conference and Life science universities visit: http://www.euroleague-study.org/

Text: Matilda Rizopulos

Q: From where did you get the idea to start a homegrown school feeding programme in Ghana?

In 2000 the General Assembly of the U.N. defined the eight Millennium Development Goals including halving hunger in the world by 2015 (MDG 1). At that time the number of people suffering from chronic or acute hunger was estimated to be 850 million. The food price crises between 2007 and 2011 increased that number with 150 million to the astonishing figure of 1 billion chronically hungry people at present. In my opinion it is morally unacceptable that in this world about one billion people live in wealth and have access to so much food, that they get sick of it (they develop cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, or forms of cancer), while at the same time another one billion people are so poor that they get sick of being chronically hungry and are physically and mentally incapacitated. It is also dangerous to neglect 1 billion poor and hungry people, as they are a source for armed conflict, terrorism, refugee streams and the spreading of HIV and TBC. And, it is economically undesirable to exclude 1 billion potential consumers and producers.

This interest in eradicating hunger did not come out of the blue. In my position in Unilever, I developed an interest in sustainable agriculture. In 2002, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan established the Hunger Task Force (HTF), and I had the honour of becoming a member, representing the food industry. In January 2005 the Hunger Task Force presented its report with 40 pragmatic recommendations to attack hunger, and one of these was the idea of Home grown School feeding. The coordinators of this task force, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan from India and Dr. Pedro Sanchez from Cuba, were important sources of inspiration for me. They took me to India and Africa and made me to see hunger. This made a deep impression on me.

“What is more fulfilling than making a real contribution to the achievement of MDG1 after a lifelong of selling ice creams?”

Q: Which strategies did the task force identify to tackle hunger?

The Hunger Task Force identified three major thrusts in the battle against hunger: First of all: increase of agricultural productivity of food insecure smallholder farmers through investing in soil health, water management, improved seed quality and education. Secondly: improve nutrition with locally produced food through community nutrition programs and “home grown” school feeding programs. Thirdly: ensure profitable market access for the poor smallholders. As Task Force we reached a clear conclusion: if we want to eradicate hunger, small farmers must be supported to increase their productivity, store their crops in an adequate manner, and market their produce. The focus on subsistence smallholders is right, because there are so many of them living in a poverty trap, needing immediate help to escape chronic hunger.

Q: Can you further explain the concept of home grown school feeding?

The idea is this. By linking local farmers to the school feeding programme a captive local market is created where they can sell their surplus food. This food will be the main ingredient for healthy midday meals for schoolchildren. It is a quick win concept to reduce hunger the next day. Schoolchildren are fed and farmers get an opportunity to market their produce. Successful implementation of “Home grown School feeding”, with initial foreign investment, should lead to increased school enrolment and retention, improved learning capabilities, better health and sustainable agro-based, economic development. After 5 to 10 years with foreign support, the local communities should produce and earn enough, to be able to feed themselves adequately on their own.

Q: You mobilised a large number of stakeholders, both in Ghana and the Netherlands. What is the importance of bringing so many stakeholders on board?

In the course of 2004, I checked with various entities in Ghana (Ghana Health Service, Dutch Embassy, WFP, UNICEF, World Vision, Unilever), whether home grown school feeding would be good for Ghana and if (financial) help from Europe would be appreciated. The response was overwhelmingly positive. In 2005, I approached in The Netherlands, parliamentarians, NGO’s, the private sector, universities, the Ghanaian diaspora, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NCDO, Schuttelaar & Partners and SNV ( Dutch Development Organisation), with the proposal to support a Dutch partnership with Ghana to make the “Home grown School feeding programme” work. We got support from the Dutch Ambassador in Ghana. He clearly saw that this programme could make a difference.

With a team of experts we wrote a plan, spending much time and effort on developing a governance structure for GSFP, with clear checks and balances ensuring that the food actually reaches the schoolchildren Governments often do not like this type of ‘control’ and therefore governance is given low importance in the design and implementation of projects. Yet it is crucial, as we experienced. We established a MOU between the Ghana Government and the Dutch Government. The Dutch commitment was to co-finance GSFP for 5 years,for the procurement of locally grown food.

We wanted to demonstrate that this integrated concept could work and that good governance would help in making the programme a success. To show this, we needed high level political support and a civil society support base, both in the Netherlands and in Ghana. If it proved successful, the concept could be rolled out, not just in Ghana but in many other African countries.

Q: And then, after a flying start, the programme ran into problems. What went wrong?

In 2007 and 2008 the GSFP met with considerable difficulties. After a successful pilot phase the Ghana Government was keen to roll out the programme to every district in Ghana. Elections were around the corner. But there was no organizational structure on the ground and there were no checks and balances. Financial irregularities were detected and the programme was abused for political purposes. The Dutch Government suspended its support and demanded remedial action by the Government of Ghana.

SIGN (the School feeding Initiative Ghana Netherlands) made efforts to improve the accountability of the GSFP. It also started a lobby-circuit in The Netherlands to convince Dutch civil society and the Government to continue its support. As a result of a lot of publicity and debate in election time (the school feeding program was one of the key issues in the presidential election of 2008), the head of the GSFP was fired and the Government of Ghana made efforts to improve the programme. A civil society platform was established in Northern Ghana with the help of SIGN, SEND and SNV (one of SIGN’s platform members), with the objective to monitor and support the GSFP. The free press in Ghana played an important role as well, as it requested the need to enhance democracy and transparency regarding the use of funds. In 2009 the Dutch Government resumed its support.

Q: Farmers were to be actively involved in GSFP as producers and suppliers of healthy, local school food. What happened on the farmer front?

This has been a problem which has not yet been resolved. The participation of local farmers in the supply of food to the schools remained far below expectation. We wanted to support small farmers by offering them a captive market but we found out that there were many reasons why this did not work well.^[1]

At present, 20% of the school food is sourced directly from local farmers. The other 80% is purchased on local markets, by caterers who are appointed by the Ghana Government. I am confident that there will be a growing involvement of farmers in the coming years.

Q: What can be learned from other countries like Brazil, which have involved farmers quite successfully in their national schoolfeeding programme?

Brazil and Chile are leading in school feeding. People from the GSFP went to Brazil to study the programme there; they were impressed but realized that contexts hugely differ.^[2]

Q: The Brazilian experience shows that it requires a strong small-scale farmers’ organization and a strong social movement to establish a robust local food value chain. In Brazil this has taken twenty years.

Indeed this will take time as small scale farmers in general are not strongly organised in Ghana. Currently there is a growing understanding among civil society and support partners that there is a need to organise and this understanding goes beyond the school feeding program.

Q: Which lessons have you learned about the role of SIGN?

A pioneering programme like this needs professional support, both in the Netherlands and in Ghana. In 2006, the School feeding Initiative Ghana-Netherlands was established as a Dutch foundation and a secretariat was set up at the Royal Institute for the Tropics in Amsterdam. The founding members were: Unilever, ASN-Bank, DSM, SNV, NCDO, Oxfam-Novib, ICCO, Cordaid, Wageningen University, Wageningen Ambassadors and Schuttelaar & Partners. SIGN became a platform for Public-Private Partnership (PPP). It coordinates contacts with Ghana and the Dutch partners, mobilizes funds and expertise, supports the GSFP secretariat and communicates about the programme. A strong and stable advisory board in the Netherlands helped SIGN in achieving results.

Gradually the need became clear for a focal point in Ghana. Since 2009 SIGN financially supports the coordinator of the civil society platform. SIGN transitioned from pure support through our platform to more advocacy because that was where our added value was. A big step forward was made in 2010 when the WFP, the World Bank and PCD (Partnership for Child Development, funded by the Gates Foundation) agreed a formal partnership with the GSFP. PCD set up a representative office in Accra, headed by the Former SIGN programme officer Daniel Mumuni.

I must say that it takes much more time than we expected to get all this organized!

Q: What results have been achieved in the past five years?

The results give reason for optimism. 0.75 million children receive a nutritious hot lunch daily, this means: more food security for the rural poor. It is expected that by the end of this year the GSFP will reach 1 million children. School enrolment, in particular for girls improved. Learning abilities are enhanced and most food is procured close to the schools on the open market. There is now sufficient experience and evaluation to roll-out the Home grown School feeding Programme in other SSA countries. Last but not least, we have established “proof of principle” that PPP’s can operate. Despite setbacks, near failure and considerable challenges yet to overcome, the positive development of the GSFP is reason to be proud of what has been achieved.

But there are some major challenges ahead. Despite quite some success, serious problems remain to be solved. The GSFP budget is not yet embedded in the Ghana Government’s annual budget and the program needs retargeting. . GSFP leadership and management are still an issue and the organisation is understaffed. The technical implementation, monitoring and evaluation have serious flaws and the local farmers are not sufficiently linked to the schools.

Q: These are big challenges indeed. How will they be addressed?

Currently the retargeting is in process and the GSFP management receives technical support in taking the correct measures. This year is a transition year. The first phase is being evaluated and a second phase, with all lessons learned, will be designed, again with the needed external technical support from several partners. Essential for future success is political stability; this will enable policy reform. Political pressure is needed to address farmers’ constraints more thoroughly. Patience is necessary to give complex programmes like this, the time to mature. Local food production for local schools is very complicated, but remains a high priority for all parties involved in GSFP. I am convinced that Home grown School feeding is an African solution for an African problem.

Q: You are optimistic about the future

Yes, we are on the right track. 2011 is the year of transition. Dutch bilateral support for the procurement will stop according to the agreement. PCD & others will continue to deliver technical support to the progamme in Ghana and other Sub Sahara African countries. SIGN is handing over its knowledge and networks to PCD and will finish its own activities in Ghana.

Q: You are the champion of Home grown School feeding in Ghana. What does it require to be a champion?

… Optimism, vision, ideals, sense of reality, a lot of time.. it is great to do this in a phase of your life when you have enough time. And you need pushing power, endurance. It helps if you have some resources so that you can be proactive and travel when you feel it is necessary, without having to wait for approval. We need more champions in the fight against hunger. There is so much work to be done. But what is more fulfilling than making a real contribution to the achievement of MDG1 after a lifelong of selling ice creams?

Hans Eenhoorn is a member of the UN Task Force on Hunger. He was Associate Professor of `Food Security and Entrepreneurship` at Wageningen University and initiator of the School Feeding Initiative SIGN, and is Former Senior Vice President of Unilever. Since 2002 he has been actively involved in the global fight against hunger. He is the initiator of the Ghana Homegrown School Feeding Programme.

To read more, go to the debate on school feeding and small-scale farmers or visit the SIGN conference blog.

[1] This discrepancy was the subject of a 3 year Associate Professorship of hans Eenhoorn at Wageningen University. This professorship resulted in an interesting publication: Hans Eenhoorn and Gert-Jan Becx. 2009.Constrain constraints! A study into real and perceived constraints and opportunities for the development of smallholder farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa.

[2] For Brazillian experience; see www.agriculturesnetwork.org/news/paa-catia-grisa

In September 2004, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) developed a framework to promote the worldwide consumption of fruit and vegetables. In times of climate change, with a growing population, they have been promoting the use of genetically modified crops that are better suited to extreme climatic conditions to improve the nutritional value of agricultural products and help alleviate hunger. However the Independent Science Panel (ISP) has criticised the FAO for its qualified backing of genetically modified (GM) crops in the global fight against hunger.

The FAO seems to ignore the implicit message of its own study (The State of Food and Agriculture), that GM crops have thus far delivered negligible benefits to the World´s poor. There is little indication that these trends will change in favour of the poor. With this in mind, and with the constant threat of water scarcity in Peru, the country’s minister of Agriculture has raised 8 main proposals for Agriculture, one of which is to implement a moratorium on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

In the wake of the 2008 food price increase, enough food was produced to provide the Peruvian population with 2,700 calories per day, more than the recommended daily intake. In Peru, fruit and vegetables rotted in the absence of adequate transport and roads, a signal that hunger is not always a result of a lack of food, because it persists even when there is a surplus. Currently, almost a third of Peruvians do not get enough to eat. Also the ever increasing threat of climate change makes it difficult for farmers to survive. This is a reason why farmers might choose to plant GM seeds, having been promised more resistant, less water intensive crops, which produce larger yields, from companies such as Monsanto, a specialist in agricultural biology and the leading worldwide GM seed provider, which has been the spear head of GM seeds entering Peru.

Due to a previous lack of labelling laws, GM products such as chicken were, and still are, commonly eaten by much of the World’s population, many of whom are unlikely to be aware of the possible consequences. The International Journal of Biological Sciences notes that a recent study has linked some varieties of GM corn to kidney and liver damage in laboratory rats. With this in mind, the 10 year moratorium on GMOs in Peru has come too late. Even with new labelling laws it will still prove difficult to identify GM products, especially considering the ease of flight and transference between farms. This could suggest that organic crops will in the future be contaminated with pollen or seeds from GMOs.

Cross Pollination has already occurred due to the assistance of the wind and insects, and in sharing a border with Brazil, a top GMO producer, Peru will inevitably be home to GMOs, whether it wants to or not. Notwithstanding the potential impacts on health, the ensuing chain reaction and the spread of GMOs could have any number of environmental consequences.

A four-year study at the University of Jena in Germany conducted by Hans-Hinrich Kaatz revealed that bees ingesting pollen from transgenic rapeseed had bacteria in their gut with modified genes. These genes however, can mutate. Mutations may also be able to travel internally to other cells, tissue systems and organs throughout the human body. This is “not to be underestimated the potential domino effect of internal and external genetic pollution can make the substance of science-fiction horror movies become terrible realities in the future.” Sadly this is only one of the dozens of the side-effects of genetically modifying organisms.

Despite Immanuel Wallerstein’s claim that “years of uncertainty and global chaos are coming”, Peru’s agricultural sector should have cause for hope. As well as the Moratorium on GMOs the Minister of Agriculture has also called for more support for farmers, the strengthening of technological innovation in agriculture and an agricultural census, which may help track GM foods, making labelling of products more straightforward. However one can’t help but feel that the damage may have already been done, not just to Peru, but to the World.

The Western World has been consuming GM foods for over 10 years and the effects of this may be irreversible. Lim Li Ching from the ISP suggests that “if the world is to seriously address hunger, this means rethinking agriculture and associated policy making, and exploring how traditional knowledge and science can work together, while learning from farmers themselves.”

Further reading:

• GM farming debate in Peru

Text: Jonathan Moody

Amid the droughts that gravely impacted North Eastern Africa in the past, sophisticated systems have been put in place to help prevent similar crises. Despite early warning coming from experts, NGOs and aid agencies, whom over a year ago predicted an imminent crisis, over ten million people have now been affected.

The regions most severely impacted by the current food crisis are northern Kenya, south eastern Ethiopia, southern Somalia and Djibouti where hundreds have already died and millions are on the brink of starvation. Water in these regions is scarce and rainfall varies greatly between years and from location to location. Two years have now passed without rain falling in the region. This crisis, however, that is perhaps exacerbated by climate change, is nothing new to the population.

The region’s climate is characterised by frequent episodic dry spells. Pastoralists have lived and adapted to the riverine ecologies, which have served as a vital resource for centuries. Over the years they have learned to use water and land with optimum efficiency and have adapted to cyclical droughts by moving, sharing, exchanging and selling animals. Paradoxically, the recent dry spell is clearly underpinning the current state of emergency. So what has changed?

Growing numbers of scholars have identified three main causes for this current situation: ongoing conflict and social unrest, economic policies, and climate change. As a result of agricultural policies aimed in the wrong direction, conflicts and social unrest induced displacement have taken their toll on people’s ability to cope with a changing climate.

Insecurity is a key factor in explaining the crisis. There has been ongoing fighting in central and southern Somalia between rival warlords, which has resulted in the displacement of over 1.4 million people within the country. Islamist insurgents have also limited the ability of aid agencies to reach the targeted areas. As a result of the conflict, pastoralist groups have been unable to reach areas where rain has fallen.

In Ethiopia, violence has been increasingly intensifying in the southern region of Ogaden. This has similarly resulted in the inability of pastoralist communities of the south to reach the key natural resources they need to ensure their livelihoods such as land and water.

Pastoralism as a sustainable way of living?

Some argue that pastoralist livelihoods are unsustainable due to their chronic vulnerability, but this perhaps suggests a lack of understanding of pastoralism. Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a UK think tank, argues that the pastoralist communities have been weakened by a range of external factors. In fact, pastoralists in most countries in the Horn of Africa, who derive their main source of income from rearing livestock, have suffered from detrimental policies and economic marginalization. Notably, national policies have failed to support their livelihoods as an important economic resource and have undermined their resilience by restricting their access to key natural resources such as land and water. For example, some populations have been moved, with their livestock, to reserved areas during times of droughts.

Livestock is an important economic resource that could be positively harnessed and could offer more employment than any other productive sector. In fact, Ethiopia’s eastern region of Somali accounts for the majority of pastoralists in the country and is the wealthiest of all Ethiopia’s rural regions. This is a result of the region’s high levels of livestock exports and imports. Studies have even shown that if pastoralists’ cash income were increased, which could be done by avoiding pockets of isolated food insecurity, the country’s overall food security would also increase. Since pastoralism is uniquely capable of operating in dryland environments, where there are low and extremely variable rainfall conditions, it has become a viable method for combating famine in Africa.

Need for agricultural investment

In spite of the rapidly growing population and recurrent droughts, the land and water resources are still under-utilised and could support many more people. The emergence of this realisation has in turn led to a surge of investments across the whole of Africa. Often large chunks of land are leased to ’foreign investors.’ Some call this ’land grabbing,’ while others argue that there is a desperate need for agricultural investment and rural development. Not only are new policies and actions needed, but they also need to address the many practical difficulties farmers face and increase the productivity of assets. In order to do so, some measures can be taken to increase farmers income and decrease vulnerability such as available storage for their surpluses in case of adverse conditions in the future without much effort, as well as financing for rain water harvesting, drought resisting seed and development of rural infrastructure, irrigation systems and roads.

Difference between chronic problems and emergencies There is a need for a more integrated disaster management approach in the Horn of Africa. The first step should be to enforce interventions on livelihoods as the main focus of aid. These interventions, as described by ODI, should “aim at protecting and/or enhancing livelihoods assets, strategies and outcomes, or the context, structures and processes that influence these three elements should be the focus.” It has been said that these interventions contribute to saving lives, building resilience and countering vulnerability within nations. They therefore could be considered a more ’developmental’ or long-term approach than relief aid, as the latter often comes in a reactive manner as money or food.

In some cases, aid is essential to prevent catastrophic short-term losses, however it can sometimes prove to be more detrimental than beneficial in the long term. It undermines local food production, but also discourages any other diversification of livelihoods and creates demographic pressures that are not sustainable. This has proven to be true since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which sharpened the focus on the role of aid in achieving realistic progress in the short term. The focus on efficiency being judged by short-term achievements has caused less of the available aid in the Horn of Africa to be directed towards systemic structural problems.

The delayed intervention of governments, donors and aid agencies is also responsible for the crisis. Lack of co-ordination of the NGOs and aid agencies, investment in development and disaster management is still lacking despite growing food instability. It should aim at protecting livelihoods and current assets, and it should comprise emergency livelihood interventions. Furthermore, aid should not always have to come as default emergency food relief, and changes should be implemented structurally within governments.

Some examples of targeted and efficient solutions

A program undertaken by Afar Pastoral Development Association (APDA) has demonstrated that the total cost to help keep two cattle alive for two months for eight hundred households would be around US$90,000 whereas to buy two new cattle for the same amount of households would cost nearly US$470,000.

Another initiative taken by APDA was the ’Animal Feeds for Work’ programme, which provided vulnerable families with concentrate feeding for ten of their goats, as well as veterinary care. After only five days of feeding, goats provided twice as much milk that was nutritious and available for children and the elderly. The surplus milk was also used to make butter, which they were able to sell at the market. The total cost of this operation was just over US$55,000. Because of this there was no need for any agencies to provide supplementary feeding for these families. Participatory surveys also showed that food aid was the least preferred intervention throughout pastoralist communities.

It is worth mentioning that ’de-stocking’ is also an intervention that has proven successful. It is aimed at ensuring that pastoralists get money from their animals before they die or that body deterioration made them worthless. Such an initiative was trialled in 2005-06 by Save the Children US and resultantly brought more funds to pastoralist communities because pastoralists were guaranteed to receive almost twice the usual amount for their cattle. The benefit-cost ratio is estimated at 41:1.

With a growing population, climate change and high barriers for access on the international markets add to the inability to access markets and achieve maximum prices for livestock products. The underlying causes of vulnerability in pastoralist communities must be addressed. As a matter of fact, many of these chronic susceptibilities come as the result of inadequate post-crisis intervention and an inability to replenish assets and promote alternative livelihoods.

In order to save lives, first and foremost, the emphasis should be on saving livelihoods. For example, efforts could have been made earlier to save millions of dollars worth of livestock, funds which represent income to buy food, rather than depending on humanitarian aid to feed malnourished children.

These strategies need to be backed by programmes with flexible funding in order to avoid crises like this from happening again. There should be emphasis on the importance of cross-border mobility, which is vital to ensure the resilience of pastoralist groups and their ability to feed themselves. For example, the ban on Somali livestock imports by Saudi Arabia proved to be an economic barrier. Decades of latent government action has reinforced emergency humanitarian response as a solution to an endemic situation in the Horn of Africa. A long-term solution needs to be implemented which integrates African cultural values and ancestral knowledge of agriculture with modern science and technology.

Further reading:

• Trees against Drought

Text: Geneviève Lavoie-Mathieu

NOTE: This post reflects the views and opinion of the author, but not necessarily those of the AgriCultures Network.

One of the elements of Zero Hunger was the Program of Food Acquisition (PAA). The PAA specifically targets family farmers by creating regional markets. Since 2003, more than R$ 3,5 billion was spent on the acquisition of approximately 3,1 million tons of food, involving, on average, about 160 thousand family farmers per year. The acquired food is passed on to about 25 thousand organizations or entities per year who, in turn, serve 15 million people.

Catia Grisa, a researcher specialised in family farming, agricultural policy, rural development and food security at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, has conducted research on the PAA experience. She analyzed: the relation between the PAA and the government bodies linked to it, the outcomes of the PAA and its interaction with family farmers. An article with more detailed information on the subject will be published in the next issue of the Farming Matters magazine.

Q: How well do you think regular/commodity markets suited for small scale farmers?

Even though family farming produces a significant amount of commodities – according to the last Brazilian agricultural census, conducted in 2006, family farmers were responsible for 46% of the national maize production, 21% of wheat, 16% of soy, 59% of pigs and 50% of poultry – they have difficulties in competing in these markets. Characteristic elements of these markets, such as large scale, increasing production costs, the constant need for technological innovation and the progressive externalization of production threaten the construction of an “autonomous and historically guaranteed reproduction” of family farms.

Another feature of these markets is that they enable a small number of transnationals to dominate value chains through fusions and acquisitions. These highly concentrated enterprises operate in the fields of production investment, input commercialization (fertilizers, agro-toxins, and seeds), transportation and storage and processing of cereals. This leaves little “room for manoeuvre” for family farmers whose productive activity becomes more and more dependent on the mercantile relations established by these “food empires”.

Q: What about local/regional markets?

Family farmers that experience difficulties in competing in commodity markets, which next to the characteristics mentioned before also operate along large distances and through impersonal relations, can seek differentiated markets that enable them to take advantage of their own characteristics such as their tradition, local culture, nature, craftsmanship, proximity and locality. These features are increasingly valued by “quality markets” and come together in local circuits, short chains and regional markets. These favour the use of productive and non-material resources (know- how, production and consumption habits, customs and social relations) that are locally available, enable more value to be created and give more “agency” to family farmers.

Nevertheless, insertion in these markets brings new challenges with regard to the reinvention of tradition, the adoption of new practices, compliance to food health and safety standards, etc.

Q: What is the PAA and how does it work?

The PAA is an institutional market that articulates a diversified demand for food with a local supply of produce from family farmers. In this market diversity in foods, sustainable farming, and the production and consumption of regional foods are valorised. It revitalizes products that are being forgotten over the past generations or that were of little commercial interest to the large networks of retailers. These foods go directly from the units of production to potential consumers (individuals or families that are in socially vulnerable or food insecure positions, social service organizations, schools, hospitals, etc.), often mediated by the farmers themselves or organisations that represent them. Besides nutritional requirements these foods feed new production practices, and local culture, social relations and economic life.

Moreover, as a result of these institutional markets - which have made the products from family farmers better known and valorised -, many groups of family farmers (formally or informally organised) experienced an increase in the demand for their products within the region. This has led to the strengthening or creation of new markets such as local open markets and direct sales to consumers.

Q: Given the success of the PAA, what would you advice other countries to do?

The PAA is a public policy instrument that simultaneously strengthens family farming, by guaranteeing the sale and price of produce, and a strategy that that strengthens nutritional and food security, through food donations or through the creation of public stock regulators. As Brazilian public administrators say, every real (R$) spent on family farmers is also a direct investment in food security. As a result of its success, countries in Latin America and Africa have sought to adopt similar programmes.

Nevertheless, some of the challenges that still remain in the Brazilian experience need to be considered. First, the programme encounters difficulty in addressing poor family farmers or specific groups (e.g. landless squatters, indigenous groups) that have organizational limitations or limited access to information.

Second are operational and logistic problems of the programme related to the high level of bureaucracy, delay in payments, food transportation and storage problems and the need for more public funding so that the programme can serve a larger number of family farmers.

Further reading:

• Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource-constrained world [Oxfam International, 2011]

Interview by Leonardo van den Berg

Aid agencies are crying out for more permanent strategies to combat future food shortages caused by droughts. Droughts are commonplace in the sub-Saharan region, however in recent times due to climate changes farmers are finding it more and more difficult to predict when or if the rainy season will begin. The increasingly erratic weather in this region is further compounding the real need for longer term strategies to enable these populations to cope when shocks such as droughts or failed harvests occur.

So what are some possible long term drought preventing or alleviating strategies? NGO’s have been working in the area for sometime advising farmers on which crops to plant. In arid drought prone regions, crops like millet, sorghum or pigeon peas are being encouraged as they are more resilient in the face of water shortages. Other methods being endorsed are to install rain harvesting tanks and repair existing water sources and drip irrigation schemes which ensure water is directed to the root of the crop to avoid the loss of excess water.

The current issue of Farming Matters focuses on Trees and Farming. It explores various projects and programs documenting examples of Agroforestry around the world. The current crisis in the horn of Africa prompted me to explore the link between deforestation and drought and how Agroforestry can be used against or to survive the adversity induced by drought. “Trees are significantly more resilient to such conditions than the annual crops that most farmers grow” writes Dov Pasternak in his article “Keep Africa covered”. The benefits of trees are well documented. Trees help buffer moisture conditions in the atmosphere and can help to safeguard against droughts in a variety of ways. Their leaves help shade the ground below, this reduces the temperature and slows the rate of moisture evaporation from the surrounding soil. Leaf litter acts as a type of barricade which slows down water runoff from the land surface giving it more chance to seep in and replenish the groundwater system.

Tree roots are also of huge benefit too. Not only can they tap into moisture that lies deep in the ground, helping add more water to the local cycle, tree roots also hold soil in place, keeping it to a certain extent from eroding away. This is a particularly helpful attribute of trees existing in drought susceptible conditions. And of course, as trees grow, they transpire, releasing water vapour into the atmosphere, both cooling the atmosphere and creating new sources of vital rainwater.

However despite the crucial value of the presence of trees to these arid regions, this area like many parts of the world has lost significant percentages of its forests. Due to factors like population expansion, lack of land ownership and need for money and fuel, the deforestation rate in Africa is four times the worlds average.

Of course there are still many parts of the region where the importance of trees is recognised and where they are depended upon for survival. In the Western Lowlands of Eritrea, semi-nomadic farmers are dependent on the management collection and processing of forest products as well as crops and livestock. In times of drought or war times they depend on the harvesting and selling of the leaves from the Dom Palm. They however always take care not to overcut this valuable resource recognising its importance to their survival particularly in difficult times and to the poorer in the community. You can read more about this example of North-eastern African Agro forestry in the “Coping with Disaster” edition of farming matters.

Farm Africa is currently training farmers and locals in Ethiopia. The training was designed to help them identify which non-timber forest products they could most successfully use as the basis for sustainable businesses. Each group then shared their findings with the other participants and together they were able to review the potential markets for cardamom, pepper and honey. The World Agroforestry Centre has been working on arrangements between farmers and communities in exchange for environmental services. A pilot study in Malawi where farmers received financial rewards for planting trees is an example of such an initiative.

However despite the many innovative schemes taking place both through locals and organisations there are many obstacles standing in the way. Governments unfortunately do not yet see conserving trees as a main priority. Forests occupy fertile land with high water tables, which is ideal for irrigated agriculture of cash crop.

Poverty and political instability in many countries that lie in the horn of Africa make long term planning difficult. This region has been long since known as one of the most conflict-driven areas of the world. Also a considerable problem in Africa compared with other areas losing large amounts of forests is the lack of land ownership. According to the Rights and Resources Initiative, less than 2% of Africa's forests are under community control, compared to a third in Latin America and Asia. These are all very serious hurdles standing in the way of a move towards more sustainable ways of life needed to try to prevent near famine situations continually arising.

Perhaps the desperate reality of this current drought induced crisis is the push that governments need to start planning longer term strategies and getting behind projects and schemes to alleviate drought inducing conditions already being implemented on a small scale. With government support more large scale initiatives can be executed. Deforestation is one of the factors making the climate drier. Trees help bind the land, preserve vital biodiversity, retain and funnel water and prevent desertification. There needs to be a realisation amongst those in charge that though timber from trees and the lands gained through deforestation are valuable in the short term, in the long term fight against drought, trees need to be recognised as some of Africa’s most vital allies.

Further reading:

• Keep Africa covered, Farming Matters - Trees and farming, June 2011
• Farmers benefit by providing environmental services, Farming Matters - Trees and farming, June 2011
• Drought in east Africa the result of climate change and conflict, Guardian, 4 July 2011
• Community forest management, Farm Africa
• Deforestation 'faster in Africa', BBC News, 26 May 2009
• Trees for semi-nomadic farmers: a key for resilience, LEISA Magazine, April 2001

Text: Ellen Naughton

Global Paradigms and the future of agriculture

“It will take another Fukoshima to convince politicians of the necessary paradigm shift in food production.”

“Global warming has the potential to damage irreversibly the natural resource base on which agriculture depends, with grave consequences for food security. Climate change could also significantly constrain economic development in those developing countries that largely rely on agriculture. Therefore, meeting the dual challenge of achieving food security and other developmental benefits, on the one hand, and mitigating and adapting to climate change, on the other hand, requires political commitment at the highest level. What is more, time is becoming the most critical factor in dealing with climate change”[1]

The dual challenge described by U. Hoffmann leads him to share the conclusion of Hans Herren. The industrial agriculture production system reduces farmers (and pastoralists alike) to money seekers through food and agricultural commodity production. This has led to large mono-cultures, high levels of technical specialization and intensive use of chemicals. Its negative impacts on human health ,, social economical structures and on the environment were and sometimes still are not accounted for and therefore not acknowledged.

Besides that the industrial agriculture system leaves 1.3 billion people under-nourished. The multi-functionality of agriculture should therefore be respected and according to the IAASTD be leveraged by the important political and economic stakeholders. IAASTD uses multi-functionality of agriculture to express the inescapable interconnectedness of agriculture’s different roles and functions. The concept of multi-functionality “recognizes agriculture as a multi-output activity producing not only commodities (food, feed, fibers, agrofuels, medicinal products and ornamentals), but also non-commodity outputs such as environmental services, landscape amenities and cultural heritages” ([2]IAASTD, 2008, p. 565).

Hoffmann agrees with IAASTD that a shift towards the preservation of the multifunctional character of farming should be the aim. This will result in a knowledge-intensive sustainable way of farming. Important examples of this kind of low-external input farming are organic agriculture, agro-ecology and agro-forestry. These systems respect the multi-functionality of agriculture and integrate social, cultural, environmental and economic aspects into a holistic approach of food and agricultural commodity production.

Hoffmann proves to be a realistic man as he states: “There are no quick fixes possible. The key task is to transform the uniform, high-external-input-dependent model of industrial agriculture into a flexible approach of sustainable (regenerative) agricultural systems that continuously recreate the resources they use and achieve higher productivity and profitability of the system with minimal external inputs. (…) A key challenge is to considerably lift the productivity of small-scale farmers by mobilizing and empowering them to use modern methods of regenerative agriculture”[3].

Hoffmann stressed the importance of the development of an autonomous future perspective by national governments based on the economic strengths and weaknesses of their countries. He warns that if a lack of international support for this mosaic of regenerative agricultural systems should discourage national governments of developing countries, industrial agricultural systems will take over and the negative effects that those systems produce in the developed world in terms of climate change, soil erosion, water over-use, loss of bio-diversity and other negative environmental and social problems will even increase. Not surprisingly he calls upon those governments to increase the public expenditure on multi-functional agriculture and on creating an enabling environment for these production systems to thrive.

Facilitating a transition process from one global economic production system with large vested interests to another is a hell of a job. Transition managers all over the world are trying to get their company policies alter their course just a few degrees and meet with resistance from staff and market. When taking those “simple” transitions of a company or organization into account and compare it with the transformation necessary in agricultural production systems one immediately gets the feeling of a mission impossible.

The question how such a transition can be brought about is therefore a very legitimate one. It won’t happen overnight and there will be resistance from vested interests all over the world. As it appears, Hoffmann doesn’t belong to the naïve idealists of this world. Confronted with the ‘how to’ question he immediately states: “It will take another Fukoshima. There is a lot of naivety when it comes to policymakers. We must not expect them to change their conduct by the sake of arguments alone. The only thing that really influence them are powerful lobby’s, a serious threat of election defeat or a disaster. Since a powerful lobby hasn´t yet submerged you have to play another political card. Explosive situations, food riots, migration and refugee movements are the only ones that are able to turn the tide.” Hoffmann expresses a rather grim perspective on environment, poverty and hunger. He subsequently doesn’t rule out the possibility that military conflicts might arise over food, water and soil in the future.

This dim scenario is horrible to think of but according to Hoffmann adaptation to climate change has objective limits. Besides, adaptation is a receptive agenda - there is always a reaction to a negative side effect. Sustainability needs a pro-active agenda with a clear concept and a plan that would be much more successful. “Africa has listened too long to the World Bank and other donors”, says Hoffmann, “and now the levels of production are lower than a few decades ago, in some cases, notably in Africa, even lower than at political independence. All developing countries need to focus much more on national food security. Vietnam, for example, did a really good job. After 40 years of wars and destruction the Vietnamese started not from scratch but from minus 50. The country wasn't a member of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization and thus did not profit from their financial resources. What is more, after the crumbling of the Berlin wall, Vietnam lost the support of the Russians. The Vietnamese government realized that agriculture could be the growth pole for economic development in the country at large. The government created a new perspective on national food security and agricultural development as the backbone of this restructuring process. Nowadays the country has the most productive agriculture in the region, based on high productivity and sound rural infra-structure. Such autonomous efforts show that agriculture can be a driver of economic growth and a basis for industrialization. These successful cases depend on a government with a comprehensive strategy and the guts to choose for long lasting solutions.”

Small scale farming lobby

Talking about the heartfelt necessity for change and the rather grim perspective of climate-induced disaster management Hoffmann stresses the importance of a professional lobby. The shift from a technical, chemical and capital intensive agro-industrial system to a sustainable multifunctional agricultural system is one that will evoke a lot of resistance from vested interests of those that currently benefit from external-input-dependent and GHG-intensive agriculture. These interests are thriving because of the perverse financial mechanisms that support them. All such stakeholders have an already long lasting and easy access to the national and international political arenas.

Just like Olivier de Schutter[4], Ulrich Hoffmann stresses the importance of organizations of small-scale family farmers and their advocates, like Via Campesina and the AgriCultures Network. “The fact that sustainable family farming organizations have not got a string and institutionalized lobby behind them, marginalizes them in national and international debates. I am involved in discussions at both levels led by farmer movements or organizations e.g. IFOAM and Via Campesina. The key problem these movements have is that their scope is in one way or the other limited. For example IFOAM is only concentrating on organic farmers. But only a small portion of the total group of family farmers worldwide are organic farmers. Notwithstanding the fact that small scale farmers produce between 60-70 % of the world food demand their representation in international debate is still fragile. This mismatch between the massive production and economic importance of family farmers and their disproportionately low political influence is one of the biggest problems in getting the political climate to turn in favor of the much-needed holistic agricultural approaches, replacing the industrial ones.”

The downward spiral can be stopped when developing countries take the lead. They should no longer look at the international community but should start developing pockets of restructuring in their countries. Hoffmann thinks these pockets should concentrate on creating an enabling environment. This concerns shifting the focus of investments from international value chains into education, extension services, infrastructure (to get products to the markets), electricity (to get storage and manufacturing up and going, preferably based on renewable local energy sources, such as biogas digesters that use agricultural waste or by-products) and micro credit to facilitate multi-functional agriculture.

In parallel, governments will have to remove economic disincentives for sustainable agricultural production, which distort real costs in the market (e.g. reduction or elimination of subsidies for fertilizers, agro-chemicals and electricity for irrigation). This will also free public finance for supporting or flanking sustainable production methods.

While the international debate continues and blueprints are developed and re-developed, the economically sound and resilient pockets will grow and shape an independent future for the countries concerned.

Find out more:

• "FAO has relegated organic agriculture to a footnote in the discussion of food security in the long run”
• Let’s jump out of the dichotomies box

• An interview with Olivier De Schutter (Farming Matters - Going for more animals)
• An interview with Hans Herren (Farming Matters - Youth: "We take the lead")

Text: Elisabeth ter Borg

[1] Assuring Food Security in developing countries under the challenges of climate change: key trade and development issues of a fundamental transformation of agriculture, Ulrich Hoffmann, UNCTAD, 2011 p.1.
[2] See also Global Report; agriculture at a crossroads, IAASTD (2008), H. Herren et al.
[3] See [1], p.33
[4] O. de Schutter, Agroecology and the Right to Food, 2011, UNHRC.

In early June, after much investigation, German authorities stated that mounting epidemiological and food-chain evidence indicated that bean and seed sprouts (including fenugreek, mung beans, lentils, adzuki beans and alfalfa) are the vehicle of the outbreak in Germany. (WHO/EU, June 2011) Health authorities finally traced the pathogens which caused the deadly EHEC outbreak to sprouts grown at an organic farm in the Uelzen district. According to the Spiegel Newspaper the breakthrough was made by scientists in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Final verification, however, is still pending. (Spiegel, June 2011) As it remains unclear how the dangerous bacteria came to be present at the farm. The organic farm in Uelzen is situated about 100km (62m) south of Hamburg, the epicentre of the outbreak. The farm produces bean sprouts including adzuki, alfalfa, broccoli, peas, lentils and mung beans, all grown in a nursery for consumption in salads. Since this news broke, the methods used in organic farming have been accused for being at the root of this tragic outbreak.

The farm's general manager, Klaus Verbeck, was quoted by the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper as saying that he could not see how the organic farm was to blame. "I can't understand how the processes we have here and the accusations could possibly fit together," said Mr Verbeck. (bbc news, June 2011) "The salad sprouts are grown only from seeds and water, and they aren't fertilised at all. There aren't any animal fertilisers used in other areas on the farm either."

Typically this particular strain of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) is normally transmitted through faeces or faecal bacteria. Contact with animal faeces including petting zoos is a common source. (German Organic Agricultural Movement, June 2011) Since animal manure was not involved in any of the farming methods used at the farm in Uelzen the manner in which the bacteria arrived at the farm is still unknown. According to Dr. Stephen Smith, a microbiologist at Trinity college Dublin, "E. coli can stick tightly to the surface of seeds needed to make sprouts and they can lay dormant on the seeds for months, during germination the population of bugs can expand 100,000 fold.”

He goes on to say "However, and this is probably the key to the German outbreak, the bacteria are inside the sprout tube as well as outside. Thus washing probably had no effect. The bottom line is that it is crucial to source where the seeds came from and recall any stock." (BBC news June 2011) In this case it would appear that due to the nature of how the bacteria presents itself in the sprout seeds that both organic products are generally no more or less vulnerable then conventionally cultivated vegetables. (German organic agricultural movement, June 2011).

In recent days it has also emerged that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have linked a batch of fenugreek seeds grown in Egypt to the outbreak. They have even gone so far as to ban the import of these particular “sprouting seeds” from Europe (BBC news July 5th).

The EFSA stated that the actual contamination of the seeds reflected "a production or distribution process which allowed contamination with faecal material of human and/or animal origin". However where exactly this contamination occurred is still not clear.

It is also important to note that this is not the first time sprouts have been identified as the root cause of an EHEC outbreak. According to the Spiegel newspaper, sprouts have caused outbreaks of E. Coli in Japan in 1996, where over 12,680 people became ill and 12 died after being infected by radish sprouts. Twin outbreaks in Michigan and Virginia in 1997 were caused by contaminated sprouts traced back to the same batch of seeds originating in Idaho. Two outbreaks in Colorado and Minnesota in 2003 were also blamed on the seeds of sprouts.

One US study has even suggested that an alarming 1.5 percent of all alfalfa sprouts sold are contaminated with EHEC. There can be up to 10 million bacteria in just one gram of the vegetable. An investigation by the BfR even revealed that the bacterial count on sprouts could increase a hundred-fold up to the expiration date, despite further refrigeration. (Spiegel, June 2011).

This evidence suggests that it is the bacteria carrying capacity of sprout seeds that is the problem not the methods used to farm them. This conclusion is echoed by the recent statement by the IFOAM EU Group which underlines that it is neither appropriate nor responsible to use the present outbreak of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) to blame any farming method. EHEC is not a problem of a specific production system and any farming methods can potentially be affected.

However they are deeply concerned by the outbreak and are determined to ensure a future outbreak is prevented. The IFOAM EU Group expresses its deepest sympathy to all those affected by the outbreak of these deadly bacteria and supports the efforts of the authorities in identifying the cause as rapidly as possible. The number and seriousness of the infections makes research into the cause of the outbreak and preventive measures most urgent. We at the AgriCultures Network support the statement made by the IFOAM. We also share their concern and sympathy for those that have been affected by this outbreak.

Further information:

• EHEC outbreak: Update 22. Who/EU. 23/06/11
• E. Coli Outbreak Scientists'Find EHEC Bacteria at Sprout Farm' 06/10/2011 Spiegel Online
• E. coli outbreak: First German sprout tests negative. BBC News. 07/06/11
• E.coli: IFOAM EU welcomes EU support but asks for EU wide coordination. Statement International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements – EU Regional Group 1 (1) Brussels, 07/06/2011 [PDF]
• EHEC infection. Statment from German Organic Agricultural Movement. 05/06/11 [PDF]
• E. coli: EU bans Egyptian seeds after fenugreek link BBC News 05/07/11

• EFSA publishes report from its Task Force on the E. coli O104:H4 outbreaks in Germany and France in 2011 and makes further recommendations to protect consumers EFSA Report 05/ 07/11

Text: Ellen Naughton