Towards a Green Economy
UNEP’s report proposes that agriculture based on sustainable farming practices and technologies, green agriculture, should become a development path alternative to two currently dominating agricultural systems, conventional and traditional agriculture. What are the elements of green agriculture?
Definition of green agriculture
Authors of the report suggest that the baseline for sustainable agriculture can be defined by guidelines for GAP, Organic/ Biodynamic Agriculture, Fair Trade, Ecological Agriculture and Conservation Agriculture. Green agriculture should include diverse, locally adaptable techniques and practices that aim at increasing yields while simultaneously taking care of increasing return on labor, improving ecosystem services and reducing waste and inefficiency in food chains.
Those techniques can be based on natural methods of pest and weed management and organic sources of fertilizer and seed. However, relevant are also technologically advanced solutions that involve highly efficient and precise use of inorganic fertilizers and pest controls.
The report proposes five main principles of green agriculture:
Use of naturally and sustainably produced nutrient inputs
Diversified crop rotations
Livestock-crop integration
Environmentally friendly pest and weed management practices
Waste reduction through use of post-harvest storage and processing facilities
Enabling transition to green agriculture
Authors of the report argue that green agriculture can feed the world with food that is sufficient in terms of quantity and quality, diminish environmental damage and contribute to reducing poverty. Yet, they claim that to achieve transition to green agriculture we need investments and policy reforms. The report identifies six main areas for investment in R&D and up scaling already existing solutions. Those areas are:
- Soil fertility management
- Efficient and sustainable water use
- Crop and livestock diversification
- Plant and animal health management
- Mechanization
- Improving storage facilities
Moreover, authors of the report propose concrete ideas for policy reforms that would create environment enabling transition towards green agriculture.
On the global level, the emphasis should be placed on improving international trading system and economic cooperation. In practice this means elimination of export subsidies for goods produced in an unsustainable manner, liberalization of trade in agricultural products, implementation of interventions that address market power asymmetries and improvement of the access to Intellectual Property.
On the national level, policies should focus on creating conditions encouraging farmers to adopt environmentally sound agriculture practices. Authors of UNEP’s report recommend interventions aiming at improved land tenure rights of small-scale farmers, implementation of programs for women small-scale farmers (focusing on microfinance, access to land and productive resources) and public procurement of sustainably produced food.
In addition to policy reforms, there is a need for economical incentives, including taxes on fossil fuel inputs and pesticide and herbicide use, penalties for air emissions and water pollution, tax exemptions for investments, incentives for multi-functional agriculture, withdrawal of production-linked support and introduction on larger scale of Payments for Ecosystem Services. Finally, we need to invest in capacity building and awareness-rising.
Small-scale farmers and green agriculture
Authors of the report acknowledge the importance of the small-scale farmers in the process of transition towards green agriculture. They emphasize that such transition requires that both, conventional and traditional farmers adapt sustainable farming methods and techniques. They call for policies supporting small-scale farmers in terms of safeguarding land tenure rights, facilitating market access and providing investments in mechanization, storage and processing facilities and capacity-building.
Does UNEP’s vision of green agriculture represent agricultural system of the future that we want? Does the report provide a feasible roadmap towards more sustainable food production? Are the interventions proposed by the authors sufficient to support sustainable small-scale farming? Share your opinion with us!
Report: Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication
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