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Youth on the ground

3/16/2016

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By Javier Rodriguez Ros writing from Madrid, Spain
​
Picture“Air and water are renewable, but the soil is not. It is an alive organism that hosts 80% of the life of the planet, but nobody talks about the soil” Dr. Jaizme Vega. Photo credit - Flickr
On the ledge
News from the beginning of this leap year is discouraging for those who care about life on the planet. Water bodies around the world (Ref 1: Lake Popoo, Lake Urmia, Aral Sea) are drying out or are being seriously polluted (Ref 2) and people worldwide are suffering the effects of the droughts (Ref 3) , soil erosion and unprecedented scales of air and water pollution. Don’t blame it on “climate change”. This destruction of our habitats are the effect of human decisions and actions, such as dams built for the economic profit of energetic and large food corporations, the negligence of almighty oil companies and governments irrespectful of the rights of the people and the environment.

Despite of these facts, we are not seeing the substantial and necessary changes to our policies and adaptation strategies in the warmest year registered in history. Our global political system continues to depend on economic mechanisms that disregard the social and environmental externalities of corporate transactions that risk of crashing the entire system. Is there an exit to this labyrinth? What is being done to tackle these problems? Who is taking on the responsibility to reverse this mismanagement of our habitat that hinders human development and wellbeing?

Agroecology is the answer
With these questions in my head, I participated for 3 days in a series of conferences that took place in the ETSI Agrónomos of Madrid about agroecology, organized by a diverse group of associations (See Ref 4) starting on the leap day. Prominent researchers such as Clara Nicholls, Miguel Altieri and María del Carmen Jaizme Vega presented their ideas to dozens of mostly young professionals in these conferences that were a revindication of the role of the soil and a reflection about the sustainability and resilience of agrarian systems today.

As Dr. Jaizme Vega put it: “air and water are renewable, but the soil is not. It is an alive organism that hosts 80% of the life of the planet, but nobody talks about the soil”. Our livelihoods are seriously threatened by climate change’s droughts and floods because we are depleting life out of our soils. Industrial agriculture and big food corporations have contributed not only to climate change through its polluting emissions. It has led to decrease the biodiversity of our soils and to the migration of millions of farmers to urban areas, aggravating inequity between rich and poor (Ref 5). Hence, the goal of agroecology professionals and researchers should be to strongly advocate for land redistribution and family farming rather than discussing about certification systems that perpetuate corporations’ power and control over food systems.

In other words: agroecology is not a set of agronomic/biological principles which can be assumed by large corporations that aim to adapt their management without risking their power. Truth is that climate change won’t be tackled until we truly question and transform power systems. We won’t be able to adapt to the effects of this climate change that will affect our health and future of humanity under the current system. The answer is in the soil: we have to reconnect ourselves with nature and strengthen our link with the soil and its life to avoid this painful inequity in which humanity is entangled now. We need to reintegrate to life. That is what agroecology is all about.

Youth or nothing
Youth, as one of the most vulnerable groups (Ref 6) facing major threats from climate change, has to lead this agroecological revindication. We, the first generation fully aware of climate change and the last able to realistically have an impact on it, have the moral imperative to be the leaders of the defense of life and equity. Leaders of this moral challenge that humanity faces nowadays and review old development models that put imaginary borders to the soil and deplete them from life.

It is two sides of the same coin. We need to increase investments in agroecology and in the participation and awareness of consumers to make the act of buying food a political act. We need to invest in adaptation through the empowerment of youth: their access to land and family farming are investments in safety, equity, employment, productivity and in better soils, air and water.

And we need to stop looking at soil, air, water, etc. as natural resources and shift to an approach in which we consider them a reserve of life. The stronger the conservation of these elements, the better its value will be for our communities as well as their increase or decrease. Although excluded from political debates, youth is already leading this cultural shift that brings on a sense of sisterhood and brotherhood among humans and between humans and the soil.

Youth still have to be permanently involved in agenda setting, policy making, implementation in decision-making processes about the management of reserves of life. Youth are the key to boost a change of our planning strategy and install a long-term vision that analyses seriously intergenerational issues. We, as a global society, are desperately lacking this right now.

It is crucial to involve youth in the  transformation of governance and financing systems and to incorporate the firm regulations which are necessary to stop the current  power system that is based solely in economic interests and also in order  to stop further climate change.

It is time to look at our soils as a loan from our sons rather than a heritage from our ancestors.

REFERENCES
1.Examples of dying water bodies worldwide: Lake Popoo: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160121-lake-poopo-bolivia-dried-out-el-nino-climate-change-water/  
Lake Urmia:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/jan/23/iran-lake-urmia-drying-up-new-research-scientists-urge-action
Aral Sea: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-a0c4856e-1019-4937-96fd-8714d70a48f7 


2.  Oil spill in the Peruvian Amazon: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/year-major-oil-spill-peru-160305151737783.html 

3. Drought in SubSaharan Africa: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-africa-drought-idUSKCN0VO1DG  
Drought in La Guajira:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34051253 


4. Youth groups present: CERAI, FIAES, Multiversidad Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, PRONATUR, Kibele and Materia Activa.

5. Global inequality and Climate change: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/12/07/climate-change-is-going-to-make-inequality-even-worse-than-it-already-is/

6. Vulnerable groups: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/People_at_risk_of_poverty_or_social_exclusion#Children_and_active-age_people_more_at_risk_of_poverty_or_social_exclusion_than_elderly_people_in_several_countries

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Dialogues for Inclusivity – The Milan congress bridging Mediterranean voices

11/9/2015

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By Gabriele Sutera writing from Copenhagen, Denmark

The preparation of the 4th Congress of South-North Mediterranean Dialogue (4-6 October) took more than 15 months, and to some extent, is the result of a process started in 1995 with the Declaration of Barcelona. The discussion was built on statements related to the development of rural regions based on four regional studies held in four different locations of the Mediterranean basin (Volos, Greece; Alexandria, Egypt; Montpellier, France; Rabat, Morocco). The congress was held in two locations: the magnificent and exclusive Palace Grand Hotel in Varese and the over-crowded EXPO in Milan. The two different locations set the ground for a congress marked by similarly contrasting opinions and visions.

What was the congress about and who was there?
The congress titled, “Rural Communities, No Longer Left Behind – Rural and Regional Development in the South and North Mediterranean and the New Neighborhood Policy” was organised by Fondation du Dialogue Sud-Nord Mediterranée and GFAR, in partnership with Bibliotheca Alexandrina and CIHEAM. The aim was to give voice, in an inclusive dialogue, to all stakeholders operating in the rural sector and contributing to the development of rural communities, at the national, regional and local levels within the Mediterranean area. A well balanced mix of stakeholders took part in the congress, including: representatives of intergovernmental organisations and NGOs, youth and women’s organisations, university lecturers and researchers, government representatives, and economists. The GFAR secretariat played a crucial role in supporting the participation of an active group of young professionals. The biggest Italian organisation representing farmers, Confagricoltura (CIA), was also present. Unfortunately, small organisations and the non-formal sector were not represented. For instance, during discussions the need of regulating the informal sector was pointed out. The presence of a representative from this category would have brought insights regarding the problematic faced by the informal sector and the reasons which drive actors to operate outside of policy frameworks. I saw this as a missed opportunity – an inclusive dialogue should first of all be a bottom up process, giving space to the smallest amidst the bigger actors.

How the discussion developed?
Madame Fatima Bensoltane, founder and president of Méditerravenir and Dr Mark Holderness, executive secretary of GFAR opened the conference. The first day was a preparatory step, an occasion to meet again, which developed into an intense day of formal meetings with Italian and euro-Mediterranean authorities. On the second day, after a quick round of presentation during a plenary session, the participants were sub-divided in four round tables: i) agriculture, natural resources and food security ii) investment, infrastructure and governance iii) opportunities for women and last but not least iv) opportunities for youth. The round tables provided  an easier way to get to know each other and to proceed into a constructive dialogue which gave all the participants a voice within the discussion. Challenges and opportunities within each of the four tables were identified in the morning and translated into concrete actions during the afternoon session.

Which were the final outputs?
Each of the four tables synthesized their ideas and reported on their collaborative work at a plenary session. All the actors expressed the need to move forward toward systems which are more sustainable, inclusive and resilient, echoing a warning which has already been sounded by scientists – our lifestyles and values are causing the over-exploitation of our natural resources. Despite being designated different topics, the challenges and opportunities identified by all four tables converged toward similar statements, highlighting the multifunctionality of the agricultural sector, emphasizing that – it influences the management of natural resources, represents a source of revenue, and is a great depository of local knowledge and practices. On the other hand, the output showed the diversity of processes happening on the two shores of the Mediterranean basin; from one side, a tendency of young people to naturally move back to rural areas, and on the other side, a desire of abandoning rural areas, moving toward lifestyles which are consequential to the well established (and developing) consumption society. Ana Huertas, representative ­ YPARD Spain, strongly expressed what young generations are looking for: a more sustainable society attentive to quality rather than quantity. However, the report of the youth session was almost forgotten when the moderation committee brought the attention back to the participants.

How to move forward?
I found the event a valuable occasion for integration and dialogue, however, the quick parade of meetings and discussions seemed to be too brief to settle a common ground for action. During the congress, terms such as “investment”, “growth”, “bilateral agreements” were often used to define actions for finding a way forward. However, these terms embody a paradigm which over the past decades seems to have failed to work. I believe that it is now the time to settle a new language. If we want to move forward, toward a new and revised paradigm of development, we need a vocabulary which embody the new ideas of young generations – one that is understood by the wide net of stakeholders who may still be constrained by the philosophy that underscores business as usual. Only with a new vocabulary will it be possible to move into action, finding synergies between those who have a new vision, decision makers and civil society. Furthermore, in order to avoid leaving behind communities, policy makers should accent communities’ potentials rather than their weaknesses and emphasize making differences and diversity an added value rather than an obstacle to collaboration. Trusting in dialogue and mutual understanding can provide a basis for moving forward. Marginalised groups, such as youth, women and small, remote communities need more space in such discussions to enable them to walk together toward new paradigms without leaving anybody behind.

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Cozy Permaculture ­ - Ayla's Garden

8/23/2015

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PicturePerle the cat
By Jaime Peréz-Molina writing from Copenhagen, Denmark

Here in Denmark, housing and living spaces are a bit different than in other places. Concepts like "sommerhus" (summer house) or "kollektiv" (comune) have a very specific meanings that are not exactly what one  might  expect  from  the  name.  One of these  concepts/phenomena  are  the "koloniehaver", or colony gardens: modest plots, originally provided with small sheds (nowadays also with small houses), to which city Danes would retreat from time to time to relax and maybe even grow some flowers and vegetables. Today, some people even live permanently in those plots. What started as a temporary  escape from the urban  environment is becoming yet  another way of living. 

It is in one of these small plots with a cabin that  a permaculture initiative is being implemented. One of my PDC (permaculture design course) classmates designed her tiny piece of land according to permaculture principles, and this  spring  is  the  moment  chosen  to  bring  the  theory  into  practice.  Thus my  plan  for  last Saturday  was  to  aid  in  contributing  ideas,  adjusting  the  design  and  helping  with  some  of  the physical work.

Generally, when planning for this type of effort it is advisable to start thinking about the factors that are most difficult to change and work on them first. This means that, since the local climate usually cannot be directly influenced, in a small scale permaculture garden it is the buildings, the accesses and the geographical features (like hills and depressions, inclination, orientation, etc.) which are the first factors to address. Any action taken on these features must be oriented to energy saving, water management and nutrient accumulation.

The easiest of these tasks is the reshaping of the accesses to accommodate the flow of people and animals (in this case, a cat named Perle) and to allow space for the raised beds. Usually, these flows will run along the least resistant parts of the landscape, which in this small plot is greatly affected by the location of doors in the building and the property limits. Both water harvesting and efficient drainage are becoming more and more important, as predictions for the climate change in Nordic countries suggest an increase in the intensity of rains coupled with a decrease in their frequency. In the present case, a water collection system was easily implemented by connecting a big barrel to the cabin’s gutters. Stored rainwater will be used to appease the thirst of the plants in drier seasons. On the eastern side of the plot, however, water tends to accumulate and form  puddles  too  close  to  the  main  building,  clogging  the  soil,  endangering  the  wooden structure and potentially drowning any crop that might grow there. Therefore, actions such as soil levelling, channelling and the construction of a small pond might be viable solutions to redirect and productively employ that excess water. A raised bed system all over the plot will also ensure the right amount of moisture for the crops.

Secondary to the water management and accesses are the microclimates generated by the existing geology and geography, the present vegetation and the buildings. A wind tunnel seems to form in the corridor that runs along the main building and the hedge, with one proposed solution being to plant broadleaved, edible tree (such as lime tree, Tilia sp.) that will slow down the flow of air, thus protecting the crops that will one day inhabit the raised beds.

Regarding raised beds and microclimates, these beds themselves will contribute to the protection of the trees around them, while at the same time their inclination and orientation will provide proper sunlight. It's a huge bed; a fantastic way to ensure nutrition and moisture for the coming crops. In order to avoid nitrogen losses, it is  convenient to  protect it with some mulch  and/or some  cover crop, such as clover, strawberries, skovsyre or any other low, expansive plant ­ but not too invasive, or problems with the crops will arise!

Finally, considering the annual cycles, both autumn and spring are the right seasons to plant trees and bushes. High soil moisture and mild temperatures will allow them to get established in the soil before the most intense period of photosynthesis comes. And so, during the weekend we planted a dwarf  lemon  tree (protected  by  the shed),  berry  bushes (relatively  close  to  the  hedge,  again for protection) and some strawberries as a soil cover.

Saturday night caught us working. It was the perfect time to get in the house and prepare a plant nursery. Improvised pots can be prepared by rolling newspaper. Adding soil, water and some seeds will kickstart the growing season. When the temperatures rise and the seedlings are big enough, it will be time to bring them out to the (hopefully finished) raised beds.

I headed back home, happy for the intense workday and looking forward to the next session.


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Mushroom cultivation for Ecosystem restoration and Enhancement

8/20/2015

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PictureShitake mushroom
By Jaime Pérez-Molina writing from Copenhagen, Denmark 

In order to  generate  a  positive  and  lasting  impact  on  carbon sequestration,  the  development  and preservation of forests is of fundamental importance . It is therefore obvious that turning a barren, naked soil into a lush food forest is a highly desirable project. But what can we do if we already have an established forest on our land?

Wild forests offer many resources, ranging  from  timber  to  medicinal  herbs.  With appropriate management, additional value  can  also  be  created in  already forested land. Guess what grows in shady, somewhat humid environments? 
 
Yup, mushrooms. Fungi are naturally found in symbiosis with the forest. This means that mushrooms and trees cooperate to find resources and protect each other. Trees give shade and sugar to the mushrooms, and these in turn extend the reach of the trees in the soil, coating and protecting the surface of the roots and producing compounds that improve the resistance of the trees against pathogens. In addition, the mycelium (the fungal tissue that lies within the soil) helps in connecting all the roots of the forest together, creating a sort of "natural internet" – resources and information can travel  very  quickly  from  one  side  of  the  forest  to  another,  thus  allowing  the individuals to get ready to face the changes in the land. Other mushrooms are responsible for the degradation of fallen trees, returning nutrients back to the soil.

We can use  the  naturally  favorable  environment  of  the  forest  to  grow  our  own  mushrooms, especially those that feed on dead wood. The tree trunks in the forest will degrade anyway, so why not catalyze  that  process  and  get  something  in  return?  That is  one  of  the  projects  that  we  are performing in Byhaven2200 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

PictureThis is what the tree trunks look like today (August 2015).
These fresh wood logs were drilled with holes and then inoculated with mushrooms – this is, the holes were filled with mycelium. The holes were then closed with wood  and sealed with wax to maintain  adequate  humidity.  The logs  were  then  soaked  in  water  for  a  few  days  and  then  set upright, partially buried in the soil. This way, channels present in the wood will naturally absorb humidity  from  the  ground.  With enough  shade,  water  and  heat,  the  mycelium  should  develop enough during spring and summer to produce fruits (the mushrooms themselves) by autumn.

Hopefully, we’ll see the results in November, or perhaps even earlier. This summer has so far been unusually warm and also quite dry (what's going on, Denmark?) so we are doing our best to keep the mushrooms humid – after all, this is no forest, just a garden in the middle of the city!

But I don't want to finish this publication without highlighting one more fascinating feature of our heterotrophic friends, and this is that bees love them. Yes, you read that right: bees feed on more than just pollen and nectar! Bees can find biochemical compounds in these forest organisms that are crucial for their wellbeing. Don’t forget that bees live in tightly packed colonies (with most of the "packaging" happening in winter) and highly dense populations are prone to suffer epidemics. 

Wild fungi can provide preventive natural treatment against pathogens, keeping the hive healthy. So, if you have bees and a forest nearby, I encourage you to plant not only flowers for every season but also some mushrooms to give their immune system a boost. This will make their honey more curative as well! 

Check out the video with Paul Stamets below if you want to learn more about bees and fungi:

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Neonicotinoids - what are they & what's the big deal?

7/30/2015

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PictureInfographic by Nik Harron, taken from Alternatives Journal article by Janet Kimantas, Nov 2013. link: http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/science-and-solutions/facts-about-neonicotinoids
By A. Eyrich writing from Canada

The devil is in the details. This is true for many contexts and circumstances.  The other day I was having a conversation about the decline of insects and the topic of neonicotinoids arose. It didn’t take long for me to realize that apart from knowing that neonicotinoids are “bad” and are closely linked to the decline of important pollinator populations, my knowledge about them was very limited; I did not know exactly what they were or how they worked. I decided to read up on them and I thought I’d share some of what I learned with you in case you are ever in the same situation!

What are neonicotinoids?
Neonicotinoids (or neonics) are a group of chemicals that are closely related to nicotine (and actually, bees have shown a preference for nectar containing neonicotinoids). They are neuro-active chemicals that humans use to kill insects, notably those that are pests in relation to us and our activities. They are a fairly new class of insecticide, with Shell starting to research them in the 1980s and Bayer in the 1990s.  However, within the past two decades they have become the most widely used insecticides globally.

How do they work?
Neonicotinoids are neuro-active substances that work by interfering with the insect’s central nervous system. They kill or paralyze the insect by binding with the insect’s receptors for the nicotinic acetylcholine enzyme. Because insects, and especially bees, have more of these types of neuro-pathways than mammals and birds, the neonicotiniods disproportionally affect insects. Neonicotinoids are systemtic meaning they are incorporated into the plants through the soil or the leaves and then the plants spread them to the flowers and fruits. When the insects consume the plant, they ingest the chemical.

Neonicotinoids remain active for many weeks and thus one neonic application or treatment can last a long time. The reduced impact of neonics on mammals and birds and the effectiveness of neonic treated seeds and the lower rates of application than other environmentally disruptive pesticides contribute to their popularity (source).

What are they used for?
Neonicotinoids come in many forms (liquids, powder, granules, dust, dissolvable tablets etc.) and are used to control and minimize insects detrimental insects, or pests, in agriculture, greenhouses, gardens, lawns, ornamentals, etc. and to pre-treat seeds for a range of agricultural crops. Though there are billions of insects on the planet, a small handful are considered “pests” in relation to humans and human activities, and this is particularly true in agriculture. In our agricultural systems we grow a handful of species, usually in high densities and usually in monoculture systems that have little to no plant diversity and correspondingly low insect diversity. If a certain insect has a taste for the one crop we are growing (for example a caterpillar that only eats cabbage) then we have created a paradise for them! But we do not want them there because they will destroy our hard work and our yield. So in agriculture we often have to find ways to maintain a balance in the insect populations (between good and bad) to ensure that we do not loose our crop to the insects that have a preference for what we are growing. There are a number of ways to achieve this balance. One option is to apply chemical products to kill insects, and neonicotinoids fall into this.

So what is the big deal and why are they so bad?
The big deal is that neonicotinoids are wreaking havoc on many insect populations. They are not selective, and so, as they kill the “bad” insects, they also kill the numerous beneficial ones. Insects, even if you are squeamish, are extremely important to us and to the world. If we loose insects we loose the pollination services that aid in plant reproduction and provide a huge proportion of our food, and support uncountable food-webs in nature. The link between neonicotinoids and colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honeybee populations is one example that has been researched in recent years and has gained significant press. Research into the effects of neonicotinoids has lead to actions to halt their use. These include a temporary suspension on the use of certain neonicotinoids by the European Commission and a law passed in Ontario, Canada in 2015 to begin curbbing their use. However, some farmers are unhappy with bans on certain neonicotinoids and companies manufacturing neonicotinoids dispute their effects on bee populations. In July 2015 the UK government suspended the two-year ban on neonic use to fight the flea beetle in oilseed rape (the two year ban ends in December).

What can you do?
  • Educate yourself. This blog presents a drop in the ocean of the information out there and thankfully this body of knowledge keeps growing. But, as with anything you research, make sure you are aware of where the information is coming from, who paid for the research, who undertook it, how the study was done, data interpreted, and who is disseminating it… etc. But you know all that.  
  • Teach others
  • Buy organic when possible (but be aware of how and what the certification means) and local!
  • Encourage governments to take action to ban these products
  • Don’t use them yourselves! When purchasing products look at the label and ensure that the active ingredient is not one of these neonicotinoids:  acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam


References:
http://bees.pan-uk.org/neonicotinoids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/pollinators/chemicals.php
http://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2012/00/bumblebee-research/
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/imidagen.pdf
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/29/crop-pesticides-honeybee-decline
Francisco Sánchez-Bay.15 November 2014. The trouble with neonicotinoids  Science.
Erik Stokstad. 10 May 2013. How Big a Role Should Neonicotinoids Play in Food Security? Science
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3557293/pdf/pone.0054819.pdf 
http://goo.gl/tNLZSI


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Whose Harvest is this? Gendered Conflicts over Harvest in Northern Uganda 

7/10/2015

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Picture
By Mariola Acosta-Frances writing from Kampala, Uganda 
(A version of this blog is also published on the CCAFS site)

The office of the community development officer (CDO) in Nwoya district (North-West Uganda) starts getting really busy around December, when the main harvest season kicks off. During harvest period, dozens of angry men and women concentrate every week in the district office seeking advice on how to get a fair and peaceful solution to their domestic conflicts arising over who is the rightful owner of the harvest and can decide on its final use.

The positions are clear. On the one side, as heads of the households and owners of the land, men consider that any products produced on their property is rightfully theirs and thus it should be up to them to decide what to do with it and the profit it generates. On the opposite side, women feel that since they contribute most (if not all) of the agricultural labour, their husbands have no right to come and take all the harvest to spend it, they argue, on non-priority-items. The conflict is served.

Many other couples, however, do not go to the district government office and decide to settle the conflict at home, which unfortunately ends, in too many occasions, in cases of gender-based violence. Farmers feel that these gendered conflicts over harvest, are only likely to increase in years with extended drought or that are marked with other climatic shocks that would result in reduced yields. Indeed, over the last few years, the perception in Nwoya district is that gender-based violence has increased generally, with clear spikes during the main harvest season. A quick look at the district offices confirms the seriousness of the matter. Almost all offices have hung up posters specifically designed to assess possible pathways to solve and prosecute gender-based violence issues.

Even as the Land Policy (2013) of Uganda grants women and men equal rights to own (and co-own) land, the reality in Nwoya, as in many other districts in the country, is very different. In Nwoya most of the land is effectively held under customary arrangements, by which most Acholi women do not have the right to own land and are only given access to it through their male counterparts and other male family members. This fact not only translates into conflict over harvests but might have other direct consequences as well, including women being less willing to make long and medium-term investments - such as climate-smart technologies – in a land that they do not own.

This situation raises the question: ‘What impact do gender considerations at the national level really have if at the grassroots level traditional norms and beliefs are still predominant?’ A recent study of the CGIAR research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security is currently seeking to answer this and related questions by analyzing the framing of gender issues in climate change related policies in Uganda and to explore its impacts on climate change adaptation at grassroots.

You can find this blog and more on the CCAFS website. 

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Planting for pollinators

6/25/2015

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PictureA bumblebee covered in pollen. Photo by: P7r7/Creative Commons 3.0.
By A Eyrich writing from Canada

It’s summer, well, at least in the northern hemisphere where I am. And over the past few weeks I have been reading about pollinators and learning what I can do to encourage pollinator populations - a how to “plant for pollinators” if you will. I find it fascinating and I think other people might too, so in this blog I’d like to share some of the elements and resources I have found with you. Some things may seem like common sense after reading them – and in certain ways they are – but when I first approached the subject they were not immediately evident. Regardless, I hope that after reading this you, too, can begin to plant for pollinators whether on your porch, balcony, yard, or farm.

So, firstly, to ensure we are all on the same page, what is a pollinator? Pollinators are any “agent”, such as bees, wasps, butterflies, beetles, moths, birds, etc., that fertilize the female ovule of a flower by moving pollen from the male anthers to the female stigma of a flower. (See the diagram to see what pollination looks like for a tomato plant)

PicturePollination of a tomato plant. Source: http://ow.ly/OOw1r
The fertilization services that pollinators, usually keystone species, provide are essential for ecosystems and agriculture. Estimates place the 2005 global value of pollinators in agriculture at €153 billion, or almost 10% of the total agriculture food production.  In the US, the services provided by pollinators are valued at 24 billion dollars. Honeybees account for $15 billion and native wild pollinators are estimated at $9 billion. 

Despite the importance of pollinators and the enormous value of their services, their populations are declining globally in both rural and urban areas. This decline has been attributed to loss of habitat, use of chemicals, monoculture cropping, and diseases. The loss of pollinators has implications for ecosystems, as many are keystone species, but also for agriculture production. One well-known example of dealing with declining and total loss of pollinator populations comes from the rapid conversion of vast swaths of land that was converted monoculture apple orchards in China (Read more: 1 2 3). In order to keep pollinators alive farmers would have needed to maintain and integrate a variety of pollinizer trees, however farmers choose not to do this and instead use that space for more apple trees. As a consequence, the farmers have had to resort to hand pollination in order to maintain apple yields. Though this practice has resulted short-term economic gains for apple farmers, the long-term sustainability remains to be seen. 

There is growing global recognition about the need to protect pollinators and this extends to encouraging everyday citizens – like you and me – to “plant for pollinators” or engage in “bee friendly farming”. And if I can do it, you can do this too no matter where you live. If you have any space, be it a balcony, porch, backyard, or large garden or farm, you can be part of the solution by planting for pollinators.

How can I plant for pollinators?

Well, although this will depend where you are in the world and on the seasons and vegetation you have in your location there are some principles you should consider and a plethora of resources freely available online. Here I will try to summarize some aspects you should consider to get to started and at the end there is a list of references to get you on your way.

Constant supply of flowers

Firstly, you should try to include a diversity of plants so that you have at least one plant that is in flower throughout the period when pollinators will be present. In the northern hemisphere this would be the spring, summer and early fall. This ensures that pollinators have a constant supply of nectar – their food. The lack of a continuous supply of flowering plants is one of the problems (in addition to chemicals inputs) with monocultures. This is also why having diversity in green walls, fences and windbreaks is also beneficial. Also, it is one reason honeybee hives are moved during the planting season to follow the flowering crops. 

Pollinator types and lifespans

Another element to consider is what pollinators you have present and what pollinators you want, this will also help inform your choice of plants. Furthermore, it is important to consider the pollinators’ lifespan and during what period they undergo each life stage. For instance, if you want a butterfly, such questions would include when is it in the caterpillar stage and what its needs during each life stage?   

Plant types to consider

Pollinators are generally attracted to flower colour and odour. You can choose native or non-native species; however wild pollinators are more suited to native plants. Wild plant relatives are also generally more “nutritious” and their nectar is easier to access than their domesticated counterparts. 

More resources 

If the above spiked your interest, you can referrer to the resources below for more tips to make your spaces pollinator friendly. If you're skeptical about trying this in your space, why don't you test it out at a friend, neighbour or family member's place first! Or, you could just consider sharing this information with them. As you and others start to adopt pollinator friendly practices these “islands” of refuge will break the “food deserts” many pollinators encounter and will grow and create what you can think of as larger “countries” and corridors that facilitate pollinator activities and encourage them. 

Tips to help you plan your space:
Pollination Canada 
Creating a bee-friendly garden (with tips for species to plant in an Canadian context)
Designing a Bee Garden 
Plant a bee-friendly garden (7 practical tips) 
Farming for pollinators
Gardening for bumblebees 

Blog references:

Tools for conservation and use of pollination services
Insect pollinators contribute $29 to US farm income
Fact Sheet: The Economic Challenge Posed by Declining Pollinator Populations
Pollinators Science Summary
Economic value of insect pollination worldwide estimated at 153 billions euroes 

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Lapshishour, a village at the quake’s epicenter in rural Nepal

4/28/2015

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ImmagineTikaram's family - Tikaram is pointing the damaged house, the mother is the one next to him.
By Gabriele Sutera writing from Kathmandu, Nepal
This blog is also available in
Italian

April 26, 2015.The last strong tremor occurred around midday and right after we took the motorbike to go to the village. Along the road we come across several villages. The houses are all closed and shops’ shutters drawn down, they are like ghost villages. Far from the buildings people are sitting on the road and are only meagerly protected from the elements by improvised tents. People are too afraid to go back inside the houses. Since yesterday people have been living on the road or the fields next to their homes. The power of the earthquake’s first tremor is still very fresh in people’s minds. 

Veering off the Priviti highway, the main road that connects Kathmandu and Pokhara, we enter Ghorka‘s district. The further we travel, the more the damage from the earthquake becomes evident. Ten kilometers before Ghorka city we take left onto a gravel road. About half an hour later Tikaram, my colleague and friend, tells me to pull over and stop. We are in front of a stable of which only half a roof remains from its previous structure.  We park the motorbike and start walking; we are now in Mirkot’s VDC (Village Development Committee). We cross the little creek that runs alongside the village and then we follow the path uphill. Suddenly, Tikaram points to a little forest which borders the path and tells me “Eh Arjun, you see this forest? Ten years ago there was no forest”. Puzzled, I wonder why and he explains that a lot of people have left the village since they prefer to live in the city, in India or the in the Terai (Nepal’s lowland plains). The path continues uphill and the forest gives way to a landscape of hillside terraces, recently planted with rice and corn. At some point the path led us in front of two houses belonging to the village of Lapshishour. The inhabitants of the two houses are sitting in front them and are staring blankly at their houses; it is very hot at that time. Both houses are evidently damaged, but still standing. The metal roofs are intact but the thick stone walls, bonded with cement and soil and plastered with red colored soil are cracked. 

I ask if it would be possible to go inside the buildings to have a look. A tiny wooden staircase brings me up to a small balcony on the first floor. The floor is full of stones, dust and plaster flakes. A big hole, one meter high and almost two meters wide, allows the light to enter the rooms which, until then, had been used as bedrooms and storage rooms. From outside the buildings almost looked good, from inside, however, they are devastated. The inner walls have collapsed; the beds are covered in debris under which only the corners of the bed frame can be seen.  Six quintals of rice and three quintals of maize are entirely covered by dust and big stones. The conditions are similar in the adjacent building, just that in this building not even the door of the bedroom and storage room can be opened. The next harvest, and consequently period of income and food availability, is going to be in almost three months. We have to return to the valley before it gets dark. While we are walking with Tikaram we discuss the fate of the little village and its 100 residents. He thinks the earthquake marks the end of this community. At the village down in the valley the people invite us to drink tea and they tell us how violent the first tremor was.

I was at the farm when the first earthquake struck the day before, and it caused the water from the water storage tank next to which we were working tip and spill. It was supposed to be a happy day; we were harvesting cow horns with inside the BD500 preparation, a treasure for those who practice bio-dynamic farming. About one hour after the first tremor there was a second very strong earthquake. Our neighbor Gimre, who came to help us that day, literally jumped as far as possible from the water tank and held onto my arm squeezing it strongly through the shaking. We still did not realize how bad the situation was in the rest of the country. Right after lunch we heard the first news. I contacted a friend who was traveling toward Kathmandu and he described a destroyed city in chaos. Tremors continued throughout the night. The next morning, same as every other normal working day, the farm workers came punctually at 5.45, since the work day begins at 6 o’clock. At 10 o’clock after the daily breakfast meal of daal baat tarkari (lentils, rice and vegetables) the workers left to take care of their houses, belongings and families since they expected more earthquakes. Tikaram, the farm’s manager, was able to get in touch with his mother who lives in a village not far from the earthquake’s epicenter, about 20 km. Her house was partly destroyed. I proposed Tikaram to take the motorbike to pay a visit to his mother’s village, it was almost midday. 

In Nepal and in the area affected by the earthquake there are many villages such as Lapshishour. Right now all the attention is turned toward Kathmandu and highly populated residential areas. Rural areas and their inhabitants have not been not considered much by media as remote are very difficult to reach. Time for reconstruction is likely to be long and the rainy season is forthcoming. What will become of the smallholder farmers and the inhabitants of remote areas who rely almost fully on their own harvests and energies to survive?

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Lapshishour, un racconto dalle campagne vicino all’epicentro del terremoto in Nepal

4/28/2015

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PictureTikaram e la sua famiglia - Tikaram indica la casa danneggiata, la madre è accanto a lui
Di Gabriele Sutera

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26-04 -2015. L’ultima scossa verso mezzogiorno, subito dopo ci siamo messi in moto per andare al villaggio. Lungo la strada attraversiamo centri abitatiche sembrano fantasma, tutte le case sono chiuse, le saracinesche abbassate. Lontano dagli edifici la gente è sdraiata per strada,protetti solo da tendoni impprovvisati. La paura di rietrarenelle case è troppo forte, ormai da ieri si vive per strada. La prima scossa è stata troppo forte e il suo ricordo è ancora fresco. Lasciamo la Prihviti highway che collega Kathmandu e Pokhara e ci addentriamo nel distretto di Ghorka. Più ci inoltiramo e più sono evidenti i danni causati dal tremore. Una decina di kilometri prima della città di Ghorka, deviamo sulla sinistra e ci immettiamo su una strada sterrata, continuiamo per una buona mezzora finchè Tikaram mi dice di accostare e fermarmi propio accanto ad una stalla di cui resta solo il tetto, mezzo tetto. Parcheggiamo la moto e cominciamo a camminare. Siamo appena arrivati nel VDC (Village Development Committee) di Mirkot. Attraversiamo il fiumiciattolo che costeggia il villaggio, e poi cominciamo a salire verso delle case che si vedono in cima alla collina. Tikaram indica un piccolo bosco che costeggia il cammino e mi dice, “Eh Arjun, you see this forest? Ten years ago there was no forest”.Incuriosito gli chiedo il perchè, lui mi spiega che molta gente è andata via preferendola città, l’India o il Terai (la zona pianeggiante del Nepal). Il percorso continua a inerpicarsi su per la collina, il bosco lascia posto alle terrazze in cui il riso e il mais è stato piantato da pochi giorni. Il cammino ci porta di fronte a due case che appartengono al villaggio di Lapshishour, i suoi abitanti stanno fuori, fissano le case e hanno gli sguardi un po’ persi, c’è molto caldo a questora. Entrambi gli edifici sono evidentemente danneggiati, ma stanno ancora in piedi.I tetti in alluminio sono ancora al loro posto, gli spessi muri in pietra, legati con cemento e terra, e ricoperti da terra rossa sono evidentemente crepati. Chiedo se è possibile entrare per dare un’occhiata. Una piccola scaletta di legno porta al balconcino del primo piano, il pavimento è cosparso di pietre e calcinacci, un grosso foro alto circa un metro e largo un paio permette alla luce di entrare nelle stanze che fino ad allora erano servite come camere da letto e deposito viveri. L’edificio, che da fuori sembrava appena danneggiato, è internamente devastato, i muri interni sono collassati, dei letti si vedono appena i cuscini, i 6 quintali di riso e i 3 quintali di mais, sono sotterrati da grosse pietre, polvere e calcinacci. La situazione è simile nell’edificio adiacente. Nel secondo edificio la porta del deposito non si può neanche aprire. Il prossimo raccolto sarà tra quasi tre mesi. Bisogna cominciare a scendere a valle prima che si faccia buio. Mentre camminiamo con Tikaram discutiamo le sorti del piccolo villaggio di appena 100 anime, secondo lui questo terremoto segna la fine di questa piccola comunità agricola. Al villaggio giù a valle gli abitanti ci invitato a bere un the e ci raccontano la violenza del terremoto.

Io ero in azienda quando la prima scossa fortissima ha fatto trasbordare l’acqua dalla gebbia accanto alla quale stavamo lavorando. Doveva essere quasi un giorno di festa, infatti stavamno dissotterrando i corni di bovini con dentro il preparato BD 500, un tesoro grandissimo per chi fa agricoltura bio dinamica. Circa un’ora dopo un’altra scossa fortissima. La gente a questo puntoera ancora più spaventata.Il nostro vicino, Gimre, che era venuto a darci una mano è sobalzato e con un salto si è allontanato il più possibile dalla gebbia aggrappandosi con forza al mio braccio. Ancora non ci eravamo bene resi conto della gravità della situazione. L’azienda è situata ad appena 40 km dall’epicentro del terremoto. Subito dopo pranzo le prime notizie sono arrivate, ho contatto unamico che stava viaggiando verso Kathmandu, mi raccontava una città mezza distrutta e nel caos. Le scosse hanno continuato più leggere durante la notte. La mattina del giorno seguente, puntuali come ogni giorno, i lavoratori sono venuti in azienda alle 5.45, il lavoro inizia alle 6. Hanno raccontantato che hanno passato la notte in bianco. Alle 10 dopo il daal baat tarkari quotidiano (lenticchie, riso e ortaggi) tutti sono rientrati a casa per occuparsi dei loro averi e delle proprie famiglie. Sistemare le cose in vista di altre scosse, portare le cucina a gas fuori, mettere al sicuro il raccolto, e preparare le tende dove passare la notte. Tikaram, il manager dell’azienda,era appena riuscito a mettersi in contatto con la madre che vive in un villaggio a una ventina di km dall’epicentro. La sua casa è inagibile. Ho Proposto a Tikaram di prendere la moto e andare a fare una visita al villaggio, era quasi mezzogiorno.

Come il villaggio di Lapshishour ce ne sono centinaia in Nepal e nella zona interessata dal terremoto. Adesso tutta l’attenzione è rivolta verso Kathmandu e i grandi centri abitati trascurando le campagne e i suoi abitanti. La stagione delle pioggie è imminente e il tempo per la ricostruzione probabilmente non sarà sufficente. Che ne sarà di tutti i piccoli agricoltori e delle loro famiglie che vivono in zone remote e che per la loro sussistenza contano quasi interamente sui proprio raccolti e le proprie energie?

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GAEA has a new collaborator! Get to know Jaime Pérez Molina through his reflections on Life, Global Shifts and Visions of the Future

4/9/2015

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By Jaime Pérez Molina writing from Copenhagen, Denmark

PictureGAEA new collaborator Jaime Pérez Molina (2015)
The way decisions shape one's life is never the way one imagines. It's been a long journey getting to where I am now - working as a consultant for the City Hall in Frederiksberg, Denmark, translating Science textbooks, teaching Spanish and participating in diverse activities that range from Raw Food workshops to Gift Economy Circles. Despite the fact that things never turned out as planned, my motivations have remained almost entirely intact for as long as I can remember. Over the years, my bright, idealistic enthusiasm for saving the world with science became dimmer and dimmer as my understanding of our global society and our economic relations grew. But the Light is back now, and I am ready to play my part in this crazy and beautiful planet of ours.

Since my early childhood, I knew I wanted to do something related to the Animal Kingdom. While other children wanted to be pilots or football players, I, when asked, would say that I wanted to be a Circus Manager - how cute is that? Of course in those days I was not conscious of the terrible conditions in which circuses keep their animals, but you can see how I have always been part artist, part scientist. Sadly, my uncontrollable allergies and asthma never made it easy for me to cope well in nature. Nevertheless, I tried - from my time as a proud boy scout to days as a student of biology at the University of Navarra investigating the influence of environment and food on human health. With an environmental specialization in a nation that rarely supports science - and least of all while Spain slowly paced into a global economic crisis - I felt out of place, so I figured that the next steps should take me beyond the Pyrinées. I had never had thought of leaving my homeland, but I could not see a bright future for myself there at that time. So Copenhagen became my home for the following three years and right up until the present day. I completed my Master’s of science degree in agriculture at Copenhagen University, where I focused on organic agriculture. Through my volunteering on organic farms (Thorshoejgaard), urban gardening projects (Byhaven2200) and many other activities in this fancy hipster city I expanded my knowledge, vision and experience. It was also here that I first encountered biodynamic farming and permaculture.

And so it became clear to me - I want to live in a Forest! Call me crazy, but I truly believe that the current system is corrupt, outdated and unsustainable - why would I want to do something normal, like common research? No more wood to the fire! I know now that although I cannot save the world all by myself, I can do a lot to help. I have the knowledge, skills and enthusiasm to catalyze the reaction towards a sustainable paradigm, and I am not the only one.

My personal dream in this life is to find a piece of eroded, deserted land where I can apply my knowledge and abilities to restore the forest: a forest that will feed me, a forest in which I will live and thrive. And if I can replicate that in as many places as possible, I will know that I have done a great good to my community, my country, my posterity and, indeed, the whole world.

Converting unproductive land into oasis of abundance for everyone to enjoy... no small aspiration, huh? Still, life has put plenty of opportunities before me, from  Spain to Mongolia, and I am certain there will be more to come; let me speak more about these permaculture projects in future posts!

This is where GAEA enters the picture: as a fantastic platform to develop the tools and knowledge for this much needed change. I believe that all of us, as world citizens, have the power to become “entrepreneurs of life” and to change our local environment. We must stop believing that others will solve the problems of the world and assume that mantle ourselves. We should follow no leaders, and quit their destructive ideals - after all, not even revolution has thus far been able to change the fact that a wealthy few, from pharaohs of old to the bankers of today, still rule over all those less fortunate. The time has come for us to evolve. We must take the responsibility of starting local, sustainable business and activities: from urban gardens to organic restaurants, from exchange markets to gift circles, from local power sources to alternative transport systems. We must begin the evolution from the ground up, making our own decisions instead of accepting those from above, shaping our own reality and cooperating to build a better and more prosperous world for everyone.

So let’s take that power, those skills,  that freedom that we have and use them for something good! Let’s start by creating a forum where all of us from around the world can support one another in our efforts.


" I believe that all of us, as world citizens, have the power to become “entrepreneurs of life” and to change our local environment. We must stop believing that others will solve the problems of the world and assume that mantle ourselves."
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Between Greenwashing and 3rd Party Certification: Is There an Alternative Path?

4/1/2015

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PictureA tea plantation in Nuwara Eliya (Sri Lanka). Photo credit: Mariola Acosta
By Mariola Acosta Francés writing from Sri Lanka

The tasting room of a tea factory in Central Province, Sri Lanka was adorned with pictures of happy women flashing big toothy smiles, harvesting tea as colorful butterflies  floated idyllically in the fields. Looking at the pictures and reading the panels, visitors cannot help but feel that the plantation is both protective of the environment and socially conscious.


However, one doesn't need to live in Sri Lanka for a long time to learn that, in reality, most tea estates are far from being either environmentally friendly or socially fair. In fact, it is the contrary: most tea fields in Sri Lanka are vast swaths of heavily sprayed, monocropped land and the tea pickers, the majority of whom are women, are amongst the poorest communities in the country and face great financial struggles to feed and sustain their families. To anyone who has spent some time in Sri Lanka, these panels at the tea factory feel very misleading. When asked about this apparent contradiction, this specific factory justified their claims of environmental sustainability by their recent installation of some rubber trees in the otherwise monocropped tea fields. Their understanding of what constitutes “environmentally sustainable” clearly did not match mine. However, given that most of the visitors ended up buying considerable amounts of tea after the factory visit, it appears that their greenwashing strategy was successfully doing its job. This example from Sri Lanka is only one of the many cases that one can find, both in developed and developing countries, of greenwashing, where companies spend more time and money marketing their sustainable initiatives than they do in actually implementing meaningful changes. 

Since the 1980s, and partly as an antidote to greenwashing, an increasing number of certifications schemes have emerged with the aim to regulate products labeled as organic, socially conscious, sustainably produced, etc. These certifications ensure consumers that their products meet certain quality standards and thereby prevent fraudulent or misleading marketing. For example, take the cartoon on my cup coffee this morning which assured me, through a now famous frog, that it was Rainforest Alliance certified. This means that a third party certifying body has ensured that the coffee in my cup was produced following certain standards.

However, how much do we, as consumers, truly know about these certification standards? What are the fundamental differences between, for instance, a Fair Trade certified coffee versus a Rainforest Alliance certified coffee? Certainly there are many more differences and nuances between certification schemes than one would initially expect. With an increasing number of certification schemes, and with standards constantly being modified, it is sometimes difficult as a consumer to choose the product and brand with the certification label that best matches one’s values and needs. Indeed, the amount of information that those labels hide can be truly overwhelming for consumers.

For instance, think about an organic product and how it was produced. You no doubt have a vision of what would constitute organic production. However, does the version of organic production in your mind match the version of organic production that is represented on the label? The answer: maybe not.  Certification requirements for “organic” production systems can indeed differ significantly depending on the product you are producing and the country or region where you want to sell your products. Additionally, third-party certification is complex and expensive, and in many occasions beyond the reach of smallholder farmers interested in producing organically.

What if there was a more flexible type of organic certification that on the one hand allowed consumers to have a close look at the certification process and get to know first-hand the producers and on the other hand gave smallholder farmers access to the organic certification process so that they could get better prices for their products at the local market? A new system of alternative organic certifications seems to have found an answer.

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) were initially conceived in 2004 as a surrogate for third party organic certification but have only recently emerged as a viable alternative in many countries around the globe (a comprehensive list of all PGS systems can be found at the IFOAM site). PGS is based on a set of standards and certification processes that are constructed in a participatory manner by different stakeholders of a specific community or region, such as organic producers, agronomists and consumers.  This different approach not only keeps certification costs to a minimum but also provides stakeholders with commonly agreed upon understanding of what constitutes “organic” production. 

Clearly, only locally produced products can be certified through a PGS system and most consumers must still rely on third party certification schemes for imported products. However, PGS offers a medium term solution where consumers can take an active role in the certification system and can learn first-hand about the local organic standards by visiting the smallholder producers and, in doing so, promote local smallholder organic cultivation. In practical terms, this means being able to personally judge whether a tea plantation is cultivating in a sustainable way or understanding exactly how the organic carrots I buy every week at the market are produced. PSG means promoting and giving credibility to local organic production and creating trust and a direct relationship with our local organic farmers. 

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Happy Birthday GAEA!

1/23/2015

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Picture
It has been one whole year - exactly 365 amazing days since we began our adventure with GAEA and we cannot tell you how excited we are to continue building upon this in the future. Forming GAEA has allowed all of us to continue discussing, investigating and pursuing topics related to our passion - sustainable agriculture - while engaging and connecting with like minded folks. We began only with a shared passion and the ambiguous sense that “wouldn’t it be interesting if…”. Over time, this led to “why not try”, and so we pursued it! Now, one year later, we can hardly believe how much we have accomplished! Throughout this year, we have also become even more aware than ever before of the tremendous importance of empowering youth in the pursuit of fostering sustainable landscapes! We are very excited to build upon this momentum in the coming year, to share new stories, new views, new projects and to welcome new collaborators!  We have new people on board and very exciting new projects brewing, all of which we hope to share in the very near future! Happy Birthday GAEA!





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Invisible landscapes

12/21/2014

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By Javier Rodriguez Ros writing from Lima, Peru
“Small agriculture is one sector that is being the most affected by Climate Change. We suspect that industrial agriculture is being benefitting from this situation. We, small farmers, are looking for ways to adapt through the diversification of our farming systems, and incorporating different varieties of potatoes. We do it as a means of adaptation and in order to assure food security, not only ours, but of the next generations too. Before Climate Change started to manifest itself, we could rely on the Pachamama, animal’s behavior and stars to plan our agricultural systems. Now the flora and fauna do not have the same capacity to respond, and we cannot predict when to seed as we always did. We do think and believe that small farmers don’t contribute to Climate Change. We engage in a form of agriculture that ‘in tune’ with nature, we only use natural inputs. Other farmers work in mechanized systems and use fertilizers, which accelerates Climate Change. We are worried about the lack of understanding of the role of small agriculture in food production from governments and decision-makers. I would like to appeal to all farmers to save all the seeds they have, because that is the best way to assure our food production and our lifestyle in the future and today”.

Lino Mamani Huarka - "guardián de la papa", farmer of the “Parque de la Papa”, Písac, Perú.

Immagine
I always liked arid landscapes – perhaps a childhood lived in Spain and Morocco has something to do with it –, so I really enjoyed my trip to Lima, and the over 30 hours on a bus that traversed the bald and endless desert that is the Peruvian coast. After a while, I started thinking that there’s nothing inherently wrong or unsustainable with these landscapes, and, actually, if you don’t look at them consciously you run the risk of missing their startling beauty. What is unsustainable is to perpetuate in appropriate and unadapted human activities in environments that cannot sustain the scale or the demands, and therefore keeps people in a constant struggle against nature, without water. It’s always about water you know. Engulfed in these thoughts I arrived to Lima, that desert macro-city surrounded by sand and more sand. Among the most populated cities in the world, probably the most threatened by climate change.

In December 2014 Lima hosted the 20th UN Conferences of the Parties, and one of the side events was the Global Landscapes Forum, which took place on the 6th and 7th of December. What was this about? Basically the GLF offered a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and meet people from all around the world involved in environmental, sustainability, and social justice issues, a space full of interesting and diverse perspectives about climate change and landscape approaches. But for me, it was also a perfect moment to know more about one of the star topics of the GLF together with the UN Program for Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+): Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). Anyone interested in the impact of agriculture and deforestation on climate change should to be aware of the discourses behind these global programs, which have major impacts in political, economic, social and environmental terms through the activities and plans that they develop.

However, I didn’t expect that learning about these programs would raise more doubts than clarifications in me. The three pillars of CSA were exposed at the GLF sessions as: more food, adaptation and mitigation activities. It left me worried and concerned about the accuracy of this approach in the understanding of the real problem of world’s food security. Aren’t researchers and policy-makers aware of the fact that it is not about producing more food through industrial agriculture but about improving distribution and access and production in sustainable ways? Who is funding these studies? Is their statement honest and naïve or are these programs deliberately creating labels and mechanisms of adaptation to perpetuate unfair agri-food systems that carry on a brutal social inequity?

Industrial agriculture contributes to deforestation and an increase of industrial livestock production, which both contribute significant to greenhouse gas emissions. This type of agriculture also increases rural livelihoods’ fragility through the use of synthetic inputs and the cultivation of genetically modified seeds, pushing for a homogenization of agriculture and protecting large supply chains. Problems like land grabbing and massive migration to urban areas are not addressed by these types of program interventions, keeping alive an unsustainable living for most of the society for the sake of powerful corporations. In the CSA and UN REDD+ discourse at the GLF I missed further analysis in how agro ecological systems can help in addressing hunger through organic farming and diversification and providing a solid basis to increase social and ecological resilience against climate change.

Regrettably, essential issues like biodiversity or food sovereignty don’t have the role that they should have in global discussions about climate change. Policy makers seem to be overlooking the importance of agro-ecological systems in building social support networks and its substantial contribution to mitigate the effects of climate change, which seems to be the reason why these are not promoted. Instead the conclusions of the COP encouraged governments to “present actions to fight global warming in order to reach further agreements in Paris 2015”. But why so much focus on the social side when talking about agriculture and climate change? Because to stop rural exodus and dispossession of indigenous territories that industrial agriculture is provoking is key to achieve conservation. There are no forests without people, and indigenous communities have been demonstrating over years that they are their best protectors, as well as small farmers – especially women – are the best actors in order to keep a balance in landscapes, in a social, economic and environmental way. Last but not least, this exodus is having a major impact on youth, who are migrating in developing countries to urban areas due to the lack education opportunities, health care and land tenure statuses.

The implementation of landscape approaches in a meaningful way will depend on our capacity to change the economic system in which we are living. It is urgent to adopt an integrated approach that considers social and environmental aspects as principal drivers of development. From a social perspective there is a need for specific regulations at the local and community level to help indigenous communities, women groups, small farmers and youth to protect their land and to stimulate local development. This requires the development of more specific public policies, which currently aren’t developed enough to address the problem of climate change in terms of adaptation and mitigation. From the environmental side, we need first to understand our own limitations in framing the complexity of nature and second to take into account intangible dimensions of it as the spiritual one, which is an inextricable part of indigenous communities’ cultures. This implies a deep shift in our values at a macro level.

To achieve this change, it is important to remember that this climate change crisis that we’re already suffering has been caused by an economic system that prioritizes financial growth over social development and environmental conservation. Therefore, we don’t need any more financial approaches based on parameters of productivity, designed to protect the interests of big corporations to solve this crisis, but a radical change in the way we address the problem. We have to reconsider the approaches of the main programs being currently developed in terms of landscapes strategies: CSA and also the REDD+.  Strategies such as the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) are considered by these programs as a key tool for the implementation of solutions regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This builds on mitigation and adaptation measures upon economic patterns to sustain the same values that led us to the current situation. Instead, we propose a plural approach that includes different levels and dimensions of knowledge in the negotiations about climate change.

Small farmers’ – including groups of women as a specific stakeholder – and indigenous’ communities have to be included at the center of the analysis in the processes of adaptation and mitigation of Climate Change. Only then we will be able to learn from real alternatives to develop agriculture systems and to live in harmony with the environment. Only then it will be possible to implement actions that allow us to build more resilient systems at a larger scale. It’s to us, young professionals and researchers, to take upon the responsibility of being critical to the messages given in spaces like the GLF and be able stand for the inclusion of non-recognized knowledge into the negotiations.

Hence, we, youth claim to be at the center of the negotiations too, to provide a different perspective that takes into account long-term measures and not rapid solutions. But we need to be involved in the negotiations now, as an active stakeholder that is directly experiencing the impact of climate change. And we have to be incorporated together with the marginalized groups mentioned above. We all form the invisible landscape of the society and there won’t be any substantial change until we’re considered at the place that we need to be, the core of the issue.

If you want to know more about CSA, discussion at GLF and agroecology? Check out these resources:

http://agroeco.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-peterman/lima-call-for-climate-act_b_6323186.html
http://news.mongabay.com/2014/1212-gfrn-cannon-indigenous-groups-forest-protection.html
http://www.landscapes.org/using-climate-smart-technologies-scale-climate-smart-agriculture-practices/


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Experiencing alternative ways of living through a cycling tour around Poland and Czech Republic

11/17/2014

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By Marta Panco writing from Paris, France

Cycling alternatives!!! So, what is this all about?? A friend of mine, returning from an integration week in Germany with other young people working in the Global Education Network (GLEN), suggested that there is something that I would like to do this summer. He proposed to check out and register for the cycling tour related to my agricultural activities, where I can combine the passion for biking and farming: Perma-cool-tour! When I heard about this initiative I said to myself: “That’s it! I have wanted to do this for so long and now I finally get the chance!” This dream to cycle through Europe was a true challenge for me. It was about cycling and alternative ways of living, it was about sharing knowledge and experiences with others. And throughout the trip, I met wonderful people from all over Europe, a very diverse and multicultural group of 18 people coming from 9 different countries. We all gathered in Wroclaw from where we started our journey on bikes towards our destination: Valec, Czech Republic. The organizers from Cycling Alternatives planned to reach the village after 2 weeks of cycling, spending the days on different activities while cycling around 60 km/day - in total we traveled around 550km!

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Picture 1 Cycling map from Wroclaw (PL) to Valec (CZ) Self-created maps on www.mapy.cz
PicturePicture 2 Wolimierz station (Poland)
We hit the road and started this nice adventure at the end of July. Throughout Poland the project had not planned any farm visits. However, on the last day before crossing the border to Czech Republic on the 1st of August, we had by chance found a magical place: Wolimierz station. It was a place where just a month before the 17th edition of FESTIVAL OF ALTERNATIVE COMMUNITIES was held. It couldn’t have been better for us and was exactly what we were looking for: an alternative place for people to promote a healthy environment and to share knowledge with younger generations through methods and workshops related to sustainable development. The houses constructed on this old railway station - out of service since late 1990 - have all kinds of interesting things, like home gardens, composts, green roofs and of course solar panel heat for the showers and dry toilets. Local people and tourists came to share their experience and lifestyles through theater plays, communal cooking and Do-It-Yourself (DYI) workshops. 

PicturePicture 3 Bee house in Jindrichovice (Czech Rep.)
The following day we crossed the invisible border to Czech Republic and it was an interesting moment for all us, since we were all crossing on bikes!!! The next farm we visited was in Jindřichovice pod Smrkem, where the mayor welcomed us in his garden to camp and work. He was our guide on that weekend and shared with us his experience of implementing rural development projects in the village, such as the wind mills and building commune houses with green roofs in order to attract younger people to the region and to raise employment. He was one of the first to introduce wind mills in the Czech Republic in 2003 and since then the community has benefited from two of them, which have created savings of 2 mil Cz kr. He also showed us his method for constructing bee hives which, looks like a flower when seen from above, and is a very authentic, sustainable, cheap and innovative form of housing. This house is constructed with concrete, local soil and sand, and is inspired by the architecture and techniques of Iraqi houses. It has a living-room, two bathrooms and a chimney in the middle to provide heat in the winter. One crucial requirement of the design is that it needs good weather and dry temperature for construction, otherwise is not very profitable for cold central Europe. 

PicturePicture 4. Doing a vermicompost bucket
At this farm we spent an amazing time together within the group, feeling a spiritual growth while learning how to better communicate. In the evenings we gathered around the fireplace, while some members cooked our dinner with local products, others played instruments and at night we looked up at the stars and shared knowledge with each other before falling asleep outside the tent.

At this point, it’s the 3rd day out of Poland and the 7th day of cycling. The group is getting more connected and familial. We feel great with all this experience of cycling in the storm and heavy rain all day, while smiling and making jokes, until we arrive finally to a community garden called ZaZemi, in Turnov. It is a big, beautiful garden created collectively by some locals, where they grow seasonal veggies and raise some sheep. The place is amazing; we enjoy sunshine while having the workshop about vermicompost. This is an ingenious way of preparing compost with Californian worms. Easy to do, this DIY invention is a useful method to recycle the by-products from your kitchen and prepare a very fruitful fertilizer for plants and gardens. To set it up, you need three plastic buckets put one on top of each other, and a screw to make holes in the lids, so that the worms can move around while digesting the food (waste). The last bucket will collect “worm tea”, which is also used for fertilizing. But, of course, the worms need to be fed once a week in order to work. The optimal temperature for the digestion is 5-25ºC, and it works without spreading any smell in the apartment. 

Those amazing people in Turnov prepared for us a nice pack of products from their garden and we then headed further to our next destination. We ended up in the “Liběchov – Community Všechnodobředopadne” (which translates as: “everything is going to end up well”). Just 40 km from Prague, we found this alternative community living very happily and simplistically, working together and building gardens from scratch and managing the land themselves. Our group helped them build the fence around the homegarden to protect it from animals, in turn we had an awesome dinner and time with the hosts, watching documentaries related to ecology, agroecology and sharing the knowledge from what we encountered around the globe. Spending time with people who share the same aspirations and values, visiting places full of energy and surrounded by nature, in a happy atmosphere all made this an unforgettable experience.

What made this experience unforgettable, was the atmosphere we created in the group and that people coming from different background and countries were able to share the same values. Few of those we visited had studied agriculture, but I can tell that I was impressed by their soil, climate change and environment knowledge. All together, I have learnt many interesting things about eatable forest products, about how to make a vermicompost, how to build a green roof, and how to construct a bee house inspired by Iraqi architecture. In each of these farms, we participated and helped devise multiple initiatives related to the theme of our tour, permaculture. Cycling through Poland and Czech Republic as a big group of people didn’t pass unnoticed and people were curious to talk to us and invite us over to visit. The farmers were wonderful and happy to meet us - a group of people eager to learn from their experiences. They are all very inspirational people; full of energy and less concerned about the day-to-day problems in our fast-moving industrialized world.

To learn more about this initiative, “Czech” out these websites:
http://www.cyclingalternatives.org/permaculture/
http://stacja.wolimierz.info.pl/festiwal-2013/festiwal-2014
http://www.jindrichovice.cz/
http://zazemi-turnov.cz/


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Analog Forestry and Integrated Landscape Management in Sri Lanka

10/9/2014

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Written by Simon Riley in Sri Lanka for the Global Landscape Forum in Lima

"With the GLF14 approaching and my residence in Sri Lanka drawing to an end, I took the opportunity to visit the Belipola Arboretum and Forest Garden, a living laboratory where one integrated landscape approach has been quietly developing for over three decades. Upon my arrival in the Central hills which encircle the remote rural village of Mirihawatta, I was presented a panoramic view of two different systems of land management – and two different models of rural development – presented side-by-side in striking relief. The contrast is utterly remarkable.

On the crests of the surrounding hills, the native forests have been entirely removed and pure stands of Eucalyptus have taken their place. Fires are employed to clear the understory of weeds, leaving nothing but blackened stumps of guinea grass below. Further down on the slopes, the land is entirely consumed by small vegetable plots, cultivated intensively by the villagers who rely heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for their production. The severity of soil erosion is visible at a distance, as is the lack of proper terracing, contour bunds, or other soil conservation measures. At mid-day, the sun beats down on dry, degraded soil where once-common birds, mammals and reptiles have now become vanishingly scarce."

.... read more of this recently published piece by Simon Riley on the Global Landscape Forum website.

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NEWS! GAEA at the Career Fair in Prague

9/20/2014

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Since GAEA was founded last January, things have been moving quickly.  Step by step, we have grown, developed our network, engaged in our first working partnership as a member of the organizational team for the youth session of the second Global Landscapes Forum (GLF14) and initiated our first video project, among other efforts. Though our members are scattered on different continents, we have kept in regular contact and shared and pursued our ideas through endless webinars and tireless remote collaboration. Last Tuesday, September 16, a team of us finally had the occasion to meet in Prague, face to face! We were invited by the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) and Agrinatura to participate in the Career Fair day, held just prior to the opening of the Tropentag conference. The fair, divided into three different sessions, aimed at discussing the difficulties young graduates face when attempting to enter the job market as well as to bring together passionate young people working in agricultural issues in order to develop networks, synergies and ideas. At the career fair, we gave an insight on GAEA’s (short) history by discussing the steps that led to shape our identity, such as developing our mission, values and first project ideas. We shared the third session of the Fair together with two inspiring young entrepreneurs, Pavlos Georgiadis and Petr Jiskra, who told the story of their initiative We Deliver Taste. We hope to participate again in the future at such events, and with more initiatives and projects to show. These occasions are wonderful opportunities to meet face to face with inspiring people, catalysing new ideas and sprouting new networks.
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Let's talk about...Food...Food waste and loss!

8/29/2014

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By Marta Panco writing from Paris, France 

Food is an important factor in our lives and people are living to produce and consume it. The diversification of food products, the import-exports of new products and the new production techniques have elaborated market’s exchanges! Not only the products become easier available in rich countries, they consume more and have different habits. The behavior of the consumers in developed and rich countries is playing a role in industrialized waste and loss of food.

This behavior and attitude comes from a better knowledge and consumers’ education. Back home when I was a child growing on a small farm, I have learnt from my parents that nothing is wasted and what comes from nature returns to nature. That means that we would use the leftovers and spoiled food to feed the animals or the soil. The problem of waste food started concern me even more since I moved in big cities where I perceived the lack of structures for composting and were perishable products are thrown to the bin. I had always thought that the products can be reused, recycled and reduce the waste. The agricultural waste we used to landfill to increase the soil organic matter, increasing the yields of the next year crops. It is like a self-sustainable cycle… Food waste started to become an increasing problem for the developed societies and lately this concept of” food waste and loss” has taken proportional values when FAO and local governments is struggling to achieve the food security and access to good quality products for all. Assisting in April to the 29th FAO Regional Conference for Europe in Bucharest, Romania, the main discussions focused on how to implement the international Year of Family Farming (IYFF) designated by FAO as the year of 2014 and the issue of the Food Loss and Waste (FLW) in supply chains and discussed the achievements and shortcomings of the Right for Food guidelines by FAO.

After FAO’s estimation each year approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted. This is a major problem for the public and private stakeholders that not only concern the food security targets, but the environmental footprint. Not only food waste can be measured economically, but the invisible costs are much higher, as states Senior Environment officer from FAO. According to him, the monitorization of environmental costs such as green house gases, land erosion, water use and pollinators loss amounts of another trillion USD.

Food waste contributes directly to the GHG emission and limiting the factors that generate food loss, like reducing the emissions from transportation and limiting the supply chain distance, remodeling the markets and retails, can contribute to tackling the climate change. Wasting food means not only agricultural products, but the land, water and nutrients used to produce that food. Tackling with food waste and loss will contribute to reduce the use of resources or to generate a more sustainable natural resource management. To these hidden costs are added also the social costs that impact health from pesticides, loss of livelihoods and conflicts for the natural resources, because the most vulnerable people often lack land and other access to resources generating excessive costs.

Even if it is confirmed that the food production is enough to feed all the population, the repartition of food is unequal and the most vulnerable people have to face hunger and malnutrition, facing inaccessibility to resources and market, while others are over-eating and getting obese. Therefore, it is required to work together and to raise awareness between the rural-urban populations, increase the local demand, building more productive, resilient and diverse food systems. In the South, the loss of agricultural products is encountered in the harvesting process and supply chain, but also due to poor infrastructure and stock of goods conditions as the biggest part of perishable products do not resist until the market. Another reason, and I believe it’s a major one, is that the European quality standards for these products is not met by the smallholder family farming in the developing countries. Producing deformed, but ecologically healthier bananas are not on accepted on the markets in developed countries that would import the production and so on. Physical characteristics of agricultural products are a condition for the big retailers which are trying to meet consumers’ needs.

On the other hand, we have other food waste condition in developed countries. It is estimated that in European Union the average food waste par habitant is 250 kg/year. In total, around 2 million tons of food is thrown to the garbage, either by the supermarkets or the consumers. Almost 50% of the produced food is lost each year, according to the UK Mechanical Engineers (2013). Although in developed countries the harvesting practices, transportation and stock facilities are improved, the waste is associated to the products quality and consumers’ culture and behaviors.

That is why FAO has set a new challenge: to cut the food waste and loss by 50% post-2015 agenda on sustainable agriculture. FAO considers reductions in food loss to have important implications in increasing food security.  Increasing cooperation and partnerships to work together to cut food waste and loss is a major challenge for the years to come. Another important role plays the consumers behavior and habits, while sharing new technologies and innovative techniques can also help reducing valuable food quantities. There are already improvements in some countries, at local or national level doing progress which can be a good example to follow by others.  To get more information, a specific conference on food waste and loss will need help later this year, hoping that GAEA will represent us there.

N.B.: Also on this topic you can participate at the food waste and loss conference in the Netherlands on 8-10 December 2014.

Further readings:
http://www.fao.org/nr/sustainability/food-loss-and-waste/en/
http://www.imeche.org/knowledge/themes/environment/global-food
http://www.fao.org/save-food/key-findings/en/

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From Warsaw to Lima - about GAEA and the Global Landscapes Forum

8/14/2014

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In 2013, GAEA members attended the first edition of the  Global Landscapes Forum, a side event of the COP19 Climate Change Conference in Warsaw. The aim of the conference was "to create a platform for positioning landscapes in the new international agreements on climate and sustainable development."

As the COP20 in Lima draws nearer, and preparations for the next Global Landscapes Forum are under way, read about the GAEA story on the conference website ... http://www.landscapes.org/warsaw-lima-glf-helped-grow-new-youth-initiative/.


Learn more about the conference:
source: http://www.landscapes.org/
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Regenerating biocultural ecosystem resilience and traditional knowledge – An insight to the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) congress in Bhutan, 2014

6/22/2014

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By Nerea Turreira (n.turreira@gmail.com) writing from Bhutan

After two years of preparation, the 14th edition of the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) congress was held in the marvellous country of Bhutan, with the help
of the host organisa
tion Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and Environment (UWICE).  The theme of the congress was ‘regenerating biocultural ecosystem resilience and traditional knowledge’, and it featured a great variety of lectures, workshops, storytelling, documentaries and performances. A very tight agenda covered a wide range of topics regarding ethnobiology, community-led initiatives, governance policies, ethics and well-being. The focus was not only on indigenous peoples’ knowledge, but many conferences were dedicated to traditional knowledge in western countries and biocultural issues of developed countries.

The congress enabled the cross-cultural exchange of information and worldviews between renowned ethnobiologists, anthropologists, biologists, policy makers and indigenous representatives from all over the world and in addition to local students and organisations. The various discussions and informal side talks created the space to assemble ideas, and share knowledge, stories and connections.

The location of the congress, in Lamai Gompa, Bumthang, Bhutan, provided a perfect opportunity to get a glance into Bhutan and the Bhutanese lifestyle. As everybody knows, the beauty of the country is immense; the variety of landscapes - from tropical to blue pine forests - temples, traditional architecture and animal diversity all come together to provide breathtaking scenes. However, what makes Bhutan especially unique is its people and their mentality and culture. In the heart of East Asia, Bhutan has little to do with its neighbouring countries. For instance, education and health care are free for every citizen and no Bhutanese is landless by law, and Bhutanese are ensured of having their basic needs covered. Families have few children and can afford providing them with higher education. Many Bhutanese go to University either in the country or abroad. Respect for the environment is a priority in the political agenda and the country strives to become the first 100% organic country. Of course not everything is ideal and there is still room for improvement. Much of the food consumed in Bhutan is imported from India, and this is not organically grown, and since Bhutanese are not allowed to kill any animals the meat is also imported.

On the whole, the congress was a great success and the organisation was excellent. I felt immensely privileged to be part of this global gathering of people that care for the living and physical components of the environment. I was inspired by the conference and I got the feeling that science is changing, new more holistic approaches and ethics are being introduced and adopted and that all together we can make a difference.


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Seeds of Gold - An innovative idea to promote agriculture in Kenya

5/27/2014

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By A Eyrich writing from Kenya

Kenya’s got a lot going for it. No matter what negative stories made the international news in recent weeks this country is endowed with diverse landscapes, natural resources, and an  innovative population. I am constantly blown away by everything that is happening here and every day I learn something new. There are so many things going on in Kenya that I think should be expanded and adopted in other countries. The purpose of this blog post is to share one of these and hopefully have these ideas inspire others.

Having an interest in agriculture, and particularly smallholder family farming, I really enjoy my weekend reading in Kenya. In what I think is a brilliant initiative, every Saturday the Kenyan Newspaper the Daily Nation publishes a pullout magazine on agriculture called Seeds of Gold, which they publish in collaboration with a Kenyan agricultural university called Egerton University.  Seeds of Gold has the purpose of “Educating Farmers on the Best Farming Practices”, though from my own experience – I have certainly learned a lot – and from conversations with people engaged in other occupations in urban Nairobi, Seeds of Gold teaches more than farmers!

Because I really enjoy Seeds of Gold, I tend to talk about it a lot. I was intrigued by the taxi drivers and watchmen who have told me they too purchase the Saturday paper to read Seeds of Gold - though this is by no means a representative sample! Some of the taxi drivers I have talked to supplement their incomes with earnings from farms in their hometowns worked by hire labour or family members. Some of the taxi drivers have farms in their hometowns that are worked by hired labour or family and to supplement their incomes. One watchman said he reads Seeds of Gold because he would like to eventually return to his hometown and start a farm.

The brilliant thing about Seeds of Gold is that it provides practical information to assist farmers and it shows how implementing good farming practices can be profitable with headlines like “high value, more yields” and “my money grows on bananas” (May, 24,2014). When one considers conditions for the financially marginalized populations in Nairobi and the exorbitant cost of living here, it is easier to see farming as a viable alternative. Many people with jobs serving the richer elite – such as gardeners, watchmen, and domestic assistants – spend hours commuting far distances from areas where rent is somewhat affordable to go to work each day. They travel on foot, bike and in matatus stuck in gridlock in the wee hours of the morning to work 10 to 12 hour shifts for small sums of money before making the long journey back home. In this light, farming doesn’t look like a bad alternative, and not when you have a resource to provide you with information and answer your questions.

Because I believe this Seeds of Gold idea should be expanded and adopted in more countries I will briefly provide an outline of what the publication contains to offer some more detailed insight into why I like it so much and why I think it is so important.

Seeds of Gold begins with a page where readers ask questions and get answers. Examples from the May 24, 2014 edition (the most recent one and the one that is in front of me as I write this blog) includes questions on: specifics of Turkey egg production and markets in Kenya; where to obtain rabbits for rearing; how to get training to establish and become a farmer; and where to get good quality vegetal material and seeds. It then features articles on farmers who have incorporated new techniques that resulted in improvements to existing practices and people who have engaged in completely new production methods, such as making soy milk, engaging in aquaculture and using manure as a fish feed, or using residues from coconut to make biochar or briquettes. They also have a legal section that informs farmers about their rights with regards to the law and insurance. It concludes with a “Green Market” section to connect producers and buyers.

The popularity of Seeds of Gold is really quite inspiring. Of course there are limitations (i.e. it is English text, limiting the audiences with lower literacy and low English skills) and room for improvement. Nonetheless it is just one of the many innovative initiatives promoting farming as an activity in Kenya. Others include the Muklima Young platform (http://www.mkulimayoung.co.ke), which is an electronic platform for young farmers to connect and to teach and learn from each other. It also provides information on prices. Another initiative, one that I personally am not as comfortable with, is a reality type TV show called “Shamba Shape Up” (http://shambashapeup.com, shamba being garden in Kiswahili), where two exuberant urbanite hosts visit a farm and bring guest experts to assess practices and suggest improvements. What makes me uncomfortable is that the farmer is always seen as doing things “wrong” and needs external help from the guests, who are usually representatives of a fertilizer, feed or seed company. The diagnosis the farmer receives usually requires using this company’s product. However, I think the concept has a lot of potential and, if done in a more neutral manner, it has the ability to reach large audiences and achieve positive change.

My hope is that by sharing some of these initiatives from Kenya that promote agriculture that you, and maybe others, might be inspired to pass these one so they can be adopted and adapted in other countries.

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Mother’s day and women’s engagement in agriculture 

5/11/2014

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By Marta Panco writing from Paris, France

More and more discussions about women, gender and their role in agriculture and climate change have arisen in recent years. Although in Europe women may not be widely regarded as doing much of the work of farming, in developing countries, they play a central role in agriculture. Women represent on average 43 percent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, ranging from 20% in Latin America to almost 50% in East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, 2011) and globally they are taking on larger and more defined roles in food and agriculture, 70 percent of all farmers are women (Think Food Tank, 2014). Women engaged in agricultural systems are often cited as having increased means to ensure food security and improved nutrition of households by 2.5 relative to men, if they have access to 20-30 % of the same resource as men (WFP, 2013). Hence, women generally invest more in the health of their families if they earn more compared to the men, spending the majority of their income to the well-being of their children and family (CGIAR, 2014). Food security and improved nutrition of the household are normally main preoccupations of a woman and even more so in developing countries. I have many times reflected about women’s condition in agriculture. As my interest increased, I became more aware about their role in small scale production, both the Global North and the South. Each woman farmer has a different life story depending on her origins and shaped by the particularities of the upbringing by her societal context.

In Europe, I need not look further for proof of this than within my own family. My grandmother, and indeed all the women from her generation living in rural communities of Moldova, worked hard during the soviet period in the kolkhoz - the collective work farms of Soviet Union. As children, they worked the land side by side with their parents beginning at 3 am and sometimes working more than 16-hour days. From discussions with my grandmother I know that she, as other young rural children, chose to work on collective farms even before finishing primary school (before the age of 16) because the family needed money. All students and workers were working together on these collective farms but were paid individually, depending on each person’s productivity. The agricultural activities in the tobacco, sugar beet and corn fields, as well as in the vineyards, were done mainly by hand from early spring till late autumn. Only after 1960 did the work begin to become mechanized, but the hardest manual work continued to be done by women in the kolkhoz, while the men were working on the tractors, trucks and in the factories. Women were responsible for sowing the tobacco in specially arranged greenhouses, often working by candlelight due to lack of electricity. During the transplanting of new seedlings, women tended to the land and put compost on the field, while men warmed up the water for the irrigation beforehand. Harvesting was done by hand and the tobacco leaves were dried and kept in the house, with their toxic leaves threatening family health. Starting in the 1960s, the factories started to take over the process of drying and pressing of the leaves: in consequence, the families finally avoided the health problems due to tobacco toxicity. After 1991, the transition from Soviet republic to independent state played an important role in land reforms and farm structures. The privatization of farms left the small holders with a tiny portion of land, sufficient only for subsistence farming, while the capital assets from the kolkhoz (the machinery) were not shared. To date, 23 years after the kolkhoz disparities, the working conditions have remained mostly the same: no mechanization on small farms and mostly subsistence farming systems.

These days in Moldova, my grandmother’s generation has aged, has poorer health and is no longer able to work the land, while the younger population is seeking better opportunities in big cities. The lack of income generation from agricultural activities in the rural areas is leading to migration towards more developed countries. In my opinion, globalization is creating more gender gaps and risks for the women. From my own experience as a child in a post Soviet Union country, the wave of migration to the Russian Federation immediately after the independence and, later, on to Western Europe in search of paid labour is mainly pursued by men who leave their wives and children behind to bear the increased responsibilities for agricultural production on top of their traditional household responsibilities. These single women have to cope with heavy agricultural labour to assure the families’ food needs. Sometimes, the women remain all alone in the households when her children leave for schools in the city. Her life turns out to be dedicated entirely to food production, when there are no other opportunities for income earning. Therefore, while the global economic forces may have resulted in improved livelihoods for some, the situation of women in rural areas remains one of additional strain due to lacks in household labour and continued social exclusion.

I encountered another striking observation about women farmers while living in rural communities in Madagascar. There, the social position of women is far from the one they deserve and despite their heavy labour investment, women often lack decision making power and authority; they have limited access to the capital, land and resources. In Madagascar, women are responsible for food production and providing food is a long process, where women have to walk dozens of kilometers to bring water and fuel wood necessary for cooking. They identify a certain division of farm activities between men and women: the rice production is a “woman’s” activity and they are more efficient, while cash crops and income generation activities are the men’s responsibilities. Furthermore, rural women have limited opportunities for off-farm employment and subsistence farming activities do not create new opportunities for development. In order to contribute to development, women need support and access to the resources. They produce 20-30% less compared to men because of lack of resource (WFP, 2013) and thus the responsibility to provide food security for the family with limited resources remains a significant challenge for many women (CGIAR, 2014).

Agricultural activities are more physically demanding for women than for men. For example, I recently read an article about the consequences that the large physical strain that agricultural activities pose to mothers in rural Nepal. The article described one of them losing her child due to the need to continue to perform hard physical work in the fields throughout the last months of pregnancy. This strain is not only endured by pregnant women, but older women also have difficulty in engaging in day to day agricultural activities late into their lives. In my opinion women are the most vulnerable to agricultural and climatic changes, and meanwhile as the ones with the responsibilities to secure food they are often sacrificing their own share for their children and family members.

Younger or old, from the North or from the South, women working in agriculture all over the world face same similar problems, such as social pressure, and less access to information and resources. Often constrained by limited resources and authority, hard working women are principal actors in agriculture that contributes to food security, climate change adaptation and social development. Through capacity building, engaging women in social networks and associations, women could be a powerful force to reducing poverty, improving food security and livelihoods, and to building more sustainable agricultural systems. There are prominent discussions about women’s role in agriculture in developing countries and even more so with the designation of 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, so let us continue to keep their contribution in the spotlight.  Let us do more than take just one day a year to recognize the profound contribution that women make to our world. Let us thank our mother’s each day for shaping who we are and contributing to the betterment of the world we live in.


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Reflections on World Water Day

5/5/2014

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By Javier Rodrìguez Ros writing from Riobamba, Ecuador

I was curious about why today, March 22nd was the date selected by the United Nations to celebrate World Water Day, and I have to admit that I couldn’t find the reason. Perhaps it is related to the beginning of spring and the thaw that turns ice into water, or perhaps it was just the result of an arbitrary selection determined by the busy schedule of International Days. Anyhow, let’s use the occasion to reflect upon the importance of water as a cultural, aesthetic, biophysical and public good, let’s think about water in the global context and its relation with human livelihoods. Even more importantly, let’s individually step back and look at the essential: what water means for each of us, what its impact is in our lives and how would we like it to be regarded and managed.

For the first time in history, more than half of world’s population lives in urban areas, registered in 2010. It is foreseen that this trend will continue, reaching 60% by 2030 and 70% in 2050. What consequences will this shift have concerning freshwater supply? In the context of such increasing global urbanization, it seems apparent that residential, commercial, municipal and industrial needs will play major roles in water management strategies. In this sense, efforts seem to be focused on the demand-side, for instance developing new freshwater-conserving technologies and urban planning approaches that minimize water consumption. Moreover, there is a generalized call for more effective data collection and monitoring of water supply and demand, an essential step if we are to improve freshwater management. This has been regarded by the private sector as an opportunity to participate in urban water supply and sanitation, arguing that their entry improves the efficiency and service quality of utilities. These claims have led to considerable controversy. 

The present situation and the projections for total population growth and continued urbanization imply a steady increase in global water requirements – some estimations point out that by 2030, total water demand will be 40% above the current accessible, reliable supply –. It is worth thinking about the consequences of these trajectories. One particular point of contention that requires serious, democratic reflection is that of water privatization. Contractual relationships between government and water companies have been developed in many occasions with the aim of reducing fiscal burdens, fostering asset sales and concessions. This strategy has been criticized for considering water as a resource dependent on the regulations of the market, which has led to rate increases in numerous communities where water has been privatized (i.e. in the USA, UK). Conceiving water as a simple marketable commodity can tempt water enterprises to maximize prices, with no obligation to provide water to those who cannot afford it in addition to compromising water quality standards. On the other hand, many have pointed out that this problem may only arise in developed countries, whereas in developing countries privatizing water services actually improved water quality and the scope of its distribution (Gabon, Ivory Coast, Ghana) where governments due to a number of economic and political reasons failed to provide adequate water supply. 

However, the main problem of water privatization that water users around the world have to face lies on the fact that water companies are accountable to shareholders and not to consumers, which in the long run can drive major conflicts: to reduce public control can be to reduce public rights. Poor communities could see their access to water jeopardized, which doesn’t align with the undeniable fact that water is a basic human right and need and is formally recognized in a UN resolution . Not less disturbing is the way in which many water privatization processes have been characterized by an evident lack of transparency and occultation of information, thus avoiding public social debate. Some privatization agreements carried cases of corruption, which doesn’t mean that privatization inherently leads to corruption. In contrast, in order to avoid these aforementioned problems, such processes require social debate, a high accountability and transparency, that considering its impact in all users. As it is said in my hometown: “if it is not transparent it is not water”. In this sense, it is imperative policy makers prioritize water security, meaning real reliable access to all users, for which it is essential to consider water as an undeniable essential right and public good. Taking this into accountand considering that water management issues vary considerably in each urban center, each context needs its own appropriate model. And principally, it requires the maximum consensus amongst public governmental institutions, private companies and fundamentally users, aiming to achieve a balanced vision of water for its social, environmental and cultural value.

But how do users perceive water? Do we have a clear opinion about how we want water to be managed and supplied? Recent surveys show that 77% of Americans don’t know where their water comes from. This is applicable to many European countries, pointing out the increasing alienation of urban populations from natural resources, preventing them from realizing its importance in their lives. But let’s take a look to the agricultural sector. 

Irrigated agriculture has contributed since ancient times to build the identity of numerous cultures in Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Niger, the Zana or the Indus Valley, all of them conscious of their dependence on the precious resource. Similarly, indigenous communities around the world established their cultures on the dynamic, humanist and spiritual notions of their natural resources, water invariably being the omnipresent resource that sustains life. These visions, far from being inconsistent or vague as some may state, provide an alternative point of view that can help us manage water in a more sustainable way from a social and environmental perspective. Moreover, present-day smallholder farmers who irrigate their crops are also completely aware of the importance of the environmental, socio-cultural and economic value of water. They depict an integrated vision of the different dimensions of irrigated agriculture with an accurate perception of how the water supply affects their short and long-term interests, in contrast to most urban users. 

Despite of all these factors, indigenous and poor rural communities and those who suffer directly from water crises are not represented in the World Water Council as well as in other water-relevant institutions, even though these institutions theoretically tend to envisage a common strategy over water resources and services for all actors of the “hydric community”. In this sense, it is especially astonishing how women have been disregarded in decision-making of water issues, taking into account the undeniable principal role of women in the provision of water for domestic use and more generally, in safeguarding water, especially amongst the poor in developing countries. Concerning irrigated agriculture, indigenous communities and family farmers have been historically forgotten in the development processes and access to productive resources and services, not just water, but also land, for being less productive according to old parameters of the green revolution. It can be affirmed that smallholders have been systematically excluded from the processes of planning, design and even evaluation of irrigation systems. In consequence, technical experts have very often failed to meet the social and environmental needs of irrigation systems, as well as to identify the causes of low performances, being therefore unable to implement adequate solutions. Recently researches are demonstrating that understanding and including smallholders’ and indigenous’ perceptions of water can contribute to building a more integrative vision of irrigated agriculture that is beneficial for all stakeholders. 

In this context, agro-ecological practices performed by many family farmers are showing a high degree of productivity and sustainability in agriculture, through a coherent culture of water use and conservation. It can be therefore stated that agro-ecological principles aim for the efficient use of water, through diverse practices like mulching, the use of green manures, terracing or organic farming practices that have the final goal of conserving hydrologic basins. Such practices are oriented to improve water circulation and nutrient distribution in the soil to reduce leaching to groundwater bodies, increase water retention or improve crops’ tolerance to droughts. These strategies are irrefutable evidences of how agro-ecological practices are sensible to water issues, reason why there has been a claim for a shift in water management by a recent UN Environment Programme report, from “water for food” to “water for multifunctional agro-ecosystems” (Boelee et al., 2011). However, this trend in which agro-ecologic principles appear to be increasingly frequent in international water and food security policy narratives sounds contradictory to the global reality of industrial agriculture. The increasing urbanization discussed at the beginning of the article doesn’t favor the implementation of the agro-ecological principles, given the major role of family agriculture in agro-ecologic systems. On the contrary, generalized rural exodus is facilitating massive land grabbing and vice versa, which ends up in the expansion of industrial agriculture. It seems therefore pertinent to analyze the impact of rural development policies in the present and future context of water management at a global scale. 

So what is water? A profitable commodity? A right? A cultural value? An environmental resource? As I see it, it is symbol of life, human patrimony, a common resource, and its present and future’s sustainability needs our involvement. Last week, the European Commission reacted positively for the first time to a European Citizens’ Initiative, Right2Water, which claimed for the right of European citizens to water and sanitation, asking as well for the exclusion of water supply and management of water resources from internal market rules and liberalization. Even though this shows the awareness of an active part of the European population and seems to be a success of participative democracy, the truth is that most of the population is becoming progressively less aware of our dependence on water and its value, which in turn makes us less prone to get personally involved in protecting our right to access it. On the other hand, many private enterprises are aware of the increasing competition for this resource, and are willing to make a profit out of it, managing water purely as an economic good. Thus, the EU promised to improve information for citizens through more transparent data management. Moreover, they declared their intention of removing water from the scope of the concessions directive. These encouraging strategies and the importance of the issue oblige us to keep more aware and involved than ever, given the large number of questions that remain unanswered: not considering concessions anymore, are other forms of privatization such as lease contracts or mixed ownership susceptible of being introduced? What is the current state of the privatizations announced for southern-European countries? Are there any plans to involve citizens durably in the decision processes of water management?

Beyond the consideration of water as a public good for its vital importance, water users need to be aware of the strategies that concern water supply, for which public debate needs to be stimulated and accessible to the population. There is a need to involve populations to harness creative and collaborative solutions in order to achieve sustainable water management. However, in both urban and rural agricultural scenarios it is necessary to understand what determines users’ perception of water and include them in decision-making processes concerning water management, actions that have not been undertaken so far in the sector.

to know more:

Boelee E et al. (2011) Ecosystems for water and food security, an ecosystem services approach to water and food security. Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 179p.

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Knowledge intense vs input intense agriculture - perspectives from the "Food Otherwise" conference

3/11/2014

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Picture
By Gabriele Sutera writing from Wageningen, Netherlands

The relation between people, their food, the way of producing it and the way to have access to food saw big changes in the last decades. The mainstream idea that food production is not enough to feed the world’s increasing population is changing. The principles prescribed by the green revolution to achieve food for all are today controversial and arguable. Scientists, farmers, students and civil society gathered in a conference at the University of Wageningen  (Netherlands) to discuss the changing environment of our food systems. Today, an important portion of our food production is lost, for reasons which can be attributed to: inefficiencies of our food chains; in other cases a lack of adequate storage facilities or poor post-harvest techniques; or the opportunistic mechanisms created by policies that drive farmers to discard their own production . There is a growing consensus that in order to reduce poverty, hunger and exclusion, we don’t need to increase production but we must link people to food by increasing food accessibility, both physically and financially, rather than remaining focused on increasing the supply of production. The chemical industry, which during the 60’s saw the agricultural sector as a great business opportunity, is omnipresent in our global food systems; the aggressive lobbying put in place by the  industry allowed them to reach their dominant position in the food production sector. This industry is pushing the agenda toward a “privatization” of the genetic resources that nature has provided us since life on earth began. 

The core of the conference workshop held by Vandana Shiva and the ASEED team members discussed a number of issues related to seeds, seed trading and the new seed law proposed by the European Union. Seeds are basic for the reproduction of the farm; making farmers dependent on companies for this central component of farm life, increases financial risks linked to the volatility of seed prices, their most important input to production. In different regions of the world, and especially in India, the effects of such dependence have been already shown a heavy burden on family farming – the suicide belt (a term to describe the upsurge of rural suicides due to irreversible indebtedness) in India is a perfect example. Vandana Shiva started by highlighting the importance of land races and open pollinated varieties for farmers. The ASEED team presented the results of studies showing that over 50% of the world seed market share is controlled by five multinational companies (Dupont, Syngenta, Kws, Monsanto, Limagrain). This is not only a threat for farmers, but for biodiversity in general. For this reason Vandana Shiva encouraged the creation of local seed banks and the use of open pollinated varieties, which promotes ex-situ and in-situ conservation of genetic biodiversity for future generations. Vandana Shiva concluded with an interesting and inspiring statement “concentration (of power) creates a system of slavery, when you can control food you can control people, when you control seeds you control life, the darkest way of dictatorship”.

Encouraged by the same interest, understanding the importance of biodiversity in providing the world population with fundamental services, the workshop “Food sovereignty in practice” held by the members of ILEIA, FIAN and TNI presented case studies that demonstrate how agroecological practices can make a difference in building more resilient, adaptable and sustainable food systems. In many regions of the planet, projects to encourage farmers to grow cash-crops (e.g. coffee, cocoa) –  mainly to satisfy the western appetite for such goods – were carried out in the past decades (and continue today). The population and the territories involved in such projects in many cases found themselves involved in a “common” spiral; first the projects bring intensification, land use intensification which ends up degrading soil quality and lowering its productivity, which is both a physical loss as well as a financial loss. The said spiral can be also seen from another perspective, as the workshop’s speaker showed. Relying on monocultures in a global markets where prices are subject to fluctuations highlights the instability of such cash-crop based systems. The need for change, the need for practices which are more diverse, such as polycultural (in opposition to monoculture) systems, make people think and question what alternatives could be used to establish a new paradigm. On this regard I would like to bring the example of a Cameroonian farmer, who recognized by his own experience the importance of diversified systems: 

“In 1987 is when I started planting cocoa, before I was only cultivating food crops with my wife; in a period of two years together me and my family planted 5 ha, something like 5 000 plants and along with that I planted 3 000 plantain suckers and about 300 orange trees. After seven years […] I got at least 50 bags of cocoa. 10 years later since plating some of the cocoa plants started to dry out – I think the land was not good, just too much rocks in this plot – and I lost at least 2 000 plants. I started replacing them with oil palm that I knew was more resistant […]” the discussion continues but it switches to the drop on cocoa prices “[…] by now I’ve come to realize that when cocoa is not doing well I can rely on the oil palm and when this is not doing well I’ve my oranges, so I don’t miss any season and the farm pays me well all year round”

This example shows how agroecological practices that encourage the use of agro-forestry systems help maintaining an equilibrium in the food production system from the farm to a global level, from the economic point of view as well as from the environmental one.

The UN special rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, concluded the conference in a plenary session. By compiling the interesting elements presented in the conference, he drew a road map to lead to a new paradigm for moving forward in the agenda of reducing poverty and hunger and creating of innovative food systems. Still there is a lot of ambiguity on what agroecology is and what it means. Mr. De Schotter made clear how agroecology should be intended and what agroecology is; this, in opposition to industrialized farming –  the result of the green revolution – seeks for the creation of food systems which are circular and capable of reproducing themselves. Our food systems today are fully dependent on fossil fuels, which are injected in the system and consumed in a linear way, creating a circle that could never close. Putting the intensive and industrialized agriculture in contrast with the agroecological approach Mr. De Schutter called for an agriculture which needs to be more “knowledge intense” rather than “input intense”.

The green revolution, its agricultural and environmental policies, were not able to put the many elements that constitute our food system together in a harmonious way. Prioritizing production at very high levels in order to satisfy the growing demand was achieved while disregarding the environment and the socio-economic components of our food systems and societies. The bitter feeling that I sensed at the end of the conference is that mass agriculture created more problems than solutions.

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Real change in the hands of farmers - Zacharia in Benin

3/11/2014

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PictureMarket stall in Benin
By A Eyrich writing from Canada

Throughout history societies have faced problems and it is no secret that today humankind faces a myriad of challenges that must be dealt with in shaping the future. Agriculture is not exempt; actually, the complexity and broad scope of the agriculture and agri-food sector faces particular challenges on all fronts – social, economic, and environmental. We are all aware of the consequences this could pose to global food supply.  There is no shortage of actions being undertaken by a plethora of actors (private, public, third party) and policies to address these, all motivated and backed by different and often conflicting interests. Most actors and actions, I believe, stem from good intentions that follow a fairly standard approach. Yet, I believe, many agricultural projects fail to achieve any significant long-term changes and do not change the flawed underlying system. Despite efforts and awareness of the importance of adopting more bottom-up approaches consulting with and allowing people affected most by the projects to shape them, many development efforts remain top-down and little guided by hard scientific data and functioning on short time frames, as dictated by donors and the development system.  It seems there is often little communication between various echelons of project actors and participants. For instance, it seems many of those making decisions continue to be far removed from farmers in the field despite all the rhetoric about participatory development. However, there are some exceptions and I think this is really starting to change in the sector.

I have been incredibly fortunate to meet some inspiring people over the years. Today I would like to share one story of a 26-year-old man, Zacharia and he lives with his extended family in northern Benin. I met him in 2013. Zacharia had never received help from any project nor formal training on agriculture. He learned farming from his parents and their friends.

Zacharia was an enigma in his town. Unlike his peers, he decided to stay in his town and work as a farmer. The overwhelming majority of his friends decided farming was too physically demanding and the majority left to seek greener pastures in the browner urban centres, preferring to sell black-market petrol on the road side or drive motorcycle taxis. In Benin the farming population is aging, and this is a global phenomenon. This not surprising though, as it is increasingly difficult to get into and or make a living from farming. To make money from agricultural endeavours usually requires massive investments and large scales – something that the elite and multinationals are better able to undertake. Furthermore, those who have the money also have the power often set the standards and policy, which are then shaped to generally favour them. If the average person attempts to make a living from farming they often end up in crippling debt and this debt is hard to pay-off by farming. This trend can be deadly, as documented by farmer suicide in India. Apart from poor policies that put family farmers at a disadvantage, consumers are generally not willing or able to pay high prices for good food, and do not realize what good, healthy food and a healthy farm system really costs.

But I digress. Zacharia, a primary school graduate, had farmed with his parents regularly since he was a small child.  He got his own land beside his family’s and continued to farm. When I asked him why he did not leave farming and his town like his peers, he responded “I like to farm, you get something at the end. It is difficult, but rewarding and it gives me food.  You do not depend on anyone and you produce for yourself.”

He grows a variety of produce: vegetables, grains, legumes, and cashews, and he has some poultry. Some is for food, some for cash. It is a very intricate and complex livelihood system that involves numerous projections and calculations to ensure he and his family have enough cash and food to last throughout the year. It is extremely complicated to understand his personal situation and decisions, and then that of his large extended household, which are all interwoven. But for anyone setting agricultural interventions and policy, such information is crucial. But it is information that simple questionnaires cannot always capture, particularly if they are poorly conceived and administered. This critical information is missing in too many development projects, which tend to lack the mechanisms, money, initiative and time to obtain it.

Zacharia’s small vegetable plot produces tomatoes, okra, peppers, bitter-balls amaranth, and a dizzying variety of nutritious local vegetables, and it does so nearly year-round nearly. He fertilizes with compost, which he makes himself and he can also get free manure from the weekly livestock market. He irrigates his garden using water from a nearby dam, though sometimes there are floods and sometimes it runs dry – both have negative consequences for his vegetable plot, which neighbours the dam. There is a high demand for tomatoes but Zacharia has a difficult time competing with the ubiquitous cheap canned tomatoes and tomato paste that originate in China and inundate African markets. He also produces staple grains, the sorghum, millet, and maize, that feed him and his family and provide income if he has enough to sell. He would like to sell his maize later in the season when prices are higher, but his financial situation usually requires him to sell part of his crop upon harvesting to local and regional merchants at very low prices. If he sells too much or inaccurately predicts the family’s yearly grain needs, he is forced to re-purchase grains at exorbitant prices during the “hungry period”, which comes when one year’s food stocks have run out and harvest is still weeks or months away. This well-documented trend of farmers selling when prices are low has been targeted by various development actions for decades, but it still persists.

Zacharia gets most of his cash from selling soya and cashew to local merchants or to buyers from farther away. The cashew value chain in Benin is extremely disorganized and there are many intermediaries in the buying business. The price for cashew fluctuates erratically through the season and makes it difficult to plan and obtain the best price for his nuts. Zacharia and other cashew farmers cannot be sure when to sell and what they will receive for their harvest, no matter what its quality.

The cashew farmers in his village have tried to do bulk sales through a producer group they established upon the advice of a project and nearby cashew processing factory. But their group was unsuccessful in executing any bulk sales for higher prices per kilo because the buyers went elsewhere and this forced the producers to come down in price and disband, selling independently. Some did not manage to sell their harvest before the season ended. Nevertheless, the cashews still brings Zacharia solid cash income relative to other farming undertakings, and cashew requires much less work than cotton, which he used to help his father grow before they both abandoned it. However, without cotton, farmers like Zacharia do not receive state supported agricultural extension nor the access subsidized inputs. But Zacharia likes his free compost.

Despite of all these challenges, when I met Zacharia he was not at all negative, and indeed he was anxious to talk about one of his greatest farming passions – experimenting with varieties, notably his beans. He had been experimenting with beans for a few years, ever since he obtained and adapted some fast maturing varieties from another farmer. He had the idea to try planting twice a year – once very early in the season and again mid season. An idea inspired partly by a desire to increase yearly harvests and also motivated by changes in rainfall and the planting season. It was successful and he was able to harvest two-times during the rainy season! Other farmers around him have started to do the same. Zacharia says he will continue experimenting with his seeds because he is able to do so much and he enjoys it. He does not have the purchased high yielding high-bred varieties some of the farmers have. Of those, he says “They give, but only for one season, then you have to buy again!” He prefers his own seeds, which are free, and he constantly gets some yield. He enjoys the diversity on his plots because the mixture is like a kind of insurance, making them more resilient to unexpected adverse events, such as disease or drought. He doesn’t have a tractor or any mechanical device, so the lack of uniformity in height of his crops, for instance, does not bother him. But he would like machinery because he cannot provide all the labour his lands require and cannot afford to pay labourers – they are too expensive or there is simply no one around or willing to work. Zacharia, however, continues to farm because he enjoys experimenting and said he will try with other crops soon.

Stories like Zacharia’s, and his motivation and passion for innovation and agriculture are quite common globally if you look for them. I believe that facilitating ground-up experimentation and adaptation, as Zacharia is doing, is how real change occurs and stories like Zacharia's should be sought out, shared, and build upon and farmer-to-farmer exchanges encouraged.



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Kidney Disease of Chronically Unknown Aetiology

2/18/2014

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PictureInundated rice paddies.
By Simon Riley writing from Sri Lanka

North Central Province, Sri Lanka – Samathie is sick. As the farm’s driver, the two of us rode together countless times past the lush fields of rice in the Kala Oya River basin, between the coastal city of Putallam and Sri Lanka’s ancient capital, Anuradhapura. It’s an enchanting sight: the carefully crafted mud bunds divide the paddies into level, rectangular blocks ringed by jungle on three sides. The still water casts reflections of the sky through gaps in the foliage. And those fields are clean – vast swaths of cropland without a single weed, insect or microbial blemish to be found. After having lived his entire life in this region, Samanthie may now have few chances left to gaze out over those fields. Yet, at this point, he may not want to.

Since Sri Lanka first gained independence in 1948, it has been the aim of each successive government to push the nation closer to self-sufficiency in rice production. It was among the first nations in Asia to systematically pursue intensive breeding programs to develop new, high yielding varieties, doing so even before the establishment of IRRI in 1962. In 1967, efforts at intensifying rice cultivation were redoubled, with new credit and incentive schemes designed to make it easier for small farmers to cultivate improved varieties. In the 20 years that followed, nitrogenous fertilizer use increased nearly two and a half times, with similar rises in herbicide and pesticide applications. Meanwhile, little, if anything, was done to ensure proper handling or disposal of these agro-chemicals by Sri Lankan farmers.

Starting in the 1990’s, doctors in Sri Lanka began noticing a marked rise in a previously rare condition, Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Aetiology (CKDue). Although concentrated to a limited geographic area (namely, the North Central Province and areas immediately adjacent to it) the rate of reported incidences began to grow exponentially. Through a series of studies, it was discovered that the victims were overwhelmingly individuals over 50 years old, especially men, who lived in rural farming communities. It was observed that these individuals had been ingesting elevated levels of cadmium, arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals, which were later traced back to the food and water supply.

Within the last few years, two major events in the agroecologal history of this island nation have occurred. First, in 2009 Sri Lanka joined the ranks of net rice-exporting countries for the first time in modern history. In 2012, however, the World Health Organization published a report stating unequivocally that the means employed to achieve that goal were directly contributing to the astronomic rise an incurable and often fatal condition, a condition which it now estimates affects1 in 7 of this region’s 1.26 million inhabitants.

Fortunately, there is a growing sense that the issue may at last be reaching a watershed moment. Among the myriad of efforts by countless groups and individuals striving to find sustainable ways of reaching the nation’s development ambitions, three projects of the Sevalanka foundation and its affiliates stand out for recognition.

Firstly, Sevalanka foundation, which has district offices throughout the country, has been networking with local farmers’ organizations and CBOs to catalog the germplasm holdings of local seed banks. Of the two primary purposes for this project, the first is to preserve heirloom cultivars for their own sake, as important cultural artifacts in a nation which historically possessed strikingly high rates of agricultural biodiversity. The second purpose is to identify traditional crop cultivars – specifically for rice, legumes and vegetables – whose pest and disease tolerance, resilience in the face of climatic uncertainty and, of course, yields make them suitable for organic cultivation in each of the nation’s multitude of agro-ecological zones. Astonishingly, because of this and similar efforts, the organization was recently approached by high-ranking members of the Dept. of Agriculture, who proposed using state-operated seed farms to make these traditional cultivars more widely available to the general public. There have even been discussions on the possibility of phasing out state subsidies for synthetic agricultural inputs and replacing them with funding for organic soil amendments and natural pest and disease treatments. It is difficult to overstate the potential effect which these efforts could have on mainstreaming ecological agricultural practices and thereby reducing importations and applications of synthetic agro-chemical inputs.

Another of Sevalanka Foundation’s noteworthy efforts in the field of sustainable agricultural production involves their unique approach to organizing farmers’ associations. In most regions of the country, it is the women who attend to the home gardens, while the men are responsible for commercial production. Experience has shown that women are often receptive to trying organic farming practices in their home gardens when it is presented as a means of improving the health and food security of their families. These women are in turn organized into cooperative societies, which support each other by sharing experiences and resources. In this way, the community has the opportunity to experiment with organic farming methods, to see the results first hand and to refine its practices on a small scale before risking the uncertainty of whole or partial conversion of their cash-cropping areas. Numerous such associations now exist throughout the country.

In order to induce farmers to begin organic cash crop cultivation, however, markets for the produce must be in place where producers can get a premium for their efforts. For while an export market for organic tea and spices, as well as a niche local market for “poison-free” products, as they are often marketed here, have existed for many years, these were anything but mainstream.

Enter the Good Market, one of a few commercial venues serving as platforms for social enterprises, which over the last year have succeeded in raising consumer awareness and tapping into latent demand among the more affluent urban population. They have unleashed a burgeoning demand for organic products and offer a significant premium for them, creating significant pull from farmers, farmers’ associations, absentee landowners, wholesalers, retailers, restaurants and more. Meanwhile, the Good Market has organized its own organic Participatory Guarantee System as an intermediary to 3rd party certification. With the first round of inspections and certifications now nearing completion, the program aims to create an organic label which is accessible to small farmers while maintaining high levels of transparency, traceability and credibility. This increasing interest from entrepreneurs as well as the general public, coupled with the expertise of the NGOs, CBOs, educators and consultants who now find themselves with a growing audience interested in methods of organic cultivation, has the potential to produce a conversion within this country on a scale unimaginable just a few years ago.

From my home where I now write, one can look out over the river winding through the forest below, where each evening local men and women gather to bathe and wash their clothing. Hearing the laughter of the children as it mingles with the sound of the churning water where they play reminds me how urgent is the need for healthy, environmentally sound solutions to the poverty which plagues this region, and fills me with hope that our efforts may someday help to spare these families from Samanthie’s fate.


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