Food… as if people and the planet mattered
In the mists of the Kenyan highlands where tea bushes cling to steep slopes, women farmers provide good food for their families and communities with a surplus for the market. In the county of Kiambu, women, taking a lead from their late and beloved leader Wangari Maathai , the recently deceased Nobel Laureate environmentalist, in whose honour they planted a tree of remembrance, keep their diverse, productive and nutritious fields bursting with many food plants, bushes and trees. Their soils, enriched by the manure of their cows, goats and poultry, exude fertility. Their fields harvesting rain supplemented by water from wells provide a cornucopia of grain, fruit and vegetables. This is the central core of their food web extended by exchanges with neighbours and nearby communities and family members in town, with some food sold and purchased in the local market.
The good news is that this is the majority food system – not giant supermarkets chained to industrial commodity production that is destroying livelihoods, local markets and the environment. Most food in the world – more than 70% – is grown, harvested and consumed locally.
It is provided usually by women who are small-scale food producers – farmers, livestock keepers, fishers, urban gardeners and others – much of it, like the Kenyan farmers I visited, produced without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These inventive and skilful people know how to produce good, healthy food for their families, communities and, especially local, markets. They can secure our future food if their production systems can be supported and protected and if they are decisively involved in setting priorities for resource use, research, extension, investment and markets – a message that needs to be broadcast to decision makers who are gathering throughout the coming year to determine the priorities for food production and nutrition , responses to climate change and the governance of the planet’s environment .
Food production practices need to recycle nutrients and protect natural resources rather than rely on fossil fuel dependent inputs that undermine long term productivity. These practices of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers enable them to develop resilient and biodiverse seeds and livestock breeds adapted to the local environment which, when used more widely, have been shown to increase overall yields in degraded systems by 50-200% . These are the practices developed and nurtured by small-scale food providers like the women of Kiambu. They and the many hundreds of millions of other small-scale food providers, including farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fishers and urban gardeners, on whom we depend for our food, need to have decisive input into setting priorities for resource use, research, extension, investment and markets, if sustained increases in food production are to be achieved.
Achieving this requires convincing decision makers at all levels that small-scale food providers are the guardians of our food system. Decision makers are often driven by the mantra that food production must increase dramatically to fulfil the needs of the billion who are currently malnourished and sustain 9 billion people by 2050 and to do so on limited land and water resources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on increasingly scarce fossil fuels. Therefore they are erroneously persuaded to back ‘ sustainable intensification ‘ of industrial production as a priority.
What those who make decisions about our food system need to understand is that there is enough food in the world for everybody and much more could be readily provided using the existing skills of small-scale food providers. It is poverty that causes hunger not lack of production. In order to make the food system less dysfunctional, a more systemic change in production and power relations is required, with more equitable distribution of food produced as locally as possible.
The food system needs to be securely based on small-scale ecological practices, which have higher productivity in the long term, as confirmed by the groundbreaking international agriculture assessment, IAASTD , to which Practical Action contributed significantly. The needed increase in production will not be achieved, equitably and sustainably, if food production continues to depend on resource depleting technologies that are promoted by global agribusinesses for universal application. Specific attention, research and action needs to be paid to the resilient forms of production, practised by small-scale food providers, that work with nature to raise productivity while restoring degraded resources.
Yet these small-scale providers of the world’s food are under massive threat from the avarice of agribusiness corporations that are intent on capturing their markets, livelihoods and resources. Over many years, however, their organisations, especially our ally La Via Campesina , have shown how these threats can be mitigated and what changes in policy are necessary to secure future food supplies – all summarised in their food sovereignty policy framework .
The food sovereignty approach to providing good, local food in ecologically and socially sustainable ways is the type of proposal that Schumacher would have supported, as new economics foundation fellow, Andrew Simms , said in an interview published in the Summer 2011 issue of Practical Action’s newsletter Small World :
“The food sovereignty movement, for example, is an ideal manifestation of everything Schumacher believed in. It is a model of how you would apply Schumacher’s notions of subsidiarity and appropriateness of scale to the food system. Food sovereignty, with its focus on local food needs and making sure these are compatible with local ecosystems, is a living vehicle of the ideas and insights of Schumacher.”
We support this approach, as summarised in our policy narrative , which shows how Practical Action’s values – justice, sustainability, diversity, democracy, and empowerment – describe the fundamental components that need to be in place to realise our vision of an equitable food system. These values allow us to analyse systematically the current state of global and local food systems, establishing the extent to which they contribute to the realisation of this vision.
In the same way, we can better understand how it is that the food and agriculture system is failing. By identifying where it is that the food system falls short of these values, it becomes possible to ascertain the changes that are necessary at all levels if we are to move closer to the vision of world in which the right of people to sufficient food and to food sovereignty is realised in ways that also protect the environment on which we all depend.
We are committed to realising this vision – to develop a food system as if people and the planet mattered – a system that emulates the good work of the women of Kiambu.
Patrick Mulvany, Senior Policy Adviser to Practical Action,
Kiambu, Kenya
ENDNOTES
This is an extended version of an article published in Practical Action’s newsletter Small World , Issue number 53, Spring 2012
See tribute to Wangari Maathai http://practicalaction.org/blog/news/wangari-maathai-an-inspiration/
See ‘Who will feed us?’ www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/pdf_file/ETC_Who_Will_Feed_Us.pdf
See website of the Civil Society Mechanism of the UN Committee on World Food Security www.cso4cfs.org/
See paper on the links between climate change and agriculture www.econexus.info/publication/agriculture-and-climate-change-real-problems-false-solutions
See Civil Society joint statement on the key agricultural issues to be considered at the Rio+20 conference www.timetoactrio20.org/en/
See Report of Oliver De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Agro-ecology and the Right to Food , which reveals that small-scale sustainable farming would even double food production within five to 10 years in places where most hungry people on the planet live. www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1174-report-agroecology-and-the-right-to-food
See reflection on the Beddington Foresight Report on global food and farming practicalaction.org/blog/news/contribution-to-the-westminster-forum-on-food-and-nutrition/
IAASTD, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, is the groundbreaking international scientific assessment to which Practical Action contributed significantly. Practical Action was one of the six NGO members of the governing bureau of the assessment which reported in 2008. See www.iaastd.net and www.ukfg.org.uk/agriculture_crossroads/ for details
Even in the 1970s Schumacher had already declared that “present-day industrial society everywhere shows this evil characteristic of incessantly stimulating greed, envy, and avarice.” See: Modern Industry in the Light of the Gospel , b y E. F. Schumacher http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/content/schumacher-modern-industry
See the website of the International Farmers’ Movement www.viacampesina.org/
See UK Food Group publication Securing Future Food: towards ecological food provision www.ukfg.org.uk/ecological_food_provision.php
See the Synthesis Report of the Nyéléni 2007: Forum for Food Sovereignty www.nyeleni.org/IMG/pdf/31Mar2007NyeleniSynthesisReport-en.pdf
See full interview with Andrew Simms of the new economics foundation practicalaction.org/andrewsimms
See Practical Action’s policy narrative on Food and Agriculture practicalaction.org/food-and-agriculture-policy-narrative
No Comments » | Add your commentUK needs scientific research into agroecology – not GM
The greatest challenge facing agricultural scientists is how to work with farmers producing more ecological and healthier food – not GM, argues Patrick Mulvany, Senior Policy Adviser, Practical Action and Chair, UK Food Group
At the start of 2012 we should be energised by the news that BASF, the German chemical and seeds giant, has decided to pull out of genetically modified plant development in Europe. This is testament to the effectiveness of public pressure and “ another nail in the coffin for genetically modified foods in Europe ,” as Adrian Bebb of Friends of the Earth said.
But beyond successes in GM skirmishes, we should remind ourselves why we should be optimistic about the defence of the food system which feeds most people in the world, and thus be clearer about the research policies and practices needed to enhance it.
- The dominant food systems in the world are local, small-scale and organic food webs, not giant supermarkets chained to industrial commodity production that is destroying livelihoods, local markets and the environment. 70 per cent of the global population eats local food grown and harvested mainly by small-scale farmers, gardeners, livestock keepers and artisanal fishers – and they do this mostly without recourse to proprietary chemicals and seeds.
- There is a rising tide of support, backed by the International Agriculture Assessment ( IAASTD), for more ecological, environmentally-friendly and health-enhancing approaches to food production that will enhance agricultural biodiversity, soils, water and climate. It’s matched by an equally strong rejection of corporate control over, and speculation in, food, production and landgrabs.
- European and international debates on the food system are raising awareness and increasing pressure for political accountability in: changing Europe’s CAP Common Agriculture Policy); enforcing global environmental governance at Rio+20 and the climate change and biodiversity conventions; defining a Global Strategic Framework for securing future food by the renewed UN Committee for World Food Security ; and resetting priorities for global agricultural research at GCARD2012 (Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development).
- The International Peasant Farmers’ Movement, La Vía Campesina, and related social movements, which represent the views of the world’s small-scale food providers, have a well-developed policy framework, Food Sovereignty. This would secure future food if their more ecological production systems can be supported and protected and if they are decisively involved in setting priorities for resource use, investment, markets and agricultural research, development and production.
They know what needs doing and how to do it.
Yet, it seems the research establishment, in hock to Big Agriculture, is blind to these needs and opportunities. The Financial Times reporting on the BASF decision to relocate its GM research to the USA quoted a senior researcher in biosciences, Professor Jonathan Jones from the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich as saying: “ The psychological damage is that it will tell the next young people who might want to go into plant science that they can’t bring anything exciting to market… and it also discourages government support if [GM technology] is not going to be deployed in Europe.”
He may be correct with his second point if UK government priorities are still wedded to promoting GM technologies – perhaps some neo-colonial dream in which the UK fixes a new world order that will secure commodity supplies from other countries using their cheaper labour and our (proprietary) technologies and knowledge.
But ‘ psychological damage of young people’ ? Isn’t this more likely to be the result of the ‘cognitive dissonance’ caused by such an extreme mis-match between what is needed to feed the world and what they are being asked to do by Big Science?
Today, there can be no greater scientific challenge in the food system than how to shift it towards a more ecological and healthier form of production and consumption that can be controlled locally. These systems are more productive per area of land or drop of water – and more sustainable, carbon neutral, biodiverse, resilient and locally determined – than industrial commodity production. Science should embrace the challenge.
A new generation of agricultural scientists could be encouraged, building on the example of many pioneers, to work with knowledgeable small-scale food providers to enable that shift to take place. Using improved tools for analysing biological, economic, legal and social systems they could enrich understanding, enhance local knowledge and practice and strengthen local communities’ and social movements’ control over the use of their common resources for securing localised food systems.
Big Agriculture and Big Science won’t like this – it won’t enrich corporate coffers – but the majority will.
We should build on the energy generated by the food sovereignty movement that calls for public support and better governance to transform the food system.
Now is the time to keep up the momentum and to gather enthusiastic young people into democratically controlled agricultural research, development and production systems fit to realise food sovereignty.
Also posted on the Ecologist, 25th January 2012
1 Comment » | Add your commentIs Agricultural Extension coming in from the cold?
Agricultural extension has long been the poor relation to agricultural research. Even after the 2008 World Development Report reminded policy-makers of the importance of agriculture in alleviating poverty and put it back on to the development agenda again, agricultural extension remained out of favour. Funds for R&D were spent on the higher-profile R and not the lower status D. Public extension systems continued to be run down and the private sector served only a small minority of farmers.
But at last, people are talking about extension (or rural advisory services) again. The first significant conference in about two decades was held in Nairobi in November. The International Conference on Innovations in Extension and Advisory Services brought together over 400 people from 75 countries including those from government ministries, major agricultural fora and research centres and representatives from civil society and farmers’ leaders. There was a huge diversity of opinion and some inspirational presentations including that of Dr Ben Corrêa da Silva from the Brazilian Ministry of Agrarian Development who spoke of the refocusing government agricultural extension services away from the large commercialised farmers (who can afford private services) towards small family farms where the needs were greater. It was great to hear someone in a government position calling for changes in favour of smallholder farmers!
Practical Action was one of the few INGOs there. I attended along with colleagues from Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, UK and Kenya. We were invited because of our work with local or community-based extension systems – a vital component in many of our agricultural programmes. Our presentation, showing that local systems can provide sustainable, cost-effective services to marginalised farmers, received a lot of interest and is available here.
There were many lively debates and some great opportunities to strengthen links with government staff in Kenya and Zimbabwe in particular, and forge ties with international researchers.
The meeting culminated in the Nairobi Declaration a statement calling for renewed priority to be given to extension services, including a mix of public, private and civil society approaches, and with the focus on demand-driven services for smallholder farmers. This is definitely a step forward: extensions systems are no longer frozen out. But there is still a long way to turn intentions into consistent actions.
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