Agroecology: Science and Politics

Our global food system is largely based on unsustainable industrial agricultural practices, is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, is controlled by a handful of large corporations and produces unhealthy food. Agroecology is a solution to these increasingly urgent problems.

After decades of being dismissed by mainstream institutions and defended in obscurity by grassroots movements and farmers, agroecology is suddenly in fashion. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, government ministries and even corporations are jumping on the bandwagon. But, are they pushing the same agroecology as developed by pioneering farmers and scientists and pushed for by peasant social movements, or are they seeking to co-opt the concept and give it different content? Rosset and Altieri, two of the world’s leading agroecologists, outline the principles, history and currents of agroecological thought, the scientific evidence for agroecology, the social aspects of bringing agroecology to scale and the contemporary politics of agroecology.

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Farming Matters: Building Food Sovereignty

This issue of Farming Matters is about food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is a self-organised, grassroots response to today’s problematic food and farming system. Diverse people, such as producers, consumers, peasants, migrant farm workers and urban citizens, to name a few, are uniting around initiatives to regain control over their food and natural resources.

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Peasant farming. A Buffer for Human Societies

This article by Angela Hilmi and Sara Burbi explores the importance of peasant farming worldwide, the debate about its disappearance and the way it is being impacted by differentiated policies. It takes two examples, Tunisia and Egypt, during post-colonial times. In both cases policies tended to favour the modernization of agriculture, ignoring the contribution of peasant farming to the national economies. But interestingly the data show a surprisingly significant importance and increase in the number of small farms in both countries. While theoretical debates continue about the disappearance of peasantries, reality demonstrates that peasant farming is a formidable and resilient buffer for human societies, which helps stabilize, balance and enrich them.

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Agroecology. The Bold Future of Farming in Africa

A publication launched by the African Alliance for Food Sovereignty, showcasing the huge potential of Agroecology to feed Africa, fix broken food systems and repair damaged landscapes, providing abundant healthy and nutritious food sustainably while increasing incomes and improving climate resilience. The publication also illustrates 15 case studies.

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Making Sense of Research – Research for Practical Application in Land Management

Application-focused book with the findings of international research on sustainable land management presented at the global Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, twelve million hectares of fertile, arable land is lost each and every year. Soils are suffering from aridization, salination and overuse. This means that the loss of soil fertility is one of the central challenges to society with regard to the management of natural resources. Solutions for more sustainable land use that not only takes into account the environment and existing ecosystems worldwide but also aspects of climate change are presented in the book “Making Sense of Research for Sustainable Land Management”. It is published by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern.
This scientific volume will be presented today at the global Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 13) being held in Cancun (Mexico) in a dedicated session as part of the Landscape Day.

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Rescuing our maize: Building a network

A network of communities in West-Central Mexico has rescued its traditional landraces of maize. This experience shows that the benefits of defending an ancestral good is not only limited to regaining cultural identity and agrobiodiversity. The defence of native maize has become a space where old and new knowledge redefined
agriculture and where people achieved food sovereignty, technical autonomy, and a new sense of community.

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Conclusions: Learning from farmer-led access and benefit sharing

This special issue of Farming Matters magazine has explored the ways in which access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources can work for family farmers. On one hand it presents cases that demonstrate the limited extent to which family farmers have been able to benefit from the ‘formal’ ABS process: the rather complex arrangements between international agreements and national authorities, institutions and communities. On the other hand, this publication uncovers some of the effective principles and mechanisms for access and benefit sharing that are part and parcel of farmers’ everyday practices, even when formal ABS regulations have not yet been designed or implemented. What can we conclude?

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Access and benefit sharing of genetic resources

Access and benefit sharing of plant genetic resources is a crucial but very complex, political and legalistic matter. Does the formal system work for family farmers? As we see in this special issue of Farming Matters, co-produced with Bioversity International, it poses many challenges. At the same time, farmers around the world are leading successful initiatives for access and benefit sharing. This issue of Farming Matters presents cases that demonstrate the limited extent to which family farmers have been able to benefit from the ‘formal’ ABS process. It also uncovers some of the effective principles and mechanisms for access and benefit sharing that are part and parcel of farmers’ everyday practices, such as community seed banks, and successful collaborations between researchers and farmers. Some of these arrangements have links with the formal system.

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Interview: “Agroecology is an epistemological revolution”

Victor M. Toledo is a Mexican ethnoecologist and social activist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His work focuses primarily on the study of agroecological and knowledge systems. In this interview, Victor M. Toledo explains why co-creation of knowledge is an integral part of agroecology and discusses the changes that are needed for this form of agriculture to gain ground in the global
arena. He argues that agroecology is in itself a major shift in our relationship with knowledge.

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A farmer NGO-scientist synergy

Farmers are plant breeders when they select and save the seeds of the plants best adapted to the conditions in their fields. For over two decades, farmer breeders in Honduras have been working with scientists and NGOs to develop new bean varieties. In a context of high agrobiodiversity, limited public sector agricultural research capacity and extension services, the process has not always been smooth. Against all odds, this collaborative effort, which has brought scientific knowledge together with farmer knowledge, has positioned farmers at the forefront of innovation for climate change adaptation. This article highlights lessons learned over 20 years about the power of knowledge co-creation.

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