In this issue of Wegel we present views, opinions and research findings from different angles regarding the changes in the global agricultural system and its implications on the supply of healthy and balanced nutrition as well as the role of various stakeholders in putting the system back in to the right track.

The global food system is changing in line with the ever-increasing global population, technological advancements, scarcity of resources and the resultant scramble for the scarce resources.

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.

‘Connecting Smallholders to Markets’ is the title of policy recommendations negotiated on 8- 9 June 2016 in the Committee on World Food Security, the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform deliberating on is- sues of food security and nutrition.
This analytical guide examines how small- scale food producers’ organisations and allied civil society can use the recommendations in their national and international advocacy and how they can work together with their governments to apply them in the context of national and regional policies and programmes.

More info on the work of CSM on this issue here

The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2016—“Keeping Seeds in Peoples’ Hands”— explores the articulation of seeds, land and other natural resources with the human right to adequate food and nutrition. It assesses the role played by access to and control over natural resources in the realization of the right to food and nutrition across the world. Over the last few decades, the privatization and commoditization of nature has resulted in a multiplication of local struggles using human rights against the appropriation of agricultural biodiversity, land and water resources by corporations and states. How are peasant movements, indigenous peoples, and other local communities resisting—and what are the alternatives they present?

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security are a new international tool that can be used by peasant, fishing and pastoralist organisations, indigenous peoples, the landless, women, youth, and civil society to assert their rights. This People’s Manual is a didactic guide, which aims to make it easier to understand and use the Guidelines at the best. It is the result of collective and participatory work undertaken by the Land and Territory Working Group of the IPC (International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty)

Opinion by Million Belay.
We are told that high input agriculture will boost food production in Africa. A persistent worry for Million Belay is the loss of knowledge related to our nutritious, traditional crops if they succeed.

Dealing with the uncertainties of changing climates is a challenge faced by farmers around the world. Near Cochabamba in Bolivia’s Andean high plateau, a group of agroecological farmers are leading the way by developing and sharing innovative practices that help their communities break out of the vicious cycle of increased poverty and vulnerability. But challenges remain…

This contribution discusses access and benefit sharing within the context of participatory plant breeding. It presents how Chinese farmers and breeders interact in relation to crop improvement and on-farm maintenance of plant genetic resources. Based on more than a decade of action research, a number of institutional changes were accomplished as a result of the interactions between national and provincial breeding institutes, rural development researchers and local maize farmers. Although the respective legislation in China is not yet adequately formulated, access and benefit sharing can still be addressed in contracts and by labelling products of a particular geographic origin.

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.

Efforts to rapidly increase on-farm biodiversity are a matter of urgency in an era of climate change. To do so, family farmers need better access to the genetic material of research stations and gene banks. Collaboration with scientists who are willing and able to work together with farmers is crucial. The Evolutionary Plant Breeding programme in Iran is one example of how this can be done.