An Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Francis, on the Occasion of His Visit to Michoacán, Mexico, Winter Sanctuary of the Monarch Butterfly

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February 16, 2016

Contact:

Ercilia Sahores, ercilia@organicconsumers.org, +52 (55) 6257 7901

Endorsed by Bipartisan Faith-Based, Indigenous, Environmental, Natural Health, Justice, Consumer and Farming Groups.

We welcome you and your message of “climate as the common good” to our country. We urge world leaders and ordinary citizens to honor your call to “hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” And to heed your advice to “adopt clear and firm measures in support of small producers” in order to address the ethical, economic, and environmental crises confronting humanity.

In Mexico, the center of origin of maize, nearly 60 varieties of this staple grain and hundreds of its subfamilies are at risk of extinction due to profit-driven corporations seeking to cultivate genetically modified (GMO) corn across Mexico. In 2013, the people responded by filing a civil lawsuit headed by 53 individuals from the scientific, farming, indigenous, consumer, artistic and environmental communities, as well as 20 nonprofit organizations.

For centuries, small farmers in Mexico cultivated their maize according to a regenerative agroecological farming system called the milpa. This proven system integrates a diverse variety of grains, pulses and vegetables, providing foundation for a healthy diet while simultaneously building soil fertility and supporting agrobiodiversity. We respectfully ask for your continued support in protecting regenerative organic food systems like the milpa, and the rights of “Every campesino…to possess a reasonable allotment of land where he can establish his home, work for subsistence of his family and a secure life.”

In order to protect small farmers, we must first acknowledge the connections between food, farming and climate change. As the largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions, the agriculture industry must be reformed in order fix the climate crisis.[1] According to the UN, a global transition from industrial agriculture to local ecological agriculture offers our best chance at mitigating the impacts of climate change on food security.[2] As you so aptly put it, “Climate change is a moral issue.” And we also humbly suggest that a global transition to regenerative agroecological food systems is an equally important moral issue.

In this country, as in so many others, the global spread of industrial agriculture and its use of petroleum-based fertilizers, agrotoxins and GMOs has devastated the health, biodiversity and sacred beauty of the world. A clear example of this devastation can be seen here in the state of Michoacán, winter sanctuary of the monarch butterfly. Over the past two decades, monarch populations have declined by 90 percent due primarily to the use of the herbicide glyphosate in Roundup Ready GMO crops, illegal logging and habitat loss.[3] Tragically, the few monarchs remaining may face an even greater challenge in the future; scientists indicate that rising temperatures due to climate change threaten to damage more than 70 percent of the monarch’s remaining winter habitat by the end of the century.[4] Fortunately, research has shown that regenerative organic systems can help to reverse rising temperatures by sequestering billions of tons of annual CO2 emissions back into the soil, while restoring agrobiodiversity (Rodale, 2014)[5].

We share your conviction that everything in the world is connected, and that to seek “only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system.”

As world leaders prepare to gather here in Mexico for the COP13 Convention On Biodiversity in December, we ask you to continue to speak out about the role that industrial agriculture has played in destroying our soil, health and biodiversity, even as it has failed to alleviate world hunger.

There is a solution to food insecurity, climate change and biodiversity loss. We must opt for regenerative organic agriculture. The urgency of this problem demands that we join forces and work together to achieve change. We thank you for your courage and your commitment to the world’s poorest, and we accept your challenge to approach these complex crises by seeking solutions that not only protect nature, but also combat poverty and restore dignity to the excluded.

Sincerely,

La Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos

Endorsing Groups:

Agua para la Vida, México
Agua para Tod@s, México
Anec, México
Asia Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty (APNFS), Philippines
Becket Films, USA
Beyond GM, United Kingdom
Beyond Pesticides Network Canada, Canada
Biodentistry, México
Biodiversity for a Liveable Climate, USA
Bosque Sustentable AC, México
Carnaval del Maíz, México
Cedar Circle Farm, USA
Center for Sustainable Medicine, USA
Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Francisco de Vitoria, México
Centro de la Tierra, México
CILAS, México
Circle Squared Foundation, The Netherlands
COBOSPO, México
Colectivo Zacahitzco, México
Colectivo Zócalo, México
Comunidades Campesinas y Urbanas, México
Cool Planet, USA
Dr. Pablo Jaramillo López, Ph.D. UNAM, (National Autonomous University of Mexico), México
FAT, México
Favianna Rodriguez Artist, USA
FIAN, México
Fundación Semillas de Vida AC, México
GEA, México
GMO Inside, USA
Greenpeace Mexico, México
Grupo Ecologico Sierra Gorda IAP, México
Grupo Vicente Gutierrez, Tlaxcala, México
Guereni Vendie, México
Kids Right to Know, Canada
Kiss the Ground, USA
LATINDADD, México
MAELA México, México
MaOGM, México
Milliones Against Monsanto, USA
Millones Contra Monsanto, México
NTC-SME, México
Nutiva, USA
Organic Consumers Association, USA
Pasticultores del Desierto, AC, México
People’s Lobby, USA
Programa Ambiental de la Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, México
Rainman Landcare Foundation, South Africa
RASA, México
Red Nacional de Género y Economía, México
Reg Maíz, México
Regeneration International, USA
RMALC, México
Shumei International, Japan
Sin Maíz No Hay País, México
SME, México
Spiral Farm House, Nepal
STUNAM, México
SUEUM, Michoacán, México
The Hummingbird Project, USA
The Rules, USA
UCCS, México
Valhalla Movement, Canada
Vía Orgánica AC, México
Viva Sierra Gorda, México
El Maíz Más Pequeño AC, México
Caminos de Agua AC, Mexico

[1] https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf

[2] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?LangID=E&NewsID=16702

[3] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141010-monarch-butterfly-migration-threatened-plan/

[4] https://e360.yale.edu/feature/to_protect_monarch_butterfly_a_plan_to_save_the_sacred_firs/2942/

[5] https://rodaleinstitute.org/assets/RegenOrgAgricultureAndClimateChange_20140418.pdf

Visión corporativa del futuro de la alimentación promovida en la ONU

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Nota de prensa de La Vía Campesina, ETC y GRAIN | 15 de febrero del 2016

Visión corporativa del futuro de la alimentación promovida en la ONU: Más de 100 organizaciones de la sociedad civil alertan sobre la reunión de biotecnología de la FAO

(Roma, lunes de 15 Febrero del 2016) Justo cuando las empresas biotecnológicos que producen semillas transgénicas se están fusionando, la visión corporativa de la biotecnología asoma en la FAO. En el día inaugural de un simposio internacional sobre biotecnologías agrícolas de tres días de duración, organizado por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) en Roma, más de 100 movimientos sociales y organizaciones de la sociedad civil (OSC) de cuatro continentes han promulgado una declaración denunciando tanto la esencia como la estructura de la reunión, que parece ser un intento más por la agroindustria multinacional para reorientar las políticas de la agencia de la ONU hacia el apoyo a cultivos y animales genéticamente modificados.

La declaración y la lista de firmantes se pueden descargar aquí

El movimiento mundial campesino y de agricultura familiar, La Vía Campesina, invitó a las OSC a firmar la carta (enlace) cuando se hizo público el programa del simposio. Dos de los ponentes magistrales de la FAO son conocidos defensores de los transgénicos, y el programa y los eventos paralelos de los tres días incluyen portavoces de la Biotechnology Industry Organization (un grupo comercial biotecnológico de los EE.UU.), Crop Life Internacional (la asociación comercial mundial agroquímica), DuPont (una de las mayores compañías mundiales biotecnológicas de semillas ) y CEVA (una gran corporación médico-veterinaria), entre otros. La FAO sólo ha invitado a un orador o panelista abiertamente crítico con los transgénicos. Peor aún, uno de los dos ponentes en la sesión de apertura es un ex-subdirector general de la FAO, que ha presionado a favor de las llamadas semillas Terminator (semillas transgénicas programadas para morir en el momento de su cosecha, obligando a los agricultores a comprar nuevas semillas cada temporada), en oposición a las propias declaraciones públicas de la FAO. El discurso del segundo orador principal se titula, “Poniendo fin al desviado debate global sobre la Biotecnología” – lo que sugiere que el simposio FAO debería ser el momento de cierre de la crítica a la biotecnología.

En la convocatoria del sesgado simposio, la FAO está cediendo a la presión de la industria que se intensificó después de las reuniones internacionales sobre agroecología organizadas por la FAO en 2014 y 2015. Las reuniones de agroecología fueron un modelo de apertura a todos los puntos de vista, desde campesinos hasta la industria. Pero la industria de la biotecnología, al parecer, prefiere tener ahora una reunión que puedan controlar. Esta no es la primera vez que la FAO ha entrado en este juego. En 2010, la FAO convocó una conferencia sobre biotecnología en Guadalajara, México, donde vetó la presencia de agricultores en su comité organizador, y luego trató de impedir su asistencia a la conferencia misma.

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L’avenir de l’alimentation mondiale sous l’emprise des multinationales aux Nations unies

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Communiqué de presse de La Via Campesina, ETC et GRAIN | 15 février 2016

L’avenir de l’alimentation mondiale sous l’emprise des multinationales aux Nations unies : Plus de 100 organisations de la société civile tirent la sonnette d’alarme à l’ouverture de la réunion de la FAO sur les biotechnologies

(Rome, lundi 15 février 2016) Juste au moment où les entreprises de biotechnologie qui fabriquent les semences transgéniques renforcent leur contrôle du commerce mondial, la FAO leur offre une tribune pour appuyer leur vision. A l’ouverture aujourd’hui du symposium international de trois jours sur les biotechnologies agricoles organisé par la FAO (organisations des Nations unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture) à Rome, plus de 100 organisations de la société civile et du mouvement social de quatre continents ont publié une déclaration qui dénonce à la fois la substance et la structure de la réunion, qui semble être une nouvelle tentative des multinationales agroalimentaires de diriger les politiques de l’agence des Nations unies vers le soutien aux cultures et au bétail génétiquement modifiés.

La déclaration et la liste des signataires peuvent être téléchargés ici.

Le mouvement paysan international La Via Campesina a invité les organisations de la société civile à signer cette déclaration en réaction au programme du symposium. Deux des principaux orateurs de FAO sont des partisans connus des OGM. L’agenda et les événements parallèles de ces trois jours intègrent des orateurs de l’Organisation de l’industrie des biotechnologies (un groupe commercial de biotechnologie des Etats-Unis), Crop Life International (l’association commerciale d’agrochimie mondiale), Dupont (l’une des plus grandes entreprises transnationales de semences biotechnologiques) et CEVA (une grande entreprise de produits vétérinaires) entre autres. Parmi le 80 orateurs invités par la FAO un seul est ouvertement critique des OGM. Pire, l’un des deux orateurs à la session d’ouverture est un ancien assistant du directeur général de la FAO qui a milité pour ce qu’on appelle semences Terminator (les semences OGM programmées pour mourir au moment de la récolte obligeant les agriculteurs à acheter de nouvelles semences à chaque saison), en opposition avec les déclarations publiques de FAO. Le discours du second orateur est intitulé « Vers la fin du débat international déplacé sur la biotechnologie », laissant entendre que le symposium de la FAO doit être le moment pour taire la critique sur la biotechnologie.

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Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN

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La Via Campesina, ETC and GRAIN media release | 15 February 2016

Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN: More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting

(Rome, Monday 15 February, 2016) Just when the biotech companies that make transgenic seeds are merging, the corporate vision of biotechnology is showing up at FAO. At today’s opening of the three-day international symposium on agricultural biotechnologies convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, more than 100 social movement and civil society organisations (CSOs) from four continents have issued a statement denouncing both the substance and structure of the meeting, which appears to be another attempt by multinational agribusiness to redirect the policies of the UN agency toward support for genetically-engineered crops and livestock.

Here you can download the statement and list of signatories.

The global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina, invited CSOs to sign the letter when the symposium’s agenda became public. Two of the FAO keynote speakers are known proponents of GMOs, and the agenda and side events over the three days include speakers from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (a biotech trade group in the USA), Crop Life International (the global agrochemical trade association), DuPont (one of the world’s largest biotech seed companies) and CEVA (a major veterinary medicine corporation), among others. FAO has only invited one speaker or panelist openly critical of GMOs. Worse, one of the two speakers at the opening session is a former assistant director general of FAO who has pushed for so-called Terminator seeds (GMO seeds programmed to die at harvest time forcing farmers to purchase new seeds every growing season), in opposition to FAO’s own public statements. The second keynoter’s speech is titled, “Toward ending the misplaced global debate on biotechnology”, suggesting that the FAO symposium should be the moment for shutting down biotech criticism.

In convening the biased symposium, FAO is bowing to industry pressure that intensified following international meetings on agroecology hosted by FAO in 2014 and 2015. The agroecology meetings were a model of openness to all viewpoints, from peasants to industry. But the biotech industry apparently prefers now to have a meeting they can control. This is not the first time FAO has been drawn into this game. In 2010, FAO convened a biotechnology conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, that blocked farmers from its organising committee, and then tried to prevent their attendance at the conference itself.

“We are alarmed that FAO is once again fronting for the same corporations, just when these companies are talking about further mergers amongst themselves, which would concentrate the commercial seeds sector in even fewer hands,” the CSO statement denounces.

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Cover Crops, a Farming Revolution With Deep Roots in the Past

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Author: Stephanie Storm

When Mark Anson came home with his hair on fire after a seminar on the seemingly soporific topic of soil health, his younger brother, Doug, was skeptical.

What had Mark lit up was cover crops: fields of noncash crops like hairy vetch and cereal rye that act on soil like a nourishing facial after the harvest.

Mark, 60, and his two brothers, together with assorted sons and sons-in-law, run Anson Farms, a big commercial soybean and corn operation in Indiana and Illinois. Concern about the soil quality of the family’s fields had nagged at him for some time. “Our corn was wilting when temperatures hit 103 degrees,” he said, and such heat isn’t so unusual in the summer. “I felt like I had a gorilla on my shoulder.” What he learned about the benefits of cover crops gave him hope.

But to Doug, planting some noncommercial crops seemed an antiquated practice, like using a horse-drawn plow. Cover crops had long been replaced by fertilizers. Still, he shared his brother’s concern about their soil. Its texture was different, not as loamy as it had once been, and a lot of it was running off into ditches and other waterways when it rained.

Keep Reading in The New York Times

National and International Regenerative Agriculture Advocacy Groups Announce Support for Vermont Regenerative Farm Certification Bill

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For Immediate Release

February 10, 2016

Contact:

Aria McLauchlan, Kiss the Ground, aria@kisstheground.com

Katherine Paul, Regeneration International, 207-653-3090, katherine@regenerationinternational.org;

National and International Regenerative Agriculture Advocacy Groups Announce Support for Vermont Regenerative Farm Certification Bill

Vermont Bill Would Establish the Nation’s First Program for Certifying Regenerative Farms.

Los Angeles, California – (Wednesday, Feb 10)

Kiss the Ground and Regeneration International today announced support for Vermont’s Senate Bill 159, a bill that would introduce a state-level certification program under which farmers could have their land and farming methods certified by the state as regenerative.

The bill, introduced by Senator Brian Campion (of Bennington, Bennington County), was first written by Jesse McDougall, a farmer in Shaftsbury, Vt. McDougall employs regenerative farming practices, including planned rotational grazing, which eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers and tilling, and regenerate the soil’s capacity to retain water and sequester carbon.

McDougall had considered pursuing a formal organic certification for his meat products, but decided he wanted to do more than tell customers what’s not in the food––the absence of chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. McDougall sought instead a certification that would tell consumers what is in their food, how the food was raised, and how the land was improved by its production.

“The certification is intended to help legitimize this style of farming as an economically viable option for farmers,” said McDougall. “It is our hope that this certification program not only creates a high-value market for regeneratively-grown food, but also rewards regenerative farmers for their work with better marketing opportunities and bigger margins.”

“As a small, farmer-friendly state and agriculture pioneer, Vermont is perfectly positioned to lead the country with this type of legislation,” said Finian Makepeace, co-founder and policy director at California-based non-profit, Kiss The Ground. “We expect and hope to see many more states adopt similar legislation as part of the regenerative movement that is spreading across the United States and globally.”

Also known as “carbon farming”, regenerative agriculture practices put the emphasis on soil health using nature’s systems to regenerate the land. According to Andre Leu, president of IFOAM – Organics International, “rebuilding soil by sequestering carbon reduces CO2 from the atmosphere and creates land that is more drought resistant and grows healthier, food, plants and animals.”

“The trends are clear. Consumers increasingly want to know more about their food. What’s in it, how it was grown, whether it was locally produced or shipped a long distance, and how humanely animals were treated,” said Ronnie Cummins, member of the Regeneration International Steering Committee, and international director of the Organic Consumers Association. “And as public concern around global warming escalates, consumers are looking for food produced using practices that contribute to a climate solution, rather than to the problem.”

This is the first piece of legislation specific to regenerative agriculture in the United States, and one that serves both farmers and consumers. The certification is intended to result in a State of Vermont seal, visible to consumers at the grocery store and available to certified farmers to share, educate and promote their work.

The certification includes three standard, binary tests: if topsoil has increased; if carbon has been sequestered; or if soil organic matter has increased. A farm would need to meet only one of these criteria, over a three-year period and with each successive year, to be certified as regenerative.

Healthy soil via regenerative agriculture is gaining traction worldwide with “4/1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate“, a visionary initiative introduced at last December’s COP21 and signed by 25 countries, to increase the organic carbon level of each country’s agricultural soils by 0.4% each year.

“Regenerative farming can rebuild the soil, sequester carbon, produce nutrient-dense food, and eliminate the need for toxic chemicals,” McDougall says. “If we want the next generation of farmers to do this work, it is our responsibility to provide them with the tools that make it possible. We wrote this bill to begin building those tools.”

The Vermont Senate Committee on agriculture will review Bill 159 in the coming weeks and determine whether it will be included in the next legislative session and continue on to the Senate floor.

***

Kiss The Ground is a California-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit championing regenerative living and the restoration of soil worldwide. Their work is generating awareness through media, education and policy, encouraging participation from individuals, farmers, communities and governments to build back healthy soil.

Regeneration International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis.

Beyond Vegetarian: One Man’s Journey from Tofu to Tallow in Search of the Moral Meal [Interview]

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Author: Dustin

I met Daniel Zetah this past summer, while interning on a small-scale vegetable farm in northern Minnesota. He arrived one Thursday in a white, well-worn isuzu pickup, together with his fiancée, Stephanie. They brought with them two coolers full of meat (which they raised and butchered themselves), a few baskets of vegetables, a live turkey and her poults, two dogs, some camping equipment, and an old friend from their eco-village days who they had fortuitously seen hitchhiking along the side of the road. Daniel had interned on the farm years ago, and he was now returning to be married.

I learned over the course of their visit that Daniel had spent years living in Tasmania, where he had been a “freegan” (someone that scavenges for free food to reduce their consumption of resources), and full-time environmental activist, then a permaculture student, and then a natural builder. I learned Daniel had spent nine months on The Sea Shepherd—an anti-whaling ship vessel that uses direct-action tactics to confront illegal whaling ships—and played a very active role in Occupy Wallstreet.

I learned, too, that after ten years of vegetarianism, Daniel had become a big-time carnivore. As I had recently given up meat in an effort to mitigate my environmental impact, this choice struck me as incongruous. We ended up having a conversation about ethical and environmental eating, which challenged, angered, intrigued, and enlightened me. Daniel and his wife returned to their once-farm in central Minnesota, to finish packing and preparing to move to Tasmania. I called him at home to get the whole story, and record it for this article.

Would you describe yourself as a long-time farmer and environmental activist?

Not at all. I used to be a redneck. I used to race cars and motorcycles and snowmobiles… I was a motorhead. I don’t want people to think I was always like this, because then they’re like “oh, they were just brought up that way by parents that…” it’s like no, no: I was raised by wolves.

Until I was in my early 20s I ate nothing but crap. Like, garbage, American, supermarket food. When I would go shopping, I was literally after the cheapest calories I could possibly find at the supermarket.

When did that start to change?

Well, I met a girl that I ended up getting married to and she was vegetarian, and so I started eating a vegetarian diet. Which is still completely disconnected and completely clueless as to what your eating and where it’s from, it’s just you’re not eating meat. I ate tons of grain, lots of dairy and cheese, even eggs, but just no meat… And that’s where I was at for probably a good eight years, until my early 30s.

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Agents of Hope — the Story of Africa’s Chikukwa Community and TSURO Projects

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In Zimbabwe, agriculture is a critical sector for the economy. It accounts for about 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 70 percent of employment. Sadly, this critical sector is failing. Rural and communal populations suffer from malnutrition, and chronic droughts, causing chronic dependency on food aid and hand-outs.

As a person with first hand experience of rural poverty, news of hopeful farming practices is always more than welcome. But the best, most hopeful practices are those that are scalable, and can be deployed anywhere, to bring about positive change.

That’s why the story of the Chikukwa Community project, which has influenced and continues to impact the whole of the Chimanimani District, is such a remarkable story of hope.

This story of hope started in 1991, in the eastern and mountainous region of Zimbabwe, at a small communal land called Chikukwa. This area is also part of the Chimanimani Key Biodiversity Area bordering Mozambique. The once-treasured land in one of the Chikukwa villages, Chitekete, had degraded into a desertified landscape, with a drying spring.

Seeing a dire need, the community sought out a one-week training in permaculture design. With that one step, their journey began!

In my 10 years of work as a development worker, I’ve learned this one truth about successful projects: Solutions do not come from outside, they lie within the community. Once people decide it is time for change, then it is time, and the change that follows is more likely to last.

The success of this one village project spread to beautiful six villages, which led in 1996 to the establishment of a community-based organization (CBO), named the Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust (CELUCT). Initially, this project had a positive impact on about 7,000 people and 110 households. The project now runs a communally owned training centre, the Chikukwa Permaculture Community Centre, a hub for training programs throughout the region.

The Chikukwa Project is designed to exist outside NGO and donor influences. In most cases, programs fizzle out as soon as their funding runs out, because donors and most NGOs really do not have time to build relationships, create ownership and allow communities to determine the pace as they lead the implementation process. However, in participatory and community-driven projects, money and social conflict don’t hinder progress, proving that old saying that “where there’s a will there’s a way.”

Projects that take a community-based approach are empowering as they foster self reliance. The Chikukwa Project has led to 80 percent of the community’s households using permaculture techniques that have made these households self-reliant when it comes to food. Not only that, but community members’ surroundings have been revitalized, as they continue to reverse rangelands desertification.

The Chikukwa project is communally driven (photo credit:Wikimedia localcultures.com)

Now, after 25 years of permaculture practice, the Chikukwa Project has inspired the whole of Chimanimani region in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. It has led to the creation of a new organization-TSURO (Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organization). TSURO is a democratic member-driven grassroots organization with currently 154 subscribed TSURO village groups and a supporting CBO by the name TSURO Trust.

In 2011, CELUCT and TSURO received training in Holistic Land and Livestock Management at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management. Holistic Management (Holistic grazing) is a tool used to restore vast spaces of degraded land. CELUCT and TSURO have deployed these practices in five wards (a ward is a cluster of between 6-14 villages each). These wards are situated in the very dry area of Gudyanga, in the western low parts of the district, in the medium altitude of Chayamiti and Shinja and in the eastern high veld 1500 meters above sea level.

By combining the tools of permaculture and Holistic Management, both powerful approaches for rapid change, communities are addressing both immediate household level needs of food, money and stability, and the long-term needs of healthy land, good management systems and plans that will be ongoing in order to sustain a future of a healthy and self-reliant community. What I find most striking in this project is the building in of farmer led advocacy for farmer rights!

For example, in the Chimanimani District alone, land degradation was once viewed as a monster threat to communal dwellers. Through TSURO, the situation is slowly and steadily improving. TSURO works in all 21 wards of the Chimanimani district, where they have been facilitating a wide range of community-based initiatives, including the introduction of holistic management in five wards, and the establishment of more than 100 Farmer Action Learning Groups that focus on farmer-based research and experimentation. Research also includes climate change and watershed management.

The communities are also implementing community-based seed systems that address production, preservation, storage, saving and exchange. They use open pollinated varieties of seed. Chimanimani farmers are increasingly rejecting genetically modified seeds, which have caused problems in some other countries in southern Africa, and instead planting small grains. The district-wide project also implements household permaculture design, small livestock rearing and horticulture. Bee keeping and commercial marketing of rich organic honey as well as community based agro-processing and marketing, provide added economic benefits.

If 48 percent of Africa’s population depends on agriculture, and yet the agriculture sector has been declining continent-wide, then maybe we need to revisit agriculture strategies that no longer work, and implement new strategies that do work. The Chikukwa and TSURO projects are proof that lands can be restored, and the practices that restore them can be scaled up. If local people everywhere assumed full responsibility for solving their problems, we would see more land, economic and social regeneration across the world.

We will be making efforts to follow and document Chikukwa and TSURO stories, to share with the world just what is possible when local farmers—not big outside donors—take charge!

Precious Phiri is the Zimbabwe-based Africa coordinator for Regeneration International, a project of the Organic Consumers Association.

Espoir dans un climat changeant

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Espérons que dans un climat changeant recadrer optimisme le débat sur le réchauffement climatique. Ce qui montre que les grands écosystèmes, décimés peuvent être restaurés, le documentaire de BBC World révèle des histoires de réussite de l’Ethiopie, le Rwanda et la Chine qui prouvent que l’introduction de grandes zones de retour de la ruine de l’environnement est possible, et la clé pour stabiliser le climat de la terre, l’éradication de la pauvreté et de faire de l’agriculture durable une réalité.

Consulter la fiche de John D Liu sur Academia

Esperança num Clima em Mudança

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Esperança num Clima em Mudança” reposiciona o debate sobre as alterações climáticas num quadro optimista. Demonstrando que os grandes ecossistemas devastados podem ser restaurados, o documentário do Mundo BBC revela histórias de sucesso na Etiópia, Ruanda e na China, que provam ser possível restaurar grandes áreas ambientais arruinadas e que esta recuperação é um elemento-chave na estabilização do clima da Terra – tornando realidade a erradicação da pobreza e a sustentabilidade da agricultura.

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