Tag Archive for: Agroecology

Agroecological Approaches to Enhance Resilience Among Small Farmers

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Authors: Clara Inés Nicholls and Miguel Altieri | Published: June 26, 2017 

Many studies reveal that small farmers who follow agroecological practices cope with, and even prepare for, climate change. Through managing on-farm biodiversity and soil cover and by enhancing soil organic matter, agroecological farmers minimise crop failure under extreme climatic events. 

Global agricultural production is already being affected by changes in rainfall and temperature thus compromising food security. Official statistics predict that small scale farmers in developing countries will be especially vulnerable to climate change because of their geographic exposure, low incomes, reliance on agriculture and limited capacity to seek alternative livelihoods.

Although it is true that extreme climatic events can severely impact small farmers, available data is just a gross approximation at understanding the heterogeneity of small scale agriculture, ignoring the myriad of strategies that thousands of small farmers have used, and still use, to deal with climatic variability.

Observations of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events reveal that resilience to climate disasters is closely linked to the level of on-farm biodiversity. Diversified farms with soils rich in organic matter reduce vulnerability and make farms more resilient in the long-term. Based on this evidence, various experts have suggested that reviving traditional management systems, combined with the use of agroecological principles, represents a robust path to enhancing the resilience of modern agricultural production.

A summary of social and ecological
factors that determine the degree of
resilience to climatic, and other, shocks.
Diverse farming systems

A study conducted in Central American hillsides after Hurricane Mitch showed that farmers using diversification practices (such as cover crops, intercropping and agroforestry) suffered less damage than their conventional monoculture neighbours. A survey of more than 1800 neighbouring ‘sustainable’ and ‘conventional’ farms in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, found that the ‘sustainable’ plots had between 20 to 40% more topsoil, greater soil moisture and less erosion, and also experienced lower economic losses than their conventional neighbours. Similarly in Chiapas, coffee systems exhibiting high levels of diversity of vegetation suffered less damage from farmers to produce various annual crops simultaneously and minimise risk. Data from 94 experiments on intercropping of sorghum and pigeon pea showed that for a particular ‘disaster’ level quoted, sole pigeon pea crop would fail one year in five, sole sorghum crop would fail one year in eight, but intercropping would fail only one year in 36. Thus intercropping exhibits greater yield stability and less productivity decline during drought than monocultures.

At the El Hatico farm, in Cauca, Colombia, a five story intensive silvo-pastoral system composed of a layer of grasses, Leucaena shrubs, medium-sized trees and a canopy of large trees has, over the past 18 years, increased its stocking rates to 4.3 dairy cows per hectare and its milk production by 130%, as well as completely eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers. 2009 was the driest year in El Hatico’s 40-year record, and the farmers saw a reduction of 25% in pasture biomass, yet the production of fodder remained constant throughout the year, neutralising the negative effects of drought on the whole system. Although the farm had to adjust its stocking rates, the farm’s milk production for 2009 was the highest on record, with a surprising 10% increase compared to the previous four years. Meanwhile, farmers in other parts of the country reported severe animal weight loss and high mortality rates due to starvation and thirst.

Enhancing soil organic matter 

Adding large quantities of organic materials to the soil on a regular basis is a key strategy used by many agoecological farmers, and is especially relevant under dryland conditions. Increasing soil organic matter (SOM) enhances resilience by improving the soil’s water retention capacity, enhancing tolerance to drought, improving infiltration, and reducing the loss of soil particles through erosion after intense rains. In long-term trials measuring the relative water holding capacity of soils, diversified farming systems have shown a clear advantage over conventional farming systems. Studies show that as soil organic matter content increases from 0.5 to 3%, available water capacity can double.

At the same time, organically-rich soils usually contain symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi, such as vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi, which are a key component of the soil microbiota, influencing plant growth and soil productivity. Of particular significance is the fact that plants colonised by VAM fungi usually exhibit significantly higher biomass and yields compared to non-mycorrhizal plants, under water stress conditions. Mechanisms that may explain VAM-induced drought tolerance, and increased water use efficiency involve both increased dehydration avoidance and dehydration tolerance.

Managing soil cover

Protecting the soil from erosion is also a fundamental strategy for enhancing resilience. Cover crop mulching, green manures and stubble mulching protects the soil surface with residues and inhibits drying of the soil. Mulching can also reduce wind speed by up to 99%, thereby significantly reducing losses due to evaporation. In addition, cover crop and weed residues can improve water penetration and decrease water runoff losses by two to six times.

Throughout Central America, many NGOs have promoted the use of grain legumes as green manures, an inexpensive source of organic fertilizer and a way of building up organic matter. Hundreds of farmers along the northern coast of Honduras are using velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) with excellent results, including corn yields of about 3 tonne/ha, more than double the national average. These beans produce nearly 30 tonne/ha of biomass per year, adding about 90 to 100 kg of nitrogen per hectare per year to the soil. The system diminishes drought stress, because the mulch layer left by Mucuna helps conserve water in the soil, making nutrients readily available in periods of major crop uptake.

Today, well over 125,000 farmers are using green manures and cover crops in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Hillside family farmers modified the conventional no-till system by leaving plant residues on the soil surface. They noticed a reduction in soil erosion levels, and also experienced lower fluctuations in soil moisture and temperature. These novel systems rely on mixtures for summer and winter cover cropping which leave a thick residue on which crops like corn, beans, wheat, onions or tomatoes are directly sown or planted, suffering very little weed interference during the growing season. During the 2008-2009 season, when there was a severe drought, conventional maize producers experienced an average yield loss of 50%, reaching productivity levels of 4.5 tonne/ha. However the producers who had switched to no-till agroecological practices experienced a loss of only 20%, confirming the greater resilience of these systems.

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Agroecology Getting to the Root Causes of Climate Change

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Published: July 21, 2017 

Food has not been the focus of climate change discussions as much as it should have been. (…)  We can still act and it won’t be too late”   Barack Obama, 26 May 2017.[1]

Of course, Barack Obama can speak more freely now that he’s not in the White House with the agribusiness lobby breathing down his neck. But he is right in that the climate–food connection has been largely absent from the climate discussions – at least in the official circles. This issue of Farming Matters focuses on this connection. It shows how the industrial food system is a main culprit when it comes to the climate crisis, and illustrates how agroecology and food sovereignty offer solutions by addressing the root causes of this crisis – political, social and environmental.

The latest studies calculate that the global food system – from farm to fork – is responsible for at least one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, a figure that seems to increase with the release of each new report. [2] GRAIN puts the figure closer to 50%, and stresses that it is the industrial food system which is mostly responsible for this. [3] Besides not feeding the people with enough healthy, culturally appropriate and sustainably produced food, the industrial food system is also leading us down the path of a global environmental crisis, of a scale and impact that humanity has never faced before.

Agriculture is supposed to be about turning the energy provided by the sun into food and fibre. But the corporate-driven global food system mostly relies on fossil energy: for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, mechanisation of the farm, pumping water for irrigation, etc.

Deforestation driven by ever expanding commodity crop plantations, soil erosion driven by unsustainable practices, transport, processing and freezing of food produced in places far away from where it is consumed, and the tremendous energy waste in the increasingly centralised corporate retail and supermarket systems aggravate the problem. Each of these emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Despite the obvious connection between the industrial food system and the climate crisis, and the obvious potential that agroecology and food sovereignty offer to turn the tide, these links are nowhere to be seen in any of the governmental climate negotiations. Instead, government officials seem to be betting on financial carbon markets and other corporate-driven ‘solutions’ that get us in deeper trouble. As Michel Pimbert explains, these false solutions include ‘Climate-smart Agriculture’ initiatives which merely conform to the dominant industrial food and farming system and are working against a truly transformative agroecology . REDD+, carbon markets and biofuel policies are additional examples of false solutions that work against agroecology and food sovereignty. In another article, GRAIN shows how industrial meat and dairy production is encouraging over consumption of meat with a disastrous impact on the climate and human health.

It doesn’t need to be this way. A radical shift towards food sovereignty would go a long way in solving the climate crisis: agroecological practices would massively build back organic matter (carbon) into the soils and largely eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers, and a focus on local markets and fresh produce would reduce the need for long distance transport, freezing and processing. Agrarian reforms aimed at supporting small scale food producers rather than promoting plantation farming would give back the land to those who produce food rather than those who produce commodities and help stop deforestation in the process.

Nurturing the soil, cooling the planet

The food–climate intersection is rooted in the earth. The expansion of unsustainable agricultural practices over the past century has led to the destruction of between 30-75% of the organic matter in soils on arable lands, and 50% of the organic matter on pastures and prairies. This massive loss of organic matter is responsible for a large part of the current CO2 excess in the earth’s atmosphere. But the good news is that the CO2 that we have sent into the atmosphere can be put back into the soil simply by restoring and supporting the practices that small farmers have been engaging in for generations. This has the potential to capture more than two thirds of the current excess CO2 in the atmosphere. [4]

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New Book Examines Agroecology As the Future of Farming

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Author: Lisa Kaschmitter | Published: May 2017 

The Institute for Food and Development Policy, a nonprofit known as Food First, released a new book entitled Fertile Ground: Scaling Agroecology from the Ground Up, edited by Groundswell International Executive Director and co-founder Steve Brescia.

Fertile Ground presents nine innovative case studies authored by agroecologists from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe to make a case for promoting the use of agroecology worldwide.

“There are about 2.5 billion people in the world, on 500 million farms, involved with smallholder family agriculture and food production. Their creative capacity to farm productively and sustainably with nature, instead of against it, is perhaps the most powerful force that can be unleashed to overcome the interlinking challenges of hunger, poverty, climate change, and environmental degradation,” says Brescia. “This is the essence of agroecology.”

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Feeding the World Without Destroying It

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Author: Eric Holt-Gimenez | May 8th, 2017 

The seas are rising, droughts are spreading, and storms are becoming more violent. Many people in the world are already feeling the disastrous effects of climate change—especially farmers.

Farming is a special climate case because not only do crops suffer under erratically changing weather patterns, but agriculture—at least the high-input, fossil fuel and chemical-based agriculture that is being touted as the solution to world hunger—is one of the major sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) that drive global warming.

Can we feed the world without destroying it? The answer is a definite “yes!” Climate change impacts hunger, but this doesn’t mean hunger or global warming are inevitable.  But we will have to change the way we grow and consume our food.

The good news is we already have the methods to both feed and cool the planet: agroecology. The problem is, the agrifoods industry—and our political leaders—want to keep business as usual.

The global food system accounts for up to one-third of today’s global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. From synthetic fertilizer application to transport and storage, our industrial agriculture system is dependent on fossil fuels. Methane emissions directly from animals, synthetic inputs, and large-scale deforestation and land degradation have proven to be a disastrous environmental cocktail.

Livestock alone now produce more GHGs than all global transportation combined. Eighty percent of the livestock industry’s expansion comes from industrial-scale factory farms. This large-scale growth is driven by corporate consolidation around the world. Monsanto and Bayer are expecting a rubber stamp for from the Trump administration for the biggest agribusiness merger in history that will give them a third of the global seed market and a quarter of the global pesticide market. ChemChina and Syngenta’s proposed merger follows, and Dow and Dupont are following suit.

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Our Current Food System Is Broken and Unjust—we Need a Paradigm Shift That Values Nutrition As a Human Right

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Author: Dr. Robert Biel | March 22, 2017

There is a sense that the world food system has reached an impasse. Hunger afflicts at least an eighth of the world population, mostly in the global South, but also in the North where austerity policies—which respond to crisis by prioritizing the interests of the wealthy—leave working people hungry. What is even more serious is that even this damaged ‘food security’ cannot be guaranteed into the future. International institutions now recognize that something fundamental must change, a realization embodied in the notion of paradigm shift and further concretized in the form of sustainable intensification.

Such recognition is all the more significant since, for most of its history, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tended to be somewhat unwilling to offend corporate interests. Within the UN system it was mostly the two successive Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler and Olivier de Schutter, who pushed for a more radical and systemic critique. The latter notably placed his authority behind agroecology, a term that implies bringing farming back to an understanding of natural systems, and that forms an important point of reference for this book.

A landmark in official critiques of the ruling food paradigm was the publication of Save and Grow, A New Paradigm of Agriculture—A policymaker’s guide to the sustainable intensification of smallholder crop production, which argued specifically for a revitalization of small farms and a recognition of their dignity and essential contribution. Expanding on this, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) further stated: “The world needs a paradigm shift in agricultural development: from a ‘green revolution’ to an ecological intensification’ approach. This implies a rapid and significant shift from conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production towards mosaics of sustainable regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers. We need to see a move from a linear to a holistic approach in agricultural management, which recognizes that a farmer is not only a producer of agricultural goods, but also a manager of an agroecological system…”

This and similar statements embody a welcome reflection on what the shift may entail: terms like ‘mosaics’ and ‘regenerative’ imply a change in how we think, moving away from linear and reductionist approaches and towards a systems perspective.

These ideas are stimulating. Nevertheless, we should ask whether the new paradigm is correctly framed. Not everyone, even among those critical of the old paradigm, would accept that it is, particularly the assumption that the answer is ‘intensification,’ which could imply a merely quantitative solution and contradict the more qualitative issues raised. Indeed, the notion of a ‘new paradigm’ entered the debate quite some time ago, precisely in relation to quality issues. The emphasis on quality arose as a critique of earlier mainstream policies, targeting mainly quantity, which often were critically labelled ‘productivist’ and were typified by the now-discredited Green Revolution in which hybrid crop strains were bred only for quantity of yield.

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What We Need Are Farms That Support Farmers, Consumers and the Environment

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Authors: Andrea Basche, Marcia DeLonge | Published: March 15, 2017 

The past several years have been rough for many U.S. farmers and ranchers. Net farm incomes this year could fall to 50 percent of 2013 levels in a fourth consecutive year of income declines that is leading some producers to seek alternatives. At the same time, rural and urban Americans share growing concerns related to agriculture: worries that water pollution will be increasingly costly and harmful, that water supplies are at risk from extreme swings in rainfall, and that global warming due to fossil fuel burning threatens our food system and will necessitate changes in how we farm.

What if all of these challenges could find a common solution? It might just be that they can. In a commentary published this week in the scientific journal Elementa, we contend that agroecology offers a promising approach to solving food system problems while mitigating, water and energy concerns — and propose a way to overcome the obstacles to fully embracing it.

U.S. agriculture has trended for several decades — as a result of policy, economics and other drivers — toward systems that are more simplified over both space and time. This has had adverse consequences for food, energy and water.

Agroecology takes a different approach, applying ecological concepts tocreate and maintain diverse, resilient food systems. Promising research demonstrates that bringing diversity back to farms can begin to reverse the problems simplification has created. For example, scientists have found that strategically incorporating perennial plants (including food, energy or non-crop plants) into small areas of commodity crops can significantly reduce water pollution and soil loss. Studies also show that using multiple crops rather than a monoculture is associated with improvements in the amount of carbon (important to help soils hold onto more water and mitigate climate change) and nitrogen (critical for plant growth and soil function) in the soil.

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Eating Our Way to Collapse

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Despite the fact that we presently produce double the amount of food needed for a population of seven billion, there are still calls from the United Nations and national governments to double global food production in order to avoid future famines. These calls are misguided at best, misleading at worst.

We need to understand that the problem does not lie in the global supply of food, but rather that there is way too much production of mediocre quality commodities. In industrialized countries as well as in some newly industrialized countries like Brazil and China, we notice the prevalence of already major health problems due to over nutrition and mal-nutrition (obesity, diabetes Type 2, while there is still a deficit of production, mostly in industrializing countries where we have the bulk of under-nourished people.

The solution cannot be to simply produce more without specifying where, how and why.

Industrial or conventional agriculture as practiced in most industrialized countries, with heavy inputs of agro-chemicals, could not exist without government subsidies, either direct or indirect. Most commodities, particularly cereals (for consumption, feed and energy), soy and milk, are often subsidized. This is to assure farmers a minimum income, enable them to compete on international markets and foster food security by controlling supplies. The environmental effects created by these agricultural production systems and their connected food systems are equally enormous.

According to a UNCTAD report, traditional industrial agriculture is responsible for about 47 to 52 percent of global greenhouse gases (GHG), not to mention serious soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and heavy use of fossil fuels. Throw that in with the near 50-percent waste from consumers, and you can see there is a serious problem.

The traditional forms of agriculture as practiced in many developing countries has its drawbacks too: from low productivity, to lack of sustainability and low quality produce. The need to transition our agriculture and food systems to an ecologically responsible and self sustaining system is an imperative that can no longer be delayed.

This transformation is not only badly needed, but it can be done immediately and in all regions of the world. Business as usual is not an option — we need to change the way we grow, process and consume food.

We also know how to make this much-needed transformation toward an “agro-ecological” production and sustainable food system. Agro-ecology is the study of interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment. Organic, bio-dynamic, regenerative and permaculture are all forms of sustainable agriculture which fit under this umbrella with varying degrees of compliance around social and environmental sustainability.

And yet, despite the fact that research and development in the past 60 years has concentrated on synthetic products such as fertilizers, pesticides and mono-crops — where one type of crop is promoted to help speed up production, the science behind agro-ecology has also moved forward; albeit at a much slower pace. There is certainly lots of catch up to do in terms of science and technology, but farmers and practitioners contribute much to the innovations in agro-ecology.

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Industrial Farming Threatens Food Security in the US

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Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola | Published: January 10, 2017

It is indisputable that we are negatively affecting our air, soil and water in a way that is drastically impacting the earth itself.

If you look down while on an airplane, you can’t help but notice the vast exposure of soils into perfectly-carved squares below. These exposed soils are a tragic sign of an unsustainable practice that leads to erosion, runoff pollution while also decreasing soil organic matter and impacting our air quality.

Please use my search engine to find previous interviews with experts like Gabe Brown, Joel Salatin, Will Harris or other articles related to regenerative agriculture.

Agriculture has undergone massive changes over the past several decades. Many of them were heralded as progress that would save us from hunger and despair. Yet today, we’re faced with a new set of problems, birthed from the very innovations and interventions that were meant to provide us with safety and prosperity.

For decades, food production has been all about efficiency and lowering cost. We now see what this approach has brought us — skyrocketing disease statistics and a faltering ecosystem.

Fortunately, we already know what needs to be done. It’s just a matter of implementing the answers on a wider scale. We need farmers to shift over to regenerative practices that stops depleting our soil and fresh water supplies.

Frustratingly, farmers are often held back from making much needed changes by government subsidy programs that favor monocropping and crop insurance rules that dissuade regenerative farming practices.

Will American Farming Create Another Dust Bowl?

The Great Depression of the 1930s was tough for most Americans, but farmers were particularly hard hit. Plowing up the Southern Plains to grow crops turned out to be a massive miscalculation that led to enormous suffering.

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Local NGOs: Ecosystem Services, Not Orangutans, Key to Saving Leuser

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Author: Colleen Kimmett | Published: January 4, 2017

Five years ago, there were likely very few people outside of Indonesia who’d ever heard of a place called the Leuser ecosystem. Today, this enormous and besieged tropical rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra is on its way to becoming as well known as the Amazon in terms of its unique wildlife and its worldwide conservation significance.

Leuser has received visits from countless international media crews, been the focus of major global NGO campaigns, and, most recently, was the backdrop of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Instagram and Twitter photos.

Orangutans have, arguably, continued to generate much of this attention. Leuser is one of the last refuges of these Critically Endangered primates, found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, and the “last place on earth” — as Leuser has been billed in media campaigns — where they exist alongside tigers, elephants and rhinos.

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The Importance of Agroecology in Sustainable Agriculture, an Interview With Dr. Gliessman

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Published: December, 2016

Dr. Steve Gliessman is a Professor Emeritus of Agroecology in the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is on the Board of Directors at Community Agroecology Network, a small nonprofit that works to incorporate agroecology into small-farm communities in Central America, Mexico, and Mozambique. Dr. Gliessman is also the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Additionally, Dr. Gliessman is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems and a farmer at Condor’s Hope Ranch, where his family produces dry-farmed, organically grown wine grapes and olives. Food Tank had the opportunity to speak to Dr. Gliessman about his work in agroecology and organic, sustainable farming.

Food Tank (FT): How did you become interested in agroecology, sustainable agriculture, and organic gardening?

Steve Gliessman (SG): I think my interest in agroecology began when I was a graduate student back in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was doing fieldwork in Costa Rica. It didn’t make sense to me that farmers had to abandon land after farming for a while and move to new land, cut down tropical forest, burn it, and plant new crops. It seemed to me that ecology (the science of how nature works) should be able to provide answers and options for making land productive in a more permanent fashion. I was pretty much unaware at the time of the social and economic factors involved, but the system did not seem to be very fair. After I finished my PhD, I decided to leave academia and moved to Costa Rica, where I became the manager of a small coffee and vegetable farm where we tried to farm using ecology and organic practices.

I then moved from Costa Rica to Mexico, where I took a position as an ecologist at a small school of tropical agriculture in Cárdenas, Tabasco. The college was located in the middle of a gigantic Green Revolution project, and the students being trained at the school were supposed to be able to solve any problems the project might encounter. Large-scale monocultures, high chemical inputs, hybrid seed, etc. were the norm. But surrounding the project were the small farms of traditional Mayan farmers, and once I set foot inside those farms and started talking to the farmers, with my ecological focus, an amazing intercultural conversion took place as I observed how productive, appropriate, and sustainable these traditional farms were—and we called it agroecología. For me, agroecology actually was born as a form of resistance to the Green Revolution and a way of defending small farmer knowledge and tradition. When I moved back to California in 1980 after almost 10 years, I brought agroecology with me to the University of California at Santa Cruz. The Environmental Studies Program and the organic farm on the campus made it an ideal place to start the UCSC Agroecology Program.

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