Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Interview with Miguel Angel Nuñez
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/man_int07.html#Anchor-The-6296
The Science of Sustainable Agriculture Is Agroecology

Mérida, Venezuela

Miguel Angel Nuñez is a co-founder and member of IPIAT (Instituto para la 
Producción e Investigación de la Agricultura Tropical). He has been working 
with small-scale, family farmers at the grassroots level for more than thirty 
years. He is a professor of Agroecology and Tropical Agriculture at several 
Venezuelan universities and a researcher at IPIAT. Since 2004, he has been an 
advisor to the Venezuelan Presidential Office on agro-environmental issues. 
He is a former coordinator of the Latin American Agroecological Movement 
(MAELA). The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke 
for In Motion Magazine on August 26, 2007 in Merida, Venezuela.

    * The sun’s energy
    * The Green Revolution
    * New type of research
    * The vocabulary of sustainable
    * Agroecology and agronomy
    * New type of labor relationship between farmers
    * Moving from the countryside to the cities
    * Having conscience
    * Teaching agroecology
    * Diversity of knowledge
    * The water-river system, recovering the soil, biological control
    * The science of sustainable agriculture is agroecology
    * In organic agriculture: the application of the principle
    * To support the self-sufficiency of countries
    * From small farmers in Bolivia

The sun’s energy

In Motion Magazine: Please talk about the use of energy in the creation of 
food.

Miguel Angel Nuñez: The answer to that question is wide-ranging because since 
food was first created the food system has been dependent on the sun’s energy.

For us, for the people that live in tropical weather, it is highly important 
to recognize that we have several advantages in using the sun. In the near 
future, tropical energy, sun energy is going to substitute for fuel-oil 
energy. In other words, when we are talking about agroecology, when we are 
talking about the production of food, from the sustainable point of view, 
from the agroecological point of view, we are talking substituting oil energy 
with the sun’s energy. For example, in poly-cropping there are many 
synergistic effects that make us see that the sun’s energy is the rational 
way that is coming to the planet.

For us, the basic material for the development of the new agriculture must be 
related to the use of the sun’s energy. It will be more efficient.

The Green Revolution

In Motion Magazine: Can you talk some more about how this relates to the use 
of hydrocarbon resources and the Green Revolution?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: The Green Revolution grew depending on the irrational use 
of energy. Most of this additional energy input comes directly or indirectly 
from non-renewable fossil fuels. For example, in a productive system where 
you are putting agrochemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, insecticides, the 
efficiency of energy in that crop is very low. For one kilo-calorie that you 
gain from that crop, any kind of crop, you are spending eight, eleven, 
twelve, fourteen kilocalories in the productive system. And I am not even 
talking about the industrial processing system in which you have to expend 
even more energy. It’s been scientifically proven that this energy-intensive 
form of agriculture cannot be sustained into the future without fundamental 
changes.

So, when we are talking about sustainable agriculture, when we are talking 
about the agroecological productive system, the one kilocalorie that we put 
in the system will gain between eight, nine, eleven kilocalories. This means 
a lot of efficiency from the energy point of view, in relation to the 
productive system. And, if we have an efficient energy point of view in the 
productive system, we are going to have more equilibrium in the system and we 
are going to have more control of the technical relationship within the 
system.

In the agricultural Green Revolution model, the energy expenditure in 
irrigation is very high. The expenditure in transportation is high. The 
expenditure in application of fertilizers and insecticides and pesticides is 
high and also is highly risky for human health. What we have to do is to try 
to analyze, from the energy point of view, which ones out of all of these 
components are expending more energy in the productive system and see how we 
can improve this in a way that will reduce the amount of energy that is 
expended.

New type of research

And that one is research that we have to do. It’s a new type of research that 
we have to require of universities and institutions; to know how agroecology, 
how sustainable agriculture, is in its behavior the rational use of energy in 
the productive systems. When we are talking about the freedom of use of 
techniques, we should know about the different types of techniques that are 
in the agroecology system and how to apply the agroecological techniques that 
help to reduce, to rationalize, be more efficient from an energy point of 
view.

Look at the cost of the oil. The price of the oil is going up all the time. 
What the Green Revolution and the biotechnology revolution, from the 
transgenic point of view, are doing is they are trying to make some genetic 
modifications in order that they can keep down the inputs that they are using 
-- in oil energy consumption.

I believe, that the transnational companies, which have the control of the 
distribution, of the production of seeds and agrochemicals, they should not 
be doing research to modify the genetic structure of the seeds but (rather) 
related to the amount of energy that is being used in the system.


You maintain independence from the technological model, in that way. You have 
to be independent of oil production. This is the reason why they are running 
so fast -- in order to have the production of a new variety of seeds, in 
order that they can improve the system, but from the energy expenditure point 
of view.

They are looking to try to modify the seeds and see how the system responds 
to the reduced use of energy. Not too many people are working in that field.

In Motion Magazine: Why would it benefit them?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: Because they maintain the technological-model system. 
They maintain the technological-model system because they want to dominate 
the scientific and technological agricultural science as a model in different 
types of societies.

In Motion Magazine: So they recognize the need to use less energy and 
themselves be less dependent?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: Right.

The vocabulary of sustainable

In Motion Magazine: But they want to keep you within their model rather than 
have you go over to the agroecological model.

Miguel Angel Nuñez: Exactly. And this is the reason, too, why you find in 
some transnational companies the move, the interest, in the vocabulary of 
“sustainable”.

For example, we found in many big enterprises that are in the Latin American 
South, we found many people talking about the sustainability of soya. And for 
the sustainability of soya it is impossible that you could be able to 
approach it with that type of industrial production system.

You could have a good yield in agroecological organic production, but in 
order to keep with the demand for soya all around the world you would have to 
work with really high technology and that high technology implies the use of 
soya transgenic seeds. Even though they say they working with sustainable 
technology, it is not true. It is a lie.

Agroecology and agronomy

In Motion Magazine: What is the difference between agroecology and agronomy?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: The profile of the professional is different. The 
agronomist looks for profits with higher inputs of energy into the system. 
Agronomists are looking for monoculture. Agronomists (in general) use a 
production system dependent on oil energy, on machinery working on large 
areas of land. The agronomist doesn’t worry so much about the 
socially-organized production system. Always, the agronomists, due to the 
fact that they are putting on the table high yields, high profits, they have 
to work with monoculture. That one is a very big difference.

Agroecology is completely different because agroecology works with the 
productive diversity in the agrosystem. Agroecology is working to have a new 
design of the productive system. Agroecology must deal with the evolution of 
the productive system related to the organization and cultural values of the 
system. Agroecology doesn’t work so much with monoculture.

Agroecologists work with several scientific principles. When we are working 
in agroecology, we try to apply these principles as the main keys to our 
work. And we share with the farmer. We share with the producers. We share 
those principles in order that the producer can realize that agroecology can 
be applied to working on a different scale of production -- four acres, five 
acres, ten acres, 100 acres. In that way, you keep applying the scientific 
principle and you can work agroecology everywhere, in every space that you 
want.

        A statue of Simon Bolivar in the fentralSimon Bolivar Plaza, Merida.
        A statue of Simon Bolivar in the central Simon Bolivar Plaza, Merida.
        Inside the Merida cathedral.
        Inside the Merida cathedral.
        A statue of Charlie Chaplin in Merida.
        A statue of Charlie Chaplin in Merida.
Agronomists don’t follow scientific principles because monoculture is against 
the natural system. Agronomists work with monoculture and monoculture doesn’t 
follow natural law. This is a very big difference.

The agroecologist has a holistic point of view. The agronomist doesn’t have a 
holistic point of view. Agroecology must deal with the design, the evolution, 
with “how do you deal with the productive system”. Agroecology is an 
endogenous system. Agronomy is not endogenous. Agroecology raises up the 
traditional knowledge of our peasants (campesinos) and uses it for the new 
design of agro-ecosystems. Agronomists do not do that.

Agroecology must maintain the soil in a well-fertilized way. Agroecology 
approaches the new soil science. Agronomy does not. Agronomy depends on the 
use of agrochemicals. Agroecology does not. Agronomists are causing damage to 
the soil, to the water -- agroecology not. And that one has to do with these 
principles. Agroecology produces soil, water, biodiversity, and so on.

New type of labor relationship between farmers

Agroecology deals with a type of organization that leads you to a quality 
environment. Agronomists don’t have to do deal with a quality environment. We 
are talking about quality of life. Agronomists don’t take into consideration 
the quality of life because they are producing contaminated food.

When we are talking about the quality of life and environmental equilibrium, 
we are talking about harmony in the social system. And this is what 
agroecology is looking for -- to have harmony. If we have harmony in the 
social organization system, and we are talking about the good quality of life 
we will have in achieving equilibrium, harmony in the social agroecological 
productive system. Then we can talk about a new type of relationship, a new 
type of labor relationship between farmers; keeping in mind you cannot have 
quality of life if you don’t have an equilibrium in social productive 
relationships.

What does that mean for us? That farmers in agroecology have been looking for 
a different way. Farmers in agroecology are looking for a way that has 
dignity. Farmers in agroecology are looking as professionals because they 
have knowledge that they are applying, knowledge that we have known, very 
well, for thousands of years.

When we are talking about knowledge we are talking about power. Knowledge of 
power. And we want the type of power that empowers us, that will give us 
another type of organization. We believe so much that agroecology is going to 
be one of the active parts of the social and solidarity economy that we want 
to put in the new society.

The social and solidarity economy -- agronomists don’t deal with the social 
and solidarity economy. Agronomists deal with the old-organization economy 
because they just have one method of production in their brain – high yield, 
high profits, regardless of the damage that it does to the environment, 
regardless of the damage that it does to the food and us.

Moving from the countryside to the cities

In Motion Magazine: One of the results of industrial agriculture has been 
millions of people moving from the countryside to the cities.

Miguel Angel Nuñez: Right.

In Motion Magazine: Do you think that is inevitable in the development of 
society? Or even something that we would want? Is that part of a sustainable 
culture?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: We have that problem already. I would say that the only 
way that we can start to fight against that problem is to get back to the 
fields; that we get back to the root of it. I believe we can do that because 
in the cities, in the urban societies, you have a lot of pressures. You have 
a lot of limitations. And those pressures and those limitations raise so much 
about the understanding of the development of a new society. With ecological 
limitations, with service limitations, with technologies, difficult 
limitations -- what are you going to be thinking of as to how a new society 
could be organized?

In the revolutionary process, one of the bright ideas that our president has 
is to create new cities; to create a new type of organization in cities; that 
we shouldn’t make the mistakes that the old cities made. We should start to 
approach and look for sustainable action that allows us to try to create a 
new type of city. The idea is to start to work with towns, small towns that 
are in extreme poverty and try to overcome the poverty with the organization 
of new cities.

When you are thinking about organizing new cities, you have to think about 
how to develop sustainable resources: soil and water resources. In order to 
keep soil production, you have to have water. If you have water you must work 
with the biodiversity of plants. These three things come together. You have 
to think about a new type of society, a new type of town, a new type of city 
has to be thought of in a sustainable way. We don’t have another way around 
it.

In that way, we should be able to create this type of society, this type of 
organization of cities. We are going to improve. We are going to try to 
establish (to present) this difference from the ideological point of view to 
the people in the big cities that have to move to other places.

In Motion Magazine: Have to move?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: What I’m talking about, “to have to move,” is: I have to 
put on the table that we have so many ecological, technological, service 
pressures in the city. Do you want to deal with these things? Do you think 
you can have a future working with a shortage of water, for example? Do you 
think that we can have a future keeping these types of social relationships 
in the cities: crime, violence, and drugs? That one is a type of domination, 
oppression. This is a type of ideological and political domination. You could 
have the people in the city and you could establish repressive social control 
in order to control the people, in order to dominate the people. This is what 
I am thinking we could have soon, unless we go back to the land and work the 
land in a different way than we were working before.

Having conscience

In Motion Magazine: But you wouldn’t force them to go and do that?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: No, I am not talking about forcing the people. Here in 
the Venezuelan revolution we are not talking about forcing, we are talking 
about having conscience, having ideological and revolutionary conscience, in 
order that one of your options is to go to the field; to get back to the 
land; to get back to the rural areas and work for the agroecology and food 
sovereignty. In Venezuela, we need to produce a lot of food in order to keep 
alive the revolutionary process.

For example, in Venezuela close to 90% of the population is in a big city, 
and all of the population is in the coastal belt in the north. We have an 
empty country in our back. So what are we going to be doing with those 
resources? It is really simple. We have many things to do in the Venezuelan 
field and, for example, there is a very important initiative of the 
Venezuelan government that is being developed called Los POLOS Agrarios 
Socialistas, the Socialist Agrarian Focal Points, of which 16 are going to be 
created between now and 2013. If those 16 Socialist Agrarian Focal Points are 
accomplished in a good way, we might be talking, in the year 2013, of 70% of 
Venezuela’s agrarian territory doing a transition process to agroecology; 
going through a transition process to sustainable agriculture. And that one 
is amazing.

Teaching agroecology

This is one other thing that we have to accomplish. We already have more than 
3,000 farmers that are working in agroecology. We already have several 
institutions that are teaching agroecology. The Venezuelan Bolivarian 
University is teaching agroecology. We have a couple of universities that are 
going to start with a Master’s program in agroecology. We have a unique 
international experience, for which we are getting support from international 
farmers who are working in agroecology with the Movimiento Sin Tierra (MST) 
and Via Campesina. We are creating this International Agroecology Latin 
American Paolo Freire Institute in Barinas, Venezuela,

Also, the Ministry of Agricultural Land has a very, very strong program 
promoting agroecology. This year it has been giving money, grants, 24,000 
million bolivars for agroecological credits and agroecological activities. 
This is a huge amount of money for the farmer to take into consideration in 
working with agroecology.

By the year 2013, we hope to have created 113 bio-control labs and 73 
bio-fertilizer labs which are going to be covering between 2.5 and 3 million 
hectares all around Venezuela. That one is also amazing. I don’t know of any 
country that has a measure like that. This is a very important goal for the 
Venezuelan process. I hope we can keep making social pressures to achieve it.

We are requiring all of the agronomist universities to change, to think and 
change curricula and start to teach, in a really good way, agroecology. For 
example, agroecology is reflected in several articles in the proposed reform 
of the national constitution.

We have to realize that the technical and political formation of the 
agronomist must be related to what you find in the constitution. You cannot 
have a formation program, a degree in agronomy, that doesn’t match the 
constitution’s principles. And this is the thing that we are fighting for; to 
put into the constitution food sovereignty, to put into the constitution 
agroecology and see how we can advance from that point of view. That one is a 
fight. That one is a very, very good fight and a very important fight that we 
have to deal with; that the Venezuelan people must deal with. How is the 
professional agronomist going to use this type of opportunity?

Diversity of knowledge

In Motion Magazine: A major part of where the science of agroecology comes 
from is traditional and indigenous knowledge. In your own experience, what 
does that mean? Does that only relate to agriculture or does it include the 
whole indigenous cosmovision?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: When we are talking about traditional and indigenous 
knowledge, this is part of agroecology, because agroecology promotes 
diversity of knowledge. Why? Because the history of agriculture has 
indigenous knowledge and also has traditional knowledge. This knowledge is 
very important, in order to understand what can happen in the development of 
the productive system.

When we are talking about agroecology and indigenous and traditional 
knowledge, we are talking about agroecology being a unifier: getting 
together, sharing, interrelating indigenous knowledge, traditional knowledge, 
and new scientific knowledge to maintain the agroecological and productive 
systems. That diversity of knowledge, linked to the socioeconomic perspective 
in the productive system: how you design the ecosystem; how the productive 
system evolves. Agroecology deals with the application of principles in any 
agroecosystem looking for sustainability in whole food systems.

The water-river system, recovering the soil, biological control

In Motion Magazine: Can you give an example?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: There are several examples. In traditional coffee 
plantations, you will find this type of concept. You find traditional 
knowledge in how you shape, how you fix the relationship with the trees that 
are around the coffee plant. That one is traditional knowledge.

For example, the distance between the coffee plant and, say, an avocado 
plant: one avocado plant, one orange plant, another tropical fruit, one wood 
land. The distance between them and how you arrange the poly-crops -- that 
one is traditional knowledge. That one is very important environmentally 
because when you have a poly-crop, when you have an organization of several 
types of trees, you are producing soil and water. You have to work the 
agrosystem knowing that traditional knowledge. And that knowledge we don’t 
find in universities. We don’t find in books. We find it in the field; with 
practice.

That one is the reason why the farmer must come and say, “Listen, we can 
organize the trees in this way.” When we are talking about organizing the 
trees and having a goal of producing soil and producing water, we have to 
deal with the management of the water river basins. That one is traditional 
knowledge: to find out what is going in the natural system. When you deal 
with the soil, with water production, maintaining the water-river system, the 
production of water, you are dealing with the social economy of the coffee 
grower. You are dealing with the production of coffee.

Another example. If we want to recover the soil that has been degraded by 
agrochemicals, we have several ways to work it out, several agroecological 
techniques to work it out of the soil. We could use green manure, which is 
legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil. This has to do with the relationship 
of the green manure with another type of crop which will give you the 
production of soil. So, we have to be involved in the production of the 
bio-structure of the soil, the “mantillo” of the soil. It is the structure of 
the soil, the shell of the soil, the last level of the soil, in order that 
you will produce soil and produce organic matter. If you are producing soil 
you are producing organic matter. If you are producing organic matter you 
will have a deep soil. If you have a deep soil that one will be a pretty good 
guarantee that you will recover the soil and you will have a sustainable soil 
to maintain the production. That one also is traditional knowledge. Remember, 
a good healthy soil will give a healthy plant and a good plant will give you 
a good soil.

Another example. If I have a field of corn or a field of black beans that has 
been attacked by an insect, I could incorporate (in the field) a biological 
control system with some fly, some tree, some biological control, some 
bio-fertilizer control. I am relating the new scientific agroecological 
knowledge with the traditional knowledge of soil.

You see how they are integrated?

The science of sustainable agriculture is agroecology

In Motion Magazine: Why is agroecology a new paradigm for Venezuelan society, 
as you talk about in your new book? (La Agroecologia en la Soberanía 
Agroalimentaria Venezolana -- click to download a PDF)

Miguel Angel Nuñez: I think it is well demonstrated how agroecology is going 
to be the new productive paradigm for agricultural science. There are many 
people, many good researchers, in different places around the world, in the 
United States, in Spain, Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela, in Mexico, in Peru, 
in Bolivia, there are many good researchers, many good honest people who have 
invested so much of their lifetime trying to understand, trying to put on the 
table the advantage of agroecology, in relation to the new paradigm. We 
reserve so much respect for those researchers back in the ’70s, in the ’80s 
of the last century that were putting on the table many of the ideas that we 
are discussing today in this interview.

It is a matter of time and a matter of waiting, time and space, but I don’t 
have any doubt that agroecology will be dealing with that process, the new 
science, the new agricultural science all around the world.

It is clear that agroecology will be dealing with the new agricultural 
productive food paradigm. There is no question about it.

In Motion Magazine: Do you have any knowledge of how it is in other parts of 
the world, the status of it?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: There has been very interesting research in several 
important universities. In fact, research by the University of Essex (in the 
U.K.) identified more than 286 organic conversions in 57 countries, the 
average yield increase was found to be an impressive 64 per cent.

In those countries, I would say that there are many millions of farmers 
working in sustainable and agroecological techniques on quite a few million 
of acres in different types of countries. This research deals with close to 
258 projects all around, in 47 countries. Besides that, the international 
organic farming movement say that they need to certify thousands of organic 
farmers that are looking for certification of their fields and certification 
of their food.

In organic agriculture: the application of the principle

I have to clear up though, that although organic agriculture is fed by the 
agroecological scientific principle, you will find some organic production 
that is monoculture, that is not agroecology. Organic agriculture is another 
thing and it can be different from agroecological production. You will find 
in production of organic agriculture the application of some scientific 
principle in agroecology, but also, you will find another type of organic 
production that doesn’t find the principle. That one is a very important 
thing to say.

In Motion Magazine: What would be the difference?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: The application of the principle. For example, organic 
monoculture production is not agroecology. You will find many acres that have 
been produced by organic monoculture -- in that type of system you don’t 
apply the agroecological principle. But, you will find a diversification of 
food in organic agriculture which is gaining the advantage of the 
agroecological principle. Organic agriculture is following similar steps of 
the Green Revolution: promoting monoculture; monoculture, large-scale 
production, specialized fields and concentrated resources and knowledge. Also 
it helps to maintain the traditional agrarian structure called latifundio.

To support the self-sufficiency of countries

In Motion Magazine: The creation of the international agroecology institute 
that the Venezuelan government is working on with the MST is an example of 
the promotion of agroecology. Did you want to talk any more about that?

Miguel Angel Nuñez: I believe that this international institute that is a 
proposition of the MST and Via Campesina, I think it is an important idea. It 
is an important project that has to be developed and must get not only the 
support of the Venezuelan government, it must also get the support of all the 
governments around in Latin American countries.

Venezuela has a very important and aggressive foreign policy from the energy 
point of view, from the perspective of ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana Para Las 
Americas -- the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), from the 
perspective of the TCP, that is Tratado de Comercio para los Pueblos. When we 
are talking about help, we are not (simply) talking about helping other 
countries, or just giving away money as many people believe. We are not 
talking about giving oil just for giving oil, or sharing the oil for other 
goods, for other services, we are talking about how to get involved in an 
international dynamic to try to support autodeterminación 
(self-determination); to support the self sufficiency of countries, to 
develop a process according to the new type of world that we want; according 
to “another world is possible”.

So, when we are talking about having an institution like the International 
Agroecology Latin American Institute, when we are talking about that one, we 
are trying to support the autodeterminación of those countries that are 
really interested in having another type of school, another type of 
formation, of professional from the agroecological point of view that could 
help those countries, that could help the country in a different type of way.

>From small farmers in Bolivia

For example, we are, right now, in Venezuela, receiving 80,000 tons of soya 
that is being produced in a sustainable, responsible way from small farmers 
in Bolivia. That one is ALBA that one is TCP. And that soya that is coming 
from Bolivia is not transgenic soya. It has been certified as not being 
transgenic. That one means something, man. This is a very important aspect.

When we are receiving agroecological seeds from the MST and the enterprises 
that MST has, we are talking about TCP and we are talking ALBA. When we are 
receiving organic black beans from Bolivia, we are talking about the 
integration of both countries. They are bringing good seeds to feed the 
Venezuelan people and we are buying the seed in order that they could be able 
to improve the life of the farmers.

You can have many types of integration. It seems to me it has to be the most 
important type of integration. That one is the reason why we are putting on 
the table, in the foreign arena, to talk and discuss food sovereignty from 
the agroecological point of view. Not from the traditional point of view, not 
from the Green Revolution point of view, not from the transgenic point of 
view. That one makes it different.

We are putting on the table that discussion. And the farmers, the producers, 
the campesinos, must discuss that one. How is the farmer contributing? How 
the farmer is putting energy; is putting inputs; is putting his production 
toward food sovereignty from agroecology. We believe that one is the way we 
can have a better and more significant integration between the countries, 
between the farmers, between the people.

It is very important, the issues that we are talking about.

Published in In Motion Magazine June 22, 2008