permaculture

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Right to Food: “Agroecology outperforms large-scale industrial farming
for global food security,” says UN expert

http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=10178

BRUSSELS (22 June 2010) – “Governments and international agencies
urgently need to boost ecological farming techniques to increase food
production and save the climate,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the
Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, while presenting the findings at
an international meeting on agroecology held in Brussels on 21 and 22
June.

Along with 25 of the world’s most renowned experts on agroecology, the
UN expert urged the international community to re-think current
agricultural policies and build on the potential of agroecology.

“One year ago, Heads of States at the G20 gathering in Italy committed
to mobilizing $22 billion over a period of three years to improve
global food security. This was welcome news, but the most pressing
issue regarding reinvestment in agriculture is not how much, but how,”
Olivier De Schutter said .

“Today, most efforts are made towards large-scale investments in land
– including many instances of land grabbing – and towards a ‘Green
Revolution’ model to boost food production: improved seeds, chemical
fertilisers and machines,” the Special Rapporteur remarked. “But scant
attention has been paid to agroecological methods that have been shown
to improve food production and farmers’ incomes, while at the same
time protecting the soil, water, and climate.”

The widest study ever conducted on agroecological approaches (Jules
Pretty, Essex University, UK) covered 286 projects in 57 developing
countries, representing a total surface of 37 million hectares: the
average crop yield gain was 79%. Concrete examples of ‘agroecological
success stories’ abound in Africa.

In Tanzania, the Western provinces of Shinyanga and Tabora used to be
known as the ‘Desert of Tanzania’. However, the use of agroforestry
techniques and participatory processes allowed some 350,000 hectares
of land to be rehabilitated in two decades. Profits per household rose
by as much as USD 500 a year. Similar techniques are used in Malawi,
where some 100,000 smallholders in 2005 benefited to some degree from
the use of fertilizer trees.
“With more than a billion hungry people on the planet, and the climate
disruptions ahead of us, we must rapidly scale up these sustainable
techniques,” De Schutter said. “Even if it makes the task more
complex, we have to find a way of addressing global hunger, climate
change, and the depletion of natural resources, all at the same time.
Anything short of this would be an exercise in futility.”
The experts gathering in Brussels identified the policies that could
develop agroecological approaches to the scale needed to feed the
world in 2050. They based their work on the experiences of countries
that have pro-agroecology policies – such as Cuba or Brazil – as well
as on the successful experiences from international research centres
such as the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi, and on the
programmes of La Via Campesina, the transnational peasant movement,
which runs agroecology training programmes.
“We can scale up these sustainable models of agriculture, and ensure
that they work for the benefit of the poorest farmers. What is needed
now is political will to move from successful pilot projects to
nation-wide policies,” the UN Special Rapporteur said. In conclusion,
he announced that he would ask the Committee on World Food Security –
what should become in time the ‘Security Council’ for food security –
to work during its October session on the policy levers to scale up
agroecology. “This is the best option we have today. We can’t afford
not to use it.”

(*) The international seminar “The contribution of agroecological
approaches to meet 2050 global food needs” was held in Brussels on 21
and 22 June. Convened under the auspices of the mandate of the UN
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof. Olivier De Schutter, it
brought together agroecology experts, decision makers at national and
international levels, and representatives of farmer organizations.