Archive for the "Agriculture" Category

Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture in Rio+20

Category: IAASTD, Landwirtschaft | By: Redaktion

The UNCSD Rio+20 Conference’s declared goal of Sustainable Development through a “balanced consideration of social, economic and environmental goals and objectives in both public and private decision-making” cannot be achieved without including food security and sustainable agriculture as one of its most critical topics.

Current agricultural policy and governance fall short of contributing to sustained food security, the eradication of poverty and sustainable rural development. The reasons are numerous: diverging views on the future of agriculture and consequently a lack of financial and political commitment; the lack of a well-coordinated initiative no global level to implement sustainable agriculture; economic, social and ecological benefits of sustainable agriculture have not been duly considered in policy making.

A paradigm shift in agricultural policies and practices towards sustainable agriculture is necessary. It is in fact the only viable solution, if agricultural produce is to be increased to feed a growing world population in the long run, under the given circumstances of degraded soils, dwindling water reserves, loss of biodiversity, climate change and high dependence on finite natural resources.

The timing for change is excellent: The UNCSD Rio+20 Conference presents the opportunity for the international community to acknowledge the critical role Sustainable Agriculture for Sustainable Development and the Conference theme Green Economy, and to finally take action for its implementation, especially within the Conference theme of the Institutional Framework. The necessary knowledge and know-how for a change exists and was put forth for example in the 2009 IAASTD Assessment or UNEP’s Green Economy Report 2011.

What would be a meanigful outcome to deliver the urgent change we need?

1. Mandate an International Organization to propose actions to implement sustainable agriculture and food security based on the findings of relevant reports such as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

2. Strengthen the scientific basis for political action on sustainable agriculture and food and security by inviting an existing body to conduct a regular, intergovernmental, participatory, and multi-stakeholder assessment of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology, while taking into account pre-existing processes.

Please refer to our Position Paper [PDF] or Michael Brander, Project Coordinator “Changing Course in Global Agriculture” [PDF], for more information.

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From the life of Lucy Wanjiru

Category: Allgemeines, Landwirtschaft | By: Redaktion

“Before, we had enough rain and good harvests here”, remembers Lucy Wanjiru, a sixty year old farmer from Kigio in central Kenya. “I could sell the surplus at our local market or even in Thika, the city nearby. It was enough to live on and to send our three children to school.”

Then her husband died of liver cancer. That was in 1982. From then on her life became steadily harder. She had to take her children out of school because she could no longer afford the fees. She also had repeatedly bad harvests as the rains became increasingly unpredictable. “In extreme years the yields were so bad that the state gave out food aid to the elderly and orphans.” Mrs Wanjiru was not considered for aid and so instead of three meals a day, her family ate only in the evening. “The children cried. They were hunger and had stomach ache and they lost weight”, she says bitterly.

Today her daughter and two sons are grown up and married. But in 2004 one of her daughters in law contracted meningitis and left six children behind. Lucy brought the children to her, since her son seeks his income as a casual labourer and is away most of the time. Since then she has done everything for her grandchildren. But she is worried about the future. “I am getting older and my strength is failing” she confesses. “I don’t know how I am going to manage.” But Mrs Wanjiru has no choice and seizes her fate. Since 2010 she has attended courses in sustainable farming. In these practice-oriented trainings, financed by Biovision and supervised by the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), she learns how to make compost and how to combat maize pests organically. Lucy Wanjiru is very interested in organic farming – not least because artificial fertiliser and agrochemicals are unaffordable for her now. In addition, she has experienced that sufficient harvests are possible even with a lack of rain, if the soil has been ploughed deeply enough and enriched with compost. Mrs Wanjiru is satisfied with the project: “It is very helpful”, she says. “I was able to increase the maize yield and milk production considerably. With this, my six grandchildren and I will get by”.

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Interview of the Week 48: Hudson Shiraku, Programme Officer for Biovision in Nairobi

Category: Landwirtschaft | By: Alexandra Pellanda

photo.axdHudson Shiraku works for Biovision’s Farmer Communication Programme (FCP) in Nairobi. As part of his job he keeps an eye on technological aspects of the programme activities. In our interview he explains the importance of the mobile phone in general and particularily M-Pesa, an SMS-based payment system with more than 17 million users in Kenya.


Why is M-Pesa so popular in Kenya?
Banks are seen by many as expensive to operate in terms of fees: They charge their customers for the storage and withdrawal services. Their services can only be accessed in major towns or even only in Nairobi. M-Pesa is cheap, convenient and you only need to go to one of these M-Pesa kiosks and agents.

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(Photo: Simon Kihiko Kimani)

For many Kenyans it is uneconomical to save 500 shillings in a bank when the bank’s minimum balance is 200 shillings and it costs 50 shillings to withdraw it. A phone can cost from as little as 999 to over 50,000 shillings depending on the type of phone and the person who is buying it. So the affordability of phones and the fact that they all have the same M-Pesa features have contributed to the popularity of M-Pesa.


Do Kenyans think that it’s expensive or complicated to use a mobile phone?
It is a yes and a no depending on the type of phone and the person who is using it. Some illiterate and old people who are not technologically savvy have just mustered the art of calling and receiving calls – the green and red buttons and they don’t bother about other applications. In this context, it’s not complicated but when they think of other applications it is. Expensive or not? It depends on the person who is buying it and the type of phone also.


What might happen if more and more people have mobile phones with internet connection?
I can do emailing and even search for information from the internet anytime and from anywhere. This is the kind of empowerment that people will get by this and I’m sure that they will accrue all benefits that come with it. It is usually said here that information is power.

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Interview of the Week 46: Janet Maro, Agronomist and expert for organic agriculture from Tanzania

Category: Landwirtschaft | By: Alexandra Pellanda

Bild 23Janet Maro runs Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT) and Bustani ya Tushikamane (Garden of Solidarity). Both projets are supported by Biovision and teach farmers in organic and sustainable agriculture. She was our guest during the Symposium which took place in Zurich last Saturday, so we could meet her for this interview.


How widespread is organic farming in Tanzania?
Tanzania has about 85,000 hectares for large scale and small scale certified organic farms. About 100,000 farmers are contracted by companies to produce organic products for export. There are about 36 companies and cooperatives which are certified to export organic products. Research on benefits of organic agriculture ecologically, socially and economically is still on-going. In Tanzania organic farming is mostly confused by traditional farming in which no inputs are used and therefore on this basis one can say that many small scale farms are organic by default. When it comes to certified organic farming, there are very few certified large scale organic farms which mostly produce coffee, cotton, cocoa, spices like lemongrass and paprika, tea and fruits. Tanzania is still behind as compared to neighbors Kenya and Uganda, the few organic products here are mostly for export.


What does the situation look like with regard to consumption?
There are very few certified organic products in the local market and they fetch more or less the same price as conventional products. This is because there are no organic shops and consumers are not aware about the existence of organic products in the local market. Experience with the few products in our demonstration garden has shown that there is a high demand for organic products. The research which we conducted on willingness to pay for organic products show that people highly appreciate safe (organic products) and are even willing to pay more. Since we are aware about this fact, we are focusing with our project activities to enhance awareness about organic products among all stakeholders (producers, buyers, consumers). For the local market, there are no standards specifically for Tanzania but the East Africa Organic Products Standards (EAOPS) can be used. These standards are existing since 2007, at the moment in Tanzania there are no small scale farmers certified.


What is the mission of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT) and Bustani ya Tushikamane (Garden of Solidarity)?
In Tanzania many farmers are small scale and therefore different technics can be used so as to enable these farmers to have assurance of food security and income generation. My mission with the organization Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT) as a partner in development and the project Bustani ya Tushikamane (ByT) is to see that small scale farmers are able to increase their yields in an environmentally friendly way so as to be able to attain food security and improve their incomes. This is achieved through training and facilitation on sustainable agriculture. We work at the grass root level where we build up on farmers’ knowledge and get feedback.


What is your personal role?
I work in the field closely with farmers and together with the ByT team. We identify and practice simple technologies that are affordable and readily available for use in production of healthy crops and animals. We involve students from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), who I work closely with, to conduct research on questions that need more detailed answers. Working in the field of sustainable agriculture and closely with farmers is a lifetime experience, there are always new plants and methods coming up, this makes my work very interesting. Being the director of SAT means that I am responsible for the smooth running of the organization, I am grateful to my colleagues who are working tirelessly towards realizing the goal of the organization. I am also very grateful to the Biovision foundation for supporting SAT and ByT.


What message would you like to get across to the audience of our Symposium?
The only way to survive and feed 9 billion people like the IAASTD report has shown is sustainable agriculture. In tropical parts of the world, specifically Tanzania, a production system which reduces costs is the most appropriate. Other production systems are expensive and not affordable by farmers and moreover they negatively influence the environment and health.

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Role of women in farming

Category: IAASTD, Landwirtschaft | By: Hans Rudolf Herren

Dear Friends of Biovision

If you read my last blog, you’ll know what the IAASTD report is. Like the world climate report, our world agricultural report summarises what researchers from all over the world learnt about the state of agriculture during the course of a four year study. Furthermore, the IAASTD report uses these facts to try to indicate ways forward. Today I would like to tell you about one important aspect which I only mentioned in passing last time: the role of women in farming.

Anyone who travels in Africa will notice the same thing that I have seen during my countless trips to this big continent in the last thirty years or so. Wherever you are, you will see women working in the fields, looking after animals, pounding grain, milking cows and goats, tending vegetable gardens – i.e. fully involved in farming.

The IAASTD report gives scholarly back-up to this observation. All the authors reach the same conclusion (and not only for Africa, but for the whole world). Women play an incredibly important role in family farms. The proportion of women in agriculture varies from 20% to more than 70%. In other words, in some places women deserve 70% of the credit for the fact that food is produced at all.

When I was young things weren’t so different. I grew up on a farm in the Lower Valais area of Switzerland. It was my mother who was in charge of the chickens and eggs, and who was the boss in the kitchen and in the vegetable garden. But unlike Switzerland at that time, there’s another important factor in developing countries today: women often also have to carry out physically very demanding tasks, like carrying water and wood, as well as doing heavy work in the fields.

All of this leaves its mark on women. Many of them suffer from poor health. Since they work long hours – even girls of school age – they are often poorly educated. And since women are not the ones with power, their income is often very low.

In the IAASTD study we came to the conclusion that things must not go on like this. I remember the moving appeal by the representative from Kyrgyzstan to the final meeting of the IAASTD. On behalf of many others he called for the role of women to be recognised and stressed in the final report. The situation of women should be improved with new laws and suitable mechanisation, the scientists demanded.

So what is to be done?

I think that here again there are many paths which could lead to the same goal. Governments must be persuaded to guarantee equal access to education and property for women. But here it is mainly non-governmental organisations and non-profit making organisations like Biovision which can help to get this process off the ground. Women must be educated, they must have access to information, to the latest scientific knowledge about their areas of activity and to technical aids. And in order to give them the chance to become part of the economy, they must have better opportunities to obtain micro credits. And above all, they should be paid properly.

At the same time, we should be learning from these women. It is often the case that farming knowledge is to be found not among the men who rule, but among the women who do the work. So that is where we must go if we want to understand how agriculture works on small farms, and how it could be improved.

There is nothing new about the fact that women play an important role on farms. It is high time that we should recognise it and offer them the place and the chances that they deserve.

Best wishes,

Hans Rudolf Herren
President, Biovision

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