Archive for the "IAASTD" 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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Regional Preparations in Europe for the Rio+20 conference, Biovision is on board

Category: IAASTD, Politik | By: admin

The team of Biovision’s Changing Course in Global Agriculture (CCGA), headed by President Hans Herren just had an incredibly busy day at the United Nations in Geneva. The CCGA program aims at a paradigm shift in global agricultural policies based on the 2008 IAASTD report and calling for a strengthening of smallholder farmers, respecting the natural boundaries set for agriculture and helping to truly fight poverty and hunger in the world.

We believe that the knowledge and possibilities to get to a sustainable development exist – what is missing is effective action. That’s why we brought together diplomats of the United States, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden and representatives of UN agencies and NGOs. For almost two hours different possibilities to finally start implementing measures of sustainable agriculture were put forth. Biovision and its partners presented several possible actions based on its position paper. Dr. Hans Herren stated that Rio+20 must put forth a mandate for a UN agency to work out a plan on how to implement the findings of the 2008 IAASTD report. This call for a mandate was welcomed by many panellists. At the same time Fritz Holzwarth of the German delegation asked to work out concrete action on the issues of land- and watergrab and to end the ongoing waste of food in the world.

Apart from the side-event Biovision was also directly involved in an official roundtable at the UN conference and held a media briefing on agriculture at Rio+20 in the morning.

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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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Worldwide food crisis

Category: IAASTD, Landwirtschaft, Nahrungsmittelkrise | By: Hans Rudolf Herren

Dear Friends of Biovision

Exceptionally, you have had to wait two months for the current blog. I was so busy in April that I quite simply didn’t get round to writing to you. I hope you’ll understand and forgive me.

But perhaps through the media you have heard or read something I have said, in which case you will understand why I was so extremely busy. The world agricultural council IAASTD published its final report on April 15th. It was the outcome of four years work by more than 400 experts, including some from Switzerland. Its purpose was to make an assessment of agricultural practices worldwide, to look at the impact that knowledge, science and technology have had up until now, and on the basis of this assessment to draw up proposals to steer agricultural research in a useful direction.

I was one of the co-chairmen overseeing this comprehensive task and once the report had been concluded I had to – or rather, wanted to – put myself at the disposal of the media all over the world in order to explain it and answer questions. The Swiss media showed a lot of interest in the report. Swiss television, Swiss radio and all the major newspapers went into the issue, which I was very pleased about.

But the reason for their great interest was less encouraging: the worldwide food crisis has shocked us all. Suddenly everyone realised that – to quote the IAASTD report – “business as usual is no longer an option”. But of course the crisis was predictable, and people in the know had been warning about it for a long time. Now in the global agricultural report we have attempted to indicate the problems facing agriculture and to put forward suggestions for tackling them.

First, the main problems, which are most obvious in the developing countries. Agriculture there is in urgent need of support through research, training and access to information. And yet the budgets for this have been cut and cut in the past few decades. Another problem is that food is distributed very unevenly between north and south, with undesirable consequences for both sides: obesity and diabetes for us (and lately also in the cities of the newly industrialised countries), and hunger and malnutrition in the developing countries.

These problems are made worse by massive climate change, deteriorating soil fertility, increasing world population and rising energy prices.

These complex problems must be addressed and solved not by dealing with the consequences, but by removing the causes. So here we come to the suggestions for tackling them that we made in the report. What we propose is that we should not seek a single magic solution to deal with the whole range of problems, but should instead take a range of approaches.

Certainly the most important thing is to carry out more research into ways that would enable farmers in developing countries to practise sustainable agriculture, which can only be achieved if the soil is fertile. The allocation and ownership of land needs to be examined and changed in order to ensure that farmers have access to land. This requires political action.

The role of women in agriculture was recognised as being another decisive factor. But women still often lack suitable working conditions and proper training. It is also important that appropriate means of mechanising agriculture in poor countries should be encouraged. This is the only way to increase productivity.

One thing that is certainly not a solution is the use of pesticides or the planting of genetically modified crops over wide areas. Quite the contrary: well-founded research has shown that this has precisely the opposite effect to the one desired. The less species diversity there is, the greater the risk of diseases that are able to spread unchecked. That is why the IAASTD report calls for a more sensible approach to the land and a return to small-scale agriculture where the farmers can use their own seeds. That is the only way to preserve genetic diversity.

Although all of this appears perfectly logical, it is important to stress that by no means everyone has understood just how urgent the problem is. The major agro-chemical companies still have far too much influence on agricultural policy in the northern hemisphere. For of course a lot of money is at stake.

Business leaders and many politicians are therefore still trying to play down the problem. And what is very serious is that some scientists are backing them, claiming that industrialised agriculture with its monocultures, pesticides and genetic technology is the solution. But now in this detailed report 400 top class scientists have demonstrated that this cannot lead to an agriculture that is environmentally and socially just.

It is clear that we have to act. It is not a matter of profits, but of the shared future of all the people of our planet. The food crisis in the third world has more to do with us that we care to think.

Please do me a favour: follow the coverage of this issue and try to keep yourselves informed. We are all food consumers and our behaviour can have an influence on the way in which food is produced.

Best regards,
Hans Rudolf Herren

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