Corporate Hijack of Sustainable Agriculture

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17 Nov 2004 20:20:03 -0000

 

Corporate Hijack of Sustainable Agriculture

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ISIS Press Release 16/11/04

 

Corporate Hijack of Sustainable Agriculture

 

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Editor's Note:

 

I first heard the term `ecoagriculture' used by a Chinese

scientist on Australia's Radio National to describe an

approach combining the best that modern science has to

offer, i.e., genetic modification of plants, with

traditional sustainable agriculture.

 

A few days later, a motion to promote ecoagriculture

appeared on the agenda of the upcoming 3 rd IUCN (World

Conservation Union) World Conservation Congress in Bangkok,

Thailand, (17-25 November 2004). Angry critics had described

it as " an organic agriculture that is very friendly to

agribusiness " . A protest letter from civil society

participants at a recent ecoagriculture conference organised

by IUCN in Nairobi maintained that, " ecoagriculture is

fundamentally incompatible with food sovereignty " and hence

unacceptable.

 

Suddenly, it seems, agribusiness is taking over `sustainable

agriculture' in a big way. Biotech giants Syngenta (as

Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture) and

BayerCropscience, together with Croplife International, a

global network representing the plant science industry, and

another agribusiness, Sustainable Agriculture Initiative,

have become members of `Ecoagriculture Partners', a

consortium that includes 12 non-government organizations -

among them, IUCN, Rainforest Alliance, Stakeholder Forum for

our Common Future and World Association of Soil and Water

Conservation - 9 research and education organisations -

among them, International Centre for Tropical Agriculture,

Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management

Collaborative Research Support Program and M.W. Swaminathan

Foundation - and 4 inter-government organizations, among

which, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

 

The Ecoagriculture Partners define `ecoagriculture' as

" sustainable agriculture and associated natural resource

management systems that embrace and simultaneously enhance

productivity, rural livelihoods, ecosystem services and

biodiversity. "

 

The `Nairobi Declaration', made by participants at the

recent conference in Nairobi, Kenya, similarly, called for

" a framework that seeks to simultaneously achieve improved

livelihoods, conservation of biodiversity (genetic

resources, ecosystem services and wild flora and fauna), and

sustainable production at a landscape scale " ; and to ensure

 

" that large-scale development and adoption of

ecoagriculture contribute to achieving the Millennium

Development Goals on hunger, poverty alleviation, gender

equality, environmental sustainability and partnerships, and

enhance implementation of global environmental conventions

by all nations. "

 

Prof. Miguel Altieri at University of California, Berkeley,

in the United States tells us why ecoagriculture is miles

away from the agroecology that can truly deliver food

security and sustainability, alleviate poverty and enhance

biodiversity.

 

 

 

Agroecology versus Ecoagriculture

 

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Agribusiness is embracing `sustainable agriculture' in the

form of `ecoagriculture'. Prof. Miguel Altieri explains why

it isn't the genuine approach.

 

References for this article are posted on ISIS members'

website. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/full/CHSAFull.php

 

`Ecoagriculture' short on ecology

 

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At first glance, no one could fault `Ecoagriculture'

(ECOAG): the idea of transforming agricultural systems so

that they support healthy populations of wild species while

simultaneously improving productivity and reducing poverty

is a win-win situation. This seems particularly important in

the biodiversity hotspots of the developing world where most

of the poor live, who often have little choice but to

exploit wild habitats for survival.

 

Proponents affirm that the best way to reduce the ecological

impact of modernizing agriculture is to intensify production

in order to increase yields per hectare, thereby sparing

natural forests from agricultural expansion. This requires

evaluating the role that emerging technologies may play in

helping meet food needs at a reasonable environmental and

social cost. Although they embrace alternative, low input

agricultural systems, ECOAG practitioners do not forego

chemical-based, high-yielding, intensive agricultural

systems as part of their strategy for protecting wildlife

while feeding the world's population. Their vision is based

on two pervasive assumptions: (a) that alternatives to a

chemically-based crop production system necessarily requires

more land to produce the same amount and (b) that the

adverse ecological and health consequences of industrial

farming are minor in comparison to those that would be

wrought by bringing more land under cultivation. It is well

known that widespread adoption of chemical-based, intensive

crop production systems have major negative impacts on

biodiversity, but less known is the fact that such a

production model actually hinders attempts to provide

adequate food for a growing world population.

 

The massive increases in production of five major

commodities (soybean, rice, cacao, coffee and oil palm) were

achieved by increasing the area planted as well as the crop

yield per unit area [1]. Both strategies resulted in

environmental degradation and decrease in biodiversity

through loss of natural habitats, but more importantly,

through pollution from the heavy use of agrochemicals. More

than 500 million kg of pesticides are applied annually on

the world's monocultures – 91% of the 1.5 billion hectares

of arable lands are under grain monocultures - to suppress

insect pests, diseases and weeds. The environmental impacts

on wildlife, pollinators, natural enemies, fisheries, etc,

and social costs in human poisonings and illnesses from

pesticide-use reach $8 billion each year in the US alone.

Such costs are much higher in the developing world where

banned pesticides imported from the North are still being

widely used.

 

Transgenic crops and large-scale plantations: can they

advance the goals of ecoagriculture?

 

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Large-scale plantations and transgenic crops are among the

tools of the Ecoagriculture arsenal to reach the twin goals

of meeting future global food needs and conserving

biodiversity. In their Ecoagriculture book, McNeely and

Scherr [2] provide many examples of interventions that,

according to them, can simultaneously achieve conservation

and food production. They cite a large (3 300 has) Costa

Rican orange plantation that belongs to Del Oro Company, in

which big patches of dry tropical forest are left within or

adjacent to the farm, thereby benefiting biodiversity while

bringing substantial economic gains to the company. It is

difficult to see how a conservation strategy for large

mammals and birds that requires extended territories can be

compatible with an agricultural development agenda for small

farmers who only have small plots of land to grow their

crops. Given that in most parts of the developing world,

poor farmers have little access to productive land, it may

be argued that it is precisely those very large biodiversity

friendly farms such as Del Oro that need to undergo land

reform to reduce social inequities, an important pre-

requisite to launching any meaningful conservation project.

In fact, breaking up large plantations into a patchwork of

thousands of small farms produces the highly heterogeneous

landscapes that are a key to enhancing biodiversity. In

Mexico, half of the humid tropics is utilized by indigenous

communities and `ejidos' featuring integrated agroforestry

systems aimed at subsistence and local-regional markets.

Recent research confirms that cacao and coffee-based

agroforestry systems managed with low inputs by smallholders

harbour significant biodiversity, including a substantial

number of species of plants, insects, birds, bats and other

mammals. Biodiversity is highest in the more rustic tree-

diverse and multistrata systems interspersed in a matrix of

tropical forests [3].

 

There is no scientific basis to arguments in favour of

consolidating land holdings to take advantage of greater

productivity and efficiency, as well as conserving

biodiversity. The opposite may be the case, according to

existing data. Small farms are far more productive than

large farms. In most developing countries, smaller farms

produce more per unit area – by 200 to 1 000 % - than larger

ones. In the US, the smallest farms - 27 acres or less -

have more than ten times greater the dollar output per acre

than larger farms. While in the US this is largely because

smaller farms tend to specialize in high value crops like

vegetables and flowers, it also reflects relatively more

attention devoted to the farm, and more diverse farming

systems [4]. Recent surveys of small-scale coffee producers

in Chiapas, Mexico, reveal an important relationship between

farm size and the technology used in production.

Conventional coffee producers have larger landholdings

averaging 7 hectares, and devote most of their land to

coffee production. As their system uses shade trees, they

conserve some biodiversity but their dependence on external

markets for cash, food and inputs is very high, making such

farmers very vulnerable to the vagaries of an economic

system beyond their control. In contrast, small organic

producers with an average farm size of 4 hectares have the

highest coffee yields, and they devote about 30-50% of their

land to maize and beans for food security, pasture for

animals and part for forest reserve. The heterogeneous

patchy nature of such farming systems contributes

significantly to biodiversity without sacrificing the

farmers' autonomy and food security [5].

 

Reflecting the views of the Future Harvest Foundation, other

donors and the CGIAR, advocates of ECOAG argue that

biotechnology is biodiversity friendly because engineering

crops for high yields will avoid advancing the agricultural

frontier. This view is a legacy of the Green Revolution,

which assumed that progress and development inevitably

require replacing local crop varieties with improved ones,

thereby disrupting the biodiverse traditional agricultural

patterns, leading to the erosion of landraces and wild

relatives along with indigenous knowledge. It also presumes

that the economic and technological integration of

traditional farming systems into the global system is a

positive step that enables increased production, income and

well-being of the community.

 

As a new form of industrial agriculture, the rapid spread of

transgenic crops threatens crop diversity by promoting large

monocultures that result in further environmental

simplification and genetic homogeneity. Worldwide, the areas

planted to transgenic crops jumped more than thirty-fold in

the past seven years, from 3 million hectares in 1996 to

nearly 67.7 million hectares in 2003 [6], an unprecedented

move towards increased agricultural uniformity [7],

impacting adversely on the direct benefits of biodiversity

to agriculture in improving nutrient cycling, pest

regulation and productivity. For example, it is known that

the polyphagous natural enemies of insect pests that move

between crops frequently encounter Bt-containing non-target

herbivorous prey in more that one crop during the growing

season. Natural enemies may come in contact more often with

Bt toxins via non-target herbivores, because the toxins do

not bind to receptors on the midgut membrane in the non-

target herbivores [8]. These findings are problematic for

small farmers in developing countries who rely on the rich

complex of predators and parasites associated with their

mixed cropping systems for insect pest control [9].

 

Recent studies in the United Kingdom [10] showed that in

herbicide resistant crops there was a reduction of weed

biomass, flowering and seeding of plants within and

bordering sugar beet and spring oilseed rape crops, reducing

the abundance of relatively sedentary herbivores including

Heteroptera, butterflies and bees. There were also fewer

birds and predatory carabid beetles that feed on weed seeds

in transgenic fields.

 

Another key problem with introducing transgenic crops into

biodiverse regions is that the spread of transgenes to local

varieties favored by small farmers could compromise the

natural sustainability of these races. Traits important to

indigenous farmers are resistance to drought, food or fodder

quality, competitive ability, performance on intercrops,

storage quality, taste or cooking properties, compatibility

with household labor conditions, etc; whereas transgenic

qualities such as herbicide resistance are not important to

farmers [11].

 

Agroecology versus ecoagriculture

 

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The ECOAG proposal of " greening " the green revolution will

not be enough if the root causes of poverty and inequity are

not confronted head-on; tensions between socially equitable

development and ecologically sound conservation are bound to

accentuate. Organic farming systems that do not challenge

monocultural plantations and rely on foreign and expensive

certification seals, IPM systems that only reduce

insecticide use while leaving the rest of the agrochemical

package untouched, or fair-trade coffee systems destined

only for export, may in some cases benefit biodiversity, but

in general offer very little to small farmers. Fine-tuning

input use does little to move farmers towards the productive

redesign of agroecosystems, keeping them dependent on an

input substitution approach. Niche markets for the rich in

the North, in addition to exhibiting the same problems of

any export scheme, create stratification within rural

communities as only a few members can capture the benefits

from the limited markets of gourmet products for the

northern elite.

 

Deep differences on the above issues define the divide

between Agroecology (a truly pro-poor farmers science) and

Ecoagriculture. For agroecologists, environmentalists should

no longer ignore issues relating to land distribution,

indigenous peoples and farmers rights, nor the impacts of

globalization on food security, and of biotechnology on

traditional agriculture. It is crucial to transcend the

Malthusian view that blames the poor for environmental

degradation. In fact their impact on nature is low compared

to the damaging effects of the economic activities of large

landowners, mining and timber companies. Social processes

such as poverty and inequity in the distribution of land and

other resources push the poor to become agents of

environmental transformation, and as long as such processes

are not addressed, prospects of an ecoagriculture approach

are limited. It is also important for ecoagriculturalists to

understand and respect the fact that values of indigenous

people may be different from the global conservation

community, although species and habitats valued by local

people have global significance. Much of the concern for the

global community is the alarming loss of biodiversity and

associated environmental services; while for local

communities such issues may also be important, their real

concerns, needs and perceptions usually remain hidden to

outsiders who, despite their good intentions , can at time

embrace a sort of eco-imperialist perception of

conservation.

 

The agroecological approach to conservation

 

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A key challenge for agroecologists is to translate general

ecological principles and natural resource management

concepts into practical advice directly relevant to the

needs and circumstances of smallholders. The strategy must

be applicable under the highly heterogeneous and diverse

conditions in which smallholders live, it must be

environmentally sustainable and based on the use of local

resources and indigenous knowledge. Emphasis should be

placed on improving whole farming systems at the field or

watershed level rather than the yield of specific

commodities.

 

The enhancement of biodiversity at the heart of the

agroecology strategy is the idea that agroecosystems should

mimic the biodiversity levels and functioning of local

ecosystems. Like their natural models, such systems can be

productive, pest resistant and conservative of nutrients.

Agroecology uses biodiversity to enhance agroecosystem

function, allowing farms to develop the ir own soil

fertility, plant health and sustained yields, therefore

eliminating completely the need for external agrochemical

inputs or transgenic technologies. As a result of the

biodiverse designs and absence of toxic chemicals, non-

functional biodiversity - wildlife species of interest to

EACOAG - thrive in such systems.

 

Thus, in agroecological systems, conservation is a product

of the assemblage of productive agroecosystems rich in

functional biodiversity - the collection of organisms that

play key ecological roles - and not as in ECOAG, the result

of deliberate attempts to improve wildlife habitat within

agricultural areas. Wildlife rich, but functionally

biodiverse poor systems do not necessarily meet the needs of

small farmers for food diversity, productive self-

sufficiency, low inputs, etc.

 

The benefits of agroecological integrated farming systems

extend beyond conserving biodiversity as they produce far

more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield

per unit area of one crop - maize, for example - may be

lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture farm, the

total production per unit area, often composed of more than

a dozen crops, trees and various animal products, can be far

higher. In most multiple cropping systems developed by

smallholders, productivity in terms of harvestable products

per unit area is higher than under sole cropping with the

same level of management. Yield advantages can range from 20

to 60%, due to reduction of pest incidence and more

efficient use of nutrients, water and solar radiation. And

all this happens while conserving native crop genetic

resources and overall biodiversity. It is not a matter of

romanticizing traditional agriculture or to consider

development per se as detrimental, but if the interest lies

in " improving " local agriculture, researchers must first

understand and build on that agriculture that is to be

changed, rather than simply replace it. It is important to

highlight the role of traditional agriculture as a source of

agrobiodiversity and regenerative farming techniques, which

constitute the very foundation of any sustainable rural

development strategy directed at resource-poor farmers.

Moreover diverse agricultural systems that confer high

levels of tolerance to changing socio-economic and

environmental conditions are extremely valuable to poor

farmers, as diverse systems buffer against natural or human-

induced variations in production conditions.

 

A case study: harmonizing biodiversity conservation and

cacao production

 

The main goal of this project was congruent with ECOAG

goals: to improve the sustainable production of cacao while

conserving biodiversity in small organic cacao farms managed

by indigenous peoples in Talamanca, Costa Rica. The

project's main strategy was to find ways of simultaneously

enhancing cacao production in a sustainable manner while

conserving biodiversity. The focus on cacao is justified by

the fact that in addition to being culturally and

economically important to local indigenous groups of the

area, it is well known that highly diverse and multistrata

cacao agroforestry systems (CAFS) support higher levels of

biological diversity than most tropical crops [12]. A major

problem is that the permanence of these systems is

threatened by low yields and low prices of cacao. By

improving the productivity of cacao, the project aims to

increase the farmers' income without shifting to other less

biodiversity conserving crops such as banana [13].

 

After training a number of local farmers to monitor CAFS,

researchers confirmed that CAFS harbour significant

biodiversity, including 55 families, 132 genera and 185

species of plants, as well as insects, birds (190), bats

(36) and various mammals, some of which seem to be

declining. Biodiversity is highest in the more rustic tree

diverse and multistrata systems (about 55-60% shade cover)

and lowest in CAFS with simple strata (maximum two shade

tree species with 35-40 % shade).

 

Researchers at the Centro Agronomico Tropical de

Investigacion y Ensenanza (CATIE) proposed a number of

interventions aimed at improving cacao production: pruning,

introduction of clones, enrichment with fruit trees, shade

management, etc, while at the same time preserving

biodiversity. After three years of project interventions

there was no evidence that newly designed CAFS conserved or

enhanced biodiversity. Apparently, biodiversity declines as

plant diversity and structural complexity of CAFS decreases,

although lower diversity in CAFS may be more desirable from

an agronomic point of view. Productivity in rustic systems

is lower than in the less diverse CAFS, suggesting a

negative relationship between conservation and production

and presenting a major challenge to researchers and managers

because as CAFS are renewed or intervened to enhance

production (especially through pruning, elimination of shade

trees and genetic homogenization with clones), biodiversity

levels apparently may be sacrificed. When replacing existing

trees with new timber or fruit species or reducing shade

through pruning or thinning, it is important to consider

that such practices can reduce habitat complexity for

wildlife. Likewise enrichment with forest or fruit trees may

compete with existing cacao trees, and some trees may be

sources of insect pests or diseases.

 

By only focusing on production enhancement and wildlife

diversity, researchers failed to consider in their surveys a

key relationship in peasant agriculture: the relationship

between farm size, diversity levels and productivity.

Smaller farms (<1 ha) were more biodiverse and also seemed

more productive than larger ones, indicating that given

labor and cash constraints there may be an optimal size for

efficient production (in terms of labor allocation and

returns per unit of labor).

 

In situations like this, agroecologists would recommend

harmonizing conservation and production in farms over 1 ha

in size, by enhance production (pruning, grafting, etc) in a

small optimal area of each farm (0.5-0.7 has), leaving the

rest of the area under low input management, with high

levels of plant diversity and multistrata designs for

conserving existing biodiversity. In a well-managed 0.5 ha

farm, farmers may be able to obtain higher productivity per

unit of labour than in a badly managed 1- 1. 5 ha. In this

way a mixed strategy featuring intensification of production

and conservation enhancement may be reached.

 

As farmers become aware of biodiversity components it would

be useful that they also are able to distinguish among the

various types and functional groups of biodiversity and the

roles they play in the CAFS:

 

1. ecologically functional groups that mediate important

processes such as biological control, pollination or organic

matter decomposition;

 

2. conservation functional groups that protect soil and

water;

 

3. livelihood functional groups that produce timber, fruit,

cash, etc and

 

4. destructive biota that reduces production and other

processes.

 

5. Non functional biodiversity (wildlife species, etc)

 

 

 

Thus, farmers may be able to target specific biodiversity

groups according to the functions they want to emphasize to

maintain healthy and productive CAFS. The question that

remains what mechanisms are in place to compensate farmers

for the environmental services of interest to ECOAG

advocates (non functional biodiversity)? Many farmers maybe

trained to monitor biodiversity, and although they would

appreciate this new knowledge and skills which help to raise

conservation consciousness in the communities, most farmers

would doubt whether non-functional biodiversity conservation

would bring them direct economic benefits

 

Finally, an approach directed at increasing cacao production

while conserving biodiversity must transcend the cacao farm

to the total farming system. Most farms in the hillside

areas have an average size of 42 ha whereas cacao occupies

about 1.6 ha, the rest devoted to forest, fallow, pasture

and annual crops. In such areas, farm designs should be

directed at maintaining or enriching the surrounding

environment conducive to biodiversity conservation (forest

patches, etc), enhance food security (re- introducing the

practice of growing beans, rice, corn, cassava, etc), and

promoting other productive activities to generate income

(honey, fish, wood for crafts, medicinal plants, etc),

including ecotourism but under local control. Farm designs

should promote integration among sub systems so that outputs

from one subsystem become inputs into the other, creating

efficient bio-resource flows, as well as synergisms that may

aid in sponsoring the soil fertility, plant protection and

productivity of cacao and the other crops of the total farm.

 

Spreading the agroecological approach

 

In order for agroecological approaches that lead to food

security and biodivesrity conservation to spread, major

changes must be made in policies, institutions, and research

and development to make sure that agroecological

interventions truly benefit small farmers by giving them

access to land and other resources, equitable markets and

alternative technologies; and more importantly, empowering

them to become actors in their own development. It is clear

that macro economic reform and sectoral policies promoted by

trade liberalization have not generated a supportive

environment for small and poor farmers. In most cases,

agricultural growth was concentrated in the commercial

sector and did not trickle down. Trade liberalization

reduced protection at a time when commodity prices were at

historic lows, leaving small farmers incapable of competing

in domestic markets. The drop in price of many crops and the

lack of credit as well as long distance from markets are all

factors that have led to increased pauperization of the

small farm sector. Moreover, government programs and

subsidies have concentrated on medium and large commercial

farmers and small farmers have remained limited in their

access to services, infrastructure and markets. Such

negative trends must be halted so that they do not continue

drastically affecting the viability of peasant and family

agriculture

 

Despite the current anti-peasant trends, the evidence shows

that sustainable agricultural systems can be economically,

environmentally and socially viable, and contribute

positively to local livelihoods as well as conservation of

biodiversity [14]. But without appropriate policy support,

they are likely to remain localized in extent. Necessary

changes include land reform, protection of prices for food

crops, appropriate and equitable market opportunities, and

equitable partnerships between local governments, NGOs and

farmers replacing top-down transfer of technology models

with participatory technology development and farmer to

farmer research and extension.

 

There is no question that small farmers located in

biodiversity hotspots throughout the developing world can

produce much of their needed food in ways that are

compatible with conservation goals. The evidence is

conclusive: new approaches and technologies spearheaded by

farmers, NGOs and some local governments around the world

are already making a sufficient contribution to food

security at the household, national, and regional levels. A

variety of agroecological and participatory approaches in

many countries show production increases through

diversification, improving diets and income, contributing to

national food security and even to exports and also to

conservation of the natural resource base including

biodiversity [15].

 

Feeding a growing world population without further

endangering the natural environment depends upon public

support of sustainable agriculture research, education and

extension. Alternatives to both chemical-intensive, high-

yield agriculture and to land extensive sustainable

agriculture can be expected to result from participatory

scientific endeavors dedicated to their discovery and

development. Only a fraction of the billions of agricultural

research dollars spent over the last fifty years has been

devoted to increasing the productivity of sustainable and/or

organic production systems. It is time to bet on a truly

agroecological approach.

 

 

 

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