Interesting stuff relating to agroforestry - see below.

 A diverse combination of plants, trees and animals doubled the yields in 20 countries in  sub-Saharan Africa in the last ten years according to a recent report by Olivier De Schutter, U.N. 

"Agroecological farming works the way nature works, with a wide variety of living things acting  synergistically. There is much evidence demonstrating that such methods produce more food and are  more sustainable" says biologist and author Colin Tudge.

From: "Michel Pimbert" <michel.pimbert@iied.org>

Date: 11 June 2011 10:26:43 GMT+01:00

To: <tger@tgerlist.urundei.net>

Subject: [TGER] New - Participatory research and on-farm management of agricultural biodiversity

Hello all,

This new IIED publication may be of interest to you and your networks. Media coverage also included  below:

Participatory research and on-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in Europe

Drawing on experience in Europe and the wider literature, this paper offers some critical reflections on how—and under what conditions—the EU might support the development of innovative participatory approaches for the management of agricultural biodiversity in Europe.

Recommendations for the European Union and its citizens are offered on how to address three challenges in particular:

i)              transforming knowledge and ways of knowing for the local adaptive management of agricultural biodiversity and resilience in the face of climate change and uncertainty;

ii)             scaling up and institutionalising participatory research and innovation in plant breeding, varietal selection, and agroecological research; and

iii)           policy reversals for the participatory management of agricultural biodiversity.

This EU-wide transformation is all the more necessary now given that resilience, mitigation and adaptation to climate change directly depend on supporting innovative participatory approaches for managing agricultural biodiversity at the farm and landscape levels. The construction of a new modernity for food and farming in Europe also depends on such a transformation.

For a free download go to  http://pubs.iied.org/14611IIED.html

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55792

Europe Sowing the Seeds of Hunger

Stephen Leahy

LEIPZIG, Germany, May 26 (IPS) - Europe is facing a hungry
future unless it changes agricultural policies and  makes
farmers the main participants in agriculture research, a new
report has  found. And there is little hope of meeting Europe's
recently announced goal of  reducing the loss of biodiversity in
ten years without making those changes.

France is suffering a severe drought but Europe's seed laws
prevent farmers from using a wider variety  of seeds that could
help them cope, says Michel Pimbert of the International
Institute for Environment  and Development (IIED), non-profit
research institute based in London.

"Our seed laws enforce uniformity. France can only plant
approved seeds and those new varieties need a  lot of water,"
Pimbert, the author of the report told IPS.

"Farmers‚ freedom to choose the seeds they plant and to use
them to develop improved crop varieties  and biodiversity-rich
farming will be key to Europe‚s response to climate change," says
Pimbert.

"Europe‚s agriculture policies are preventing us from adapting
to climate change. They are also bad for  biodiversity since
they force farmers to use an increasingly narrow range of seeds
and animal breeds,"  he says.

Farmers are handcuffed by a system of seed laws that enforce
uniformity and protect patents and  intellectual property. In
practice this means only the most advanced varieties can be sold
on the market.  But under intellectual property laws this means
farmers must pay for the right to use patented genes  and
proprietary technologies, mostly owned by large corporations.

Scientists are in the same trap and unable to utilise the full
range of seed diversity, says Pimbert.

The net result is dramatic reduction in genetic diversity
across a wide variety of crops, finds the Farm  Seed
Opportunities report released earlier this month. The report is
based on findings of the EU-funded  Farm Seed Opportunities
project which includes public-sector research institutes, peasant
networks and  organic farmers‚ associations from six European
countries.

Experts agree that diversity can build resilience in a food
production system that will be hard hit by  climate change. A
diverse combination of plants, trees and animals doubled the
yields in 20 countries in  sub-Saharan Africa in the last ten
years according to a recent report by Olivier De Schutter, U.N.
Special  Rapporteur on the right to food. De Schutter calls this
form of agriculture Œagroecology‚. Not only does  agroecology
produce more food at lower cost, it improves the health of the
soil and also dramatically  lowers farming's carbon footprint.

"It is fair to say that between 45 and 50 percent of all human
emissions of global warming gases come  from the current form of
food production," De Shutter said in a previous IPS interview.

The current global food production system is "threatening to
kill us all," writes biologist and author  Colin Tudge, in the
report‚s foreword. "The kind of farming that makes most money in
the shortest  time is absolutely at odds with the kind of farming
that could feed us, and that could continue to feed us," Tudge
writes.

Agroecological farming works the way nature works, with a wide
variety of living things acting  synergistically. There is much
evidence demonstrating that such methods produce more food and
are  more sustainable, he says.

Europe's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is a success but only
in terms of making money for large  agri-business corporations
and producing large quantities of food at the cost of enormous
carbon  emissions, pollution, degradation of farmland, dramatic
cuts in the numbers of farmers and dumping  cheap food onto poor
countries, undercutting their farmers says Pimbert. The average
age of a farmer  in the UK is over 60. "There is a fraction of
the number of farmers in western Europe, they all been  replaced
by machines and captial."

The Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) is the European Union‚s
system of agricultural subsidies and  programmes and is to be
reformed in 2013. Currently the CAP is driven by neo-liberal
economic  policies and that has been a failure, says Carlo
Petrini, president of Slow Food International.

"Every community should have the right to choose what to
produce without being subjected to external  influences dictated
by international markets," Petrini said in a statement.

Strengthening support for local farmers must be part of the new
CAP, says José Bové, French farmer,  activist and vice-president
of the European Parliament‚s Committee on Agriculture and Rural
Development. "If rural communities do not have the chance to take
hold of their destiny, then the  situation cannot improve," Bové
said in a statement.

The new CAP needs to shift research and policy priorities from
a near exclusive focus on monocultures  to whole farm
agroecological approaches and to safeguard the biological
diversity upon which our food  supplies depend, says Pimbert.
"Scientists are not trained to deal with complex systems, so
that's a  challenge." Farmers also need to be central in that
effort with the freedom to exchange seeds and  utilise diversity
he says.

As it stands today Europe is ill-prepared to cope with climate
change. "So far we've been buffered from  significant impacts
but what is coming is beyond our experience," concludes Pimbert.
(FIN/2011)


Dr. Michel Pimbert
Principal Researcher and Team Leader - Agroecology and Food Sovereignty
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
3 Endsleigh Street
London WC1H 0DD
United Kingdom

Telephone +44-20-7388-2117 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            +44-20-7388-2117      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Fax +44-20-7388-2826
Website www.iied.org
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