Da Paula : pagina creata giovedi 30 maggio alle 14.16. La pagina riguarda testi stranieri da tradurre in italiano soprattutto per agevolare chi fa trasmissioni e cose varie per il Forum e per il Vertice. Marta aggiunge italiano 3 maggio ore 13.30

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 29th May 2002 VIA CAMPESINA CALLS FOR PARTICIPATION IN RALLY IN ROME ON JUNE 8 2002, BEFORE THE FAO SUMMIT Via Campesina supports fully the call to participate in the rally for "Land and dignity" made by our friends, men and women, leaders of our movements that are at the moment in jail or that suffer repression in their country. Vía Campesina demands at the occasion of this FAO Summit the immediate release of these persons. We expect national governments to move on these important issues and show their political will to come to positive changes regarding the democratic rights of our organizations and farmers' rights to food production and access to productive resources. Via Campesina also takes up its three central demands related to productive resources that were communicated to our governments on the 17th of april, the international day of farmers' struggle:

1) A total ban on "Terminator Technologies" (the production of sterile seeds) and other Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs) that control the traits in plants and animals, 2) A full investigation led by FAO of the transgenetic contamination of international gene banks and the genetic contamination of Centres of Diversity and concrete measures to avoid this contamination, 3) Concrete steps towards a total abolition of patents on living organisms on the national and international levels. The FAO must forbid CGIAR centers to apply for patents on any genetic resources or their parts and components and the FAO Summit must call upon national governments to ban patents on genetic resources. We expect these concrete commitments to be agreed internationally at the FAO World Food Summit: five years' later in Rome in June and at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in August/September 2002. Via Campesina will be in Rome with an international delegation of ca 100 people. To contact Via Campesina in Rome: For the press: (+39-) 333 1893 512 For organisational questions: (+39-) 338 5898 207 Place we stay: Hotel Domus Pacis, Via di Torre Rossa 94, Rome, Tel +39 06 6627758 By Email: nicoverhagen@hotmail.com

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 29 maggio 2002,

Via Campesina supporta nella sua completezza la chiamata alla partecipazione alla marcia per 'Terra e Dignità' fatta dai nostri amici, uomini e donne, leader dei nostri movimenti che al momento sono in carcere o che soffrono la repressione nei loro paesi.Via Campesina richiede, con l'occasione di questo summit FAO, l'immediato rilascio di queste persone. Aspettiamo che i governi nazionali si muovano su queste importanti questioni e mostrino la loro volontà politica di arrivare a cambiamenti positivi che riguardino i diritti democratici per le nostre organizzazioni e i diritti degli agricoltori alla produzione di cibo e accesso alle risorse produttive. Via Campesina espone inoltre le tre principali richieste in relazione alle risorse produttive,che sono state presentate al nostro governo il 17 aprile, giornata internazionale della lotta degli agricoltori:

1) Un divieto totale delle 'Terminator Technologies' (la produzione di semi sterili) e altri Restrizioni nell'uso di Tecnologie Genetiche (GURTs) che controllano le proprietà di piante e animali, 2) Una indagine completa, guidata dalla FAO sulle contaminazioni transgeniche della banca internazionale del genee le contaminazioni genetiche dei Centri della Diversità e misure concrete per evitare queste contaminazioni, 3) Passi in avanti concreti verso una totale abolizione delle patenti sugli organismi viventi a livello nazionale ed internazionale. La FAO deve vietare centri CGIAR per l'applicazione delle patenti in ogni risorsa genetica o le loro parti e componenti e il Summit FAO deve richiamare i governi nazionali per bandire le patenti nelle risorse genetiche. Ci aspettiamo che a livello internazionale e al World Food Summit della FAO si aderisca a questi impegni concreti: cinque anni dopo a Roma in Giugno e all'Incontro Mondiale per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile (WSSD) a Johannesburg in Agosto/Settembre 2002. Via Campesina sarà a Roma con una delegazione di circa 100 persone. Per contattare Via Campesina a Roma: Per la stampa (+39)333 1893512. Per questioni organizzative: (+39) 338 5898207. Alloggeremo all'Hotel Domus Pacis,Via di Torre Rossa 94, tel.06 6627758. Per e-mail nicoverhagen@hotmail.com

(da Giangi): qui di seguito metto i testi dei 9 documenti-base (indicati dal Comitato organizzatore del forum ONG/OSC) che il gruppo traduttori cercherà di tradurre (una sintesi) entro Sabato sera, in modo da consentire una lettura utile a tutt* le/gli redattrici/ori di radio GAP prima e durante gli incontri e le assemblee.

ALTERNATIVE MODELS (OR APPROACHES) TO FOOD PRODUCTION

Jules Pretty and Rachel Hime, University of Essex, UK Jean Marc von der Weid, AS-PTA, Brazil

October 2001

1- World Food Summit resolutions revisited:

The text of Commitment Three of the WFS Plan of Action was carefully worded but remains undefined and unclear on the most important issue: What is sustainable or unsustainable in agriculture?

Several expressions have been used to qualify agriculture or technology: sustainable; appropriate; conserving natural resources and reducing environmental degradation; up-to- date; modernized; based on holistic approaches; intensified; optimized; diversified; employing integrated plant nutrition, improved seeds and breeds, mixed farming, small- scale irrigation, organic farming, intensified rainfed agriculture, plant breeding which broadens the genetic base of crops; mobilizing farmer's knowledge; etc.

In spite of these concepts, which point to an agroecological development approach, it is not clearly stated in the Commitment that conventional, agrochemical agriculture has not proved adequate for small-scale farming all over the world. Agroecology as a concept is not used either, even though a lot of its components and techniques are included in the text.

Participation is also an important concept in the text, including with reference to research and development agenda identification and extension, but not very significantly in research itself.

Clarity and precision in sustainability definitions is of the utmost importance for the implementation of Commitment Three proposals, since experience has shown how difficult it is to change the focus of development approaches of government officials and international cooperation agencies. Since Rio '92 there has been a change in the "politically correct" wording on agricultural development, but very little progress in implementation.

WFS-96 represented a step forward as compared to WFS-74 regarding the strategy for overcoming world hunger. In '74 the dominant proposal was to increase production in the North and to guarantee food access in the poor South through food aid (paid for by the petro dollars, in Henry Kissinger's proposal). In '96 emphasis was given to increasing production in the South, balancing the efforts between the high and low potential areas. On the other hand, 1974 resolutions took for granted that green revolution technology was the only possible issue for agricultural development, whereas in 1996 the concept of sustainable agriculture was an important feature of the debate, even though it was insufficiently defined.

2- Review of government and international organizations activities to implement Commitment Three proposals since WFS-96:

Resources for agricultural development in the developing world, either from national governments or international cooperation, have dwindled continuously in the last five years, following a pattern already established in the eighties and early nineties. Moreover, these shrinking resources have been mostly used to promote unsustainable development approaches, bringing the already critical situation of small farmers to an extremely serious point. Migration to urban areas due to a combination of incorrect policies, natural resource depletion, environmental disruption and climate factors represent a net transfer of misery and hunger from the rural areas, without any reasonable perspective of finding alternative employment and revenues in industry or services.

Positive relevant government initiatives are few. The most important of all are the IPM programs in Asia, now extending to Africa, programs that were already in execution before '96 with substantial support from the World Bank and technical guidance from FAO. In the CSOs' evaluation, the most relevant feature of these programs is the methodological approach adopted, the Farmer Field Schools, which have evolved in many places from dealing with pest management to treating other problems in agricultural production, like fertility and genetic resource improvement.

In Indonesia, the banning by the government of 57 pesticides applied currently in rice production, combined with the participation of some 1 million farmers in 55 000 Farmer Field Schools have produced spectacular results. 25% of all rice small farmers have totally eliminated the use of pesticides. Overall reduction of pesticide use has been around 70% and average applications have dropped from 2.9 to 1.1 per season with increases in rice yields.

Another initiative highlighted as a major success is the minimum tillage technology which is being promoted by many governments with support from international organizations like CIMMYT or the French cooperation agency CIRAD. The Brazilian experience is seen as the most advanced one, but it highlights some limitations of this approach. In Brazil, very few small farmers adopted minimum tillage since it requires intensive use of expensive herbicides. On the other hand, the very fact that this technology (in the way it is being promoted) depends on chemical inputs indicates its limitations as a sustainable alternative.

Many governments and international research centers are betting more and more on the new GMO technology and accepting an increasing role of TNCs as a solution for agriculture development, disregarding both the environmental and health risks of this technology and its inappropriateness for small farming.

3- Review of CSOs' activities to implement the Roman Forum '96 proposals for sustainable agriculture.

CSOs define sustainable agriculture as an approach that seeks to make the best use of nature's goods and services as functional inputs. It does this by integrating regenerative processes (such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration and natural enemies of pests) into food production processes. It minimizes the use of inputs that damage the environment or human health. It builds on farmers' knowledge and skills, and seeks to make productive use of social capital (namely people's capacity for collective action) as well as pest, watershed, irrigation and forest management.

Sustainable agriculture relies on agroecological approaches to food production and has proved to respond to the crucial questions today:

1) To what extent can farmers improve food production with low-cost, low-risk, locally available technologies and inputs? 2) To what extent can they do this without causing environmental damage?

The University of Essex recently completed an audit of progress towards sustainable agriculture in 52 developing countries and concluded that improvements in food production are occurring through one or more of four mechanisms:

1) intensification of a single component of the farm system - such as homegarden intensification with vegetables and trees, vegetables and rice bunds or a dairy cow; 2) addition of a new productive element to the farm system, such as fish in a paddy rice or agroforestry, which provides a boost to total farm food production and/or income but which does not necessarily affect cereal productivity; 3) better use of natural capital to increase total farm production, especially water (by water harvesting and irrigation scheduling), and land (by reclamation of degraded land), thus leading to additional new dry land crops and/or increased supply of water for irrigated crops; 4) improvements in per hectare yields of staples through the introduction of new regenerative elements into farm systems (e.g. legumes, integrated pest management), and/or locally appropriate crop varieties and animal breeds.

Thus a successful sustainable agriculture project may substantially improve domestic food consumption through home gardens or fish in rice fields, or better water management, without necessarily affecting the per hectare yields of cereals. Nevertheless the study presents reliable data on per hectare yields change for 89 projects. These illustrate that agroecological approaches have led to an average 93% increase in per hectare food production. As will be shown later, most successful projects have attained up to 500% increases.

However, food outcomes are not the only measures of success. A selection of the kinds of impact reported in these sustainable agriculture projects and initiatives include:

1) improvements to natural capital, including increased water retention in the soils; improvements in water table (with more drinking water in the dry season); reduced soil erosion combined with improved organic matter in the soils, leading to better carbon sequestration; and increased agro-biodiversity; 2) improvements to social capital, including more and stronger organizations at local level; new rules and norms for managing collective natural resources; and better connectedness to external policy institutions; 3) improvements to human capital, including more local capacity to experiment and solve problems; reduced incidence of malaria in rice-fish zones; increased self esteem in formerly marginalized groups; increased status of women; better child health and nutrition, especially from more food in dry seasons; and reversed migration and more local employment.

There are four types of agroecological improvements that have played substantial roles in these food production increases:

1) improvement to soil health; 2) more efficient water use in both dry land and irrigated farming; 3) pest and weed control with a minimum or zero pesticide use; 4) whole system redesigns.

The following examples taken from the report illustrate the impact obtained by CSOs' agroecological projects and indicate the potential of this approach to helping solve the hunger problem in the developing world:

1) Soil health improvements:

As pointed out before, the most widespread agroecological technique for soil regeneration/conservation is the zero tillage. In Brazil only there are 12 million hectares under ZT, up from 100 000 hectares in a decade. Most of this acreage is found in large and middle size farms with intensive use of herbicides, but AS-PTA's experience in the southern state of Paraná, involving 5000 small farmers has succeeded in developing a ZT without herbicides. This technique, combined with the use of green manuring and cover crops, biofertilizers, rock phosphate and selection of adapted traditional seeds has succeeded in trebling the average yields for black beans, reaching up to 500% increases in the best cases.

In Senegal, the Rodale Institute Regenerative Agriculture Research Center, working with 2000 farmers organized into 59 groups, is improving soil quality by integrating stall-fed livestock into the crop systems, adding legumes and green manures, increasing the use of manures, composts and rock phosphate and developing water harvesting systems. The result has been a 75 to 195% improvements in millet yields and 100 to 300% increases in groundnut yields. Yields are also less variable year on year, with consequent improvements in household food security.

In Kenya, the Association for Better Land Husbandry found that the farmers who constructed double-dug beds in their gardens could produce enough vegetables to see them through the hungry dry season. According to a review of 26 communities, 75% of the households are now free from hunger during the year, and the proportion of households buying food fell from 85% to 11%.

2) Improved water efficiency:

In northern India the KRIBHCO Rainfed Farming project works with 230 local groups in 70 villages on water harvesting, tree planting and grazing land improvements. Basic grain yields of rice, wheat pigeonpeas and sorghum have increased from 400 kg/ha to 800 kg/ha (100% increase) and increased fodder grass production from the terrace bounds are valued highly. With the improved water retention, water tables have risen by one meter over the past three years, meaning that an extra crop is now possible for many farmers, turning an unproductive season into a productive one with a sharp decrease in seasonal out-migration.

In central Burkina Faso, 100 000 hectares of abandoned and degraded lands have been restored with the adoption of methods of water harvesting called tassas and zaï. Yields have jumped from 150/300 kg/ha to 700/1000 kg/ha (a 330 to 560% increase). The average family in Burkina Faso using these technologies has shifted from being in annual cereal deficit amounting to 644 kg (equivalent of 6.5 months of food shortage) to producing a surplus of 153 kg per year.

In semi-arid northeastern Brazil underground dams that cost 500,00 USD permit a farmer to have half a hectare to one hectare of moist soil during the dry season, which is used to produce cereals, vegetables, fruits and fodder guaranteeing food security in critical periods.

3) Zero pesticide farming.

Integrated pest management has also been used by CSOs throughout Asia as well as by government programs. In Indonesia, the NGO Gita Pertiwi has worked in Central Java with 17 hamlets mobilizing 2 152 farmers, 21% of whom were women. The use of pesticides has decreased from 75 to 100% and an increase in production between 26 and 55% has been noted.

In Bangladesh, a combined aquaculture and integrated pest management program is being implemented by CARE. Some 6000 farmer field schools have been completed with about 150 000 farmers adopting more sustainable rice production on 54 000 hectares. The program also emphasizes fish cultivation in paddies, made possible with the abandonment of pesticide use, and vegetable cultivation on rice field dikes. Rice yields have improved by only 5 to 7 %, but costs of production have fallen sharply owing to pesticide suppression. Each hectare of paddy, though, yields 750 kg of fish, an extraordinary increase in total system productivity for poor farmers with very few resources.

In East Africa, the vutu sukuma system (push-pull in Swahili) redesigned maize fields to control the stem borer. Napier and Sudan grasses are introduced to attract the pest whereas the molasses grass and the legume Desmodium repel it. Besides, Desmodium is a nitrogen fixing plant and is also allelopathic to the parasitic witchweed, Striga hermonthica. 2000 farmers have adopted this technique in western Kenya eliminating the use of pesticides and increasing maize yields by 60 to 70%.

4) Whole system synergies.

In Madagascar, the NGO Association Tefy Saina developed a revolutionary system of rice intensification. The system has improved yields from about 2 tones per hectare to 5, 10 and even 15 tones per hectare (250, 500 and 750% increases). This has been achieved without the use of purchased inputs like pesticides and fertilizers, with the use of only 7-kg of seeds per hectare instead of 100 kg/ha and with a strong economy in water use. 20 000 farmers have adopted this technique up to now, whereas another 100 000 are experimenting with components of the system. The technique is being adopted in many other countries like China, Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal, Cote d'Ívoire, Sri Lanka, Cuba, Sierra Leone and Bangladesh. In China, for example, yields of 9-10.5 t/ha were achieved in the first year, compared with a national average of 6 t/ha.

Integrated farm fish ponds systems in Malawi have permitted to recycle wastes from agriculture and household enterprises, leading to steadily increasing productivity over time With tiny ponds of 0.02 - 0.05 ha farmers have reached outputs of 1450 kg/ha, almost doubling their initial outputs in a five year span.

4- Limiting factors for agroecological development programs:

The introduction of one agroeocological technique or another has certainly produced more sustainable agricultural systems and better incomes and/or food availability for family farmers, but the best results have been achieved when traditional or conventional systems were redesigned to adopt an integrated agroecological approach. Nevertheless, transforming these systems is not an easy task for it requires specific designs for each particular farmer system. Whereas a conventional approach implies the dissemination of uniform technological packages, agroecology demands a more complex extension approach. Participatory generation/dissemination of technology is the answer CSOs have found to this challenge, with a strong component of farmers' education in agroecological principles and not just training in the use of one technology or another.

The participatory approaches, in the best cases, show that it is possible to handle an enormous diversity of technological problems with a minimum investment in technical staff. Massive experimentation by hundreds and sometimes thousands of farmers in a given local development area, combined with intensive exchanges of experiences among them, has produced impressive results in terms of both yield increases, food availability, income generation, costs and risks reductions and sustainability. In the case of AS-PTA's experience in Paraná, in southern Brazil, for instance, only 3 technical staff managed to foster agroecological change in some 10 000 family farms in a 7 year span.

Agroecological participatory systems transformation demands, on the other hand, a very dynamic social organization and material support for the transaction costs of collective appraisals, experimentation and exchanges. In AS-PTA's case this cost amounted to some 35 USD per farmer per year, whereas conventional approaches disseminating conventional (green revolution) techniques in Brazil costs 500 USD per farmer per year.

It derives from the above that agroecological development requires a radical change in extension service approaches as well as the necessary technical recycling of extensionists and investment in the transaction costs of the social dynamics that assumes most of the effort of the generation/dissemination of technology.

Another major limitation of the agroecological development is the current orientation of credit systems, almost completely geared to financing the use of chemical inputs, improved seeds and machinery. Agroecology requires few and low cost inputs, normally in the first stages of transition. However, low resource farmers may still need credit either for adoption of new technology or for a quicker expansion of its employment in the system.

Agricultural research has contributed to agroecological development even though it is not oriented according to this paradigm. Nevertheless, it is clear that a major shift in research agendas and paradigms is needed to foster agroecological development. Farmer's research has given and can give essential contributions to technological innovation, but it is certainly not enough to produce the maximum potential of small farmers' agroecosystems. It is unfortunate that many of the international and national agricultural research centers are being attracted by the idea that biotechnological innovations can solve the major problems of food production in the world.

Last but not least, improved agroecological systems do not guarantee by themselves a better position in the market systems unless they can find a specific market niche not controlled by intermediaries. Furthermore, large scale agroecological programs cannot sustain themselves through market niches which are, in general, too narrow in developing countries; they have to compete in conventional markets and so have to fight the same problems of all family farmers, control by middleman. On the other hand, trade liberalization can undermine all advantages in costs and quality obtained by agroecological systems with unfair competition from subsidized food imports.

5- Proposals for public policies that support agroecological food production:

Several things are now clear with respect to sustainable agriculture:

1) The technologies and social processes for local-level sustainable agriculture are well- tested and established; 2) The social and institutional conditions for spread are less well-known, but have been established in several contexts, leading to very rapid spread in the 1990s; 3) The political conditions for the emergence of supportive policies are least well established, with only a very few examples of real progress.

As has been indicated earlier, agroecology can contribute significantly to increased food production, as well as make a significant impact on rural peoples' welfare and livelihoods. But without appropriate policy support at a range of levels, these improvements will remain localised in extent at best or, at worst, wither away. Clearly much can be done with existing resources. A more sustainable agriculture will not, however, happen without some external help and money. There are always transition costs in learning new knowledge, in developing new or adapting old technologies, in learning to work together, and in having to break free from existing patterns of thought and practice. It also costs time and money to rebuild depleted natural and social capital.

Most of the agroecological improvements seen in the 1990s have arisen despite existing national and institutional policies, rather than because of them. Nonetheless, the 1990s have seen considerable global progress towards the recognition of the need for policies to support agroecology. In a very few countries, this has been translated into highly supportive and integrated policy frameworks. In most, however, sustainable agriculture policies remain at the margins, with recognition of need not yet translated into actual policies.

Although almost every country would now say it supports sustainable agriculture, the evidence points towards only patchy reforms. Only two countries have given explicit national support for sustainable agriculture - putting it at the center of agricultural development policy and integrating policies accordingly. These are Cuba and Switzerland. Cuba has a national policy for alternative agriculture; and Switzerland has three tiers of support for both types of sustainable agriculture and rural development. A much larger number of countries have reformed elements of agricultural policies through new regulations, incentives and/or environmental taxes, and administrative mechanisms, and these are having considerable, though partial, effect. But none of these countries has yet explicitly put sustainable agriculture at the center of their policy frameworks. An even larger set of countries have seen some progress on sustainable agriculture at project and program level - but this still remains largely despite, rather than because of, explicit policy support. Most reforms, though, remain piecemeal, with sustainable agriculture still largely at the margins of conventional policy processes and aims.

The most important policy change for agroecological development is a clear rejection of green revolution technology and the adoption of the agroecological paradigm and a participatory approach that would ensure the farmer's place in the definition of research and development agenda as well as in all implementation steps. This radical shift in food production and rural development policies would require other changes in credit facilities, technical staff training, university curricula, etc. It is not an easy task since it confronts the ideological reaction of many scientists and technicians, who perceive their own present knowledge as the only true agronomic science and, above all, the powerful interests of input producing corporations, particularly the multinationals which have invested billions of dollars in biotechnology development.

ALTERNATIVE MODELS (OR APPROACHES) TO FOOD PRODUCTION 9 NGO/CSO FORUM WFS::fyl - Civil Society Input/Case Studies by Jean Marc von der Weid, Jules Pretty and Rachel Hime

_ ALTERNATIVE MODELS (OR APPROACHES) TO FOOD PRODUCTION 1 NGO/CSO FORUM WFS::fyl - Civil Society Input/Case Studies by Jean Marc von der Weid, Jules Pretty and Rachel Hime