Moving towards Sustainable agriculture

1. Moving towards Sustainable agriculture

2. Moving towards Sustainable Agriculture The objective of this presentation is to gain an understanding of sustainable agriculture and discuss the roadmap to move in this direction. • Agriculture is the largest industry on the planet - employs over 1billion people worldwide. • Sustainable agriculture can promote empowered communities, and grow a food system that achieves food security while sustaining the Earth’s systems and maintaining ecosystem diversity.

3. The need for Sustainable Agriculture • The world’s population is expected to rise to 9.2 billion by 2050. Global food production will need to double by 2050. • Food demand driven by population growth and land scarcity. Resources are limited • Up to 70% of the population in developing countries live in rural settings and rely on farming for their livelihoods. • challenge is to achieve global food security while having a positive impact on the environment and society.

4. Consequence of Current Agricultural practices Environmental effects – • Biodiversity loss • unpredictable weather caused by global climate change. • Degradation of land resources-2billion hectares of land worldwide are seriously degraded, some irreversibly. • improper use of fertilizers and pesticides, lead to soil pollution, salinization and loss of arable land. • water scarcity- almost 70% of the world’s surface water supplies are used for farming • Pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

5. Consequence of Current Agricultural practices Socioeconomic effects- • Increased inequality. 80% of hungry people live in rural areas. • marginalization of the poor and women • Women producers are systematically excluded from decision making and often lack access to land, water resources, credit, information, and extension services. • loss of community and household resilience to climate and economic shocks.

6. What is Sustainable Agriculture? It is a productive, competitive and efficient way to produce safe agricultural products, while at the same time protecting and improving the natural environment and social/economic conditions of local communities.

7. Benefits of Sustainable Agriculture

8. Roadmap:Towards Sustainable agriculture • Increase Smallholder productivity • Gender equity • Access to networks and information • New policies • Private sector involvement

9. Roadmap: Increase Smallholder productivity. • Small-scale farmers have important knowledge about farming in their communities which can be used to improve agricultural productivity, resilience, and sustainability. • agricultural growth from small-scale production has twice the effect on the poorest populations as growth from other sectors. • use low-input, agro-ecological farming techniques, to raise yields, improve soil fertility, conserve natural resources, and reduce dependence on expensive inputs.

10. Roadmap: Increase Smallholder productivity. Studies of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) helps smallholders boost productivity and reduce reliance on Inputs. They found average yield increases across eight countries of 47 % and average reductions in water use of 40%.

11. Roadmap: Gender equity • Studies have shown that when women manage household income; money is more likely to go toward improving family food consumption, child nutrition, education, and overall well-being. • women are the major agricultural producers of the developing world. So public spending to increase women’s empowerment is essential. In Sri Lanka, Oxfam worked with the government to develop dairy cooperatives with over 1,500 women . Milk production per cow quadrupled, significantly increasing women’s incomes.

12. Roadmap: Access to networks and information • Increasing access for rural families is crucial to improving agricultural output. • Sharing indigenous knowledge and technological innovations is an important part of the farmer-to-farmer training that can spread best practices. Oxfam has encouraged farmers in Honduras to teach one another about composting practices. stubble on their fields, this has helped build up soil nutrients.

13. Roadmap: New policies • Agricultural policy must take into account the wide variety of farms that exists—in social, physical, and economic terms. • Community-based integrated water resource management (IWRM) helps communities keep water use within ecological limits. • National governments in developing countries should invest in small-scale food producers and natural resource management. Also public spending on basic education and social services for women.

14. Roadmap: Private sector involvement • Private sector must integrate small-scale food producers into value chains under fair terms. • they must coordinate with and support country-led plans, which should be developed in a transparent and inclusive manner. • Implement agro-ecological approach to farming. • share and manage risks associated with agriculture

15. References • Chapter 13, “Growing a Sustainable Future,” by Monique Mikhail, published in WorldwatchInstitute’s State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity. • Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) http://www.saiplatform.org/ • National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) http://sustainableagriculture.net/