THE EARTHSCAN READER IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
EDITED BY JULES PRETTY
EARTHSCAN 2005
PART VIII
PART V: PERSPECTIVES FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Introduction to Part 5: Perspectives from Developing Countries by Jules Pretty
The final section of this Reader in Sustainable Agriculture focuses on six perspectives from developing countries. These begin with an overview of the rethinking opportunities for agriculture (by Erick Fernandes, Alice Pell and Norman Uphoff), and are followed with assessments of change towards sustainability in central America (by Roland Bunch and Gabino Lopez), of agroecological transformations in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Caterina (by Sergio Pinheiro), of Cuba’s experience with sustainable agriculture (by Peter Rosset and Martin Bourque), of the benefits of agroforestry in east and southern Africa (by Pedro Sanchez), and finally on how agricultural sustainability in more than 200 projects across 52 countries has had substantial positive effects on yield increases (by Jules Pretty, James Morison and Rachel Hine).
In the first article, Erick Fernandes and colleagues summarize the types of transitions effected by the Green Revolution, and then set out a vision for agriculture centred on field-culture, with sensitivities towards patterns in space and time. Monocultures are often erroneously seen as real agriculture, yet it is polycultures that have long offered rural people opportunities to maintain on-farm diversity of products and their functions. Multifunctional systems with many components are more resilient and meet many needs compared with mono-functional systems. This chapter sets out four ideas that need revising: that pest control always needs pesticides, that soil fertility constraints always need chemical fertilizers, that solving water problems needs new irrigation, and that raising productivity only needs genetic and breeding approaches. There are many productive opportunities that can arise by adopting more biological and people-centred approaches to agricultural development and its sustainability.
The second article, by Bunch and Lopez, describes the remarkable work of various NGOs in central American countries of Guatemala and Honduras during the 1980s and early 1990s. It is an evaluation of the long-term effectiveness of soil recuperation programmes that focused primarily on the use of green manures and cover crops in maize-based systems. This impact study investigated what farmers were still doing some years after the end of three programmes in Cantarranas, Guinope and San Martin Jilotepeque. These programmes have already documented substantial increases in productivity on small farms, and this study found that there was evidence of considerable spread and adaptation of technologies after termination of official projects. Farmers were voluntarily taking up these new technologies, adapting them to their own conditions, and then spreading them to others. This question of persistence of technological innovations is a critical element of any debates about what constitutes agricultural sustainability.
In the third article, Sergio Pinheiro describes the experience of sustainable and agroecological development of rural areas of the state of Santa Caterina in Brazil. One driver of the process has been the Ecological Farmers Association of the Hillsides of Santa Caterina State (Agreco), who have sought to help transform production systems towards organic models through cooperation, solidarity and team work. This collective model for both production and marketing is essential if small farmers are to make transitions in a competitive local as well as global food system. Those farmers involved have increased the diversity of their farm produce, as well as increased demand for labour in rural areas. These farmers’ organizations and networks are also adding value to farm produce through local agroindustry, this is selling food with a story rather than simply as a commodity.
The forth article by Peter Rosset and Martin Bourque is the introductory chapter to the book entitled Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance, which tells the story of Cuba’s recent transition to agricultural sustainability following the cessation of external support with the collapse of the Soviet bloc at the beginning of the 1990s. This is, in itself, a unique set of circumstances, yet the transformation of agricultural practices and institutions over a short period of time has been remarkable. At the turn of the century, Cuba was the only developing country with an explicit national policy for sustainable agriculture. To the end of the 1980s, Cuba’s agricultural sector was heavily subsidized by the Soviet bloc. It imported more than half of all calories consumed, and 80-95% of wheat, beans, fertilizer, pesticides and animal fed. It received three times the world price for its sugar. But in 1990 trade with the Soviet bloc collapsed, leading to severe shortages in all imports, and restricting farmers access to petroleum, fertilizers and pesticides. The government’s response was to declare an ‘Alternative Model’ as the official policy – an agriculture that focused on technologies that substituted local knowledge, skills and resources for the imported inputs. It also emphasized the diversification of agriculture, oxen to replace tractors, integrated pest management to replace pesticides, and the promotion of better cooperation among farmers both within and between communities. It has taken time to succeed. Calorific availability was 2600 kilocalories (kcal) per day in 1990, fell disastrously to between 1000-1500 soon after the transition, leading to severe hunger, but subsequently rose to 2700kcal per day by the end of 1990. Two important strands to sustainable agriculture in Cuba have emerged. First, intensive organic gardens have been developed in urban areas – self-provisioning gardens in schools and workplaces (autoconsumos), raised container-bed gardens (organoponicos) and intensive community gardens (huertos intensivos). There are now more than 7000 urban gardens, and productivity has grown from 1.5kg/sm to nearly 20kg/sm. Second, sustainable agriculture is encouraged in rural areas, where the impact of the new policy has already been substantial.
The fifth article, by Pedro Sanchez, describes the benefits of agroforestry in farming systems in Kenya and Zambia. Agroforestry is the practice of integration of trees and other perennials into farming systems, and is, of course, an ancient practice. During the 1980s, agroforestry was widely promoted for conservation purposes, but has had somewhat limited impact on people’s livelihoods. This paper shows, however, how agroforestry can be fully integrated into farm systems of poor households, leading both to soil fertility replenishment and substantially increased yields. Some of the practices can appear counter-intuitive to farmers a first – such as leaving land fallow for perennial growth over a season or more – yet the evidence is unequivocal. Get the mix of crops and perennials right, and farm families and their environments can benefit substantially.
For the sixth paper, Jules Pretty and colleagues conducted a large survey of sustainable agriculture improvements in developing countries. The aim was to audit progress towards agricultural sustainability, and access the extent to which such initiatives, if spread on a much larger scale, could feed a growing world population that is already substantially food insecure. They analysed more than 200 projects in 52 countries, including 45 in Latin America, 63 in Asia and 100 in Africa, and calculated that almost 9 million farmers were using sustainable agriculture practices on about 29 million hectares, more than 98% of which emerged during the 1990s. These methods were working particularly well for small farmers, as about half of those surveyed are in projects with a mean area per farmer of less than one hectare, and 90% in areas with less than two hectares each.
Improvements in food production were found to be occurring through one or more of four different mechanisms. The first involves the intensification of a single component of farm system, with little change to the rest of the farm, such as home garden intensification with vegetables and/or tree crops, vegetables on rice bunds, and introduction of fish ponds or a dairy cow. The second involves the addition of a new productive element to a farm system, such as fish or shrimps in paddy rice, or agroforestry, which provides a boost to total farm food production and/or income, but which do not necessarily affect cereal productivity. The third involves better use of nature to increase total farm production, especially water (by water harvesting and irrigation scheduling), and land (by reclamation of degraded land), so leading to additional new dryland crops and/or increased supply of additional water for irrigated crops, and thus so increasing cropping intensity. The fourth involves improvements in per hectare yields of staples through the introduction of new regenerative elements into farm systems, such as legumes and integrated pest management, and new and locally appropriate crop varieties and animal breeds. The study found that sustainable agriculture has led to an average 93% increase in per hectare food production. The relative yield increases are greater at lower yields, indicating greater benefits for poor farmers, and for those missed by the recent decades of modern agricultural development.
Perspective 22: Rethinking Agriculture for New Opportunities by Erick Fernandes, Alice Pell & Norman Uphoff