Scaling up Agroecology

Chris Henderson

• Publisher: Practical Action Publishing
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781780449180
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

To eradicate extreme poverty means focusing on the 500 million smallholders so they can reliably generate more food and income from their agricultural activities. This paper uses the three pillars of Technology Justice (access, local innovation, and sustainable use of technologies) to assess the range of agricultural development pathways available. Agroecology emerges as the strongest pathway for leaving no one behind and meeting the triple challenge of productivity, sustainability and poverty eradication, as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. This policy briefing presents existing evidence and research in agroecology alongside case studies of successful initiatives with scalable potential, particularly where market systems are at the core of development practices. Considering the barriers to scaling up agroecology, the paper recommends that development actors work together to identify incentives to enable systemic change, through facilitating market systems and private-sector engagement in agroecological production and value chains.

Executive summary

Agriculture remains a major focus of development efforts. With the global population expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050, coupled with the negative impacts of climate change on agricultural production, a serious strain is being placed on the sector. This is exacerbated by the concentration of extreme poverty among smallholder farmers in the least developed countries.

Meeting this triple challenge is at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, which call for ‘leaving no one behind’. Yet, intensification-centred approaches to agricultural development have fundamentally failed to be inclusive; they do not address the needs or tap the productive potential of smallholder farmers.

This paper assesses the range of agricultural development pathways using the Technology Justice framework, looking at the significant issue of access for smallholder farmers, the sustainability of the pathways, and the opportunities for supporting local innovation. Agroecology emerges as the strongest pathway for leaving no one behind and meeting the triple challenge of productivity, sustainability and poverty eradication.

This policy briefing presents existing evidence and research in agroecology alongside case studies of successful initiatives with scalable potential, particularly those where market systems are at the core of development practices.

Agroecology emerges as the strongest pathway for leaving no one behind

Several barriers to scaling up agroecology exist, posing a challenge to its use in development programming. To address these barriers, we recommend governments, donors, researchers, and civil society work together to use the existing evidence to promote agroecological research, practice, and incentives to facilitate systemic change.

This paper presents a variety of potential opportunities to adapt market systems and entry points for private-sector investment and engagement in agroecological systems. These can stimulate scalable, profitable and sustainable business models to help reach many millions more smallholder farmers, enabling them to ‘step up’ within agriculture rather than remain ‘hanging in’.

Introduction

Current approaches to agricultural development have boosted productivity through the application of modern technologies, synthetic inputs, and economies of scale across large farms. But such approaches have fundamentally failed to address the needs and tap the productive potential of smallholder farmers. Moreover, they have created production systems that are environmentally unsustainable and which can trap poor farmers in cycles of debt and poverty. This has led to a serious technology injustice, one that will undermine the very essence of the newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which call for ‘leaving no one behind’.

This paper calls for governments and donors to build on existing experience to promote agroecological research and provide incentives for agroecological practice in order to facilitate greater private-sector investment and system change.

The challenge is to address the existing ‘catch-22’ situation, whereby there are few existing commercial incentives for investment in agroecological farming, resulting in a lack of experience, learning, and innovation in such farming which, in turn, leads to a paucity of evidence and incentive for further investment (see also Gómez et al.,2012).

Existing applications of agroecological practices show that they can increase productivity (especially in marginal environments), are more resilient to climate shocks, achieve long-term sustainability, and can be readily adopted and adapted by risk-averse and poor smallholder farmers, but are often classified as anecdotal or small scale.

The need for a practical use of agroecology

A widely used definition of agroecology was developed by Altieri (1995): ‘the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agro-ecosystems’. It is recognized as having three facets:

•a scientific discipline involving the holistic study of agro-ecosystems, including human and environmental elements;

•a set of principles and practices to enhance the resilience and ecological, socio-economic, and cultural sustainability of farming systems;

•a movement seeking a new way of considering agriculture and its relationships with society for the environment and future generations (Silici, 2014).

That ‘agroecology’ has therefore been used to describe a science, a practice, and a social movement for reform of the global food system has created much debate, indecision, and controversy.

Agroecology is a scientific discipline enabling an understanding of agriculture within its physical context (see Box 1). Its practice is necessary for sustainable and resilient agriculture – whether for smallholders, emerging commercial farmers, or large-scale production systems (Wezel et al., 2009).

Why agroecology is relevant and needed

The needs and contributions of many smallholder farmers are not being addressed, as evidenced by stagnating yields, incomes and livelihoods. This group is often referred to as the ‘hanging in’: they usually practise subsistence farming and are often food insecure (Dorward et al., 2009). The reason they are hanging in – unable to ‘step up’ – is because conventional agricultural development and growth strategies do not work for them. There are some 500 million smallholder farms worldwide; more than 2 billion people depend on them for their livelihoods (Nwanze, 2011). Improving the productivity and livelihoods of smallholder farmers is crucial to achieving the poverty and food security goals of the SDGs.

Box 1: The principles of agroecology

Holistic planning

•The health of the whole agroecosystem is necessary for sustainability.

•A farming system must be in harmony with the productive potential and physical limits of the landscape.

Recycle and optimize the use of nutrients and energy on the farm

•Optimize organic matter decomposition and leguminous nitrogen fixation.

•Minimize losses.

•Avoid chemicals.

•Minimize non-renewable inputs (fossil fuels).

Management

•Enhance beneficial biological interactions and synergy through on-farm biodiversity, e.g. use natural enemies and antagonists to manage pests and diseases.

•Diversify species and genetic resources in the agroecosystem over time to improve resilience.

•Use local crop varieties and livestock breeds to enhance adaptation to the changing environment.

•Provide the most favourable soil conditions for plant growth by managing organic matter and soil biological activity.

Source: adapted from Silici, 2014

Policies need to meet the triple challenge of production, sustainability and poverty eradication

The challenge is to generate incentives for innovative investment by farmers and businesses, large and small, in agroecological markets and production systems. This policy brief looks at the choices – innovative pathways for policy and investment – and the barriers to these pathways. We examine learning from existing market-based practice, consider the private-sector opportunities, and propose new research, innovation, and investment by development actors and others.

Agricultural development pathways

In many parts of the world, particularly in Africa, the production practices of the majority of smallholder farmers are neither sustainable nor productive. Population growth has fragmented landholdings and increased the pressure on land (IFAD and UNEP, 2013). The task recognized by the recently agreed SDGs (goals 1, 2, 8, 12, 13 and 15 in particular – see UN, 2014) is to address the triple challenge of:

•boosting food production to meet growing demands;

•improving the incomes and well-being of smallholder farmers to move them out of extreme poverty;

•working within the boundaries of sustainability to ensure that future generations can continue to provide food for the world, and that the first two aspects are not undermined by climate impacts and shocks.

There are different schools of thought about how to address these challenges, as reflected in the three dominant agricultural development pathways promoted by a range of organizations and institutions. These can be broadly categorized as:

1.‘green revolution’ style conventional agriculture, which promotes monocropping and extensive synthetic input use to maximize yields of a single crop;

2.sustainable intensification, which blends aspects of agroecology with modern technological agricultural practices, such as targeted use of synthetic inputs and improved seeds;

3.low external-input systems that use agroecological principles to enhance production and resilience to changing climatic conditions. These systems can require high internal inputs of labour, knowledge and social capital.

The main characteristics of these three approaches are outlined in Table 1. The distinction between the three approaches is not clear-cut and is made here for illustrative purposes only. The scale with which these different pathways are able to meet the triple challenge is illustrated in Figure 1.

A Bolivian farmer tending to her quinoa crop – a resilient, nutritious and valuable crop for Andean farmers, credit: Samuel Rendon/Manuel Seoane © Practical Action

The Technology Justice framework (Meikle and Sugden, 2015), set out in the first paper of this policy briefing series, provides a lens ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Executive summary
• Copyright