•  uxbridge
• Wednesday, March 09, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Eco-farming could double food production in entire regions within 10 years while mitigating climate change, according to a new U.N. report released Tuesday in Geneva.

An urgent transformation to ‘eco-farming’ is the only way to end hunger and face the challenges of climate change and rural poverty, said Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, following the presentation of his annual report focusing on agro-ecology and the right to food to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

'Agro-ecology mimics nature not industrial processes. It replaces the external inputs like fertiliser with knowledge of how a combination of plants, trees and animals can enhance productivity of the land,' De Schutter told IPS, stressing that, 'Yields went up 214 percent in 44 projects in 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa using agro-ecological farming techniques over a period of 3 to 10 years… far more than any GM [genetically modified] crop has ever done.'

Other recent scientific assessments have shown that small farmers in 57 countries using agro-ecological techniques obtained average yield increases of 80 percent. Africans’ average increases were 116 percent. 'Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agro- ecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilisers in boosting food production in regions where the hungry live,' De Schutter said.

Agro-ecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems. It enhances soil productivity and protects crops against pests by relying on the natural elements.

Eco-farming doesn’t require expensive inputs of fossil-fuel- based pesticides, fertilisers, machinery or hybrid seeds. It is ideally suited for poor smallholder farmers and herders who are the bulk of the one billion hungry people in the world. Efforts by governments and major donors such as the 400-million- dollar Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to subsidise fertilizer and hybrid seeds will produce quick boosts in yields but are not sustainable in the long term, De Schutter said.

Malawi is touted as an AGRA success story by funders such as the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation who have massively subsidised fertilizer and created a corresponding improvement in food production. However the country simply cannot afford to continue those subsidies and is shifting its strategy to agro-ecology. 'The [Malawi] government now subsidises farmers to plant nitrogen-fixing trees in their fields to ensure sustained growth in maize production,' he said.

De Shutter says AGRA is looking for quick results and is getting them. He has found it difficult to overcome AGRA proponents’ suspicions about the effectiveness of agro-ecology, despite the mounting evidence. 'I expect countries to express scepticism towards these solutions because they are not in accord with the dominant paradigm,' De Schutter said.

The dominant view of agriculture is the industrial approach - of maximising efficiency and yield. However that system is utterly dependent on cheap fossil fuels and never having to be held accountable for environmental degradation and other impacts.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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