The International Seminar on Agroecology for National and Local Policies: Lessons from Initiatives in the Global South, gathered together 55 participants from 18 countries in La Habana, Cuba from Dec 10-13th, to exchange experiences and lessons learned on how to strengthen the role of municipalities and other sub-national governments in scaling agroecology up and out. Through plenary sessions, panels, working groups, and field visits, participants shared policy strategies for healthy local food systems. Please read on to gain a flavor of discussions and findings.
The first of five knowledge exchange panels contextualized the legal and policy framework for the development of Agroecology in Cuba. The climate crisis was at the centre of the discussion as well as the National Food Security, Sovereignty and Nutritional Education Plan (Plan SSAN), the Food Sovereignty Law (Ley SSAN), and the Agroecology Law.
For Cuba, just as in many other countries across the globe, 2024 has been the warmest year on record, with an increase in sea levels, uncertain rainy seasons, longer droughts, and higher vulnerability to tropical storms and hurricanes. With agriculture taking up to 60% of the island’s water use, strategies to adapt and overcome the challenges of global warming are urgent.
Climate change has been under study in Cuba since the 1990s. Recognizing it as a threat, local authorities have designed a national plan (Tarea Vida) to strengthen the island’s capacity to adapt and remain resilient. For food systems, Tarea Vida aims to foster climate security across the food chain, from seed to plate, leveraging sustainable practices like agroecology to improve ecosystemic health across territories.
To ensure the effective support of the environmental and food production strategies proposed in Tarea Vida, public policies like Plan SSAN must be implemented in a complementary way. Local government agencies, civil society groups and research institutes in Cuba emphasize that while launching national policies into action is a step forward, these need to be adapted to the needs of local territories, for each demands different solutions. To ensure territorial input, in the second implementation phase of Plan SSAN, 714 capacity-building workshops were held with 777 provincial and municipal commission members, engaging over 23,000 people and training 1,073 promoters.
An efficient implementation of Plan SSAN would demonstrate the political will to put food sovereignty at the front of a public agenda, back the constitutional right to food, and favor the transition away from an import-dependent food system. Among the challenges to advancing Plan SSAN are the scarce funding for food production, transformation and distribution, and deficient nutritional education. The more than six decades-long U.S. imposed commercial, economic and financial blockade looms large.
In the second panel, partners from Uganda, Sri Lanka, and India shared their experiences and learnings in topics such as the development of national public policies on agroecology, the fight against seed privatization and unsuitable forms of transitioning to organic production, as well as the importance of promoting nature-centric farming practices.
Public policies at the state/department/provincial level were at the center of the third panel’s discussion. In Colombia, after three years of participatory work, the department of Antioquia developed an agroecology development plan to build and scale equitable food systems. In Brazil, the state of Bahia is fighting hunger through public policies that incentivize agroecological food production to contribute to public health, solidarity economies, and environmental justice. This includes public funds for agroecology extension services in partnership with civil society organizations. In the state of Paraná, local policies range from efforts like incentivizing urban farming, banning pesticides in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, transitioning to agroecology, and increasing food procurement of organic food to supply the public school feeding program. In October 2023, a bill in support of a Fund for Agroecology Transition was submitted to the State Deputy Assembly.
The fourth panel featured examples from Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, discussing municipal consortia and territorial networks to scale agroecology. Shared opportunities among these countries are: youth engagement, gender-focused strategies to support women farmers, strengthening the production and distribution of bio-inputs, and the participatory design of local policies with multiple stakeholders.
To close the panel discussions, representatives shared their strategies to promote agroecology in public policies and programs at a municipal level. In Cuba, in the municipality of Cabaiguan, Sancti Spiritus province, a multi-sectoral platform is engaged in a participatory action research process to strengthen governance processes and implement public policies like Plan SSAN, that support the territorialization of agroecology. This includes the mapping of local actors, the development of assessment methodologies, and the identification of priority actions to scale agroecology. This scope of work is part of the participatory research initiative (IPA-LAC) supported by the Agroecology Fund.
In Kenya, the implementation of agroecology in Murang’a County aligns with a national agroecology plan, approved in November 2024. The county seeks to leverage its awareness in educational spaces, strengthen cooperatives and local food hubs, collaborate with public hospitals for nutritional therapies, and engage youth for intergenerational memory. This plan includes a financial model to sustain the municipal policy implementation.
Land access for women farmers is at the forefront of the grassroots efforts of Sahel Eco in Mali, in partnership with Groundswell International. Based on communal ownership models, the municipality supports women’s groups to achieve tenure through mitigating conflicts and supporting community building.
In Argentina, joint work between civil society networks like the Union de los Trabajadores de la Tierra (UTT) and local governments seeks to improve land access, agroecology education, gender equality, youth engagement, and democratized access to clean, healthy foods. In partnership with the municipality of Mercedes, the UTT has created agroecological areas called “Colonias Agroecologicas” to facilitate access to land and healthy food supply.
Despite the differences between each country’s context, the implementation of effective agroecology policies on national and local levels is a shared vision across borders. Through working groups, participants engaged in the co-creation of ideas to promote agroecology in public policies, territorial markets and public financing. Stay tuned for more findings and recommendations that emerged from three days of dynamic conversation at a first-of-its-kind international conference, made possible with the support of the Porticus Foundation and Waverley Street Foundation.