Agroecology Fund grantees, staff, and allies recently participated in an inspiring agroecology gathering in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. This “Cultivating Change” conference, co-organized by Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Biovision Foundation, and the Agroecology Coalition, featured East Africa governments and civil society organizations (CSOs) presenting their emerging agroecology plans, with aspirations to muster public and private financing to support implementation. CSOs and researchers spoke to the urgency and possibility of transitioning food systems damaged by Green Revolution agricultural practices and policies. Colleagues from India – some representing the renowned Andhra Pradesh state program on Community-Managed Natural Farming and others affiliated with the Bharat Agroecology Fund – shared the powerful Indian experience with advancing agroecology.
Key takeaways from the gathering:
Planning in partnership is essential. Public leadership is essential for a sustainable food systems transition. Governments should be applauded for crafting national agroecology plans in partnership with NGOs and CSOs. However, professional NGOs may be different from community-based CSOs, and therefore, extra effort may be needed to ensure deep partnerships with civil society organizations, especially farmer organizations. At the end of the day, the plans must be meaningful to their farms, their diets, their livelihoods, and their rights. Fraught with power imbalances and political realities, it is not easy to get all actors in a room to imagine and plan for a more just and sustainable food future. The Tanzanian gathering demonstrated the possibilities for inclusive planning, but there is still much to learn about how governments and CSOs can work hand in hand to include all perspectives – youth, Indigenous People, women, and more. National agroecology planning is an opportunity for farmer organizations to advocate and hold local and national governments accountable.
National agroecology plans need implementation and accountability mechanisms. Plan implementation responsibilities must be shared among CSOs and governments. Within plan frameworks, farmer organizations must be perceived as critical implementation partners – and receive public funding for their critical work. At the same time, an agroecology plan must be dynamic and transparent, adjusting to community aspirations and methods. There must exist ongoing consultation spaces in which civil society can engage with governments to evaluate how plans are progressing and suggest course corrections. Agricultural budgets must be transparent, including the budgets for perverse subsidies that can undermine agroecology plans. Strengthening the international community for agroecology may be a helpful complement to ensure national transparency and accountability. Tanzania and Uganda are both members of the Agroecology Coalition. Through the Agroecology Coalition’s tracking finance tool, countries can assess their agroecology programs and make transparent their agroecology investments.
Financing agroecological transitions requires new funds and repurposing existing subsidies. At the conference, we didn’t get a full picture of how much each government currently allocates to subsidies for Green Revolution approaches. The sum and impact are substantial. It is essential to look at the overall agricultural budget to discover where funds that are currently misallocated towards unsustainable practices can be repurposed for agroecology. If these subsidies are not redirected, they will render agroecology plans symbolic, never maturing beyond pilot programs. The donors currently underwriting Green Revolution subsidies, especially the development banks, must be encouraged to repurpose their investments. Governments may respond positively when development banks shift their incentives.
Effective allocation of agroecology monies requires flows to governments and CSOs. Unlike Green Revolution approaches, which centralize research and extension in an Agricultural Ministry and within the private sector for sales of fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides, agroecology uses a very different approach. The core requirement to scale agroecology is horizontal, through representative farmer associations and networks. Co-creation with farmers sits at the center. Since most bilateral and multilateral funds flow through governments, it is essential that they build strong partnerships with farmer associations, organizations, and networks to implement priorities. Farmer organizations require funding to conduct their participatory research on appropriate bio-inputs, to develop small enterprises to process local foods, and to carry out farmer-to-farmer extension grounded in cultural norms. Therefore, governments must perceive donors’ direct support to these civil society organizations as a critical component of financing a national agroecology plan.
Agroecology planning must take place at national, municipal and regional governments to be effective. A national agroecology framework is essential. But since agroecology is at its core about territoriality and the ecological and cultural diversity within, implementation of programs and spending priorities must be centered in local governments. Importantly, it is with these local governments that civil society organizations have the most day-to-day contact and with whom they can have the most advocacy influence. As Kenya is demonstrating, agroecology plans shouldn’t only be national but municipal and regional as well.
A human rights frame must inform agroecology planning. Agroecology is not only a set of agricultural practices but a holistic approach to a sustainable and equitable food system. Safeguarding rights to natural resources, such as land and water, is an essential part of agroecology and advances national food sovereignty, community rights, and stewardship. Agroecology plans must include rights dimensions for all, particularly for youth, women, and Indigenous Peoples.
Track agroecology progress through appropriate metrics. With climate financing emerging as a possibility to underwrite an agroecological transition, metrics require evidence of carbon capture. It is necessary to inquire: Evidence by whom, for whom? It has been amply demonstrated that healthy soils capture carbon. Likewise, research shows that soils are healthier with polycultures rather than monocultures. Rather than agroecology plans requiring that farmers produce hard-to-obtain data on carbon capture gathered by third-party consulting firms, farmers’ own proxies can provide sufficient evidence. These must be accepted data points to track progress on agroecology plans. Nations can also show carbon capture through soil rejuvenation in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and as part of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) strategies.
Donors are essential and must respond to community-led solutions. The Global Alliance for the Future of Food’s Report, Cultivating Change, “estimates annual transition costs (to agroecology and regenerative approaches) to be USD 250 to 430 billion, which is notably less than current agricultural subsidies”. In the face of this considerable financing gap, contributions from donors and investors are critical complements to tax revenues and other national mechanisms to finance the agroecological transition. Donors were warmly welcomed at the Arusha gathering to gain a better understanding of where their funds are most needed. At the same time, we know that donor-driven initiatives are not sustainable in the long term. Donors’ most important job is to listen and respond generously to community-led solutions.
The Cultivating Change conference was a landmark event to accelerate agroecology planning and implementation while backing it up with finance. Governments, NGOs, CSOs, and donors of various stripes came together to explore how to advance an agroecological transformation. It was an excellent learning lab for how to support a very challenging process. Let’s continue to reflect on the lessons from this illuminating gathering to deepen support for inclusive agroecology planning across the globe.
