We already know how to invest in the kind of equitable and sustainable food systems that can build climate resilience. Yet while the hazards of industrial agriculture (and the opportunities offered by agroecological food systems) are equally well known, most money still bets on the status quo: increasing the use of imported fertilizers and pesticides and motorized irrigation, despite high costs and questionable returns. Ignoring potent natural fertilizers, crop mixes, and water management practices that are cost-effective ways to produce diverse crops, short-sighted thinking—accompanied by short-term investments—stymie creative solutions. By emphasizing a global food economy and export value chains that reinforce fossil-fuel dependence, local and publicly managed markets get overlooked. Meanwhile, the acceleration toward fewer foods in our diets, often grown in monocultures, hurts landscapes, cultures, and health, eclipsing a richness of diverse, localized food systems neglected by investors.
Read the full op-ed written by Jen Astone and Daniel Moss in Stanford Social Innovation Review here.
What is evidence? Why is it important? Who ought to generate it for what purpose? These are just some of the questions answered by the Grassroots Evidence for Agroecology Initiative.
To counter industrial agriculture’s powerful claim that they feed the world, we need to present strong evidence that agroecology can be scaled as the foundation of sustainable and equitable food systems across the world. But what makes a compelling case and who ought to present it to whom, for maximum influence and effectiveness?
In 2020 at the Agroecology Fund Learning Exchange in India, the way to approach evidence building was a key topic of discussion among grantees, funders and allies. Three important messages emerged:
1. There is a need to develop a new narrative of what constitutes evidence;
2. The process of evidence gathering must be participatory and creative;
3. Participants recommended that Agroecology Fund should extend support to grantees for gathering and disseminating evidence for agroecology.
As a result of these conversations, Agroecology Fund partnered with Statistics for Sustainable Development(Stats4SD) in late 2020 to launch the Grassroots Evidence for Agroecology (GEA) initiative. Stats4SD is a not-for-profit, social enterprise that promotes better use of statistical methods for decision-making to benefit society and the environment. Throughout 2021 and 2022, four grantees volunteered to participate in the GEA pilot, receiving methodological support from Stats4SD. The GEA pilot tested and developed a process to support grassroots organisations’ efforts to build and communicate evidence to their target audiences and demonstrate their impact. During the pilot phase, participants developed four evidence-based cases:
*Two cases by Slow Food International and Slow Food Uganda;
*One case by Grupo Autónomo para la Investigación Ambienta (GAIA), Mexico;
*One by Centro de Desenvolvimento Agroecológico do Cerrado (CEDAC), Brazil.
The results from the pilot phase were shared in this report in early 2024.
In 2024, we also launched an online course in multiple languages to share the methodology. Enrollment remains open. The Agroecology Fund also opened an internal call for current grantees and awarded 15 small grants to support documentation and production of communication products. These grantees received methodological support of the Stats4SD team throughout 2024 . The resulting evidence-based cases were organized into an Online Catalogue, a platform for sharing evidence built from the grassroots perspective. The cases in this catalog were developed by grassroots organisations using a structured approach to turn their knowledge and experiences into compelling arguments for agroecology. By using rigorous evidence to support their claims, these cases aim to influence farmers, communities, donors, policymakers, researchers and consumers—key actors in the transformation of food systems.
On February 25, 2025 Agroecology Fund held a webinar to launch the online catalog and hear from grassroots partners from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, including grantee partners Asociación ANDES (Peru), ESAFF Uganda, and GRAVIS (India) about their experience in documenting and communicating evidence for agroecology more strategically. The launch event was attended by hundreds of people from across the globe and generated much attention and engagement. You can watch the recording here.
This collection is an evolving resource, and we invite more contributions from grassroots organisations working to build the case for agroecology. We encourage you to explore the cases, learn from their insights, and join us in strengthening the movement, the practice and the science that drives the quest for sustainable and just food systems. We extend our gratitude to the farmers, Indigenous communities, and grassroots groups whose experiences shape this work. Join us in sharing and building up the evidence for agroecology!
This interview was originally published by Agroecology Fund long term partner Alliance for Food Sovereignty Africa (AFSA) for their Voice of AFSA Series and is published here with permission.
Elizabeth Mpofu is a renowned farmer, activist, and global leader in the fight for food sovereignty, agroecology, and rural women’s rights. A practicing organic farmer in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth has dedicated her life to advocating for smallholder farmers, especially women and indigenous communities, ensuring their voices are heard at national, regional, and global levels. She is a founding member and former chairperson of the Zimbabwe Smallholders Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF), an organization representing 19,000 small-scale farmers—13,000 of whom are women—who practice ecological farming. She has also chaired the Eastern and Southern Africa Small-Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) and served on the board of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). From 2013 to 2021, she served as the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina (LVC), the world’s largest peasant movement.
Elizabeth’s leadership has been widely recognized. In 2016, she was appointed Special Ambassador for Pulses in Africa by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), highlighting her dedication to promoting sustainable, nutritious food systems. In 2017, she founded the African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems, bringing together women leaders from across Africa to advance food sovereignty, economic justice, and rural women’s rights. Her work has earned her numerous accolades, including the Inaugural Charlotte Maxeke African Women Leadership Award in 2023 for her outstanding contributions to gender equality and community service.
Early Life and Education
I was born on December 30, 1959, in South Africa, in Barkwana Hospital. My father was working in South Africa at the time, and he married my mother, who was South African.
When I was five years old, my mother decided to move to what was then Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe. After we arrived, we settled in a remote area in Manicaland province, where we had our family farm. Although I was very young, I understood that my mother, being South African, was not allowed to work on the farms. So, in the beginning, we had to assist her on the farm since my father had stayed behind in South Africa for work.
It was a big challenge. We had relatives there, but we couldn’t communicate with them well. They had their own homes, and we also wanted to have our own piece of land. However, it was difficult for my mother to acquire land. But through thick and thin, with the assistance of some of my father’s relatives, we eventually managed to get our own piece of land.
I started school when I was six years old at Marume Primary School in Buhera, Manicaland province. One of the biggest challenges I faced at that time was that I couldn’t speak our mother language, Shona. In South Africa, we spoke other languages such as Zulu, Xhosa, a little bit of Afrikaans, and Sotho. But in Buhera, no one was familiar with these languages. So, I had to try communicating in English, but it took me some time to learn and adapt to Shona, which is the main language spoken in Zimbabwe.
I attended school in Manicaland from grade one to grade five. Then, for grades six and seven, my aunt—my father’s sister—took me to her area in the eastern part of Zimbabwe, where I continued my education. However, I was unable to complete my secondary education due to challenges at home. At times, it was difficult for my parents to afford the school fees for my higher education. Additionally, cultural beliefs played a role—at that time, people believed that girls didn’t need to pursue higher education, while boys were considered the most important members of the family when it came to education.
Family Life and Farming Journey
As a girl, I spent much of my time working with my mother on the farm. Although our farming practices were not entirely agroecological, we still tried to work sustainably, using manure and other natural methods.
I grew up in a family of eight—five girls and three boys. Among us, the girls were the majority, and I was the eldest daughter. However, I had two older brothers. Both of them had the opportunity to pursue secondary and higher education—one became a teacher, while the other joined the war to fight for our country. As you know, Zimbabwe has a history of struggle, and my brother was one of the war veterans who fought for our land.
While my brothers pursued their paths, I stayed home with my mother. My sisters also had the opportunity to go to school; they reached secondary level, and one of them became a teacher. Two of my sisters married before I did. Despite not furthering my education, I was happy to be at home with my mother. She taught me so much about farming, and I developed a deep passion for it. She always explained the importance of producing our own food instead of relying on purchases when we had access to land. This is where I truly learned and developed my love for farming.
I got married in 1982 and had three children—two boys and one girl. Now, I have almost eleven grandchildren. Although they live with their parents, I support them, particularly with their education. As a grandmother, I cannot let my grandchildren struggle—I want to ensure they have a bright future. They live in the surrounding area, about 30 kilometers from Chirumhanzu, but they often visit during the holidays. During these visits, we spend time together on the farm.
After retiring, my father returned to Zimbabwe and worked in Harare for a short period. Eventually, he retired fully, but he became ill and passed away, leaving us with our mother. My mother is still alive today—she is now 93 years old. I am currently staying with her in Shurugwi because she is unwell. I am grateful for the opportunity to be with her and take care of her.
The Beginning of My Journey in Environmental and Food Sovereignty Activism
My journey began in the 1990s while my husband was still working as a police officer. At the time, we were living in Masvingo, in a police camp called Zimuto Camp. In this camp, we had a women’s group called Quezon Women’s Club, a club for the wives of police officers. We formed this club to share ideas and work on small projects to sustain ourselves as women instead of relying solely on our husbands.
One day, we were approached by three individuals who had identified our women’s club. They were from an organization called the Association of Zimbabwe Traditional Environmental Conservationists (AZTREC). The main objective of this organization was to revive cultural norms and values, particularly traditional farming practices, while promoting environmental conservation and respect for Mother Earth.
During one of their visits, I was chosen to represent our women’s club in this organization. I was approached by Nelson Mdzingwa, Mr. Shamu, and Cosmas Gonese, who was the director and founding member of AZTREC. As I attended their meetings and workshops, I was eventually elected as the chairperson of the organization. AZTREC included spirit mediums, chiefs, war veterans, and ordinary people like myself.
This organization taught me so much—about taking care of the environment, how our ancestors managed soil and natural resources sustainably, and how they produced food without using herbicides, chemicals, or synthetic fertilizers. I was truly happy to be part of AZTREC and to learn from its work.
Then, in 2002, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, our organization, along with others under the PELUM Association, selected a few farmers to attend. I was among those chosen from AZTREC. At this summit, I learned more about activism. We met farmers from different countries who were also activists, and I started to realize: What we are doing now is activism. We are fighting for our rights, for social justice, and for the environment. That experience deepened my interest and commitment to activism.
As a result, I became involved in the Eastern and Southern Africa Small-Scale Farmers’ Forum (ESAFF), which was formed during this period. When we returned to Zimbabwe, we also established ZIMSOFF (Zimbabwe Small Organic Farmers’ Forum), though at the time, we were not yet registered. Our work was rooted in activism—amplifying the voices of the voiceless, advocating for women’s access to land, and filling the gaps that the government was not addressing.
In 2007, ZIMSOFF officially became a registered organization. By then, our activism had become even stronger, focusing on land rights, sustainable farming, and environmental conservation. I continued to lead ZIMSOFF, and in 2008, I was elected chairperson of ESAFF, a position I held until 2011. From there, I continued leading efforts in Zimbabwe and across the region, strengthening small-scale farmers’ voices in policy and advocacy.
My Involvement in La Via Campesina and Global Activism
In 2011, I stepped down as the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Small Organic Farmers’ Forum because our organization had joined the global peasant movement, La Via Campesina, through the Eastern and Southern Africa region. However, becoming a member of this global movement was a process—it took us two years to complete the necessary procedures and requirements.
During this time, we had the opportunity to host members of La Via Campesina, who visited Zimbabwe from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. They came to see our work even before we were officially recognized as members. When they arrived, they were particularly interested in the discussions around the land reform program, as we were deeply involved in reclaiming land. This marked the beginning of our journey with La Via Campesina.
In 2013, I was elected as the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina, representing Africa. This movement is a global peasant movement that fights for food sovereignty, agroecology, and the rights of peasants, including access to land, seeds, and food. I took over the coordination from Indonesia, where the movement had previously been hosted. I served as the General Coordinator from 2013 to 2021, completing my term of office.
During this time, I was also actively involved in advocacy work at the United Nations (UN), especially with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). We represented peasants in high-level meetings across different countries, including Geneva, pushing for the recognition of agroecology and food sovereignty—issues that were not even acknowledged at the UN level at the time.
Through La Via Campesina’s tireless efforts, we played a key role in the development and adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). I was deeply involved in the process, and I was proud to see this declaration finally adopted in New York. This was a historic moment, as it formally recognized the rights of peasants at an international level. Even after completing my term with La Via Campesina, I remain an active activist because this is my passion—this is who I am.
Our activism gained momentum after attending the World Social Forum, where we were encouraged to create our own independent platforms to amplify the voices of farmers. Before, we had no opportunities to attend international conferences or workshops; the secretariats of our organizations were the ones speaking on our behalf. Yet, we were the ones working on the ground, experiencing the real challenges. This realization pushed us to form our own peasant-led organizations, ensuring that farmers could represent themselves in global discussions.
Reflecting on my journey—from where I started to where I am today—feels incredible. It’s a story I want to share, even with my grandchildren, so they understand the struggles and victories that shaped our movement.
In 2016, I was honored to be nominated as a United Nations Special Ambassador for the International Year of Pulses, representing Africa. This made me reflect on what I wanted to achieve beyond my role in La Via Campesina, knowing that my term would eventually come to an end. As a woman, I also recognized the deep connection between women and seeds—the foundation of food sovereignty.
With this vision in mind, I co-founded the African Women Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems, which I am leading today.
Challenges and Achievements in Advocacy for Food Sovereignty
I will focus primarily on Zimbabwe because we were fortunate when it came to land access and land rights. As you know, we fought hard for our land, and this gave us a significant advantage in our advocacy efforts. We did not face major challenges in engaging with the government because we organized dialogues with parliamentarians and presented our concerns. Many of them were supportive of what we were advocating for—particularly regarding access to land. While Zimbabwe had a land reform program, it did not benefit the majority, especially women and young people.
Our main argument was that women need their own land, and young people also require land to build their futures. Fortunately, this was not a major obstacle in Zimbabwe, as these issues were being addressed. In fact, between 20% to 25% of women in Zimbabwe have received land under their own names. I am also among those women who hold land titles in my own name—not under my husband’s name, but my own. My land certificate is registered in my name.
Even though my husband and I worked together on the farm before he passed away in 2019, he always recognized that this was my land. He also had his own piece of land, and we decided to allocate it to our son. Meanwhile, we stayed and developed our land here in Sherwood, Mvuma (correcting possible misspellings: “Shershe in Mershrigo”). Our goal was always to practice sustainable agriculture.
However, in many other African countries, small-scale farmers, especially women and peasants, still struggle to access land. In some places, men still dominate land ownership, making it difficult for women to secure their own land to cultivate. Many African governments are aware of La Via Campesina and the global peasant movement, but challenges remain.
I remember when we were discussing UNDROP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas) before it was adopted. We engaged with African governments in Geneva and New York, and when the time came for voting, Africa voted as a bloc, with the majority supporting UNDROP. To me, this showed that our governments understand its importance and what it stands for.
However, the main challenge is implementation. Not all African governments have started implementing UNDROP, despite being part of the process. We continue to work together to push for its implementation, ensuring that peasant rights, land access, and food sovereignty are respected and upheld.
Joining AFSA and the Push for Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in Africa
Our path to joining AFSA as an organization was driven by our shared commitment to food and seed sovereignty. As a grassroots organization, ZIMSOFF, which advocates for the rights of smallholder farmers, we saw AFSA as a very important platform that enables us to amplify our voices and collaborate with like-minded organizations across Africa.
ZIMSOFF joined AFSA to strengthen our advocacy efforts on key issues such as farmers’ rights to land and seeds and to promote agroecological practices, which we see as the only solution to climate change.
Through AFSA, we have engaged in campaigns and dialogues to address issues that were not being tackled, particularly the barriers to food sovereignty, while ensuring that smallholder farmers’ voices are heard at national, regional, and international levels. Our membership in AFSA has also allowed us to contribute to and benefit from collective action, especially on climate justice and the rights of women and youth in farming communities.
The widespread adoption of agroecology among farmers is about promoting sustainable farming practices that help communities increase their resilience to climate change while enhancing food security and nutrition. We know that these aspects have been lacking because of the industrial farming systems that have been promoted.
We have seen that soils are no longer able to produce enough food due to these industrial systems. This is why we are strongly advocating for agroecological farming across Africa.
One of the key achievements I do not want to leave out is the lobbying of governments—particularly to recognize and support agroecology. Right now, in Zimbabwe, agroecology is in the hands of policymakers. This is very important to us because it shows that grassroots movements can drive systematic change.
I am very proud—proud of myself and of my organization—for the role we have played in empowering farmers to speak for themselves, both nationally and internationally. AFSA has given us the space to amplify the voices of the voiceless, including small-scale farmers, indigenous people, and small fisherfolk.
Being able to engage directly with decision-makers—especially in spaces where we were previously excluded—is a huge accomplishment. This has helped us ensure that our needs and priorities are being addressed. These accomplishments also reflect the power of collective action and the resilience of our farming communities.
Reclaiming the Right to Produce and Decide What We Eat
Food sovereignty is about having the power to decide what we eat and how we produce it. No one should come and tell us, “You must produce maize.” Is maize our staple food? No.
Africa has a diversity of food crops, which our ancestors have been cultivating for generations. But because of colonization, we were made to believe that maize is the only staple food. As a result, we have abandoned our own traditional crops.
But true food sovereignty means embracing our own diverse food crops and rejecting imposed food systems.
Africa Can Feed Itself
I want people to understand something very important about Africa: Africa is a rich and diverse continent, blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We have fertile lands, vast water bodies, and a favorable climate for agriculture.
Yes, we face climate change and systemic inequities, but African agriculture holds immense potential. We must reject the narrative that Africa is hungry. The idea that millions of Africans are hungry is their own narrative—it is not our reality.
The truth is, Africa can feed itself. This is the message I want people outside Africa to understand. And it is a message that our young people must also recognize.
Right now, we are aware of debates about new farming technologies, where people want to introduce IT-based farming solutions. But we know what we want and how we want to produce food.
We are not rejecting technology, but we understand its role. Our youth can use IT and digital tools to help farmers—especially in areas like market access. But we must ensure that technology serves the people, not controls them.
Strengthening Agroecology Movements Across Africa
For agroecology to succeed, civil society organizations in Africa must unite. Many African governments prioritize industrial farming because it serves the interests of multinational corporations.
These governments undermine agroecology and local food systems, even though they know where they come from—they grew up eating food from these very systems. But due to greed, they are allowing multinational corporations to dictate policies.
This is why agroecology movements in Africa must not work in isolation. We must unite under AFSA—not divide ourselves into AFSA West Africa or AFSA Southern Africa. No, we need one AFSA, a strong and unified network that represents us at all levels.
One major challenge is convincing farmers to transition from conventional farming to agroecology. The problem is misinformation, particularly from media houses, which spread the false narrative that agroecology cannot feed the world.
This is a bad narrative, and the media plays a role in reinforcing it because they do not engage with the farmers on the ground. Instead, they promote industrial agriculture without understanding agroecology’s real potential.
To African governments, my message is clear: Work closely with civil society organizations and small-scale farmers. When policies are being formulated, we must be included in the decision-making process. If we are left out, then no one will advocate for agroecology. Many policies are being created without consulting the people who actually produce food. This must change. Governments must engage with farmers at every level. We know what we want. We know how to feed our people. Africa can and must feed itself.
Message to African Youth
Working with young people is a big challenge because many of them want quick money and a quick life.
Through La Via Campesina and many other organizations, we have managed to establish youth platforms where they can have their own space to articulate their issues. We advise them on how to address their challenges, bring their thoughts to the elders, and find solutions together, particularly regarding food production and marketing.
Many young people think that farming is not important, but we try to show them the reality—that food is important for everyone, young and old. Money is on the ground. You cannot just rely on working for someone, thinking, “I will wear a white shirt, a tie, and a jacket.”
No, no, no
Young people must understand that they should work for themselves and create their own jobs. Farming is also a business—you can create jobs in agriculture and earn a lot of money. There are markets waiting for farmers’ products, but if young people refuse to produce, how will they ever have enough resources?
They must work hard, come together, share their challenges, and develop strategies to move forward.
This is the only advice I can give to young people. I know that not all those who have degrees are working. In Africa, we have so many educated young people who are just roaming around without jobs. If we do not build their capacity, advise them, and encourage them to take an interest in farming, then we are failing them as a generation.
I urge all young people in Africa to stand up, work together, and find strategies to fight hunger in Africa. They are the generation we are looking to—the ones who must create a healthy world without hunger or unnecessary challenges.
A message I would like to send to people outside Africa is this: Africa is not just a continent of challenges—Africa is also a continent of solutions.
Farmers across the continent are leading innovative efforts to protect their resources. We are able to feed our communities as Africans, and we are also able to contribute to global sustainability through practices like agroecology.
So, we cannot accept the narrative that Africa cannot feed its people. No.
What I Wish to Be Remembered For
I want people to remember me as a woman who was committed and dedicated—a woman who cared deeply about the well-being of smallholder farmers, women, and young people.
Even now, as I am at home, I continue to work closely with youth and women, educating them about agroecology and sustainability.
I want to be remembered for my commitment to the sustainability of our country and our continent.
The Agroecology Fund is proud to know Elizabeth and to support the inspiring work of African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems. If you’re interested in learning more about this work or how to fund this work, reach out to Daniel Moss, Co-Director, at daniel@agroecologyfund.org.
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.
Agroecology Fund grantee partner, the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) and a key network to which it belongs, the Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM, Forum for Women Farmers’ Rights), support women—primarily single women with little or no access to land, and sugarcane workers—to transition to agroecology. This work emphasizes the strengthening of local food and agricultural systems with the use of local seed varieties, no chemical inputs and drawing on women’s knowledge. Since its inception in 1991, SOPPECOM has worked at the intersection of water and rural livelihoods. Since 2015 they have been advocating for women’s land rights and their status in rural Maharashtra, with an emphasis on women from farmer suicide households. Over 557 farmers died by suicide in the first half of 2024 alone in five Maharashtra districts, many by poisoning themselves with agrochemicals. In 2023, nearly 3000 farmers in Maharashtra took their own lives amid worsening financial distress, and more than 100,000 farmer suicides occurred across India in the last decade. Some of the key issues faced by the women left behind by these devastating circumstances include: stigma and social exclusion; lack of land titles and poor access to credit; no incentives to make an exit from the chemical-based farming that led to farm suicides; and increasing indebtedness, especially from local money lenders and micro-finance institutions.
With grant support from the Agroecology Fund, in 2023 SOPPECOM led more than 200 of these women from across six districts in the Maharashtra state of India to transition into agroecology and away from the detrimental industrial model. Chemical intensive agriculture is commonly practiced in these regions, and the main crops cultivated are often grown as monocrops, such as Bt cotton, soybean and pigeon pea. These crops, in addition to being unprofitable and highly vulnerable to climate changes, are not a source of food for these women and their families. The harsh realities of this model have contributed greatly to the farmer suicide epidemic.
The primary efforts of SOPPECOM’s work in this region for the grant cycle included providing women farmers with seeds and gender-appropriate tools easy for women to use on their own, and training and capacity building to support their sustainable farming practices. One of the most important unplanned components of the work that emerged was the natural formation of collectives among women farmers, where learning and exchange now occurs alongside advocacy for local governmental support. Also, farms have been diversified beyond monocultures to include up to 30 different crop varieties, many of which are now consumed locally. Some women were even able to cultivate enough to sell, which provided them with extra financial stability.
“By doing this kind of farming, we got to eat and to share. If there is only cotton farming, there is nothing to really share as all of it goes only to the market”. – Anita Tai, farmer
An early success, this initiative provided communities with the confidence to consider expanding the program to new districts and to deepen engagement in the current areas. It has also fostered leadership skills among women farmers, many of whom have taken on roles as village-level agroecology champions mentoring others to drive agroecological transformations within their communities.
This collaborative effort set out to challenge both existing social structures (caste, patriarchy, ethnicity) and the corporate-controlled chemical intensive agrarian paradigm. To document these efforts, SOPPECOM and MAKAAM interviewed some of the women participants to share first hand their experiences and knowledge. In Women Farmers Lead the Way, the six part video series below, you’ll hear from a ‘lower caste’ or Dalit woman from Beed who shared her sense of pride when upper caste women asked her about her farm and requested seeds from her; a farm widow who saw respect in the eyes of her father-in-law who once scorned her and blamed her for his son’s suicide; a husband who derided the agroecology model but now respects his wife and joins her in her endeavor; and an Indigenous woman who became so convinced about the potential of agroecology that she increased the area of farming with this approach from half an acre to 12 acres, and then influenced others to do the same.
This video explores the hardships women face just for being women, and their commitment to challenging the common male-dominated, market-oriented agriculture model by promoting agroecology which has resulted in a diverse, climate resilient, multi-crop farming model.
This is the story of farmer Anita Kubade who shares what it was like to transition from cotton and soy monocropping to vegetable multi cropping, and how that impacted her profitability and food security.
This is the story of Anita Waghmare and other migrant women who work on sugarcane plantations and were able to transition to their own production with support from SOPPECOM.
This is the story of Vaishali Devtale, a widow whose husband died by suicide. She shares how she is now part of a group of women whose production and quality of life has improved as a result of agroecology.
This is the story of Sumitra Jadhav, a widow with five children, who shares how experimenting with agroecology has enabled her to make a living under very difficult circumstances.
This video features the plight of women sugarcane cutters, recorded by them. They share personal stories about the challenges women face working under extremely harsh conditions.
These stories share common themes—empowerment, community connection and self-reliance—all made possible through the cultivation of the community-centric values of growing healthy food outside of the industrial food system. Access to knowledge, tools, and support can be life changing for rural women with little access to capital, land, or ways to make a living on their own. It’s always inspiring to the Agroecology Fund to see how even small investments into grassroots agroecology movements can result in huge impacts on a local level, and even set in motion the mycelial-like growth of community networks required to scale agroecology. Learn more about how SOPPECOM and MAKAAM are building power in rural communities across India to scale grassroots agroecology movements that advance food security, gender equity, and climate resilience to local communities.
This op-ed is written by Agroecology Fund advisor Jen Astone, and was originally published in Food Tank here.
Over the last several years, agriculture has stormed onto the climate agenda. And it’s about time. Policymakers, donors, and investors are seeing the wisdom of investing in soil restoration, agroecology, agroforestry, and biodiversity, among other regenerative actions. And yet, what we have learned from our African colleagues is that without simultaneously investing in healthy local markets, these investments in sustainable production are likely to fall short.
Local markets are climate resilient. Not only are these markets a good fit for smallholder farmers who practice agroecology, but they are also more equitable and accessible for women and youth. Strengthening local economic markets and smallholders’ access to them creates a mutually generative cycle of food and ecological resilience—essential to strong local incomes and livelihoods. Remember that family farms continue to feed 70 percent of the world’s population. Specialty crop export and global food trade are still only a minor part of the world’s food story.
Local markets have two distinct advantages in accelerating climate solutions; one is their proximity to consumers, decreasing the miles that food has to travel to get to market, a net savings; two is that increasing agroecological production will enhance soil fertility, capturing carbon, and decrease the use of carbon intensive inputs such as artificial fertilizers and chemical inputs. When considering the amount of food and land under climate resilient food production, the carbon reduction is significant.
Over the past five years, the Agroecology Fund, through a grants program and learning community, has been gleaning insights from African networks and farmers’ organizations about the role of territorial markets to amplify agroecology. With the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and over a dozen farmers’ organizations, we have seen how smallholder farmers are building local economies that strengthen equitable relationships and climate resilience. Some of the key lessons we learned include:
Local consumers want local, healthy produce. There is a strong market demand for local products from agroecological farms and producers, including green leafy vegetables, fruits, grains, small livestock, and native seeds. Local manufacturing of bio-inputs including fertilizers, bio- pesticides, and inoculants is booming. These markets are large and important to local producers. Strong markets for agroecology mean that farmers are incentivized to practice climate resilient agriculture. An unpublished study of cooperatives and entrepreneurs in Senegal and Mali by Groundswell International noted that local demand for healthy foods is significant and growing. Part of a larger consumer movement led by farmers and consumers, the My Food is African campaign launched by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa has spread across the continent of Africa in national campaigns for healthy, local, and culturally relevant foods to be produced, celebrated and eaten regularly. Regional and national African leaders have taken up the cause by praising local dishes and demonstrating national pride in local foods as they recognize the costs associated with subsidizing imported staples.
Women farmers have the most to gain from local markets. African women and youth have the most to gain from investment in local markets and local entrepreneurship. Examples abound of growing healthy businesses and value-added production that rely upon women’s agricultural knowledge and practices. Climate resilience requires broad participation from the most vulnerable farmers who are rural women dependent on natural resources for their well-being. In Senegal, a cooperative of women called We Are the Solution has created a fast selling brand of bouillon mix, Sum Pak, made from locally available ingredients without chemicals or preservatives. Chefs and home cooks praise the mix which echoes village flavors and offers consumers low and no sodium lines capitalizing on doctors’ orders.
Finance can be inclusive and accessible. The missing middle is a myth. Smallholder agroecological farmers are not being supported at any level of finance. Many policymakers write convincingly about the missing middle in agribusiness. They assume that microfinance is addressing smallholder farmers’ needs and that larger investors are picking up opportunities over US$100,000. This is not true, less than 15 percent of smallholders practicing any kind of farming are accessing finance below US$100,000. Microfinance is often not being used by smallholder farmers because of high interest rates and repayment durations that do not match agricultural cycles.
Smallholder farmers engaging in agroecology need what regenerative farmers in the U.S. are requesting: low interest, long-term patient capital to engage in both transition to agroecology as well as building up aggregation, processing and marketing of their products. Financing infrastructure such as light farm machinery, storage and refrigeration in the US$2,000 to the US$20,000 range creates new opportunities. This infrastructure enables smallholders to flourish and serve local markets that increase the circulation of local, healthy food. Climate resilience requires thinking about financing the transition in different ways from traditional finance—which has exacerbated inequalities. In Uganda, the purchase of a grinding machine by Eastern and Southern Africa Small-scale Farmer Forum, Uganda (ESAFF) to produce high quality peanut butter enabled a woman’s cooperative to increase the value of their peanut crop 2.7 times. In Cameroon, Service d’Appui aux Initiatives Locales de Développement (SAILD), completed a market analysis that demonstrated the viability of replacing imported wheat flour with local tuber flours grown agroecologically. Indigenous local foods are the present and the future but require financing to play their critical role in food systems.
Local markets are diverse and flourishing. Farmers’ organizations are working alongside cooperatives, associations, entrepreneurs and local governments to develop multiple markets and channels for smallholders’ produce. This includes providing food to territorial markets as well as developing specialized markets, creating on-line digital markets through websites and apps, creating opportunities for bulk purchases and exploring regional markets. Innovative initiatives that connect communities in direct purchasing agreements between producers and purchasers that began during COVID are continuing with great success.
The Kenyan Peasants League worked to pair peri-urban communities of 100 families with direct purchases from smallholder farmers in villages to make regular purchases of food, small livestock and farm inputs directly. Cost savings from shared transportation and the absence of regional market costs enabled many groups to participate. Government procurement programs and interregional trade among African countries remain relatively under-developed strategies with great promise.
Farmers’ organizations are essential. Incubator programs reach small cohorts of farmer entrepreneurs, but community-rooted farmers’ organizations can build trust among a network of small enterprises by building associations and cooperatives to strengthen their voice and action. These cooperatives and associations, supported by representative farmer organizations and networks, have traditions and practices of rotating credit funds that are equitable and provide access to appropriate finance. By working with existing women-led farmer cooperatives, Concertation Nationale des Organisations Paysannes au Cameroun (CNOP CAM) has introduced and funded new agroecological businesses. Ongoing relationships and savings and credit programs, often managed by farmers’ organizations, enable women and smallholders to benefit from loans and technical assistance where others would overlook their potential and undervalue their existing assets, an all-too-common experience.
As policymakers and donors consider opportunities to create climate resilience through agroecology and regenerative agriculture, it is important to remember that territorial markets lie at the center of resilient food systems. We overlook investment in the public agencies that manage them, the businesses behind them, and the farmer organizations that advocate for them at our peril.
We, the participants of the 8th Assembly of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, including fishers, gatherers, and harvesters from marine, coastal, and inland waters, gathered in Brasilia from November 13 to 22, 2024, address the governments assembled in Rio de Janeiro for the G20. Considering the loss of environments, the devastation of mangroves, vegetation, and waters, erosion, the melting of ice and permafrost, ocean warming and rising water levels, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and the effects of climate change, the harmful impacts of aquaculture and industrial fishing, the loss of aquatic biodiversity, and the entire process of advancing capitalism through other emerging sectors of the blue economy, the agro-hydro-mineral business, and even so-called renewable projects.
We demand:
• Stop the death policies of large projects by national and transnational corporations that threaten our lives and livelihoods and forcibly expel us from our territories.
• Hold national states and international organizations accountable for failing to respect their own agreements and even less so to truly end the devastation.
• Urgent historical, socio-economic, and environmental reparations.
• Recognition of the climate crisis/emergency in which we live.
• Stop projects that worsen climate change and false solutions that aggravate environmental injustice.
• End the criminalization and judicialization of defenders of the human rights of water peoples.
• We urge the G20 to stop wars and build paths towards world peace among peoples.
That the following be recognized:
• The ancestral, traditional knowledge of indigenous and all water peoples.
• The diversity of peoples living in communion with the waters: women, men, fishers, gatherers, youth, traditional, ancestral, indigenous, and tribal communities.
• Customary rights, including territorial rights over land and waters: rivers, lakes, lagoons, oceans, mangroves, estuaries, deltas.
• The legally constituted national and international rights that contemplate the rights of peoples, such as free, prior, and informed consultation, in good faith and with consent.
We declare that we are protagonists in our territories and in our lives; therefore, it is we who must be consulted and make our own decisions!
*WFFP is an Agroecology Fund grantee partner, and with our support are strengthening the organization at a global level after the impacts of the pandemic.
Written by Agroecology Fund Advisor Lim Li Ching, Senior Researcher, Third World Network and Co-chair, IPES-Food
The 16th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, was suspended on 2 November 2024 after running overtime. While some key decisions were adopted, several important agenda items, such as mobilizing financial resources for biodiversity and monitoring the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), were not finalized. A resumed meeting will be required to address these issues.
At the same time, agriculture and food system issues received less attention in the official negotiations, yet featured prominently at side events and other spaces. There, the clarion call was clear: Agroecology is fundamental to achieving biodiversity objectives, including the KMGBF targets, and much more support, policy attention and action is needed to make this happen.
The ‘COP of the People’
COP16 was dubbed the ‘COP of the People’ by the Colombian government, which sought to emphasize citizen participation. It included a ‘Green Zone’ designed for public engagement, featuring hundreds of events aimed at promoting biodiversity protection. This open space allowed for extensive dialogue and knowledge-sharing, complementing the formal negotiations.
In addition to attending the official conference, many peasants and other small-scale food producers participated in Green Zone events, including significant convenings by Colombian groups prior to COP16. They highlighted the role of peasants, Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and the importance of agroecology, food sovereignty, land rights and other rights in galvanising food system transformation. They also opposed industrial and fossil-fuel reliant agriculture, and the corporate capture of food and farming systems.
Agroecology Fund grantee partner FENSUAGRO participated in the Green Zone. Germán Martínez spoke about Rural Reform and Daniela Vega, representing young farmers, highlighting the importance of the new generations in food sovereignty and conservation.
Learn more about Agroecology Fund long-term partner La Via Campesina’s position on COP 16 here.
Agroecology integral to meeting biodiversity targets
COP16 reviewed the implementation of the KMGBF, which was adopted in 2022. By the end of the conference, 119 countries had submitted national biodiversity targets and 44 countries had submitted updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) ‘aligned’ with the KMGBF. This marks some progress in the global effort to meet the framework’s goals and targets.
Peasants and other small-scale food producers and supporting organizations have long pointed out that agroecology is central to the achievement of many of the KMGBF targets. Agroecology is a holistic and transformative approach to food systems that is based on biodiversity and agricultural biodiversity. It covers the gamut from production to consumption, and includes socio-political aspects such as participation, agency, rights and equity.
Agroecology is specifically mentioned in the ‘agriculture’ target (Target 10) where a call is made for “substantial increase of the application of biodiversity friendly practices, such as… agroecological… approaches…”. It is also key to the target of reducing the overall risk from pesticides, by at least half, by 2030 (Target 7). This is because of the non-use of synthetic pesticides in agroecology, which instead depends on ecological interactions to control pests and diseases.
Agroecology is also relevant to many other targets central to conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, as well as essential to the rights-based approach of the KMGBF. Thus, as a matter of priority, agroecology should be integrated and mainstreamed into NBSAPs, so that implementation at the national level can be accomplished.
During COP 16, Agroecology Fund partners and allies Global Alliance for the Future of Food, the Agroecology Coalition and others, launched new guidance to support national KMGBF implementation while ensuring coherence between biodiversity and food systems policies.
Agroecology Fund long-term grantee partner Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa shares the highs and lows of their time in Cali in this reflection. Their hot take: “Against all odds, agroecology is gaining momentum, not just in niche discussions but across the global biodiversity stage.”
Advances for rights and benefit sharing
Several groundbreaking decisions were made at COP16, particularly regarding Indigenous Peoples and local communities and peoples of African descent. Many of these communities practice agroecology, and play an important role in conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, including through their traditional knowledge, innovations and practices.
These decisions were celebrated as historic, especially the creation of a new permanent subsidiary body on traditional knowledge, innovations, and practices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in relation to biodiversity. They had long advocated for such a body, which will now operate on par with the other subsidiary bodies of the CBD.
Agroecology Fund long-term partner International Indian Treaty Council has consistently advocated for Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights in the CBD and COP processes. With Agroecology Fund support, they sent a delegation to Cali and participated in a powerful side event, “Launching Indigenous Peoples Principles and Protocols for a Just Transition.”
Another significant decision was the recognition of Afro-descendant communities and their role in biodiversity conservation. There are an estimated 200 million such people living in Latin America and the Caribbean, mostly descendants of slaves that were brought to the Americas during its brutal colonial period.
This decision, made at the end of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024), acknowledges and promotes the contributions of people of African descent in biodiversity protection. It is an important step towards racial justice for these historically marginalized communities.
Additionally, COP16 saw the adoption of a decision on the use of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on genetic resources. It mandates that large companies, including from the biotechnology and animal/plant breeding sectors, which benefit from DSI use, contribute a percentage of their profits or revenues to the newly established ‘Cali Fund’.
The aim is to ensure that benefits are more equitably shared with developing countries and Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Nonetheless, how the decision is implemented in the coming years will determine whether sufficient benefits will really be generated and shared equitably.
Disagreements over biodiversity credits and offsets
One controversial issue at COP16 was the use and promotion of biodiversity credits and offsets. While not formally on the agenda, the KMGBF included these “innovative schemes” to increase financial resources for biodiversity protection. The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB) launched a “Framework for High Integrity Biodiversity Credits” that aimed to address criticisms of biodiversity credit markets and claimed to “unlock significant financial flows for nature conservation and restoration” for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
However, the promotion of biodiversity credits was met with strong resistance from civil society, which criticized the practice as “greenwashing”, and that it would ultimately lead to biodiversity offsetting schemes. Biodiversity markets will be worse than the failed carbon markets because of the complexities of ecosystems, and the serious negative impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities, they warned. In particular, biodiversity offsetting can create conflicts over tenure rights and the use of lands, fisheries and forests, competing with agroecology and smallholder agriculture, undermining food sovereignty.
Many organizations argued that these schemes offer false solutions to the biodiversity crisis and allow rich countries, corporate actors and financial institutions to profit from the biodiversity crisis they have created while maintaining the status quo. Over 300 organizations, including many Agroecology Fund grantee partners, signed a statement calling for a halt to the development of biodiversity credits and offsets, emphasizing the need for more effective and equitable non-market-based approaches. In addition, there is an urgent need to recognize and respect, protect and promote the right to land of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, small-scale food producers and women.
Corporate interests taint agriculture debates
One of the decisions that was not adopted, due to the suspension of COP16, was on the monitoring framework of the KMGBF. A key contention was over the headline indicator for the reduction of pesticide risks. An indicator that was developed by an FAO-convened expert group was opposed by CBD Parties that have large agribusiness interests.
The powerful pesticide lobby had been actively mischaracterizing the indicator, claiming that it called for the reduction in the use of pesticides, something that it had persuaded some governments was impossible. Yet, the indicator is one that would necessitate the reduction or phasing out of the most toxic pesticides – reducing risks tremendously – without necessarily affecting volume used.
Of course, agroecology shows that it is possible to replace hazardous chemical pesticides with bio inputs and other management practices to reduce both the use and risks of pesticides, without significant impacts on productivity, and with positive benefits for the environment and human health.
The same CBD Parties with large agribusiness interests managed to unravel progress previously made on putting in place safeguards around synthetic biology. The multidisciplinary process for broad and regular horizon scanning, monitoring and assessment of the most recent technological developments, established at COP15, was not explicitly continued.
However, an expert group has been established, which will carry out some of those functions, including identifying potential positive and negative impacts. Many of the applications of synthetic biology are used in agriculture, and in effect, continue the trajectory of genetically modified crops and industrial agriculture.
The decision also shifts focus to capacity-building and development, access to and transfer of technology and knowledge-sharing, and the development of a thematic action plan for those purposes. These activities should also include the necessary capacities, technologies and knowledge on the assessment of synthetic biology, which would help advance the CBD’s precautionary approach.
Conclusion
COP16 made significant strides in recognizing the rights and roles of Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities in biodiversity protection. This necessarily includes peasants and other small-scale food producers. It also saw the adoption of a levy on the revenues or profits from sectors such as the biotechnology industry that benefit from DSI use, to share those benefits more fairly.
Despite this progress, the debates at COP16 also underscored tensions between the demands of civil society and the increasingly business-focused biodiversity agenda. In fact, the number of business representatives and lobbyists registered for COP16 had more than doubled from COP15. The large presence of agrochemical, pesticide, seed and biotech companies, including on some national delegations, is cause for concern.
Key issues central to the monitoring and implementation of the KMGBF will continue to be negotiated at the resumed COP16 meeting, likely to be in the first quarter of 2025. In any case, implementation at the national level, particularly through NBSAPs, should continue. These more inclusive processes are an opportunity to help mainstream agroecology as the way forward.
The Thar Desert region of India in the State of Rajasthan is the most densely populated desert ecosystem in the world. This region experiences extreme weather conditions and water scarcity that has severely impacted the lives of the population, who are largely dependent on agriculture and animal husbandry for survival. While perennial droughts have always been an issue that people living in deserts have faced, climate change has manifested in the unpredictability and shifts in the rainy seasons in recent years. Fortunately, desert peoples’ local ingenuity offers food security solutions despite the drought.
Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti (GRAVIS), is a non-governmental organization working in the states of Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, India, to bring change by pioneering innovative need-based development models and committed partnerships with the Government, non-profits, and community-based organizations (CBOs). GRAVIS strives to raise the standard of living of communities by offering local solutions that blend traditional community knowledge with modern science and are financially viable and sustainable in the long run.
A Q+A with GRAVIS
Agroecology Fund had the chance to explore grantee partner GRAVIS’s work a bit more deeply in a recent interview. Learn more about their compelling work in the following Q&A:
How does your work on drought mitigation impact food security?
Since its inception in 1983, GRAVIS has been working to support marginalized communities by building their capacities to resolve community challenges and enabling them to take charge of their own lives.
The Thar Desert is one of the most challenging climatic zones in the country. Inhabited predominantly by farming communities largely dependent on rain-fed agriculture and related activities, the desert has witnessed recurrent droughts, acute water shortages and food scarcity. Whereas extreme weather conditions are not new to the desert, the occurrence of climate change has aggravated the extremities, making it impossible for communities with limited resources to lead a healthy life with sufficient food, water and nutrition. Extreme variabilities in rains and weather have resulted in reduced ability of farmers from the region to produce sufficient food with land degradation, rapid groundwater depletion and decreased soil quality.
Solutions rooted in nature can restore land as well as resolve issues around natural water storage. GRAVIS’ program strategy focuses on nature-based solutions to improve the living conditions of people in the region and strengthen their ability to respond to recurring droughts and changing climate while safeguarding the biodiversity, improving health outcomes, and bolstering food as well as water security. Simple and low-cost technology is employed effectively to enhance water storage and utility for mitigating negative impacts of droughts. Some of the areas of intervention introduced by GRAVIS include:
Fostering rainwater harvesting systems to enhance water and food security
Community ponds or naadis are surface based rainwater harvesting basins that can store between 700 cubic metres and 40,000 cubic metres of rainwater and provide water for up to eight to 12 months of the year. The revival and maintenance of community-based resources is extremely important to ensure accessibility and availability of water for all residents, including children, women, older persons, and others belonging to the poor and vulnerable sections of the region. In the long run naadis contribute immensely by recharging the groundwater supplies as well as providing water to the livestock for drinking purposes. Considering this, GRAVIS has worked towards desilting of the ponds and building embankments around the ponds to ensure safe and secure storage of water. The naadis have emerged as an important lifeline for the residents and livestock of the Thar and have empowered them to be self-reliant, self-sufficient and climate resilient.
It becomes extremely important to capture rainwater and store it in a clean and safe manner in regions hit by frequent droughts. Taankas or underground water storage tanks are useful, easily constructed, accessible and sustainable storage units that can store up to 25,000 litres of rainwater. A single harvest of rainwater can be stored for as long as four months and the water stored in these units can be used for fulfilling domestic needs of communities.
The Taankas are built at an elevated level of one foot and are also equipped with a fool-proof locking mechanism to ensure that it is safe from any form of infestation. These units have been extremely useful in ensuring convenient, uninterrupted access to clean water. Built very close to the households of the beneficiaries, women do not have to spend hours of their productive time securing water. Extracting water from Taankas becomes less laborious and less time consuming, enabling women to devote the additional energies and resources towards themselves, their families, and the community. Most importantly, this intervention has also contributed to enhanced household savings, which can be utilised for health care, education and other important priorities. Taankas help ensure water security and quality for households. The chances of contracting water borne diseases has been significantly reduced with the establishment of these structures.
Enhancing food and nutrition security by rejuvenating the barren desert lands:
Relying extensively on traditional knowledge, wisdom and techniques to ensure food and water security, GRAVIS has promoted the construction of khadins or farming dykes. A khadin is a traditional earthen embankment made out of soil at the end of an upland plot of land to prevent water run-off, that serves as a method of collecting water. This method was developed in Jaisalmer hundreds of years ago; however, it continues to be an effective and sustainable method for improving soil moisture. In the absence of adequate and consistent rainfall, khadins serve the dual purpose of retaining moisture from rainfall, however scanty it may be, while also protecting the top layer of soil from run-off water. The technique has restored several barren lands and has transformed them into cultivable lands, paving way for a viable source of livelihoods.
The construction of khadins has ensured nutritional security, especially for those belonging to the poor and vulnerable sections of the Thar. Another important component of this multi-dimensional strategy is the establishment of AHUs (Arid Horticulture Units). In lands where agriculture is no longer viable, AHUs are a very useful alternative as they are not labour intensive, require very little maintenance, promote self-reliance, are self-sufficient and sustainable. The AHUs are similar to small kitchen gardens that can be used to grow nearly thirty plants in one season and offer a myriad variety of benefits for families, with its fundamental objective being to achieve food and nutritional security, combating the nutritional deficiencies especially in children, women and older people. A typical AHU promotes the use of local seed varieties, which is crucial to climate adaptation and building climate resilience. The plants grown in these lands follow inter-cropping practices, require small quantities of water and are grown entirely using bio-pesticides. These units have changed the food and nutritional security situation in the Thar region for the better by making a diverse set of seasonal fruits, vegetables, and greens available. These fruit and vegetable crops can survive extreme weather, can be grown with limited water and are affordable sources of nutrition.
GRAVIS also promotes farm forestry practices that involve integration of trees into farming systems. This practice is beneficial to both farmers and the environment. It improves soil health by reducing erosion, while increasing soil organic matter and nutrient availability. Above all, it supports the resilience of farming communities against climate variability and rampant environmental stresses such as drought and soil degradation.
GRAVIS was recently featured in Andrew Millison’s popular Permaculture video series on YouTube.
Water scarcity impacts lives and cultures in many different ways. How does it impact women specifically? How does Gravis’ work address the inequity? As climate change leads to more drought conditions, how are women farmers in the Rajasthani region working to combat the impacts?
Land is the most important resource for communities inhabiting the Thar desert in the State of Rajasthan. While the land resources are abundantly available in the region, recurring droughts, scarcity of water, sand erosion and salinity add to the woes of poor farmers. When water is scarce and land is degraded, women, children and older people are often the most impacted. With minimal rain, water is insufficient even for household use, drinking and livestock, which leads to a large share of time spent by women in fetching water from long distances. The time spent fetching water limits their time on self-care and opportunity for education. For many women this non-stop drudgery starts when they are as young as four. Every aspect of their life, be it schooling, health, safety, economic opportunity, pregnancy and childbirth are impacted by the lack of access to clean water. These problems and challenges multiply in cases of older women as they continue to face years of oppression and gender imbalance deeply rooted in the social and cultural norms.
At GRAVIS we bring women of the Thar desert together and support them to lead a variety of drought mitigation and climate change adaptation initiatives. They are an integral part of the process of designing and implementing programs. With the backing of women-led community-based organisations like Self Help Groups (SHGs), Village Development Committees (VDC) and Intergenerational Learning Groups (ILGs) women are building community resilience and leadership through sustainable agriculture and water management practices, both are solutions that can work efficiently to reverse the impacts of climate change.
GRAVIS also invests significant resources in developing the leadership skills and capacities of women by providing learning spaces on subjects like community development—highlighting the role of women and girls in disseminating information and awareness on health, education, menstrual hygiene, traditional agricultural practices, seed management, water storage and cleaning techniques, income augmentation, and more. This has contributed to a reduction in social hierarchies and inequalities that deprive women of control over fundamental resources, while restoring their self-respect and social status in the society.
Food Security and Drought Mitigation Efforts
The Agroecology Fund proudly supports GRAVIS’s food security and drought mitigation efforts. With our support GRAVIS has been able to implement:
Khadins (Farming Dykes)
The construction of khadins in five drought stricken villages, benefiting 35 households (280 people) from the most impacted rain-fed farming communities. In the first year this initiative has already achieved a 35-40 % yield increase including drought resilient crops like green gram (Moong), Moth beans (Moth), sesame (Til) and millet (Bajra), cluster beans (Guar), mustered (Sarson), chickpea (Chana), and sorghum (Jwar). The Khadins also support natural vegetation and many shrubs like melon, cucumber, citrus fruits and desert plums, adding to the region’s biodiversity.
Community Seed Banks (CSB)
Availability of good quality seeds during the farming season is very challenging in drought prone villages. A CSB is a community facility in which all local farmers have deposited seeds and are provided seeds at the time of need. A total of 10 such CSBs (2 in each village) have been established. Seed banks ensure all community members can receive seeds on time even with no investment, with the agreement to return seeds post harvesting with an interest of ¼ of seeds produced. It has reduced the dependency of farmers on local vendors and money lenders.
Agroforestry Units
In an area of about 8 hectare, over 2,000 plants were planted and are managed through community norms. This unit will become an important source of vegetation cover, fodder and fuel for the entire community. The plantings included Gunda , Ber (ziziphus), Pomegranate, Drum sticks, Khejri (Prosopis cineraria) and Kumat (Acacia senegal). The survival rate of the planting was 80 %.
Setting up Rain-fed Arid Horticulture Units (AHUs)
35 AHUs were established, benefiting 280 people from 35 families. This effort provided vulnerable communities with nutritious food in a sustainable manner.
Technical Trainings and Learning Exchange
Ten trainings were organized to enhance the technical knowledge of farmers on rain-fed and organic farming practices. Along with technical trainings, 10 women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and 10 Village development committees (VDCs) have been organized. These trainings focused on project leadership, monitoring and sustainability of the project. Women have also been training on financial literacy.
Learn More
GRAVIS has a rich resource of research papers and studies documenting processes, learning, and practices that highlight issues, solutions and strategies as outcomes of its various multi-pronged interventions. These resources are shared to stimulate learning and to encourage replication in other arid regions of India and across the world.
Territorial markets are embedded in societies as critical public spaces where traditional, healthy, medicinal, biodiverse crops are found, where smallholder farmers have the option to sell directly to consumers and reduce dependence on intermediaries, and consumers have a chance to buy fresh food directly from farmers at fair prices.
Rooted in territories and communities, territorial markets have existed for millennia and go beyond economic exchange by strengthening socio-cultural ties, relationships between food producers and consumers, and harnessing trust and solidarity. Traditionally, these market systems build resilience for farmers, families and communities. But they are now increasingly threatened by a combination of forces.
Corporate concentration and underinvestment in municipal infrastructure has led to the neglect of territorial markets and localized food systems have lost some of their resilience. Global commodity markets and corporate-controlled supply chains are prioritized by public and private investors, leaving us all at risk. Finding solutions to these challenges calls for speed and urgency in supporting grassroots innovations.
The Agroecology Fund supports collaborative initiatives in more than 90 countries globally, and this year, has escalated efforts to support the growth and strengthening of agroecology economies. During our recent webinar ‘Territorial Markets – Healthy Food, Real Relationships, and a Fair Deal’, attended by nearly 400 participants from 71 countries, we learned about grantee partner initiatives to strengthen territorial markets and the challenges of scaling this key component of local food systems across diverse countries, regions and territories.
Through the advocacy of farmers and consumers – often working closely with local governments – territorial markets are enjoying an overdue renaissance. The markets have evolved and take many forms – from municipal plazas to WhatsApp platforms to purchase local foods to public purchasing programs to a seed exchange fair We heard from grassroots, farmer-led networks from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, from countries including Sri Lanka, Benin, Mali and Peru, about their experience revitalizing fresh food markets and strengthening links among farmers, consumers, and public officials.
Against this backdrop, the Human Development Organization (HDO), a development organization working with the marginalized communities including tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka to promote their right to food, spoke about working with minority women plantation workers to grow and market agroecological products.
Women tea plantation laborers historically have had little experience cultivating food agroecologically. Through territorial markets, this initiative supports the transition from worker to farmer, and from farmer to entrepreneur for women. There has been tremendous progress over the last five years.
Les Jardins de l’Espoir, Benin showcased their intervention, Eden’s Farmers Market, and how they used digital channels and social media to launch the initiative and raise its visibility. Participants heard about how the market has evolved and improved, and the challenges and opportunities towards creating healthy and sustainable food systems.
Working in collaboration with several networks and organisations, Les Jardins de l’Espoir shared how their focus on agroecology “is helping us to protect biodiversity, nature-friendly food systems, inclusive food systems, as well as commercial systems that offer favourable and sustainable price points. Since 2021, we have been expanding the network to ensure that as many farmers have access to Eden Farmers Market as possible.”
The Asociación ANDES, Peru shared about the network of Eco Markets they are creating across the country.
ANDES shared how their markets target, “ people in the lower income bracket. We have a standard for fixing prices across different regions. Our products are recognizable through the logo and our Fruit of the Earth markets – where we …. encourage and facilitate barter trade. We also participate in eco fairs where we educate consumers about the health benefits of agroecological foods.”
We also learned about the main findings of the “Food from Somewhere”report, launched by The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
Speaking to findings from the report, Shalmali Guttal from IPES Food observed, “Global corporate food chains have demonstrated catastrophic vulnerability to shocks, while bringing unhealthy, ultra-processed food into the markets. We need a shift to a completely new model of food provision – to resilient, localised food systems and food webs.” She stressed the need to encourage consumers to buy directly from producers and to push governments to create an enabling policy environment for territorial markets.
“There are many kinds of territorial markets such as mass marketing spaces like public markets, informal markets, street vendors, farmers markets, peasant markets, wet markets, specialty markets. Then there are bulk community spaces. There are food hubs, cooperatives and network markets. There are also independent local businesses and direct producers to consumer markets through community supported agriculture. There are also digital sales, farm shops, urban agriculture and a number of different channels with potential to actually build up territorial markets and territorial food systems to something much broader,” Guttal observed.
Further stating, the research showed that territorial markets build food security and resilience on multiple fronts—they demonstrate increased food access, health equity and environmental benefits and at the same time, boost and support community solidarity and cohesion. They also make food accessible and affordable, especially for low-income populations.
“Territorial markets support decent prices and steady incomes for producers, especially women and youth. In Thailand, for example, green farmers markets offer producers higher margins than big retailers and these green farmer markets in Thailand and across much of Southeast Asia account for 60 to 80 percent of the income of small-scale food producers and vendors,” Guttal shared.
You can access the recording of this webinar and the previous webinars in our Agroecology Economies series here.
In honor of World Food Day—this year’s FAO World Food Day theme is “Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future—we share an interview with Agroecology Fund grantee partners, Roots for Equity and Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), in which we explore their work practicing and promoting agroecology and food sovereignty; demanding just and equitable land distribution; working with small and landless farmers with emphasis on women to build social movements for food sovereignty and climate justice in Pakistan, with a specific focus on their joint campaign against corporate control of dairy and livestock sector.
The Agroecology Fund recognizes that true food systems transformation towards agroecology requires divestment from industrial agriculture. From pesticides to monocultures, deforestation to land grabbing, our fossil fuel dependent food system under corporate control and concentration, is a major contributor to the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity. Roots for Equity and PKMT are not only promoting food sovereignty, but they are also actively working to keep industrial agriculture models from replacing their localized food systems.
Thank you to Azra Sayeed, Founder and Director of Roots for Equity and Wali Haider, Joint Director of Roots for Equity and the secretary of PKMT for sharing their experiences and inspiring efforts in the following Q +A to thwart industrial agriculture from taking hold while there is still an opportunity to do so.
Background
In recent years, the local dairy sector in Pakistan has been facing monitoring by Pure Food Law Authority, Punjab. Milk trucks were being stopped, tests were being carried out for milk contamination, and thousands of liters of milk were being wasted by the authorities. These acts are a threat to the livelihood and food security of small and landless farmers and others associated with the local supply chain. This led to Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity to investigate the situation. The result was a series of discussions with communities to understand the issue, as well as research to better understand trade liberalization and corporate capture of the livestock and dairy sector to support the launch of an awareness campaign. Learn more about these efforts here.
Q+A
Please share about the impact that industrial agriculture, specifically in the dairy sector, has had on women farmers in Pakistan.
The livestock sector in Pakistan is integral to the lives of nearly 8 million rural families who derive 30-40% of their income from livestock. The sector is particularly critical for small and landless women farmers, with 52% of women working in the agriculture sector engaged in all stages of livestock management; women clean animals’ living space, collect and dry animal manure, make dung cakes, arrange, cut and prepare fodder, feed and milk the animals. Ownership of livestock guarantees household food security, and milk and dung sales are regular and consistent sources of income, even for landless women agricultural workers who have tenuous access to agricultural work.
To date, Pakistan’s livestock sector largely remains in the hands of rural farmers; about 80% of the national milk supply is in the hands of 55 million small and landless farmers with small herd sizes who have conserved local breeds of milk-producing animals that can withstand the regional climate and have adapted to low-resource environments. Additionally, small herd sizes drastically reduce incidences of disease outbreak.
However, women farmers’ role as custodians of livestock and dairy is facing threats from the World Trade Organization that has paved the way for corporate encroachment in the food and agriculture sectors of member countries through legally binding agreements since its very formation.
At the local level, this is giving rise to pro-corporation and anti-farmer government regulations. On one hand, the Government of Pakistan is set on eventually banning the sale of unpasteurized milk through its mandatory pasteurization policy and emerging narratives and policies are targeted towards standardizing and centralizing milk production under the pretext of eliminating adulteration and contamination, as well as to improve productivity and reduce supposed ‘inefficiencies’ in the supply chain – all this means is that acquiring fresh milk from multiple small producers increases costs and cuts down on the profits of corporations. Inevitably, measures aimed at centralization and standardization will wrest control of the sector away from small and landless farmers and replace the current system with large-scale industrial dairy farms.
The full impact of the ban on unpasteurised milk (which is up till now on paper only) is still to be determined. Yet, the women’s comparative experiences in the non-corporate and corporate milk circuits provide important insights into the future.
Livestock ownership and land tenure significantly impact food security and income generation in rural areas. Women agricultural workers raise livestock for various reasons, such as selling cattle, selling milk and dung for daily expenses, or religious and cultural purposes. For the landless, owning livestock is often the only asset they possess. During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, women could still earn money from milk sales when men’s wage jobs were reduced or lost. Households that owned land and livestock were less likely to experience food insecurity than those that did not. Those with access to land through ownership or leasing had more fodder to give to their livestock, which allowed greater milk yields and the capacity to multiply the herd. Women who own or lease agricultural land, are more food secure than those who don’t have land. Due to the pandemic, milk collectors stopped buying milk from women, but they converted milk into non-perishable dairy items like butter and ghee for their households, staving hunger at the household level.
Women foresee negative impacts on their nutrition intake and income sources following a ban on selling unpasteurised milk. Women livestock keepers sell milk to other households and milk collectors, who then sell it to shops, tea stalls, restaurants, and dairy companies. Women farmers get the highest price for their milk when they sell directly to nearby households, but they prefer selling to milk collectors because they pay monthly. A monthly payment allows them to manage large expenses better. Companies sell processed milk at more than double the amount women are paid for raw milk, but milk collectors and companies refuse to increase the rates paid to women, citing high production costs. A ban on the sale of unpasteurised milk would impact them by denying them the income derived from selling milk, causing financial distress. This would make it unaffordable to keep livestock and access dairy products for household consumption, negatively affecting their nutritional intake. There are no other avenues for alternative work to supplement the earnings of women, especially women landless, agricultural workers.
How did Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity come to collaborate on this issue? What do you see as the biggest challenges, and which aspects of the campaign have been most successful?
In September 2019, Asia Pacific Women Law and Development (APWLD) initiated the Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) under one of their specific themes ‘Women Interrogating Trade and Corporate Hegemony (WITCH). Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) and Roots for Equity as members of APWLD took part in the FPAR, in order to carry out action research with various groups of women in Sahiwal district, Punjab province, who were involved in livestock breeding and caring. Sahiwal district has PKMT membership as well as is home to the Sahiwal cow, a well-known indigenous breed.
PKMT and Roots for Equity participated in the research with a clear intention of exploring the impacts of the Pure Food Law, that the government of Punjab (later followed by all provinces of Pakistan) had initiated, and organizing and mobilizing women farmers/livestock care takers against the corporate capture of the dairy sector.
Based on the series of organizing processes carried out through PKMT, Sahiwal district has a strong women membership. At the national level, a mass mobilization campaign was developed under the title “Save our Invaluable Rural Assets: Campaign against Corporate Control of Dairy and Livestock Sector in Pakistan.” The campaign objectives are to resist the government-imposed regulations on natural pure milk, as well as the increasing trade liberalization and control of the corporations in the sector. The campaign will also build awareness amongst the farming community and the masses to stand up against the attack on their food, livelihood and the environment.
The three-month campaign was carried out from March 8, 2023, International Women’s Day and culminated on June 22, 2023, commemorating the day a brave, peasant woman, Mai Bakhtawar was killed by feudal thugs resisting control over her community harvest in 1948.
Public Assembly
The number of activities undertaken through the campaign were as follows:
National webinars/seminars on agriculture workers, livestock and dairy farmers;
Social media and print media sharing on the situation of livestock and dairy farmers and impacts of neoliberal policies;
Theater performances – using art and advocacy;
Documentary;
Radio Messages.
Brief details of some of the activities:
Pamphlet Distribution: The goal was to distribute 500,000 one-page pamphlets developed for popular dissemination across the country. Through the pamphlet distribution we reached on foot more than 500,000 Pakistani citizens in 58 districts of four provinces making them aware of the insidious aims of the Pure Food Laws. These pamphlets were distributed in public places including at cattle markets (mandi), vegetable mandi, local markets, hospitals, railways stations, bus terminals, international days events and at other public points. All distribution was carried out by PKMT members; only in a few districts Roots staff assisted.
Pamphlet Distribution
Many small town local news channels included coverage of the campaign, reporting on the public’s refusal of Pure Food Laws based on World Trade Organization agreements and the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures & Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). A total of 11 Television channels and 15 Newspapers covered the campaign.
Pamphlet Distribution
Radio Messages:Three short messages of 45, 55 & 60 seconds were developed to highlight the advantages of fresh milk and indigenous breeds of cattle. These were broadcasted daily for three months.The total reach of Multan FM 103, the local station on which they aired, is 16 districts of South Punjab, reaching approx 34.7 million people.
Social Media: Social media has become increasingly important in today’s society, as almost everyone owns a mobile phone. We have shared campaign materials on social media at various times, which highlights how imperialist companies and agents are profiting off our valuable assets and imposing their values on us, while inducing the government to make and implement laws and policies that are allowing not only land grabbing but also eliminating genetic resources based in the plant and animal kingdom, while taking away these resources from small and landless farmers, who are the real custodians of this wealth.
Video Documentary: Save Our Invaluable Rural Assets is the second documentary that PKMT has produced with respect to the corporate capture of our dairy and livestock sector. The documentary demonstrates the critical role of traditional dairy and livestock rearing, as well as the environmental impacts of the industrialized dairy sector.
Save Our Invaluable Rural Assets Documentary
Though the campaign was successfully able to reach-out to small and landless farmers, the major challenge we face is in mobilizing and organizing fresh-milk sellers (retailers) not just in rural areas but also in the urban small towns. There are two main reasons: i) The enforcement of Pure Food Law in terms of destroying containers of fresh milk through inspection is quite harsh, and hence there is fear of the inspection teams. ii) In many of the districts, law enforcement is not present so people think it is not their issue.
Currently, there is status quo; no major steps have been taken to implement the Pure Food Law. Their declaration that Lahore, the second biggest city of Pakistan, will be made into a pilot project only allowing sale of packaged milk has yet to be acted upon; however the law exists. It is speculated that given that 90% of the milk market is supplied by fresh milk, the dairy corporations are incapable of providing for the huge market. There is also the possibility that the corporations positioned to control the dairy sector sense that they will be challenged by local organizers, and hence are rethinking their strategy. There is still time to ensure small farmers and landless farmers maintain their livelihoods and ways of living.
How will the corporate take-over of dairy in Pakistan negatively impact biodiversity and traditional and Indigenous knowledge?
It is important to mention that since the green revolution in the 1960s, agriculture production has been taken over by the corporate sector. The corporate sector not only dispossessed hundreds of thousands of traditional, local and indigenous seed varieties but also forced the farming community to adopt an unfamiliar agricultural production model which promotes mono-culture, chemical and pesticide and capital-intensive technologies. All of this negatively impacts biodiversity. The green revolution also impacted livestock – hardy oxen that were used for land plowing are now hard to come by, as most of the work is now done by tractors. The use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has highly impacted small insects, including earthworm, butterflies, honeybees and birds. There is a lack of scientific assessment of the loss; however, visibly many birds, butterflies, beetles are rarely seen in rural areas. Even in the urban areas, the impact on insects and birds is very visible, as they are not seen anymore. The less diverse an ecosystem, the more susceptible it is to climate change.
There are also attempts to take over livestock production with the same false lucrative offer to bring prosperity among livestock breeders. The traditional and indigenous process of livestock production is claimed to be outdated, and a need to promote an industrial livestock production system has been propagated by industrial countries and their corporations. Governments are also buying these ideas like they did for green revolution policies.
“These cows eat five times more than our cows; their cow dung is like water and of no use. Please tell them to keep their cows to themselves, and leave our cows to us.” – A landless woman in Sahiwal, who breeds Sahiwal cows and vehemently opposes breeding of Australian cows such as Holstein Friesian.
Local and foreign corporations are capitalizing on these pro-corporate state policies to capture the dairy and livestock sector, at the cost of small and landless farmers. For instance, in an effort to improve the milk quality and quantity of local herds, the government is encouraging crossbreeding with foreign cattle. Favoring non-indigenous breeds reveals a policy bias towards large scale animal holdings that can only be financed and maintained by large-scale dairy farms. Additionally, imports targeted at corporate dairy farms (e.g. industrial milking systems, genetic material, calf milk replacers, premium fodder) are on the rise. Foreign corporations are increasingly turning towards our markets for supplying these commodities. It is clear that these policies do not recognize small and landless farmers particularly women farmers as key stakeholders and make no efforts to integrate them.
Similar to what we have seen happen with corporate control of plant genetic resources, the control of animal genetic resources technically produces more, but its much less nutritious and costs way more money to produce. The result of cross-breeding livestock is huge animals that give vast quantity of milk daily (40 liters vs 10-15 liters from indigenous breeds) but they are very expensive, need special cool living quarters (not adapted to hot, dry climates), eat at least five times more than traditional breeds, and they cannot walk well due to size. Therefore, they do not graze, and do not breed well. Additionally, their animal dung is watery so is a lost by-product as organic manure. On top of all that, the milk is low on fat and therefore mostly useless. Like the green revolution and GMO seeds – we are seeing lots of food but basically nutrition less, and harmful to the environment and biodiversity.
What is your vision for a food secure and climate resistant future, and how is your work helping to bring that to fruition?
In Pakistan, where feudal structure is so strong, just and equitable land distribution remains the primary solution to world hunger. Small food producers remain as society’s poorest and hungriest class because local elites, big transnational corporations, and imperialist powers continuously take away our lands and plunder our natural resources, exploit our labor, control almost all aspects of food systems, violate our rights, and destroy the environment. In order for us to sustainably produce food for all, we must end feudal control and imperialist exploitation in our own countries by taking back control over land and resources. Currently, according to government data, 5% rich feudal families have control over 64% of land. Under new corporate farming ventures, the provincial governments are providing thousands of acres of land to corporate entities for growing cash and food crops, all destined for export.
Rural peoples directly bear the brunt of climate change impacts, which often translates to loss of lives and livelihoods. But instead of putting the brakes on capitalist profiteering, governments and international institutions are giving the green light to big corporations cashing in on the climate crisis through false climate solutions that will lead to more land grabbing and displacement of rural peoples.
We must shift the future through (1) shifting the bias of policy making toward the peoples’ rights and aspirations, (2) shifting the control over lands and natural resources, and (3) shifting financing toward genuine food systems transformation.
We propose implementation policies that will ensure adoption of agroecology-based production systems— based on autonomy and free from the shackles of agro-chemical corporations. Given the grave looming food insecurity situation, farmers must be provided free access to local indigenous seeds and organic inputs that would allow the country to ensure food security of its people.
In terms of climate justice, again the political framework of food sovereignty and agroecology pave the way for claiming rights over land and productive rights, while also slowly revitalizing and enhancing our genetic resources and protecting biodiversity.
There is an acute need to carry out education including practical application of agroecological methods. There is an acute need for advocacy on the issue and claim government support for agroecology practice.
There is also a need to heighten climate justice campaigns at the local, national, regional and global levels to promote sustainable production and consumption, while sharply de-escalating fossil fuel use but also advocating for lifestyle changes of rich industrial nations and elites of both North and South.
Our work is built on all of the above actions: practice and promotion of agroecology and food sovereignty; demanding just and equitable land distribution; working with small and landless farmers with emphasis on women to build political and social movements for food sovereignty and climate justice.
Public AssemblyNo to Corporate Capture of Our Dairy and LivestockCommunity Organizing
About Dr. Azra Talat Sayeed:
As an activist with a focus on women’s and peasant rights, Dr. Azra Talat Sayeed has made an important contribution to building peasant movements in Pakistan and in the Asian region. She is the Executive Director of Roots for Equity, a Karachi-based organization working with small and landless peasants, the current Chairperson of the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) and the International Women’s Alliance, and a Steering Council member for the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty Asia. Learn more about her work in this interview.
Written by Joyce Chimbi, a cohort three graduate of grantee partner ESAFF Uganda’s Agroecology School for Journalists & Communicators. Agroecology Fund supports this initiative with the aim of building the capacity of journalists and communicators to write and report on agroecology in their communities.
The Agroecology Fund works with a diverse pool of grassroots organisations and networks including Indigenous youth networks. Indigenous communities face existential threats to their ancestral lands from destructive forces of colonialism. These lands are crucial for sustenance and spiritual practices.
During the recent Agroecology Fund African Learning Exchange that brought together more than 100 farmers from diverse cultures and communities, Indigenous peoples shared about their journey in agroecology.
A Learning Journey
“We work with Indigenous communities in Kenya, particularly for the promotion of their social and cultural rights, said Bernard Loolasho – an Indigenous youth leader and convener at the Kenya Indigenous Youth Network. “Agroecology came into the picture when we started talking about the food sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and since then we have worked with the support of Agroecology Fund in three communities in Kenya. The Yaaku tribe in Laikipia, Endorois in Baringo and Sengwer people in Trans Nzoia, Cherang’any Hills.”
Ongoing interventions include support for creating seed banks with women in the Sengwer community in Cherang’any and agro-pastoralists farmers in Baringo as well as beekeeping farmers in Laikipia among the Yaaku community.
“So far, we have implemented the first year, and we have noticed successes in documenting culture, traditional practices and techniques of beekeeping and seed banking. We have managed to work with farmers, both the elderly and the young, and have facilitated exchanges in intergenerational knowledge transfer. It’s a learning journey. We long to see what else could come out of these interactions and our journey to food sovereignty as Indigenous peoples in Kenya. We are enjoying the journey and the learning,” he said.
Ultimately, he says, they would look forward to seeing how best indigenous peoples and indigenous voices are raised and how best to amplify them. For a very long time, Loolasho observed, indigenous people were not recognized and were significantly marginalized. Stressing that “even now, their rights to food in particular is not guaranteed. Their right to seeds is at risk. So, ours is a journey to food sovereignty for indigenous people.”
Identity and Land Rights
“I’m Juliana Loshiro, an Indigenous young woman in the Yaaku community. We live in Mukogodo Forest as hunter-gatherers. They have not recognized us as a tribe because our people settled in Mukogodo forest and that is where we are now fighting for identity. I’m the only remaining fluent speaker of the Yaaku dialect in my community after my grandfather Leriman who is 113 years old. I’m amongst 8,000 people who identify as Yaaku.”
Loshiro says “we are doing more of language and cultural utilization and trying our best to come up with a strategy to fight for all our rights – be it in culture, food security and land rights. Hunter-gatherers are facing a lot of challenges and we are essentially being evicted in our own lands. We are doing advocacy on the ground and writing memorandums to the government to consider us, because if we are pushed out of our homes, where will we go?”
“But we are more hopeful now and we have seen the light. We are using agroecological solutions to sustain ourselves even as we move into the future and we are also exploring value addition. We are good at beekeeping and using it to support our livelihoods. We have brought together more than 3,000 women who are interested in beekeeping and value addition and through such solutions, we are changing lives and narratives,” she said.
Diel Mochire Mwenge is a Chief among an Indigenous community called Batwa and, the director of the Programme Intégré pour le Développement du Peuple Pygmée in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a grantee partner of the Agroecology Fund. The organization works with local communities to promote agroecological solutions and more so, among the Indigenous people, creating linkages between farming and biodiversity preservation.
“We do all of this not only with technology, but also with the help of traditional knowledge in such areas as understanding when and where to plant. The Batwa are one of the two main indigenous hunter-gatherer communities in DRC and the population is about 100,000 in the Lake Tumba region of north-west DRC, and also a few thousand in Kivu near the Uganda and Rwanda borders,” he said.
Mwenge says besides increasing production, they are also doing value addition and working with farmers to improve access to the markets. Some of the challenges they face are linkages to markets since indigenous communities are often found in areas that are cut off from development and infrastructure.
All in all, the Chief recognized the Learning Exchange as a platform to deepen his understanding of agroecology within the context of indigenous, marginalized communities – learning and sharing with others in the East, Central and Africa region. The acquired knowledge, he said, will go into scaling their interventions.
It was quite a jolt to move from an agroecology learning exchange among hundreds of small farmers and advocates in Zimbabwe to the monied terraces of New York City where thousands gathered for Climate Week NYC 2024. And I was born in New York! I couldn’t help but wonder what it might have felt like for a Maasai pastoralist leader entering this dizzying universe for the first time, trying to assess the dynamics to know how to best advance a rights-based climate resilience agenda?
The week was a whirlwind with more than 600 events and social gatherings. There were so many interesting conversations about both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, especially around food systems transformation. And while the momentum and energy of the event produced a sense of hope and inspiration, it also raised concerns about how we think about change.
A bit more about the both/and:
Community-led Conservation and Indigenous Food Systems
The top-line message was loud and clear: “Despite growing momentum for improving climate and conservation funding that flows to Indigenous and local organizations, shifting those pledges into practice – e.g., money into the hands of local actors – has been limited.” Speakers observed, with a bit of nervousness since it’s a sensitive topic, that colonial patterns have been hard to break and BINGOs (big international NGO’s) tend to receive the majority of funding.
Present was Agroecology Fund grantee partner IMPACT Kenya—which champions Indigenous resilience by securing land rights, fostering sustainable livelihoods, and nurturing ecosystems. Of particular interest to me was how pastoralist’s conservation strategies are inextricably linked to agroecological strategies to preserve Indigenous food systems. There is much urgency to collaborate at the nexus of food and conservation and to ensure that local organizations and their representative networks have the resources they need to further this critical, inter-sectional work.
Investing in Indigenous-led Climate Solutions
“Investing in Indigenous-led Climate Solutions,” was an event co-hosted by Collective Action for Just Finance, the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples, the Christensen Fund and Confluence Philanthropy. Moderated byJen Astone, Agroecology Fund’s Agroecological Entrepreneurship & Territorial Markets consultant, it wove together a conversation among Ben Jacobs, Co-founder & President Tocabe, Chrystel Cornelius, President & CEO, Oweesta Corporation, and Keoni Lee, CEO, ‘Aina Aloha Economy Fund, Hawai’i Investment Ready.
Panelists discussed how to leverage investment and grants to support Indigenous communities in their efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change. Each shared culturally-affirming business models and approaches to investing in Indigenous communities using holistic investment strategies, including trust-based financing which required no collateral, and rights-based approaches to housing, green energy, and healthy foods.
Investing in Indigenous-led Climate Solutions Panel Conversation
Listening to these cases, I couldn’t think of a better scenario for impact investors seeking climate-friendly investments with powerful equity outcomes . “Impact Investing” was a common refrain during Climate Week and so throughout my time there. I was mystified by why amazing climate-friendly, triple bottom-line enterprises like these continue to have difficulty obtaining the financing they need. U.S. foundations sit on billions of endowment dollars that could be invested in these Indigenous-led solutions. Why does this gap still exist?
The Agroecology Fund will continue to seek ways to stimulate the flow of capital—from public, private, and multilateral sources—into community and Indigenous-led climate enterprises.
Celebrating Indigenous Philanthropies and Power
On two evenings, lifted to the heights of Manhattan’s skyline in ear-popping elevators, I joined powerful celebrations of Indigenous-governed institutions providing essential support to their communities. The first gathering was a 10 year celebration of the Pawanka Fund. Pawanka is an Indigenous-led fund, “promoting and protecting traditional knowledge, wellbeing, rights and self – determined development.” Led by a guiding council, Pawanka has granted over $18 million to Indigenous-led organizations in dozens of countries. I had first met Miskito leader and Pawanka Founder, Myrna Cunningham, 40 years ago in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua and finished the evening awed by the stories of the Fund’s deep impact on Indigenous communities.
The next night, the NDN Collective, which applies a mix of organizing, activism, philanthropy, and grantmaking to create “sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms” celebrated their work on a terrace lit by the Empire State Building, an iconic landmark in the ancestral territory of the Lenape people. Earlier in the day, NDN had held a donor workshop about their Landback campaign, exploring how Indigenous land stewardship and rights can drive climate justice and community-led conservation. Just prior to Climate Week, the NDN team had met with elected officials and governmental agencies to raise issues around climate, police violence, and more. There, Janene Yazzie, Director of Policy and Advocacy at NDN, stated “Indigenous Peoples hold a wealth of knowledge around how to build sustainable systems that allow everyone to be safe and free – and we will continue to uplift that knowledge until those systems are in place.” NDN is a close collaborator with the Agroecology Fund’s long-term partner, the International Indian Treaty Council.
Fossil Fuel Companies Double Down on Plastics, Pesticides and Fertilizers
As alternative energy solutions accelerate, fossil fuel companies pivot into increased manufacture of derivative products, such as pesticides, fertilizers and plastics. A recent damning article describes a criminal PR campaign to downplay pesticide risks, financed with US taxpayer support. At a gathering on agrochemicals convened by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and the ClimateWorks Foundation – essential allies of the Agroecology Fund – we discussed the challenges of countering the narrative that chemical inputs have been nothing less than a “modern miracle” with no downside. Jane Fonda, showing up as an activist and cancer survivor, spoke powerfully of the impact of pesticides produced in Louisiana’s cancer alley and the urgent need to remove petrochemical corporations’ social license. The corporate concentration, vertical integration and lobbying weight is daunting but the focus by activists, donors, and government officials provides an essential counterbalance. Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, described his office’s lawsuit against Exxon-Mobil accusing them of contributing to plastic pollution. A good portion of the session focused on manufacture of bio-inputs and ways to restore healthy soils to obviate the need for chemical fertilizers. The Agroecology Fund is proud to support the “true miracle” – grassroots enterprises and advocacy across the world that leave people and the planet healthier.
The Hazards of Global Gatherings
Deliberations on climate change and related planetary crises are increasingly marked by a series of high visibility events that you can find on a calendar – Conference of Parties (COPs), Climate Week, etc. Over cocktail plates of hummus and celery stalks, one might start to believe that these spaces are where change occurs. And to be fair, they do have immense value: Relationships are fortified, collaborations are incubated, deals are struck and critical information about false solutions such as green ammonia are shared. But there are dangers to organizing ourselves around these moments. Since these are exclusive gatherings – we can’t all afford to be there – the grassroots actors who tirelessly organize grassroots constituencies and advocate with local and national policy makers are easily invisibilised. While these global events can be important, they contribute more forcefully to a democratic groundswell for climate justice when sufficient resources are allocated for the grassroots work before and after these events. Perhaps more concerning is whether these events fan an inflated sense among global gathering attendees that they are the primary change makers, rather than the people back home, much closer to the ground. Too infrequently did I hear invoked and lifted up the names of climate champion organizations and networks – the landscape stewards, food producers and grassroots activists. Trust-based philanthropy should ensure that these champions are entrusted with adequate resources for their work. We all benefit from their leadership.
Rooftop garden at Jacob Javits Center, NYC
Food Systems Everywhere
Finally! Food systems have arrived in climate conversations. Once ignored, food is gaining prominence. At a gathering entitled, “Unlocking Catalytic Investments for Regenerative Agriculture Transitions” co-sponsored by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and the Rockefeller Foundation, Ana Terra, from Brazil’s National Secretary of Supply Cooperativism and Food Sovereignty, Ministry of Agrarian Development and active in Brazil’s powerful social movements, spoke about the success of public procurement for healthy school food program, which incentivizes thousands of agroecological producers who, in turn, regenerate climate-resilient landscapes. Learning about this work, one can see that with the right pressures and policies, profound changes can quickly occur.
That night, mesmerized by Times Square neon pitching products that push us closer to climate collapse, I thought about the work ahead. No doubt the logistics will be complicated to provide all those NYC pizza parlors with agroecologically-produced tomatoes and cheese. But it can be done. Harder still will be to redirect the billions of dollars flowing toward climate solutions away from techno-fixes and towards truly just and sustainable solutions. But with a powerful imagination and a powerful climate justice movement, I’m pretty sure we can do that too.
This article was written by Daniel Moss, Agroecology Fund Co-Director, for the September 2024 edition of FAO’s Agroecology Knowledge Hub – Germinate! column. You can find the original publication here.
Diverse, localized, farmer managed seed systems are the cornerstone of a biodiverse, climate-resilient, equitable food system—and essential to achieving zero hunger. However, somewhere along the way in the “modernization” of our food system, the trend is towards less rather than more seed diversity. That diversity has been eroded by corporate and governmental policies in support of seed homogenization and privatization, such as by the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. We all pay the cost. The right to food sovereignty is undermined around the world, proprietary seeds leave farmers in debt and consumers are hurt when food supplies rely on fewer crops vulnerable to droughts, floods and pests.
Farmer managed seed systems (FMSS) are central to the everyday practices of the small-scale farmers who feed 70 percent of the world’s population. FMSS recognize the central role farmers play in selecting, growing, saving, and sharing seeds in community. Despite this, mainstream discourse continually refers to these systems as being “informal” or “anti-modern.” Additionally, over the last few decades, many governments have moved toward embracing Green Revolution “technologies”, including GMO’s, under the misguided perception that they will lead to greater production. In some instances, open seed exchange has even been criminalized. This devalues and undermines the essential climate resilient, nutritional and equitable qualities of FMSS.
Thankfully, there is an upsurge of community-led movements advocating for food sovereignty in the face of this corporate backed, restrictive approach to feeding the world. The Agroecology Fund invests in many of these grassroots movements. With their reach deep into communities, they advance food sovereignty, rights to land, territory and natural resources, climate resilience and biodiversity conservation. They are leading movements to protect seed sovereignty in their local communities by ensuring policies, laws, and practices affirm the role of small farmers and their right to FMSS.
In Defence of Seed Sovereignty: Grassroots-Led Movements for Change
In Kenya, Kenyan Peasants League, has been defending peasant farmers’ rights for many years. In October of 2022, a governmental ban on GMO’s, which had been in place for a decade, was lifted. The Kenyan Peasants League quickly organized a GMO taskforce to reinstate the ban, although not permanently. The Kenyan High Court will make a permanent decision in October 2024. The push for corporate-tilted seed laws across Africa, driven by protocols like the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), commodifies seeds, which threatens the biodiversity and resilience of African agriculture. KPL mobilizes Kenyan small holder farmers and consumers to push for agrarian reforms that help ensure food sovereignty and environmental conservation.
Photo Credit: Victoria Uwemedimo / Agroecology Fund
In the Philippines this year, the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) celebrated the decision of the Philippines Court of Appeals, upholding the lower court’s decision to stop the distribution and commercial propagation of GM Golden Rice and Bt Eggplant after much grassroots campaigning. SEARICE warned against corporate takeover of farms and patented seeds that could replace existing local crop varieties. It is their perspective that Filipino farmers have sufficient local varieties to supply food and crop needs. All they need are appropriate laws, technical and post-harvest support. Therefore, SEARICE supports farmers’ needs, not unpredictable, privatized “solutions” that leave communities disempowered and vulnerable.
Across the Americas, there are many rich movements for food sovereignty rooted in seeds. In the United States, Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA) is developing a robust Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN) to design, facilitate and implement Seed Stewardship Mentorship training that is culturally appropriate. They propose a collaborative framework for ethical Indigenous seed stewardship so that tribal communities can protect their seeds from patenting and bio-piracy.
Photo Credit: Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance
Further south in Mexico, Indigenous communities are part of a fight against the US government, that seeks to impose the importation of GMOs that risk contamination of the nearly 60 native varieties of maize that are central to Mexico’s cultural heritage. The Mexican government has restricted the use of genetically modified white corn for human consumption and glyphosate as part of its broader program for food self-sufficiency and agroecology. Last August, the U.S. government launched a trade dispute, falsely asserting that these rules violate provisions in the U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which incidentally recognizes nations’ authority over their cultural heritage. Civil society groups, supported by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy have submitted responses and the Mexican government has submitted important studies denouncing the changes by indicating the degree to which GMO corn will harm Mexicans, as corn accounts for the majority of calories and protein of daily diets. The case is slated to be decided by a council of judges by the end of the year.
Certainly, the biotech industry has the ear of many policy makers. Lobbyists (and sadly, the Gates Foundation) spend billions to adopt technical fixes that they describe as climate-smart. The truth is that climate-smart solutions emerge by working with, not against nature and those living closest to the impacts of climate change. The Agroecology Fund is honored to support remarkable community-led efforts to strengthen a truly climate-resilient food system and seeks to fortify these movements around the world by calling on private, public, and multilateral organizations to join us.
Written by Joyce Chimbi, a cohort three graduate of grantee partner ESAFF Uganda’s Agroecology School for Journalists & Communicators. Agroecology Fund supports this initiative with the aim of building the capacity of journalists and communicators to write and report on agroecology in their communities.
In various shapes and forms, peasant and family farmers from across the African continent came together from their respective countries to showcase the best of their seeds and foods. As part of the Agroecology Fund’s Learning Exchange on Agroecological Economies, Agroecology Fund grantee partners visited this year’s Good Seed and Food Festival in Harare to share their experiences and interact with the best of Zimbabwe’s traditional and organic seeds and food from the four corners of the country.
Carmel Kifukieto Manzanza from the Democratic Republic of Congo experienced firsthand how prices vary depending on the route that the farmer takes to sell their produce, “when farmers sell directly from their farm or as an individual, they often sell at a price that is lower than the market rate. But when there is an event such as this (festival), that brings many people together, the prices then become favorable for rural peasant farmers who are often cut off or at the margins of the market systems. And, yet the prices are also favorable for the consumer compared to what they would have paid in other markets such as a supermarket. Overall, it was an opportunity for farmers and local peasant communities to showcase what they can do.”
January Watchman Mvula from the Sustainable Rural Community Development Organization in Malawi, “learned that Zimbabwe as a country is investing much of its resources in organizing farmers’ cooperatives and in particular, peasant farmers from local communities. By doing that, they are also transferring various skills like drying for preservation and processing for value addition.”
What stood out for Ruth Badubaye from the Centre d’ Appui a’la Gestion Durable des Forests Tropical in the DRC are the innovative, value addition activities undertaken by peasant farmers. “They had packaged their products in ways that are very appealing to consumers while still maintaining a price range that is fair to the consumer. I took some time to learn how the farmers produce such big fruits. The watermelons and pumpkins were very big. I also shared what I know and, in the end, I realized that there is always a way to learn, exchange and improve knowledge all around. My take away is that in this community, the post-harvest processing or value addition is really done at a more advanced level. In DRC, people only do value addition to fruits and vegetables and only for household consumption. In Zimbabwe, the community does it for commercial purposes and this is very impressive as it helps put more money in a farmer’s pocket.”
A member of the African Alliance Against Industrial Plantation Expansion, Nasako Besingia grantee of the Agroecology Fund, observed, “I have interacted with various farmers’ gatherings and the idea of a food and seed festival is not unique to Zimbabwe, as we have similar festivals in Cameroon. But for the most part, that is where the similarities end. We have many more crop varieties than what I saw and many more farmers than what I saw. Perhaps the issue of fewer farmers is down to the fact that the festival was hosted in an urban area which limits the participation of peasant farmers.
“I come from Mundemba in Cameroon the headquarter of the Korup National Park
which extends over a huge chunk of mostly undisturbed forest. There, we have lots of plant varieties or what we call non-timber forest products such as vegetables and many other food varieties, that grow without human or farmer intervention”, said Besingi.
“But I also saw a few varieties of crops that we do not grow in Cameroon or Central Africa and a number of my colleagues from Gambia purchased some traditional cereal and vegetable seeds for planting when they return home.
“If you were to visit a similar food and seed festival in Cameroon, you will have access to foods that have come directly from the forest, like native tubers similar to yam and not necessarily cultivated. Our soils are still very healthy and in fact, if you try to grow say Irish potato using fertilizer, it will all rot and go to waste. It means you are adding more to the plant than it needs.”
“I did not see forest products in Harare but, for us, they are very important to our food systems in both rural and urban areas. There are forested areas in Zimbabwe, what happened to their forest foods?
“This is the beauty of farmers from across the continent meeting, interacting, learning and sharing from each other. You get to see and understand what is possible, and you are able to think beyond what you can see and to try new agroecologically innovative ideas. Overall, it was a fantastic festival and I had a great time!”
Written by Joyce Chimbi, a cohort three graduate of grantee partner ESAFF Uganda’s Agroecology School for Journalists & Communicators. Agroecology Fund supports this initiative with the aim of building the capacity of journalists and communicators to write and report on agroecology in their communities.
Scores of people from across Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces gathered at the annual National Good Seed and Food Festival at the Harare Botanical Gardens for activities spanning September 13-14, 2024. The festival started in 2013 and is organised by a loose network of agroecology-leaning organisations to showcase good and healthy food, revive indigenous seed diversity and traditional technology.
Overall, it is designed as a public service event to promote farmer-led seeds and knowledge systems, and boost production and consumption of healthy foods. The general public was treated to the best of Zimbabwe’s traditional delicacies, music and cooking demonstrations, in addition to food and seeds variety exhibitions.
“Due to poor documentation, very little is known about how resilient our local seed systems are even between local farming communities. This festival is about exhibiting the best of African seeds and foods, and farmer-led farming systems. Agroecological is much more than a farming approach, it is also about building resilient communities especially in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss to achieve seed, food and nutrition security,” said Chimwemwe Ndau from the Soils Food and Healthy Committees in Malawi.
Throughout the gathering, seed savers, farmers, organisations, businesses and individuals shared knowledge on how to farm and produce food in harmony with nature. They sold and exchanged seed varieties and explored topics such as resilient Indigenous and local crop varieties.
Amina Chiwocha is among the farmers who were exchanging and selling seeds at the festival. She farms on a two-acre piece of land in Chingwaru village, Mashonaland in northeastern Zimbabwe. The peasant farmer was showcasing nearly 30 varieties of big and small grains, and horticulture seeds at the festival.
She said that the exhibition gives farmers an opportunity to highlight the issue of markets for nutritious, healthy and sustainably produced foods. Stressing that connecting rural smallholder farmers with suppliers and buyers helps break the cycle of poverty and improves rural development and innovation.
“I am among the farmers who are bringing back Africa’s forgotten foods. Cherry tomatoes and gooseberries are really among Africa’s forest crops. We picked and ate them on the way to the river, collecting firewood but now, you can hardly find them. We had different varieties of vegetables that are like weed with no intervention from the farmer but have been pushed out by exotic crops. At the festival, we learn about seed restoration and embracing traditional systems as they are better suited to our climate and environment,” she added.
To salvage Africa’s crumbling food systems amid the climate and biodiversity crises, the festival serves to drive a shift to local, climate-adapted crops and crop varieties that helps smallholders diversify their production.
The push is yielding results and Zimbabwe is already showing a promising shift in food production and consumption.
Increasingly, a push by social movements such as PELUM Zimbabwe, an organizer of this annual festival, to ensure a more reliable, nutritious food supply at the household and national level, have been complimented by a growing movement of farmer groups and associations, community-based organisations, national and international NGOs and, philanthropic donors such as the Agroecology Fund.
Consequently, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and the Food and Nutrition Council have resuscitated food and nutrition security committees which promote a multisectoral approach to improve community and household nutrition. For the first time in Zimbabwe’s history, an increasing range of traditional food and drink products are appearing on supermarket shelves and are sold in restaurants.
In the face of multiple challenges such as the ongoing climate and biodiversity loss crises, pollution and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic – more support is needed for small-scale food producers, connecting them with critical and livelihoods-transforming knowledge and financial services.
Between 2012 and 2023, the Agroecology Fund – a multi donor fund supporting agroecological practices and policies – supported grassroots organization’s work in agroecology across Africa, awarding a total of $6,589,613 through 137 grants. This year they launched new regional funds in Eastern and West Africa. Many of the Fund’s grantees from across the continent and beyond such as the Eastern and Southern Africa Small-Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) were at the festival and took the opportunity to underscore the critical role farmer-led seed systems play in fixing Africa’s broken food systems.
The following article was written by Marta Vidal and published in Yes Magazine in August 2024. You can read the original here.
Growing food under military occupation has become increasingly dangerous as settler violence and repression escalate. But these farmers persist.
Surrounded by a 26-foot-high separation wall, barbed wire, and a watchtower, a group of young Palestinians prepares a 3.5-acre piece of land for the growing season in spring. The noise of their hoes shaping the soil mixes with the humming of construction cranes from the nearby Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit. Established in 1996 on land appropriated from Palestinian villages, the Israeli settlement is illegal under international law but continues to expand.
The Om Sleiman farm in the village of Bil’in is part of a growing agroecology movement in the occupied West Bank that is turning to sustainable farming as a way to resist the Israeli occupation and stay rooted to the land. Established in 2016, Om Sleiman—Arabic for “ladybug”—aims to connect Palestinians to the produce they consume and to promote food sovereignty.
“We share the yield of the farm with 20 to 30 members, depending on the season,” explains Loor Kamal, a member of Om Sleiman, as she prepares raised beds where eggplants, tomatoes, watermelons, peppers, and beans will be sown. The farm operates on a community-supported agriculture, or CSA, model in which members pay for their share of the produce at the beginning of each season, sharing both the yield and the risks of production.
One day in April, Kamal shows us around the property, which is located in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli military control. Here vegetables are grown alongside olive and fruit trees, but Kamal, who works at Om Sleiman with a team of five other women, mentions that a part of the land is inaccessible. “In March, we were walking around the farm, checking the carob trees inside our land, and suddenly soldiers started shooting at us,” she recalls.
Growing food under military occupation has become increasingly dangerous as settler violence and repression escalate. Even with the world’s attention focused on the war in Gaza, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 563 Palestinians in the West Bank since October.
Despite the dangers, Om Sleiman’s team is determined to continue their work. “We have to go on, even when there is fear, because our presence here is important,” says Kamal as she picks eggplants, apples, and mulberries from the farm.
An aerial shot of Om Sleiman Farm. Photo Credit: Om Sleiman Farm
The land on which they grow organic produce has special significance. The concrete wall that cuts through the West Bank expropriated hundreds of acres of Bil’in’s agricultural land in 2005. After years of protest and legal action, residents managed to regain about half of the lost farmland, a victory that turned the village into a symbol of popular resistance.
A part of the reclaimed land was donated for the establishment of this agroecology farm. For members of Om Sleiman, growing food in defiance of the encroaching wall and settlements is a way of continuing the struggle for freedom.
A volunteer poses for a photo at Om Sleiman farm in Bili’in. Photo Credit: Om Sleiman Farm
Agroecology As a Tool for Liberation
“If we want to be free, we need to plant our own food,” says Angham Mansour, who is from Bili’in and joined Om Sleiman two years ago. The farm aims to promote independence from the occupier’s economy but also to reconnect Palestinians with the land. “Farming is part of our heritage. Going back to the land is going back to our roots, to our identity,” she says.
Palestine is part of the historical region of the Fertile Crescent, seen as the birthplace of agriculture, where people started cultivating grains and cereals as they transitioned from hunter-gatherer groups to agricultural societies.
For Saed Dagher, a farmer and agronomist who started working with agroecology in Palestine in 1996, sustainable farming is a crucial tool for liberation. “As a farmer I am free when I don’t depend on outside inputs, when I produce the food in my land the way I see fit, with my own seeds, and the inputs that are locally available. I am not dependent on seed and chemical companies. And I don’t depend on the occupation,” he says.
Dagher is one of the co-founders of the Palestinian Agroecology Forum, a volunteer group aiming to spread ecological farming in Palestine. In the past decade, he has noticed a growing interest in agroecology, an approach that tries to minimize the environmental impacts of farming by using local, renewable resources. This method reduces dependency on purchased inputs and prioritizes soil health and biodiversity.
According to Dagher, Palestinian farmers have practiced forms of agroecology long before the term was invented. “Traditionally, Palestinian farmers would plant olive trees with wheat, barley, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. In the same field, we would have fig trees, grapes, almonds. It was diverse,” he says. Palestinian farmers used to rely mostly on local resources and rain-fed agriculture, helping preserve local varieties in the fields, orchards, and terraced hills.
The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948—through a violent process that entailed the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages and the forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians—meant farmers lost most of their lands and livelihoods.
Since the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, the remaining Palestinian territory became a captive market for Israeli products. The local food system was transformed from a food-producing to a food-buying one, deepening Palestinian dependence on the occupying forces.
In the decades since then, Palestine’s diverse agricultural heritage has been in decline, as Palestinian growing traditions have been increasingly displaced by monocultures and industrial agriculture, which are reliant on agrochemicals and genetically modified seeds, particularly after the Oslo Accords signed in 1993.
“Israel wants to destroy Palestinian agriculture, so [Palestinians] become dependent on them and on humanitarian assistance,” says Moayyad Bsharat, project coordinator at the Union for Agricultural Work Committees, or UAWC, an organization supporting Palestinian farmers. “If Palestinians are food secure and don’t depend on Israeli products and Israeli markets, they will dream of freedom, and Israel doesn’t want it. It wants Palestinians as slaves working for them.”
The importance of food sovereignty has been highlighted by the catastrophic situation in Gaza over the past 10 months. According to human rights reports, Israel has been using starvation as a weapon of war by deliberately blocking the delivery of food and by destroying farmlands.
As dependence on Israeli produce and agribusiness grows under occupation, so does the land grabbing. This year, Israel has declared a record 2,743 acres of land in the occupied West Bank to be state-owned—a move that paves the way for continued settlement construction.
“The occupation keeps trying to take the land from us, to restrict our access to it, and prevent farmers from reaching it,” Mansour says. “The goal is to make our lives here impossible, to make us leave. They want to uproot us.”
The systematic appropriation of land and water resources by expanding Israeli settlements, the separation wall, and the military have all alienated Palestinians from the land and caused the loss of native seeds and traditional practices.
But despite farmers’ continuous dispossession and the widespread destruction of agricultural land, Bsharat says farmers haven’t been defeated. “We will rebuild again. We will support farmers with local seeds and continue our projects to build food sovereignty. We will use all our efforts to dismantle the colonial project by sowing local seeds, taking care of the land, and teaching our children not to forget.”
The Union for Agricultural Work Committees is collecting and distributing 60 varieties of heirloom seeds and is working on the rehabilitation of agricultural land in Gaza and the West Bank. In recent years, it has helped establish agroecology projects and training in some of the villages most affected by settler violence.
“We are still present in the land, despite the restrictions imposed on us and the violence of the settlers,” says Ghassan Najjar, who manages an agroecology cooperative in Burin, a village surrounded by extremist Israeli settlers who regularly attack Palestinian farmers, burning orchards and uprooting olive trees.
Photo Credit: Om Sleiman Farm
“Agriculture is resistance,” says Najjar, standing in a greenhouse where members of the cooperative grow cucumbers and tomatoes using agroecology techniques.
Despite the growing settler violence and repression, Dagher says he is motivated to “do more and more.” He considers the fact that many Palestinian workers have lost their Israeli jobs since last October to be “an opportunity to encourage more people to work in agriculture.”
The farmers at Om Sleiman will keep sowing the land, spring after spring. “These days when the situation is so difficult, we feel this project is even more important. We feel we have to continue, we have to be present,” Mansour says.
“Every day we come and we work the land because we have hope,” adds Kamal. “Because we believe that we will be free.”
A successful agroecological transition is not simply about sustainable food production. Guaranteeing the right to healthy foods through a just food supply system is likewise a foundational agroecology principle.
Farmer and fishers’ markets, food basket delivery services, and online stores are some of the ways that agroecology movements sell directly to consumers at fair prices. But their reach only goes so far. To scale up agroecology, commercialization networks must be strengthened.
School lunch programs, “earth markets” that link to the global Slow Food movement, and food sovereignty corridors are among the many innovative ways that civil society organizations and farmer groups are doing this, as speakers described in a recent Agroecology Fund webinar.
The third in our Agroecology Economies webinar series, this conversation with grantee partners and allies was held on July 17th, 2024, and focused on the topic of commercialization networks as a necessity for guaranteeing healthy foods. You can access a full recording of the webinar here.
Schools as a Hub
School lunch programs can create a market for agroecologically produced food while securing healthy, nutritious food for children.
Marut Jatiket, with Thailand’s The Field Alliance (TFA), said the group launched a program after studying school lunches and discovering that 90 percent of the vegetables were contaminated with organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides.
“Most farming in Thailand, commercially done, uses quite a bit of chemical pesticide [and] schools buy their ingredients in the local or distribution market where organic food isn’t available,” he said.
The Field Alliance’s program links agroecological farmers to safe, organic school lunches via an online platform that allows schools to directly contact farmers. In the countryside, where the internet is not accessible, they promote connections between farmers and rural schools to build healthy food supply arrangements. The group’s farmer schools offer training in agroecology, often in collaboration with government extension agencies and community learning centers. Farmers learn to use mobile phones to link to a database of farmers selling agroecologically produced vegetables.
In just one year, with funding from Agroecology Fund, TFA expanded the number of farmer schools it works with from five to 23.
The group is challenged by Thailand’s limited national budget for school lunches, strict regulations that discourage schools from purchasing directly from farmers, and Thai farmers’ limited organic production, yet Jatiket is unfazed. “The solution for us is to expand agroecological training to the college level in Thailand and prepare the young generation for sustainable farming practice,” he said.
Tapping into the Global Slow Food Movement
Forming partnerships with the global Slow Food movement, which shares agroecological values, can be fruitful. Slow Food’s “Earth Markets” give local producers the opportunity to sell directly to consumers and allow consumers to access locally produced healthy food. They likewise encourage exchange among consumers, farmers, cooks, and other actors in the food chain through food and taste education workshops, cooking lessons, and teaching consumers where their food comes from.
“We believe healthy and culturally appropriate food should be a fundamental right of every global citizen,” John Kariuki, a gastronomist with Slow Food Kenya, said. “We also believe in resilient food systems through agriculture and biodiversity conservation, and that our food should be free from chemicals.”
The Slow Food collaborative supported by the Agroecology Fund in Eastern Africa created 15 Earth Markets in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The markets are run by members of Slow Food communities, and ensure that small-scale farmers get fair compensation for the hard work they do.
Prices at these markets are very competitive with the prices at conventional markets, Kariuki added, because “we are dealing with very short supply chains, and the value chains are not complicated”.
Food Sovereignty Corridors
Food sovereignty corridors are an approach applied to assert territory rights as a place of living, culture and identity and promote exchange between small-scale farmer communities in remote regions.
In Colombia’s northern Cauca region, for instance, Grupo Semillas supports Afro-Colombian communities to establish Afro-food sovereignty and cultural heritage with a corridor that spans a 1200-hectare region inhabited by Black communities in seven municipalities.
“We’re looking to promote healthy foods because of the conflicts that we’re facing,” said Afro-Colombian Anyela Leon Gonzales of Grupo Semillas Colombia, naming mining and GMO maize production in particular.“ The management of the land has changed, and it has affected the whole environment. Twenty-eight varieties of local species have been completely lost, and 43 species are endangered, while children suffer from malnutrition and diseases,” she said.
Grupo Semillas has supported the development of seed houses, an agro-biodiversity refuge, a Farmer School, a university agricultural program, and a school lunch program operating in three schools. The Afro-Colombia Food Sovereignty Corridor includes a network of seed guardians on 18 farms and Afro-food markets that sell local agroecological products at a fair price.
“We want to keep the land in the hands of the farmers. We’re recovering the territory so that people can become more aware of the importance of the local traditions and practices,” Gonzales said.
Meanwhile, in Argentina, the Unión de Trabajadores de la Tierra (UTT) developed a sovereignty food supply corridor to link its more than 20,000 farmer families to each other and to markets and to guarantee its members and consumers a healthy product at the fairest price.
Argentina’s vast expanse stretches 5,500 kilometers from the tropical north to its cool southern tip. UTT’s members in the south, where the growing season lasts just 45 days, are especially isolated. Half the food consumed there comes from outside the region and is very costly.
“It is a huge challenge to transport food around the country without intermediaries or speculators who add high logistical costs,” Josefina Galan and Agustin Mavar of UTT said. “We’ve been working to strengthen commercialization networks and to give farmers direct channels to sell and commercialize their products.”
Agustin Mavar, a small-scale cattle producer in Patagonia and member of UTT, said they began developing the corridor seven years ago by “just jumping on a truck” and mapping out the routes. Eventually UTT bought a vehicle that enables them to carry products to the furthest reaches of the country, but they must still often rent private vehicles that can be costly.
UTT and their new truck
“It’s a huge change, because it allows farmers to be able to plan,” Mavar said. The UTT can now facilitate access for a producer to bring 50 crates of apples to market 100 km away from the main routes, which they otherwise wouldn’t be able to access without their own transportation. “It has allowed us to think and develop other models, such as focusing on value-added products,” he added. UTT also created five storage areas and points of sale for families.
Currently, the Sovereign Corridor stretches across six provinces, with additional corridors being planned.
Enabling Public Policies
Strengthening commercialization networks requires enabling policies; Brazil’s Food Procurement Program, or PAA, offers an excellent model. The PAA was created in 2003 to boost family producers’ income and food security for vulnerable populations.
“We’re trying to encourage family farming, promote access to food for people with food insecurity, stimulate cooperativism … and strengthen local and regional commercial circuits,” said Silvio Porto, a professor who works with Companhia Nacional deAbastecimento (CONAB), a Brazilian food supply company which manages the PAA.
From 2019-2022, the past government reduced the PAA budgets drastically. Since 2023, the new government has been working to revive the program and is also implementing innovations to improve it. An important achievement so far is the better outreach to the Amazon region, reaching Indigenous Communities and Afro-Brazilian communities (Quilombolas, in Portuguese), as well as food insecure families in the Northeast of Brazil.
The Brazilian Government has also allocated a budget to school food programs, which reaches 47 millions students daily. Since 2009, the law requires that at least 30 percent of school food be sourced from family farmers. In 2022, 45% of the resources for food purchases of the National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) were allocated to family farmers. Priority is given to Indigenous peoples, local and traditional communities, land reform beneficiaries, and youth groups. Also, at least 50 percent of the food purchased for PNAE must come from women farmers.
In 2023, the PAA funded 2,280 projects in more than 1,000 municipalities, spending 12 million real ($2.13 million) to purchase and distribute 94,000 tons of food. Eighty percent of the 380 types of food it distributed was fresh fruit and vegetables. All of PAA’s distribution programs are managed autonomously by civil society organizations.
“It shows the value we give to our food culture and the public markets to traditional foods, regional foods,” Porto said.
The revival of the program by the current government has been accompanied by important innovations. Since 2023, government purchases support solidarity community kitchens, which are “almost the only public program that can reach unhoused people living in the streets, a major issue for most Brazilian big cities” said Porto.
The webinar demonstrated that strengthened and equitable commercialization networks are fundamental to producers’ organizations to scale up agroecology and to ensure the right to healthy food for all people. It also demonstrates the role that public policies and programs must play in reshaping food systems. These initiatives, most with support from Agroecology Fund, show their power to weave a social fabric and strengthen territorial identity, generating creative solutions for resilient supply chains and healthy food.
Learn more about Agroecology Fund grantee partners who participated in this conversation at the links below:
Time seems to stand still as current levels of undernourishment compare to those in 2008-2009. Against this backdrop, participants of a global World Rural Forum webinar titled ‘Climate Finance Mechanisms for Family Farmers’Organizations’ held on July 30, 2024, delved into available climate finance mechanisms for small-holder farmers.
This is a first of a series of global webinars organized by the World Rural Forum in preparation for COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where key elements of climate finance will be decided. Global climate finance architecture is complex and evolving, necessitating family farmers’ organizations’ active participation in shaping its future.
There appears to be a growing consensus on the inextricable nature of food and climate. Few argue that we can solve the climate crisis with our present form of high input industrial agriculture. Agroecology is emerging as the most effective form of climate resilient agriculture; and farmer organizations, as landscape stewards and food producers, are increasingly perceived as essential to scale agroecology up and out. Through peer to peer learning, they work with their constituencies to shift farmer practice while holding governments accountable to climate-friendly food systems. And yet, in a troubling trend, when it comes to climate finance, they are woefully underfunded.
Agroecology Fund advisor Jyoti Fernandes, coordinator of the Policy, Lobbying and Campaigning work of the Landworkers Alliance, a small farmers union in the UK and a member of Agroecology Fund long-term partner La Via Campesina, represented the Agroecology Fund in this webinar with a presentation about climate finance mechanisms, opportunities, challenges and proposals for change from a grassroots perspective. Other presenters included representatives from Global Environmental Fund and the Green Climate Fund.
“The Agroecology Fund pushes funds directly to organizations which represent small farmers practicing agroecology worldwide and, the networks which represent those farmers and Indigenous people working with the landscapes around them to produce food for themselves and their local communities,” Jyoti Fernandes, Agroecology Fund Advisor said.
“Our support is multifaceted—it could be through seeds and seed networks, knowledge sharing on soil, soil health, water management and agroforestry, through the agroecology training networks and peer-to-peer learning models, or towards increasing food and nutrition security. It has also been proven, all over the world, that agroecology is an effective and sustainable approach to promote climate resilience,” she said.
Fernandes, who is also a family farmer, stressed that nearly all farmers are facing difficulties financially due to an international financial system which largely does not serve or protect smallholder farmers. However, there are three ways through which funds can be received for climate resilience – adaptation, mitigation and Loss and Damage.
She emphasized the need to develop stronger models to illustrate that grassroots actors can and should be financed to build climate resilience. She noted that “business as usual” means that industrialized food systems – often selling false solutions – remain ahead of the queue to receive available funds, taking the lion’s share.
In all, Fernandes highlighted how amidst an unprecedented climate onslaught, family farmers already significantly invest in climate adaptation to ensure global food security. Stressing that their contribution to ensuring agrifood systems are more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable are not in doubt, she noted that they received only 0.3 percent of international climate finance in 2021.
“Indigenous peoples, peasants, and smallholder farmers in general are taking on the biggest share of restoration and biodiversity regeneration efforts while still receiving less than two percent of the financing available. It is time to push for more funding through the Agroecology Fund to support ongoing activities at the community and grassroots level, and more so the work that family farms undertake on a day-to-day basis,” she emphasized.
Part of the solution, Fernandes said, is to explore participatory mechanisms as a way to involve grassroots farmers and networks and to highlight their contribution to climate adaptation and, in turn, expose existing funding gaps. Grants or government programs – for example, credit to cooperatives – are needed to meet the specific needs of family farmers.
Ms. Fernandes brought into sharp focus the urgent need for family farmers’ organizations to define and benefit from the future of climate financing and national climate plans, as the size and diversity of the world’s food basket depends largely on these farmers’ successful approach to ongoing multiple, complex and pressing global challenges.
Written by Agroecology Fund Advisor Milka Chepkorir All photo credits: Milka Chepkorir
On June 21, 2024, the Agroecology Fund was invited to a school agroecology learning field day at Ugolwe Primary School in Siaya County, Kenya. The event was organised by Agroecology Fund grantee partner the Schools and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE) Kenya, who are a beneficiary of the Agroecology Fund through the regional umbrella body, ReSCOPE. Milka Chepkorir, Advisory Board member of the Agroecology Fund, attended the event and shared her experience.
Schools and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE) Kenya is a national capacity-building and networking organisation founded in 2014. The organisation works with schools’ communities, to promote practical ecological land use and management practices, through agroecology approaches, to address the challenges of food & nutrition insecurity, increasing poverty levels, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss in Kenya. Currently, SCOPE Kenya network has a membership of 16 civil society organisations (CSOs), working with 133 schools’ communities in 13 counties in Kenya.
The types of garden designs in the school compound include a rabbit system, fruit forest, key-hold gardens, sack gardens, a food plant circle, and much more.
Food plant circlesMixed vegetable garden
The gardens are set in front of the school classes and offices. This structure and design choice primarily give life to the school environment. This provides things to look at and admire as parents and visitors wait to be served at the school offices.
Gardens set in front of school administration buildings
At an early age, students are taught to be environmentally responsible by not using plastics either in the general school environment or in the gardens. This is a behaviour they have taken back to their homes to influence their villages. By working in the gardens together, the students learn to be tender and care for the plants in front of their classes and the school environment.
Grade 1-3 projects in front of their classes
Contribution to the current school curriculum
The youngest students, in grades 1-3, have been offered opportunities to put into practice the skills they learn from the Carrier-Based Curriculum (CBC)–a new Kenyan school curriculum in which students are guided to set up vegetable gardens at the front of their classes and encouraged to take care of them, water them and learn through doing.
Working with the larger community
In the spirit of inclusion and spread of agroecological practices into the larger community, the SCOPE project has invited parents to participate. As a result, a group of mothers are now a part of the project. They take up the role of nurturing the gardens when the students are on holiday, and work together on community workdays at the school garden. The group expressed how the project has informed their decisions to set up gardens and practice agroecology at their homes, thanks to their children’s influence and knowledge from school. The women’s group has also started agroecological enterprises resulting from their involvement in this project, including selling of organic foods and fruits even at the school field day event.
Women’s group displaying their enterprises
Performance and art
Different schools in attendance skillfully prepared and presented skits, songs, narratives, and poems (in Swahili, English, and Dholu, the local language). A group of three judges awarded scores to the performing groups and individuals. The best-performing groups had prizes presented to their schools.
Some of the performance pieces included:
A young boy from Sega Township Primary School presented a poem entitled Agroecology. In his poem, he pointed out the principles of agroecology and permaculture which included farming without chemicals, without altering or destroying the soil structure, and taking care of micro and macro-organisms like earthworms.
The host, Ugolwe Primary School presented a piece on agroecological activities, encouraging people to practice them and emphasised the benefits of Indigenous foods to human health. Some of the benefits of Indigenous foods highlighted by the presenters included good immune systems to support the body away from lifestyle diseases, and physical strength needed by community members to perform activities in their farms and community.
Lolwe Primary School presented a piece on Agroecology from an African perspective. The main points from the piece highlighted the fact that agroecological knowledge has been passed down through generations from the ancestors. They emphasized the need for the preservation of such knowledge. The piece was delivered with great African proverbs and phrases such as, “Listen to the whispers of cassava leaves on the secrets of the soil.”
There was also a narrative shared by a boy and a girl comparing two types of head teachers in their school. One of the headteachers proposed and pushed for the setting up of a school garden on agroecological principles while the other pushed for chemical farming in the same farm. They named the pro-agroecology teacher Mr. Mapinduzi, translated as Mr. Revolution. The narrative went further to describe how the school ended up dividing the land into two and the teachers piloted their preferred systems. The agroecological farm had higher yields and attracted attention from the students and other school stakeholders.
“It was impressive to see the interest of school administrations and boards of management to be part of these kinds of projects and to be eager to involve their extended school communities. The involvement of students, as key players in the project, draws such positive promise for the future of agroecology as this aligns their choices and actions around food production to the right and the most effective methods that take care of the planet. The knowledge mastered and shared by young boys and girls through the different arts; songs, poems, narratives, dances, drama, was a clear indication that agroecology and especially the consumption of African Indigenous foods is key in the general health of humans and the planet. SCOPE Kenya’s role in reaching out to schools in the country to engage more students in learning and spread knowledge and skills, contributes largely to the need for change that the world needs at this critical moment. While many agroecology actors are focusing on change of policy and strategies on paper, it is encouraging to see actors like SCOPE Kenya working with schools and their communities in the practical implementation and support of agroecological activities with youth, the next generation of change-makers.” – Milka
About Milka Chepkorir
Milka Chepkorir is a young Indigenous woman from the Sengwer peoples in Cherang’any Hills, Kenya. For the last six years she has been working with her community to address land tenure issues in their ancestral lands, the Embobut and Kabolet forests. Due to lack of recognition of her community land rights, the community has faced human rights violations through evictions by the government of Kenya, all in the name of forest conservation. Milka has a special interest in gender issues and has been working with women and elders in her community to ensure women are included in the community land rights struggles. Together with the women in Embobut forest, she helped develop a cultural centre where the community hopes to carry out indigenous education classes to educate the youth and children about the Sengwer indigenous knowledge and systems, most of which have been lost or are diminishing. She is currently completing her Masters in Gender and Development Studies at the University of Nairobi. Her specific focus is on gender relations in community forest conservation among Indigenous Peoples. Milka coordinates the “Defending Territories of Life” stream of work at the ICCA Consortium. She was previously the Coordinator of Community Land Action NOW! (CLAN), a Kenyan movement of communities working to register their lands as community lands under the Community Land Act 2016.
Inisiatif Rizab Benih Komuniti (IRBK), which translates to “Community Seed Reserve Initiative”, is a seed-saving project of the Malaysian Food Security and Sovereignty Forum (FKMM), a discussion and action platform to strengthen food security and food sovereignty in Malaysia that is partially funded with support from Agroecology Fund. The primary goals of this seed initiative are to raise the visibility of farmers’ seed systems, to encourage the spirit and practice of saving, processing, sharing and exchanging seeds between farmers, to jointly care for and conserve agrobiodiversity, especially heritage or local seeds, and to jointly strengthen farmers rights.
In addition to our annual global and regional grantmaking programs, Agroecology Fund is honored to provide support for participatory action and learning to leading organizations and networks in their territories. While shifting funding toward agroecology is our primary mission, creating space for learning, facilitating research and collaborating across geographies is also central to our work. When presented with the opportunity to support multiple grantee partners to attend FKMM’s Agroecology Conference on Community Seed Systems 2024 (AECoSS24) in Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia, we were happy to contribute resources to enable further connection and collaboration within the network. The conference is part of the IRBK work that Agroecology Fund already supports.
We followed up with both FKMM and grantee partners CREATE Trust and Seed Savers Network to learn more about their experiences at the conference—what they learned and what messages they want to amplify about the importance of community seed systems. Read each of their responses in the following Q&As to learn more about these initiatives and the important work they’re doing within their respective communities to create sustainable, just, climate-resilient food systems and the value of gathering in person to collaborate, learn, and connect.
(The following answers have been edited for brevity and clarity)
Q & A with NurFitri Amir Muhammad, project leader of IRBK, FKMM
Please share a brief introduction about your collaborative work on seed systems.
Inisiatif Rizab Benih Komuniti (IRBK), which translates to “Community Seed Reserve Initiative”, is a seed-saving project of the Food Security and Sovereignty Forum (FKMM), a discussion and action platform to strengthen food security and food sovereignty in Malaysia. FKMM was established in 2018 to advocate for farmers’ rights and policy changes toward agrobiodiversity through natural farming, permaculture, and organic agriculture. FKMM conducts theoretical and practical workshops on farmers’ rights, community seed systems, and GMOs.
IRBK was launched in 2020 with the support of the Agroecology Fund to help create a seed inventory with rural seed guardians and offer an alternative to the formal (commercial) seed system. The formal seed system supports seed patents, which ultimately work against farmers and undermine agrobiodiversity. Our work to develop and maintain a seed reserve strengthens farmers’ rights and supports a more biodiverse, climate-resilient food system.
Why did FKMM decide to organize this Conference? What were some of the highlights that stood out?
On April 26, Inisiatif Rizab Benih Komuniti and FKMM co-organized an Agroecology Conference on Community Seed Systems 2024 (AECoSS24) in Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia, in conjunction with the annual International Seed Day. This event was created to be a platform where farmers from all over the world could convene to discuss strategic action focusing on food security and sovereignty, farmers’ rights, and seed rights. FKMM invited farmers and organizers from across Malaysia, many of whom are Agroecology Fund partners, including Serikat Petani Indonesia (Indonesia), Consumer Research Education Awareness Training and Empowerment (India), Seed Savers Network (Kenya), Nous Somme la Solution (Senegal), Rural Women Farmers Association of Ghana (Ghana, member of NSS), and MASIPAG (Philippines). A total of 200 individuals with more than 20 speakers representing 15 countries from Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America gathered for the event. The primary goal of the gathering was to bring together people from around the world to begin to illustrate the significance their practices hold for local and small-scale farming, the critical role they play in contributing to seed security for resource-constrained households, and for supporting biodiversity. The conference intends to build on its initial success to continue to raise awareness of the importance of community seed systems with an eye toward influencing government policies.
What were the key learnings you received from the gathering? How are you thinking about them in the context of your work?
Key Learnings:
Community and farmer seed systems promote partnerships and fairness through the co-creation of knowledge, citizen science, connectivity, and social and cultural values.
Community seed systems promote genetic conservation and create opportunities for economic diversification.
Gathering in person promotes learning and facilitates connections that empower communities.
These key learnings mirror what FKMM considers to be a crucial embodiment of agroecology and are essential for advancing a just transition toward a resilient food system—community, connection, and co-creation. We see the value of holding these types of conferences to bolster the strength and power of farmer collectives.
What message do you want to share about community seed systems and the role they play in food sovereignty?
FKMM believes that recognizing the interaction and complementarity between formal commercial seed systems and community seed systems can lead to a more inclusive and sustainable system. So we urge all stakeholders to recognize and protect farmers’ rights to seeds, which include the protection of traditional knowledge, equitable benefit sharing, and participation in decision-making. These socio-cultural components need to be recognized and protected by international agreements like the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP). FKMM is committed to promoting the community system and advocating for farmers’ rights because we believe this is crucial for sustainable agriculture and food security.
Additional stories about FKMM’s work can be read here and here.
Please share a brief introduction about your collaborative work on seed systems.
CREATE Trust is working on the revival of traditional rice paddy varieties in Tamil Nadu and at the national level. The work focuses on three primary areas in building seed systems: mapping of native paddy seeds in different agroecological regions, conservation and experimentation, and exchange of seeds with farmers. We organize training and capacity-building programs on quality seed production to help maintain genetic purity. We strengthen the community seed system by organizing annual seed festivals and seed fairs to create awareness and showcase diversity. As of now, we have revived and conserved more than 200 traditional paddy varieties, and they are conserved at the community level by farmers at seed banks. These varieties are experimented with by farmers under diverse climate conditions and climate variations.
What were your primary reasons for wanting to attend the seed systems conference? What were some of the highlights from your time in Malaysia?
CREATE Trust was interested in attending the conference to begin to understand the global context of how community seed systems are working across the world. We learned about so many aspects of seed systems from this gathering, including new approaches and strategies for wider outreach, challenges and opportunities farmers face, civil society collaborative actions, contributions of other stakeholders, and what strengthening farmer capacities to become self-reliant looks like globally.
What were the key learnings you received from the gathering? How are you thinking about them in the context of your work?
From the presentations and interactions with participants, panelists, and the organizers, it quickly became clear that there are many similarities in the approach to building alternate seed systems with community participation. While CREATE Trust focuses only on paddy, many others who shared their stories at the gathering are building diverse crop seed systems. It was very useful to be connected to and learn from many seed savers with great experience and knowledge. A major highlight was meeting a university professor from Malaysia with whom I could exchange information about traditional paddy varieties. We’ve already started planning to widen our focus beyond paddy thanks to the influence and information from this gathering. In the coming years, we will focus on native millet and vegetables in our working area.
What message do you want to share about community seed systems and the role they play in food sovereignty?
Farmers across the globe never consider seed as a commodity. They consider seeds to be a community resource, and to nurture that tradition, they have historically had many cultural and ritual practices. Many of these practices have been neglected with the advent of the Green Revolution. In the context of genetically engineered seeds with patent laws and its threat to genetic pollution and negative effects on agrobiodiversity, it is important that the community seed systems need to be strengthened across the world. We can’t achieve food sovereignty without seed sovereignty. Beyond community, it is essential that we establish community seed savers and system networks at National and Regional levels.
Additional stories about CREATE Trust can be read here.
Please share a brief introduction about your collaborative work on seed systems.
Our work started 14 years ago as a response to restrictive seed sector laws in Kenya that prohibited farmers from sharing, exchanging, and selling seeds. Policies pushing farmers to adopt hybrid seeds and use chemical fertilizers and pesticides have increased food insecurity and pushed small-scale farmers deeper into poverty.
In response to this, SSN has forged both local and international partnerships creating a network of more than 3 900 farmers organizations in Kenya and attracted technical and financial support from international partners like Agroecology Fund. Our grassroots activities are aimed to achieve food and seed sovereignty.
What were your primary reasons for wanting to attend the seed systems conference? What were some of the highlights from your time in Malaysia?
I wanted to attend the seed systems conference in Malaysia because I knew there were possibilities of learning actionable models or techniques that could be useful in advancing the SSN agenda back in Kenya. The conference offered a platform to gain insights into successful seed systems from around the world, network with other advocates, and share our experiences. The level of diversity of the participants and topics for discussion also caught my attention. I took home implementation ideas shared by people, from farmers, researchers, and the private sector. That combination of diversity is rare in Kenya because most of the research is funded by the people who want to promote green revolution technologies. This conference created a unique learning opportunity rarely available.
What were the key learnings you received from the gathering? How are you thinking about them in the context of your work?
One of the key learnings I brought back from the conference was the use of microbial treatments for seed dressing. This technique offers a sustainable alternative to chemical treatments, enhancing seed health and reducing environmental impact. Another valuable method I learned was using paper and postcards for seed sharing, which can facilitate easier and more effective seed exchange among farmers. We are now considering how these techniques can be integrated into our existing practices to improve our seed systems. There is also a regulatory requirement to treat seeds with seed dressing chemicals for protection against pest insects and diseases. We have started conducting research on the practical implementation of microorganisms for seed dressing.
What message do you want to share about community seed systems and the role they play in food sovereignty?
Community seed systems play a crucial role in achieving food sovereignty. They empower farmers to maintain control over their seeds, preserve biodiversity, and ensure the resilience of local food systems. By supporting community-based seed systems, we can enhance food security, protect the environment, and promote sustainable agricultural practices. These systems enable farmers to save, share, and exchange seeds, fostering a sense of community and resilience against external pressures such as fluctuations in seed prices and climate change. Supporting these grassroots initiatives is essential for building a sustainable and equitable food system.
The following article was published in The Star in February of 2024. You can read the original here.
In Malaysia, farmers and communities across generations have engaged in the age-old practice of preserving seeds as a means of protecting traditional agricultural heritage.
However, the practice of seed saving has slowly been fading in Malaysia over the years.
For one, intellectual property protection regulations from trade agreements may pose more constraints on traditional seed-saving practices.
The prevalence of commercial seeds, combined with a lack of awareness among farmers about the benefits of seed saving, compounds the issue. Furthermore, a dependence on imported or foreign vegetable varieties has diverted attention from preserving and utilizing locally adapted varieties.
A networking session with Kongsi Co-op, Pesawah, Idris Association, TWN and other NGOs, in conjunction with International Seed Day. Photos: Inisiatif Rizab Benih Komuniti
Addressing these challenges is pivotal in fostering agricultural resilience, preserving biodiversity and ensuring food security. It is within this context that a transformative movement is taking root in the heart of Malaysia.
Inisiatif Rizab Benih Komuniti (IRBK), which translates to “Community Seed Reserve Initiative”, is a seed-saving project under the Food Security and Sovereignty Forum (FKMM), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works to promote seed heritage, seed sovereignty, farmers’ education and community development.
As a response to the challenges faced by traditional seed-saving practices, IRBK is actively sowing the seeds of positive change within the Malaysian agricultural landscape.
Seed-saving is important to protect traditional agricultural heritage.
In our discussion with two key members, NurFitri Amir Muhammad, 39, and Izzeady Amir, 34, we explore the grassroots initiatives of IRBK and its impact on Malaysian agriculture.
As the project leader of IRBK and a microbiology graduate, NurFitri focuses on the preservation of heritage seeds in Malaysia. His comprehensive report, “The Potential Impact of International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991 on the Malaysian Seed Sector, Farmers, and Their Practices”, published in June 2023, sheds light on the farming practices impacted by intellectual property protection of seeds in Malaysia.
Izzeady acts as the field manager, advocating for climate solutions in rural landscapes. With a background in environmental science, specifically in biodiversity and conservation, Izzeady offers insights into how IRBK champions and empowers individuals to safeguard traditional seeds through formalising the informal seed system.
Q: What is IRBK and what does your organisation do?
Izzeady: Rizab Benih is a platform we started in 2021 to document our informal seed system in Malaysia. We identify and visit seed guardians and do an inventory of seeds that they keep, and we teach them how to use the online form on our website to record their inventory. We have recorded 70 seed guardians and almost 2,000 different crops and seeds over the past two years. We label the seeds and encourage people to save, share or sell seeds.
Q: What is the difference between a formal and informal seed system?
NurFitri: There are two types of seeds in the supply chain. Formal seed systems are seeds that have been produced by companies. The contract farmers produce seeds for companies, and these seeds are protected by plant breeders’ rights. Most of the seeds are protected by this law and farmers can only save and multiply these seeds for their own use in very limited conditions. They cannot share or sell the seed to others like in the past as a part of their tradition. Most farmers would obtain their seeds from these companies.
Izzeady: An informal seed system is a system where seeds are being preserved by people themselves. Seed guardians are part of these informal seed systems, and they could be home gardeners, farmers as well as community farms all over Malaysia.
Jarum Galah paddy seeds kept in a glass bottle.
Q: What is the primary goal of FKMM, the NGO that initiated Rizab Benih?
NurFitri: FKMM is a platform set up to help farmers fight for themselves. Farmers in Malaysia are not doing so well, with the exception of those with big capital. Individual farmers in villages do not have a voice to bargain.
They have to accept what is decided by the market, middleman or the consumer. You can imagine that a cucumber naturally will have variations in shape, and not all will grow straight. But the price difference (between a straight cucumber and a naturally curved cucumber) can be more than five times. We want to help farmers get a fair price for their produce.
Q: Why did you start Rizab Benih under FKMM?
NurFitri: This project was started to support FKMM’s vision of ensuring food security and sovereignty for Malaysian farmers. Instead of relying on one source of seed supply, we try to diversify the supply.
Izzeady: Having worked with many indigenous communities and villages, I found that much of the traditional knowledge regarding plants and ecosystems held by the older generation is more oral and not well documented, and we, the younger generation, are losing this kind of knowledge.
Recently, an Orang Asli from the Temiar group in Kelantan passed away and it was a great loss. He had brought me on a tour to show me all the herbs that he used to (purportedly) cure many diseases.
It’s amazing because depending on the state, different plants are used. For example, for small cuts in Perlis, they use this plant called “Kapal Terbang” but in Kelantan, they use “Selaput Tunggul”.
The IRBK committee members during a retreat at Ulu Yam.
Q: What seeds does IRBK try to preserve?
Izzeady: We record mostly edible plants, herbs for medicinal purposes, flowers and fruit trees. We try to highlight heirloom seeds, native plants and interesting varieties – for example, moringa with extra long fruit or a petola (loofah) which is more fibrous and suitable to be used for scrubbing.
Q: What are the benefits of seed saving in Malaysia?
Izzeady: The tradition of saving seeds is mostly done by those who live in changing seasons. Here in our Malaysian climate, we are evergreen and have no need to keep seeds.
That is why we are a bit behind in the seed industry because we don’t see it as a problem.
The seeds that are being sold in the farming industry are sold as a package together with pesticides and herbicides as well.
This takes away farmers’ resiliency as they will be more dependent on the system, which is not good.
The first commercial seed that we started saving was rice padi. In Malay communities, we have the “jelapang”, which refers to a small hut built next to the house where all the padi seeds are kept until the next season.
However, because most padi seeds are controlled by Bernas, you are not allowed to save the seeds or commercialise it.
Q: What is the danger in relying on the formal seed system too much?
NurFitri: Formal seed systems tend to supply seeds that are protected. A protected seed is a plant that has been given plant breeders’ rights, meaning in 20-25 years, no other person can reproduce the plant. The danger is it can undermine agrobiodiversity, with less variety planted by the farmers because those who decide what to plant are the companies, and not the farmers themselves. It will reduce biodiversity and the industry’s resilience to climate change and increase potential threat by diseases and pests.
Izzeady: In the US, there have been some cases where protected corn seeds have cross pollinated with some farmers’ own corn seeds in the open farm; and because they have the same genetics as the patented seeds, the company can claim that the farmer has stolen from them.
Q: Is the government currently encouraging farmers to seed-save and become seed producers?
NurFitri: The government currently is not encouraging farmers to save seeds because it is in the process of making seed-saving and seed-sharing more restricted with the proposed Seed Quality Bill, which obligates farmers and anybody who wants to process seeds to have a license. The amendment of the Protection of New Plant Varieties Act 2004 will give more monopoly to seed companies so that the government can join the UPOV 1991. These two laws will restrict farmers’ rights more.
Q: How would you encourage more people to become seed guardians?
Izzeady: Don’t throw away your fruit seeds; try and grow it on your own. Focus on non-hybrid seeds and preferably what is grown organically. Seeds are one of the basic necessities or foundations in farming and gardening. It is very important for us to empower our own resources for our future resiliency. On April 26, Inisiatif Rizab Benih Komuniti and FKMM will be organising an Agroecology Conference on Community Seed Systems 2024 (AECoSS24) in Bangi, Selangor, in conjunction with the annual International Seed Day. This event will be a platform to discuss strategic action focusing on food security and sovereignty, farmers’ rights and seed rights.
If you have a special variant of seed you would like to register with Benih Komuniti, find out more at www.benihkomuniti.com or follow them on Facebook.
The Agroecology Fund aspires to move massive amounts of funding into grassroots-led agroecology. It’s a big ambition, clearly something we can’t do alone. While we continue to grow the number of funders participating in the Agroecology Fund’s multi-donor fund – now over 50! – we also participate in networks that share a commitment to agroecology principles and the urgent need to extend funding to agroecology movements across the globe.
The Roddenberry Foundation’s +1 Global Fund is a collaborative platform for discovering, strengthening, connecting, and amplifying locally-led change in the Global South. It launched in 2022 with its first cohort of awardees. Leveraging a “network of networks” model, the Fund brings together philanthropists, foundations, and partners who collectively believe that the engine for change lies in the efforts of locally-led, earlier-stage organizations.
The Agroecology Fund is honored to be counted as a network partner of the +1 Global Fund for Food Security, a network-based approach to improving food access and resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a network partner, for each grant round we’ve identified nominators from our grassroots movement network — leaders with expertise in specific agroecology-related themes from the regions where the grassroots work is being carried out. In total, we’ve identified four nominators including long-term partner Alliance for Food Sovereignty Africa, The ICCA Consortium, African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems, and independent consultant Samuel Nnah Ndobe, which resulted in seven associated awardees including four awardees from the Agroecology Fund’s grantee cohort including Schools and Colleges Permaculture Program (SCOPE Kenya), Regional Schools & Colleges Permaculture Programme (ReSCOPE), Kenyans Peasants League (KPL), and Solidarité des Femmes sur le Fleuve Congo (SOFFLECO).
This month, the +1 Global Fund for Food Security recently welcomed the third cohort of 15 awardees, including two Agroecology Fund nominator-affiliated awardees — grantee partner Kenyan Peasants League(KPL) and Solidarité des Femmes sur le Fleuve Congo (SOFFLECO).
These initiatives, hailing from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, are bravely confronting some of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most pressing food and nutrition security issues. Their dedication and the significance of their work are a beacon of hope, demonstrating that change is possible even in the most challenging circumstances.
“We are thrilled to be part of this great network, which will allow us to learn from the experiences of others and see how we can all impact our communities together.” -Solidarité des Femmes sur le Fleuve Congo (SOFFLECO), Democratic Republic of Congo
These awardees are enabling food system transformations across regions and sectors, from promoting agroecological farming to empowering farmers to improve their practices and access reliable markets — all towards ensuring their communities have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life. Besides the financial support provided by +1 Food Security, awardees will also join the +1 Network, through which they can connect with each other to exchange knowledge, provide mutual support, and/or coordinate their efforts.
We are thrilled to collaborate with the +1 Global Fund to move essential resources to impactful agroecology movements.
The following article was published in The Seattle Times in March of 2024. You can read the original here.
ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal (AP) — Mariama Sonko’s voice resounded through the circle of 40 women farmers sitting in the shade of a cashew tree. They scribbled notes, brows furrowed in concentration as her lecture was punctuated by the thud of falling fruit.
This quiet village in Senegal is the headquarters of a 115,000-strong rural women’s rights movement in West Africa, We Are the Solution. Sonko, its president, is training female farmers from cultures where women are often excluded from ownership of the land they work so closely.
Across Senegal, women farmers make up 70% of the agricultural workforce and produce 80% of the crops but have little access to land, education and finance compared to men, the United Nations says.
“We work from dawn until dusk, but with all that we do, what do we get out of it?” Sonko asked.
She believes that when rural women are given land, responsibilities and resources, it has a ripple effect through communities. Her movement is training women farmers who traditionally have no access to education, explaining their rights and financing women-led agricultural projects.
Across West Africa, women usually don’t own land because it is expected that when they marry, they leave the community. But when they move to their husbands’ homes, they are not given land because they are not related by blood.
Mariama Sonko Mariama Sonko poses in the seed hut of her agroecological training center in the Casamance village of Niaguis, Senegal, Wednesday, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
Sonko grew up watching her mother struggle after her father died, with young children to support.
“If she had land, she could have supported us,” she recalled, her normally booming voice now tender. Instead, Sonko had to marry young, abandon her studies and leave her ancestral home.
After moving to her husband’s town at age 19, Sonko and several other women convinced a landowner to rent to them a small plot of land in return for part of their harvest. They planted fruit trees and started a market garden. Five years later, when the trees were full of papayas and grapefruit, the owner kicked them off.
The experience marked Sonko.
“This made me fight so that women can have the space to thrive and manage their rights,” she said. When she later got a job with a women’s charity funded by Catholic Relief Services, coordinating micro-loans for rural women, that work began.
“Women farmers are invisible,” said Laure Tall, research director at Agricultural and Rural Prospect Initiative, a Senegalese rural think tank. That’s even though women work on farms two to four hours longer than men on an average day.
But when women earn money, they reinvest it in their community, health and children’s education, Tall said. Men spend some on household expenses but can choose to spend the rest how they please. Sonko listed common examples like finding a new wife, drinking and buying fertilizer and pesticides for crops that make money instead of providing food.
Mariama Sonko and other members of the “Nous Sommes la Solution” movement take part in a lemon balm pecking workshop in the Casamance village of Niaguis, Senegal, Wednesday, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
With encouragement from her husband, who died in 1997, Sonko chose to invest in other women. Her training center now employs over 20 people, with support from small philanthropic organizations such as Agroecology Fund and CLIMA Fund.
In a recent week, Sonko and her team trained over 100 women from three countries, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, in agroforestry – growing trees and crops together as a measure of protection from extreme weather – and micro gardening, growing food in tiny spaces when there is little access to land.
One trainee, Binta Diatta, said We Are the Solution bought irrigation equipment, seeds, and fencing — an investment of $4,000 — and helped the women of her town access land for a market garden, one of more than 50 financed by the organization.
When Diatta started to earn money, she said, she spent it on food, clothes and her children’s schooling. Her efforts were noticed.
“Next season, all the men accompanied us to the market garden because they saw it as valuable,” she said, recalling how they came simply to witness it.
Mariama Sonko and other members of the “Nous Sommes la Solution” (We Are the Solution) movement take a census of the different varieties of rice in the Casamance village of Niaguis, Senegal, Wednesday, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
Now another challenge has emerged affecting women and men alike: climate change.
In Senegal and the surrounding region, temperatures are rising 50% more than the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Environment Program says rainfall could drop by 38% in the coming decades.
Where Sonko lives, the rainy season has become shorter and less predictable. Saltwater is invading her rice paddies bordering the tidal estuary and mangroves, caused by rising sea levels. In some cases, yield losses are so acute that farmers abandon their rice fields.
But adapting to a heating planet has proven to be a strength for women since they adopt climate innovations much faster than men, said Ena Derenoncourt, an investment specialist for women-led farming projects at agricultural research agency AICCRA.
“They have no choice because they are the most vulnerable and affected by climate change,” Derenoncourt said. “They are the most motivated to find solutions.”
On a recent day, Sonko gathered 30 prominent women rice growers to document hundreds of local rice varieties. She bellowed out the names of rice – some hundreds of years old, named after prominent women farmers, passed from generation to generation – and the women echoed with what they call it in their villages.
Mariama Sonko and other members of the “Nous Sommes la Solution” (We Are the Solution) movement take a census of the different varieties of rice in the Casamance village of Niaguis, Senegal, Wednesday, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
This preservation of indigenous rice varieties is not only key to adapting to climate change but also about emphasizing the status of women as the traditional guardians of seeds.
“Seeds are wholly feminine and give value to women in their communities,” Sonko said. “That’s why we’re working on them, to give them more confidence and responsibility in agriculture.”
The knowledge of hundreds of seeds and how they respond to different growing conditions has been vital in giving women a more influential role in communities.
Sonko claimed to have a seed for every condition including too rainy, too dry and even those more resistant to salt for the mangroves.
Last year, she produced 2 tons of rice on her half-hectare plot with none of the synthetic pesticides or fertilizer that are heavily subsidized in Senegal. The yield was more than double that of plots with full use of chemical products in a 2017 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization project in the same region.
“Our seeds are resilient,” Sonko said, sifting through rice-filled clay pots designed to preserve seeds for decades. “Conventional seeds do not resist climate change and are very demanding. They need fertilizer and pesticides.”
The cultural intimacy between female farmers, their seeds and the land means they are more likely to shun chemicals harming the soil, said Charles Katy, an expert on indigenous wisdom in Senegal who is helping to document Sonko’s rice varieties.
He noted the organic fertilizer that Sonko made from manure, and the biopesticides made from ginger, garlic and chilli.
Plants grow at Mariama Sonko’s agro-ecological training center in the Casamance village of Niaguis, Senegal, Wednesday, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)
One of Sonko’s trainees, Sounkarou Kébé, recounted her experiments against parasites in her tomato plot. Instead of using manufactured insecticides, she tried using a tree bark traditionally used in Senegal’s Casamance region to treat intestinal problems in humans caused by parasites.
A week later, all the disease was gone, Kébé said.
As dusk approached at the training center, insects hummed in the background and Sonko prepared for another training session. “There’s too much demand,” she said. She is now trying to set up seven other farming centers across southern Senegal.
Glancing back at the circle of women studying in the fading light, she said: “My great fight in the movement is to make humanity understand the importance of women.”
The Bittman Project featured an article about the Agroecology Fund in January of 2024. You can find the original article here.
Strengthening community-led agroecological practices and fighting the vested interests that undermine them are the keys
Careful readers of The Bittman Project will note that we are increasingly giving active support to some of our especially like-minded partners. Among these is Agroecology Fund, a participatory grantmaking fund that supports agroecology movements from Mexico to Mali to Malaysia.
This global network comprises a diverse, ground-up movement of allied organizations all geared to building sustainable and equitable food systems, while advocating for policies that enable agroecology and, of course, railing against the vested interests that undermine it.
Agroecology Fund applies its resources to the intersection of these movements, where farmers, eaters, scientists, journalists, policy-makers, activists, and environmentalists collaborate for grassroots-led change. Collaborations include strategies as diverse and complementary as researching soil health, creating agroecology schools and seed banks, offering new models of agricultural extension, passing local land and water use ordinances, and resisting barriers to agroecology, such as corporate control of seeds.
Agroecology Fund fortifies these multi-sectoral movements around the world to build power and transform the food system. This photo essay shares how grantee partners in Kenya are creating food sovereignty by strengthening community-led agroecological practices and solutions.
The above photo is of Samuel Maina, who uses Organic Agriculture Centre of Kenya (OACK)’s biofertilizer at his organic farm, which sits on a hill in Kiamakara Village, Muranga County. In the valley below, farmers produce Kenyan tea — one of the country’s main exports — with chemical fertilizers.
Local demand for Samuel’s organic produce is huge. Nonetheless, he spoke of the safety he feels in diversifying his income. He, too, has a lot in the valley where he grows non-organic tea, a product which he claims Kenya has strict regulations around. “It’s not organic, because we have that policy,” he explains. “You have to use the [chemical] fertilizers that they give you to control the taste of tea, so that it will not be different with every farmer.”
Duncan Ndirangu, of OACK, holds a bottle of organic “soil conditioner” manufactured by his organization. OACK sells this biofertilizer to local farmers at a lower price than the chemical fertilizers peddled by industrial giants. Many of these corporations are seeking to expand by influencing farmers in rural Kenya, where 70% of the population is engaged in agriculture. OACK is a member of PELUM Kenya.
Gladys sells OACK’s biofertilizer, as well as other organic products at her small shop at Kangari Market Centre in Muranga County. The grassroots group’s product is extremely popular with local farmers, and OACK’s already impressive operation can barely keep up with demand. Duncan Ndirangu emphasized the pressing need for more affordable credit options in order for OACK to grow and to coax local farmers away from the short-term — and ultimately counter-productive — ‘solutions’ offered by chemical fertilizer companies.
At his farm, which is spread out over several levels around his house, Samuel Maina practices mixed organic farming, producing dozens of varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs, including guava, chamomile, and oregano.
Samuel belongs to the Kangari Organic Marketing Group, a local network which grows, processes, packages and sells organic produce. He is supported by OACK and PELUM Kenya.
Beatrice Nyambura lives and farms on the hill opposite Samuel. She, too, is part of the Kangari Organic Marketing Group. Her farm in Gakuyu Village, Muranga County, includes a solar tunnel dryer which local farmers pay to use.
Beatrice’s farm is supported by OACK, who last year constructed a water tank for her to help during a period of intense drought.
Peninah Mckenzie (above, left) and Dorothy Nzisa (above, right) are members of the Mwende Women Collective. Their work is supported by the Kenyan Peasants’ League (KPL), a farmer movement whose primary goal is to “promote peasantry and agroecology as a means to ensure food sovereignty.” KPL’s members are organized in “clusters” or “collectives,” to ensure solidarity and joint production.
Peninah and Dorothy weave baskets and bags from natural fibers and leftover dried produce. Their products are now being sold internationally.
KPL also supports the Mwende Munyanyau Cluster, a group of local farmers who are practicing land restoration through terracing and water conservation.
Susan Owiti, Secretary of the KPL Women’s Collective, manages a program which offers free accommodation for vulnerable peasant women, including widows and domestic abuse survivors. The program also offers training in organic farming, providing the women with long-term, practical knowledge and skills.
Due to the nature of KPL’s work, those involved with the group face serious security risks, including online hacking and threats to their personal safety.
Here, Nteleyo Saikong, a Mayianat-Maasai community member, addresses her community in a discussion about land restoration and reseeding in Makurian. These Indigenous people are historically pastoralists — communities whose way of life revolves around breeding and herding livestock such as cows and goats, typically in extensive grazing systems.
But nearby conservation efforts — including exclusive, private resorts — have fenced off large areas of these communities’ pasture lands. This has, in turn, upset the natural cycle of grazing and restoration — a delicate balance which pastoralists have maintained for centuries.
Indigenous youth here face increasing pressure to migrate to urban areas, and to turn away from traditional practices which some consider “backward.”
Mali Ole Kaunga is the founder of the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT) in Kenya, and works with these communities to secure their rights, support their land stewardship, and fortify their food security. Mali stresses the urgency of intergenerational knowledge transfer. “We are losing people to institutions which are designed to undermine them,” he explains.
Lekinyaga Maa (above, far right) is a young musician, who writes songs praising his ancestral land, and describing the unprecedented struggles now faced by his people.
Women in the group emphasized the need for female empowerment in their community and in farming efforts. Here, Joyce Morijoh, Chairlady of Rapunye Cultural Manyatta and a member of the Nyumba Kumi initiative, addresses her community.
Joyce Mamai is a beadworker and member of Twala Tenebo Cultural Manyatta, which encourages financial independence for Indigenous women through organic farming, traditional practices, and tourist activities such as baboon walks. The group was born out of a need to address female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage, which were considered core to the community’s cultural identity. Approximately 90% of the girls in this community once faced these harmful practices — today, they have been completely eradicated. Twala Tenebo Cultural Manyatta’s work is also supported by IMPACT Kenya.
Rosemary Nenini Putunoi, a survivor of FGM and child marriage herself, is the founder and manager of Twala Tenebo. She speaks of how difficult it was to change men’s minds about the deeply-embedded patriarchal traditions which were keeping women in her community oppressed. When trying to educate men away from child marriage she would ask them: “Why are you eating uncooked food where there is cooked food?”
The group’s organic aloe vera farm, one of several agroecological interventions in this community, provides local women with a reliable stream of income.
Having overcome the significant obstacle of community acceptance, they now face another challenge: elephant attacks. Neighboring conservation work has affected wildlife migration patterns and cut animals off from their typical food sources. This puts farmers and pastoralists at a higher risk of animal attacks.
Mworia Mwenda and his wife are beneficiaries of organic farming training conducted by Pastoralist Women for Health and Education (PWHE). They have found agroecological farming to be very fruitful and lucrative. They harvest 500 kilograms’ worth of crops weekly from their three acres of land.
Sadia Mohamed, a Matendo Women chairperson, has started practicing organic farming at her compound in Kambi Juu, with support from PWHE. She has planted an extensive kitchen garden, complete with zero-grazing goats.
PWHE also supports food producers who are at the very beginning stages of agroecological farming. This starts with education. Mumina Jillo Konso (above, right) is a former member of the County Assembly. While she is from a pastoralist community, she also owns a 32-acre farm. Shoba M. Liban (above, left), PWHE’s CEO, knows Mumina from political circles, and has been encouraging her to transition to agroecology.
Indigenous groups in Kenya such as the Ogiek (above, with Maines Chebet, leader of the Logumek Women Group, in the forefront) are often overlooked — and, at times, aggressively marginalized. Despite their historical role in maintaining the land, they are excluded from local and national decision-making and policy development surrounding agriculture.
This Ogiek community in Nessuit is supported by the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program (OPDP), an organization which defends the rights of Indigenous Peoples. OPDP is currently finalizing legal proceedings against the Kenyan government, whom they are suing for reparations for the displacement of Indigenous groups in Kenya.
This community in Nessuit has a strong female farmer presence, named the Logumek Women Group (members pictured, above), who received indigenous vegetable seeds as part of OPDP’s agroecology project. However, due to an extended drought, they have struggled to produce crops. Their beehives, too, are empty.
Many of the men in this community are engaged in conventional agriculture, growing maize, potatoes and beans with chemical fertilizers.
The community’s soil is so degraded that the women feel they now have to follow suit and to resort to using chemical fertilizers in order to produce a yield significant enough to sell. They have decided to use manure only for the small kitchen gardens that feed their families.
Here, schoolchildren attend a farmers’ fair organized by Slow Food Kenya to learn more about agroecology. At this stand, Florida Muthoni (nicknamed “Sonia”) speaks to the children about her involvement with organic food production.
Slow Food Kenya is an affiliate of Slow Food International, a global, grassroots organization which promotes food biodiversity and advocates for traditional knowledge-supported food systems.
Sonia uses locally-produced, organic ingredients such as pearl millet, roasted groundnuts, and dried arrowroot, to make “porridge,” a hearty fermented drink that she serves in gourds out of her shop in Naukuru town.
At other stalls, food producers and farmers display organic products – from beans to natural remedies.
Many of the youth present at the fair explained that they were establishing agriculture cooperatives and producing crops to sell to nearby hotels. One young farmer speaks of his own positive experience of agroecology. While he is a tailor and makes clothes to supplement his income, he sees the long-term value in organic farming.
In the midst of Covid-19, fishing communities around the world have demonstrated solidarity and strengthened the resilience of coastal communities.
Agroecology — the practice of producing food in sync with nature — includes within its diverse global movement peasants, Indigenous peoples, agroforesters, foragers, pastoralists, and fishers.
We cannot overlook any of these sectors’ contributions to global food security. Worldwide, around 60 million people are engaged in fishing activities; even with the rapid growth of industrialized fishing fleets in recent decades, 90% of them are employed by small-scale fisheries. Fishers provide a fifth of the animal protein consumed worldwide. (Of course, in many countries like Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Philippines, Senegal, and Sri Lanka, fish accounts for nearly half of the total animal protein consumed.)
Covid-19 has brought immense hardship to fishing communities worldwide. Just as lockdown measures and movement restrictions impeded farmers’ access to their farms and territorial markets; many fishers were unable to go to sea, or sell their catch. Hunger, poverty, and food insecurity have all increased among frontline food producers around the world who depend on their livelihoods every day to feed their families.
In response to the pandemic, the Agroecology Fund supported 59 grassroots organizations across a wide range of geographies and social contexts with an emergency grant in 2020. As part of the Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund, AEF was honored to support two networks that are defending the rights of fishing communities while demonstrating the importance of artisanal fishing in building resilient and sustainable food systems.
The Fishnet Alliance
Based in Nigeria, the Fishnet Alliance advocates for the rights and recognition of fishing communities in several African countries, who in addition to the pandemic, are bearing the brunt of climate change and development impacts. In Nigeria, fishing communities face eviction threats from their traditional fishing grounds, as the commons they have long stewarded become contaminated by industrial pollutants. Their fish-stocks, a traditional source of nutrition, are fast being depleted by pollution and unsustainable over-exploitation.
The Alliance represents the interests of fisherpeople in policy spaces, emphasizing their contributions to the national economy, and also their role in the protection of marine ecosystems. As a network, the Fishnet Alliance stands in solidarity against extractive industries that are degrading the environment and depriving the artisanal fishers of their primary source of income.
With the support of AEF, the Fishnet Alliance distributed emergency food aid and fishing gear to coastal communities to allow them to continue to feed their families and restart their livelihood activities during the pandemic. In Nigeria, artisanal fishers frequently need to rent their fishing equipment, which can rapidly propel them into a cycle of loan and debt. This assistance from the Fishnet Alliance alleviated the financial burden on artisanal fishers at a time when they were facing the brunt of multiple crises.
Through sustained advocacy, the Fishnet Alliance demands that artisanal fishers be consulted on policies that impact the aquatic ecosystem and their livelihoods. Additionally, they argue that governance systems over commons should be respected and strengthened. By promoting sustainable fishing practices, the Alliance helps demonstrate how artisanal fishers contribute to strengthening food sovereignty and building a resilient food system.
The National Federation of Fishing Cooperatives of Ecuador
On every coastline, small-scale fishers face similar challenges and threats. The National Federation of Fishing Cooperatives of Ecuador (FENACOPEC) is a network that represents more than 500 fishing cooperatives and associations across the country. Similarly to their Nigerian counterparts, coastal communities in Ecuador are confronted with unfavorable policies that disadvantage them and threaten their livelihoods.
Although artisanal fishing is an important source of food for its people, significantly strengthening Ecuador’s food security, the contribution of artisanal and small-scale fisheries to the national economy is rarely recognized. And yet, industrial fisheries receive state support and subsidies, despite depleting the very resources they depend on.
With almost no access to insurance, credits or loans, small-scale fishers are forced into economic precarity, and struggle to maintain their traditional fishing practices in the face of climate change, rampant crime at sea, and the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the lockdown, FENACOPEC created an alternative online marketing platform to connect small-scale fishers to consumers even though markets were closed. They collaborated with small farmers who had produce to share so that fishing communities could access a diverse and healthy diet throughout the crisis, and made sure to reach food supplies to fishers in remote island locations.
FENACOPEC brings fishers’ concerns to the government, advocating for their rights, recognition, and for improved state support. Through their advocacy, FENACOPEC aims to demonstrate the importance of artisanal fishers, who ensure that the Ecuadorian population can access a healthy, diverse and affordable diet, while also protecting their environment at the same time.
Beyond coastal communities, fish is also an important component of nutrition and income for farmers, especially women and youth. The Eastern and Southern Africa Smale Scale Farmers Forum (ESAFF) Zambia, another AEF grantee partner, restored three fish farming ponds in the Sefula community, Mongu district, that had fallen into disuse. Their efforts helped strengthen the resilience of local communities and ensure food security even in times of crisis. The restoration was led by unemployed youth and their families, and the income from the catch generated benefited 800 people. ESAFF Zambia also provided technical training on aquaculture management to ensure the long-term sustainability and community ownership of this initiative.
Efforts like those led by ESAFF Zambia, FENACOPEC and Fishnet Alliance improve the lives of artisanal fishers and fish farmers who sustain their communities with healthy food, while preserving their coastal and inland ecosystems and revitalizing local economies. Increasing investment in agroecology will ensure that many such grassroots organizations — on land and on the coast — can scale up and out, making a more resilient and equitable food system a reality for millions more.
