1.1 Historical background
1.2 The role of FAO in policy making
1.3 Scope of this report
1.4 Levels of policy intervention
One of the earliest expressions of concern about sustainability and food security was made by Malthus late in the eighteenth century. He assumed constant technology and geometric population growth, and so concluded that food shortages were inevitable. While for many years events appeared to prove Malthus wrong, pessimism was rekindled in 1972 in The Limits to Growth by Meadows et al. Their central dismal prophecy of a cataclysmic decline in population and production provoked a storm of controversy. Critics, among them many economists, argued that the prophecy was flawed because it failed to take proper account of the scope for substitution in production and consumption that would be induced, mainly through impacts on market prices, as resource availabilities and other circumstances changed. In particular, Meadows et al. were criticized for not accounting for the scope to substitute human capital in the shape of technological progress for other resources.
Notwithstanding these criticisms, both informed and popular concern for the environment continued to grow and led to the convening of a number of important meetings to discuss sustainability.
In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development was convened and did much to raise awareness about the need for and nature of sustainability (WCED 1987).
Reflecting growing concerns about the sustainability of agriculture, the FAO/Netherlands Conference on Agriculture and the Environment, was held in April 1991 at 's-Hertogenbosch (den Bosch), the Netherlands. This conference generated an important collection of papers (FAO 1991a to v) and led to a Declaration and Agenda for Action on Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD hereafter). This Declaration identified three essential goals for the attainment of SARD:
· food security;
· rural employment and income generation (aimed at eradicating poverty); and
· natural resource conservation and environmental protection.
The Declaration noted that in many parts of the world these goals, and especially the eradication of poverty, are not easily attainable. It was pointed out that the achievement of SARD will require some fundamental changes and adjustments within agriculture based on consistent commitment to appropriate policies, backed by adequate resources.
Subsequently, the very influential United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was convened by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 4 to 14 June 1992. (This conference is also known as the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit.)
The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development contains 27 general principles to guide states and people about their rights and obligations in a 'new and equitable partnership' in matters of development and the environment. Agenda 21 of that Declaration is a comprehensive action plan for the period to the year 2000 and beyond. It contains 115 program areas relating to socio-economic aspects, natural resource conservation and management, the roles of major social groups, and the means of implementation. The chapters dealing with the agriculture sector (including forestry and fisheries) are:
· Chapter 10 (Integrated approach to the planning and management of land resources);
· Chapter 11 (Combating deforestation);
· Chapter 12 (Managing fragile ecosystems: combating desertification and drought);
· Chapter 13 (Managing fragile ecosystems: sustainable mountain development);
· Chapter 14 (Sustainable agriculture and rural development);
· Chapter 17 (Oceans and living marine resources); and
· Chapter 17 (Freshwater resources).
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Box 1. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH Source: WCED 1987. Sustainable development involves more than growth. It requires a change in the content of growth to make it less material- and energy-intensive and more equitable in its impact. These changes are required in all countries as part of a package of measures to maintain the stock of ecological capital, to improve the distribution of income, and to reduce the degree of vulnerability to economic crises. |
Drawing on the outcome of the den Bosch Conference, Agenda 21 articulated at the Rio Conference states that the major objective of SARD is to increase food production in a sustainable way and to enhance food security. It was stated that this will involve:
· education initiatives, utilization of economic incentives and the development of appropriate and new technologies, thus ensuring stable supplies of nutritionally adequate food, access to those supplies by vulnerable groups, and production for markets;· employment and income generation to alleviate poverty; and
· natural resource management and environmental protection (Agenda 21, ch. 14, para. 2).
In the same paragraph it is argued that, to create the conditions for SARD, major adjustments are needed in agricultural, environmental and macroeconomic policy, at both national and international levels, in developed as well as less developed countries.
The main role of FAO in policy making, both in general and specifically in relation to SARD, is to respond to requests for advice and assistance from member countries. Such support is offered on the basis of an overall philosophy that is set out in the document Outline for Guidelines for FAO Policy Assistance in the Agricultural Sector (FAO n.d.). While these guidelines are still provisional, they suggest that the overall work of the Organization, and therefore the policy advisory work related to SARD, should be guided by the pursuit of the goals of growth, equity, efficiency and sustainability. In keeping with these goals, the general aim of FAO in offering assistance in policy analysis and formulation for the agricultural sectors of member countries is specified as devising, in partnership with governments and at their request, the practical means to bring about sustainable improvements in national economic, social and human welfare.
Converting such overall goals just mentioned into operational objectives to guide policy making entails judgement and leaves scope for differences of view and emphasis. Not surprisingly, therefore, there are different articulations of the objectives for agricultural and rural development generally and for SARD in particular. As set out in the provisional guidelines, however, in assisting member governments to make policy choices, FAO should seek to help them to:
· clarify national sectoral goals;· distinguish between policy means, as a way of meeting goals, and policy ends, i.e., the goals themselves;
· propose policy options and program alternatives by which governments can meet selected goals;
· evaluate and analyse the potential effects of these alternatives quantifying any tradeoffs;
· design action programs which include institutional strengthening or human resource development plans intended to implement the chosen alternative; and
· devise systems to monitor progress and measure the impact of policy change.
Clearly, these procedures are fully consistent with a commitment by FAO to promote SARD in accord with the recommendations of UNCED.
Before proceeding further, it is important to comment on specific aspects of the approach used in this report. Some readers may question the definition of SARD that forms the basis for this document. For instance, it can be argued that growth should include efficiency, and hence, the latter does not need to be a separate criterion for SARD. It can be noted that equity is not necessarily the same thing as poverty reduction, or that the concept of sustainability (following the Bruntland Report [WCED, 1987]) could be reserved to inter-generational equity. While acknowledging these caveats, this report adheres to the definition of SARD as espoused by FAO and other international organizations. Certainly, the definition of SARD is not static, but one takes the widely accepted concept at any point in time as the one upon which to build a report.
The terms of reference set for this report, given in the Preface, refer to the formulation and assessment of policies in the agricultural and rural sector. (For this purpose, agriculture is understood to encompass fisheries, forestry, and, where relevant, associated up- and downstream activities.) This breadth of coverage makes sense because agriculture, forestry and fisheries are critically important in the follow-up action to UNCED. Few if any other sectors are affected as much by the sometimes conflicting demands of development and environmental protection. Moreover, by the nature of the activities they are engaged in, agricultural producers, including foresters and fisherfolk, are the managers of a significant share of the world's natural resources.
The agricultural and fisheries sectors also fulfil the vital roles of supplying food essential for human survival, and all three sectors supply industry with raw materials. Large numbers of people depend for their livelihoods on these sectors, especially in the less developed countries. Striking the right balance between economic, social and environmental goals is crucial for the welfare of these people and their families. Most of the poverty in the world is found in rural areas, so the goal of the elimination of poverty requires that special attention be given to raising productive employment in these areas. In those places where the natural resource base is too fragile to withstand further intensification, that means developing rural value-adding industries to provide the required employment opportunities.
Within the broad agriculture and rural sector, it is possible to analyse policy options at various levels of aggregation:
· At the global level, dealing with the sustainability of world agriculture as a whole. A key issue at this level is the growth of demand for food due to population growth and increased consumption per head of some foods due to rising incomes. Consideration of this issue focuses attention on the scope and means that exist to expand overall agricultural production in tune with the expanding demand in the face of resource degradation, possible deleterious climatic change and an uncertain future supply of ever more productive technologies.· At the intermediate level - the regional, national, district or area level. Here, concern within the agricultural sector is focussed on the sustainability of particular agro-ecosystems, including forestry or fisheries systems, and value-adding related rural industries.
· At the local level - at the level of a field, a farm-household, a rural business, or a local community. Issues include the sustainability of the way of life of the people living in these systems, as well as the changes that may be taking place in the quantity and quality of resources to which these people have access.
At this latter, most disaggregated level, the agricultural sector is uniquely characterized by very many production units operating in diverse natural and socioeconomic environments. It is therefore not possible to prescribe a single strategy for sustainability that will be widely applicable. It is also impossible to define specific methods of management that will enable large groups of agricultural producers to operate in a sustainable way. Indeed, the very diversity of agricultural production systems is part of their strength, since it reflects adaptations to different needs and circumstances, including access to resources and markets. Without such diversity, agriculture would be less sustainable.
Clearly, any policy guidelines for SARD must account for the nature and diversity of local systems. Unless policies are in tune with these local conditions, they will not work. That might seem to make the task of setting out policy guidelines too daunting. Yet there are sufficient commonalities among many of these diverse systems to permit some useful generalizations about the policies that can help promote SARD. Some of these policy guidelines, such as those relating to macro-economic settings or to various kinds of market failure, apply to most sectors of an economy. Others are more specific to agriculture, such as those relating to rural infrastructure or to the strengthening of human capital applied in the agricultural sector.
In what follows, attention will be given to the development of policy guidelines at all levels, although the focus will be principally on:
