Dear All
Thank you for making the draft report available; if not always an easy read, it is excellent in co-ordinating current thinking and providing much food for thought. As a farmer with over 45 years of both small and large scale farming experience, I applaud the direction the report is taking and the importance it attaches to Agroecology for the future.
The report provides a few examples of current projects, but makes no real reference to how the resulting policies and directions might be implemented and in particular how to attract the young. Agriculture worldwide is an old people’s profession with few examples of keen young entrants. The draw to the cities is not going to be halted by the opportunity of taking on smallholdings with backbreaking work and the lowest returns in the food chain. It requires local examples of excellence, developed with the right infrastructure and market opportunities and making money - seeing is believing. Rural development will only work, if it is more attractive than the city - in short, providing a better living, so you can afford to visit the city and spend money.
Thought should be given to how sufficient pump priming finance can be secured to develop local model enterprises (minuscule, small or large; making use of local and outside knowledge, customs and experience, and having a little outside helping hand to provide structure and supervision). Call them 'centres of excellence’, providing working and learning vocational ‘life and farming’ apprenticeship type training opportunities. These should lead to qualifications that are recognised by insurers and banks as collateral for raising cash-flow finance for growing crops and renting land. Alongside, partnerships with other players further up the food chain (storage, processing, marketing) could be developed.
This could be called a NEW DEAL for the Young - their engagement and commitment in return for knowledge and capital to develop enterprise.
Sincerely,
Christoph Graf Grote
Nuffield Scholar
Christoph Graf Grote