بيانات العضو
السيد Robert Patterson
المنظمة:
The Growing Connection
الدولة:
كندا
مجال (مجالات) الخبرة:
I am working on:
innovative organic horticulture
Thirty-one years of service with FAO in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and in the USA/Canada. Tightly focused on sustainable horticulture and community development.
Twelve+ years of private sector experience focused on water-and-space efficient vegetable production.
السيد Robert Patterson
First, thanks very much to FSN/FAO folks for this stimulating paper and for managing these contributions. My work at The Growing Connection (www.thegrowingconnection.com) and at EcoHuerto (www.ecohuerto.mx) focuses very tightly on innovative, intensive and non-conventional horticulture at the household, school and community levels, thus I am (happily) not directly engaged in the policy-level issues. We do however have to deal with the consequences of "policy" however, so it is enlightening for me to get this valuable up-date on current thinking.
I do share the views of several of your contributors' comments (notably Egal and Bowness), specifically as regards actual field level options and activities.
The paper does seem to overlook the huge potential in innovative household-level production, and the potential for direct impact on family nutrition. There are myriad very low-cost, water-and-space efficient growing tools now available, allowing high yield production in non-traditional areas - I include out own sub-irrigated planter system here as well. The benefits - particularly for women and youth - are immediate and lasting, re: nutrition and income-generation.
Finally, while I recognize (especially after 30+ years at FAO) that institutional and academic studies will always skew towards elements that can easily be quantified (markets, prices, death, etc.), there is intrinsic value in trying to recognize and calculate the impact and value of less objective aspects of direct D-I-Y type initiatives - for instance taste/flavour, pride, dignity . These benefits should not be discounted or ignored, especially as they accrue to the most disenfranchised members of our communities.