We are pleased to see that the HLPE will study this important topic and appreciate the breadth of the inquiry. Agroecology is an innovative approach to food security that is built on traditional knowledge and cultural practices and enhanced by scientific advances. While there are many techniques intended to improve environmental sustainability and yields, agroecology is an integrated approach to the entire agro-ecosystem (rather than individual plants, animals, humans or soil organisms). Technological advances are essential, but they occur in specific socio-economic contexts that can either reinforce or challenge inequality and environmental sustainability. Agroecology is valuable because it puts more power in local farmers’ hands, in contexts where they have long been disempowered.
Therefore, we hope the project team will especially emphasize the lessons learned from social movements and networks of small-scale farmers, landless farmers, and farmworkers on the key social practices involved in agroecology, including:
· Building on indigenous practices and knowledge generation, as well as empowering local farmers.
· Recognizing women’s central roles in agricultural and food systems
· Developing new techniques through experimentation and sharing among farmers.
· Requiring a commitment to the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems, allowing producers to play a lead role in innovation, and placing those who produce, distribute and consume food at the center of decisions on food systems and policies.
As noted in the overview of the study, agroecology also requires a strong enabling environment and supportive governance structures. The HLPE team should consider local, national and regional experiences with agroecological policies and strategies – as well as foreign assistance programs -- that:
· Respond to locally determined priorities for knowledge generation and dissemination, including public support for agricultural extension services.
· Support cooperatives and other producer-controlled marketing mechanisms controlled by local farmers, fisherfolk, and pastoralists and their communities.
· Foster national action plans to review and adjust laws to allow farmers to save, use, exchange and sell their seeds to enhance community rights over seed, plants and biodiversity innovations.
· Expand national policies on agriculture, water, energy, environmental and food safety, biodiversity, agricultural research and extension programs that support agroecology.
· Support national efforts to implement the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, including technical cooperation, financial assistance, institutional capacity development, knowledge sharing and exchange of experiences.
· Help safeguard legitimate land tenure rights (whether formally recorded or not) against threats and infringements, providing effective, accessible means to everyone through judicial authorities and other approaches to resolve disputes over tenure rights.
· Make connections between support for agroecology and Earth Jurisprudence perspectives.
These issues have been addressed by a number of experts, including Olivier de Schutter (former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food), Ivette Perfecto (University of Michigan), Steve Gliessman (UC Santa Cruz), Miguel Altieri (UC Berkeley) and Tomas Madrigal (Community to Community). The HLPE team should also consult with civil society leaders on agroecology including La Via Campesina, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, and the Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadores de Productores del Campo (ANEC/Mexico), among others. Our organizations would be happy to work with the HLPE to suggest relevant publications and to help identify experts, practitioners and social movement leaders to enhance this study.
Finally, as organizations based in the United States, we want to take the opportunity to note that agroecology, while more developed and practiced by communities in the Global South, is also relevant to countries in the North, specifically among the landless farmers and workers in countries like ours. Farmworker communities in the United States can provide important expertise not just at the national level but also at the international level. We encourage the HLPE to also consider agroecology in from the perspective of these communities in countries like the United States. In addition, we encourage HLPE to explore the potential (and policy incentives available) for a shift from chemical intensive, industrial food systems to agroecological food systems.
Sincerely,
ActionAid USA
Church World Service
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
PLANT (Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples)
Karen Hansen-Kuhn