Prof Dr Hilal Elver, succeeding Dr Olivier de Schutter, in her maiden speech focussing on Agroecology, and FAO's conference on the same subject, Sept 18 - 19, 2014, does provide a number of answers to your Qs for the e consultation, most important the letter from scientists, as attached:
'Governments must shift subsidies and research funding from agro-industrial monoculture to small farmers using 'agro ecological methods', according to Prof Hilal Elver, the new UN's Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Nafeez Ahmed notes, her call coincides with a new agro ecology initiative within the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. This change is critical for future
agricultural policies as most Government subsidies must go to support smallholder producers not to large agribusiness, as is now the case
Convential green revolution high cost industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water and resource
availability. The warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof Hilal Elver, in her first public speech since being appointed in June. Elver speaks not just with the authority of her UN role, but as a respected academic. She is research professor and co-director at the Project on Global Climate Change,
Human Security and Democracy at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. She is also an experienced lawyer and diplomat. A former founding legal
advisor at the Turkish Ministry of Environment, she was previously appointed to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Chair in Environmental Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies, University of Malta.
"Food policies which do not address the root causes of world hunger would be bound to fail, One billion people globally are hungry, she declared, before calling on governments to support a transition to "agricultural democracy" which would empower rural smallholder producers. Agriculture needs a new direction: agro ecology. The 2009 global food crisis signalled the need for a turning point in the
global food system. Modern agriculture, which began in the 1950s, is more resource intensive, very fossil fuel dependent, using fertilisers, and based on massive production. This policy has to
change. We are already facing a range of challenges. Resource scarcity, increased population, decreasing land availability and accessibility, emerging water scarcity, and soil degradation require
us to re-think how best to use our resources for future generations.
New scientific research increasingly shows how low cost 'agro ecology' offers far more environmentally sustainable methods that can still meet the rapidly growing demand for nutrition and food: Agro ecology is a traditional way of using low cost farming methods that are less resource oriented, and which work in harmony with soil, agro climatic conditions and producer communities. New research in agro ecology allows us to explore more effectively how we can use traditional
knowledge of each area to produce own requirements of nutritious food, protect people and their environment at the same time. Smallholder producers are the key to feeding the world’s increasing population. There is a geographical and distributional imbalance in who is consuming and producing. Global agricultural policy needs to adjust. In the crowded and hot world of tomorrow, the challenge of how to protect the vulnerable is heightened. That entails recognising women's role in food production - from farmer, to housewife, to working mother, women are the world's major food providers. It also means recognising the rural poor smallholder producers (about 50% of the population), who are the most vulnerable, hungry and malnourished.
Across Europe, the US and the developing world, smallholder farms face shrinking numbers. So if we meet the needs of the smallholder producer communities, focus on the producing for their own needs, we solve hunger, malnutrition, poverty, suicides and the effects of climate change whilst we also deal with food production for the growing population. Industrial agriculture grabs 80% of subsidies and 90% of research funds
Hinting at the future direction of her research and policy recommendations, she criticised the vast subsidies going to large monocultural agribusiness companies. Currently, in the European Union
about 80% of subsidies and 90% of research funding supports the high cost green revolution conventional industrial agriculture technologies.
"Empirical and scientific evidence shows that smallholder producers feed themselves and the world. According to the UN Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO), 70% of food we consume globally comes from smallholder producers, This is critical for future agricultural policies. Currently, most subsidies go to large agribusiness. This must change. Governments must support small producers. As rural people are migrating increasingly to cities, this is generating huge problems. If these trends continue, by 2050, 75% of the entire human population will live in urban areas. We must reverse these trends by providing new possibilities and incentives to small farmers, especially for young people in rural areas, said Prof Elver." Her debut speech coincided with a landmark two-day International Symposium on Agro ecology for Food and Nutrition Security in Rome, hosted by the FAO. Over 50 experts participated in the symposium, including scientists, the private sector, government officials, and civil society leaders. A high-level roundtable at the close of the symposium included the agricultural ministers of France, Algeria, Costa Rica, Japan, Brazil and the European Union agricultural commissioner. FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said:
"Agro ecology continues to grow, both in science and in policies. It is an approach that will help to address the challenge of ending hunger and malnutrition in all its forms, in the context of the
climate change adaptation needed."
A letter to the FAO signed by nearly 70 international food scientists, as attached, congratulated the UN agency for convening the agro ecology symposium and called for
" A UN system-wide initiative on agro ecology as the central strategy for addressing climate change and building resilience in the face of water crises."
The scientists described agro ecology as "a well-grounded science, a set of time-tested agronomic practices and when embedded in sound socio-political institutions, the most promising pathway for achieving low cost sustainable food production."
A signatory to the letter, Mindi Schneider, assistant professor of Agrarian, Food and Environmental Studies at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, said: "Agro ecology is more than just a
science, it's also a social movement for justice that recognises and respects the right of communities of farmers to decide what they grow and how they grow it."
Several other food experts at the Transnational Institute offered criticisms of prevailing industrial practices. Dr David Fig, who serves on the board of Bio watch South Africa, an NGO concerned with
food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture, said:
"We are being far too kind to industrialised agriculture. The private sector has endorsed it, but it has failed to feed the world, it has contributed to major environmental contamination and misuse of natural
resources. It's time we switched more attention, public funds and policy measures to agro ecology, replacing the high cost conventional model as soon as possible."
Prof Sergio Sauer, formerly Brazil's National Rapporteur for Human Rights in Land, Territory and Food, added:
"Agro ecology is related to the way you relate to land, to nature to each other - it is more than
just organic production, it is a sustainable livelihood in the long term. In Brazil we have the National Association of Agro ecology which brings together 7,000 people from all over the country pooling
together their concrete empirical experiences of agro ecological practices. They try to base all their knowledge on practice, not just on concepts. Generally, nobody talks about agro ecology, because it's
too political. The simple fact that the FAO is calling a major international gathering to discuss agro ecology is therefore a very significant milestone."
We must consider ourselves very fortunate that FAO and Olivier de Scutter's successor, Prof Dr Hilal Elver, are also committed to the cause of meeting the needs of the rural poor smallholder communities'.
Warm regards
Sr. Subhash Mehta