On the first day of the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CDB) IFAD held a side event to discuss the linkages between biodiversity
conservation, smallholder farmers and achieving the Sustainable Development
Goal (SDG) 2- Zero Hunger.
The moderator, Terry Sunderland – Team Leader and Principal
Scientist, Sustainable Landscapes and Food Systems, at the Centre for
International Forestry Research (CIFOR) opened the event.
He discussed the role of smallholder farmers in creating
resilient agriculture systems and how the world needs to recognise the value
smallholder farmers bring to the world's economy.
He asked the panel how smallholder farmers can incorporate
biodiversity conservation into the challenges they already face?
Alejandro Argumedo, Director of Programmes at Asociacion
ANDES spoke of his personal experiences in the mountainous regions of Peru and
the need to move towards a more integrated landscape management approach.
“We should be creating innovations for food systems, we
don’t need to be inventing new systems as there is already lots of knowledge,"
said Argumendo. "We need to harness traditional knowledge.”
Chikelu Mba, Team Leader, Seeds and Plant Genetic Resources,
Plant Production and Protection Division of the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told the packed auditorium that he came from
Nigeria where they maintain close ties to ancestral homes and villages.
"Despite the best efforts of small family farmers, they
are barely scraping by," said Mba. "They want to send their children
to school, they want cell phones, and they don’t see farming as a way of
achieving that.”
“We also know we will need to produce more food with a
growing population. The additional food can only be produced with a knowledge
intensive ‘green-green’ revolution.”
IFAD's Director of Environment and Climate, Margarita
Astralaga, explained that for smallholders their assets are part of their
ecosystems. They depend on plants for medicine, seeds and hunting.
“What helps them and us is to see the full potential of
these ecosystems,” said Astralaga, “Different
crops and indigenous crops are important - we have lost nearly all genetic
variations of corn and wheat, 50 per
cent of the world is eating the same species."
"We must diversify - when small farmers do that, they
can protect themselves against climate shocks. When farmers grow nuts, cocoa,
coffee, cassava as well as corn, when a drought strikes and the corn yield is
low or non-existent they have other crops to fall back on."
Terry Sunderland went on to ask the panel about how we can
create more equitable systems, and get governments to realise the full value of
smallholder agriculture?
“We have seen demonization of smallholders,” said Sunderland.
Tómas Eusebio,
Forest Dialogue Facilitator, Alianza Mesoamericana de Pueblos Y Bosques (AMPB),
clarified that smallholders and indigenous peoples are agents of conservation and don’t destroy
biodiversity necessarily.
"I believe the problem lies with global policies,"
said Eusebio. "Matching
ancestral knowledge to proposed policies is oftentimes difficult - so we would like to see ancestral knowledge
put into policies at CBD.”
Sunderland then asked the panel how agricultural
institutions at the country level are integrating environmental concerns into
their rural development programmes?
“At IFAD we are
mainstreaming this across the portfolio of investments," said IFAD's
Astralaga. " If we didn’t take into account climate change and natural
resource management, we would lose our money in the long term.
"As an organisation, we lend money. But we want our
borrower countries to be able to pay it back. This can only happen if the crops
do well. We have many examples of how it makes economic sense to invest in
sustainable agriculture, you see a much higher return. It’s all about the long-term investment.”
All panellists then gave examples of the
problem of youth migration to urban areas – taking with them traditional
knowledge that has been in families for generations.
“By 2030 only 20 per
cent of people will live in rural areas.
What will we do?” said Argumedo, Director of Programmes at Asociacion ANDES.
FAO's Mba agreed saying that if current urbanisation trends
continue in the developing world three
per cent of the population would provide all the food and there is not the
technology nor the knowledge for this to be a reality in most developing
countries.
“We need to have able bodied people who find agriculture
attractive. Not simply seeing it as working like slaves. We need a change in
behaviour and outlook,” concluded Mba.
IFAD's Astralaga
added that youth in developing countries want internet, phones, entertainment
and easy access to the city.
"At the moment, they spend six hours or so on a bus to
get into a city. If they can make a life that is seen as decent, they would
stay in rural areas, but carrying on like their great grandparents is not going
to happen.”
CIFOR's Sunderland summed up by saying that this was an extremely
interactive event.
“There is clearly no one size fits all answer here,"
said Sunderland. “All of us intuitively
know there is no conflict between agriculture and biodiversity, why then are
they constantly separate, whether in ministries or in declarations?"