Day 17: How agroecology promotes food sovereignty and the right to food

The conversation surrounding food as a human right continued today at the second day of the UVM Food Systems Summit. We heard several presentations, but I want to reflect on the following speakers, who were the most noteworthy to me: Claire Kremen, conservation biologist and ecologist, Anastasia Telesetsky, professor at the University of Idaho College of Law, and Raj Patel, author and activist. As I'll mention at the end of this post, it's important to note that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to the food systems problems we're talking about and hearing about.

Claire reminded us that industrial agriculture is so fundamentally unsustainable - ecologically, economically, and socially. It's not possible to feed the world of the future with industrial agriculture, because it takes fertility out of the soils, produces the wrong mix of foods (too many grains), distributes food poorly, and depopulates farmland. Instead, we need a farming and food system that is regenerative, resilient, and sustainable. Agroecology is a science, movement, and practice that has the potential to transform our agricultural systems. It's knowledge-intensive, rather than input-intensive, and promotes ecological and social interactions. She showed us statistics that proved that biologically-diversified farms are more environmentally friendly, resilient, and efficient than conventional farms, and can sustain ecosystem services and recover unproductive lands. In terms of policies and implementation, we need to promote food sovereignty and right-to-food movements, break, get money of out politics and break the corporate control of food policy, and provide economic incentives for agroecological practices on our country's farms.

Anastasia discussed the intersection of our right to adequate food and our right to a clean and healthy environment. She challenged us to think about the environmental costs of producing enough food to meet basic needs (quantity, calories, commodities) versus high quality, real food. She also mentioned that in 2014, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter acknowledged the role of the environment and production methods in achieving a right to food, and recommended the support of agro-biodiversity, subsidies to sustainability, and increased budgets for agroecological research. Goal 2 of the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals is to end hunger, achieve food security, and promote sustainable agriculture. This can be done through De Schutter's recommendations, as well as tax credits to landowners and farmers to transform industries, encouragement of creative use of underutilized land, and targeted government assistance for incremental implementation of agroecological practices. The "access to food cannot simply be a dream deferred." 

Raj is an incredible speaker. Seriously, if I am ever half as good at public speaking as he is, I'll consider my life a successful one. He engaged the audience well and provided witty soundbites, such as, "Diet Coke Plus says you can have zero calories and drink something that takes like a chemistry set, and flourish as a result," which had the audience roaring with laughter. His presentation was grounded in the fact that our food system is currently in an era of cheap food, cheap nature, cheap workers, cheap fuel, and cheap care. Our global food industry makes $89 billion in profits per year, while its environmental externalities are estimated at 224% of those profits. He urged us that no industrial agriculture model can internalize those costs (echoing Claire).

Raj spoke about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a commitment of international governments, donors, the private sector, research institutions, and other development partners to address agriculture-led growth and malnutrition in Africa. They essentially aim to beat hunger through business and science by providing private sector solutions that limit African countries' food sovereignty, promote dependence on the World Bank and Western corporations, and prioritize nutrition over the right to food through nutrient fortification. Raj described the New Alliance as a model that "premises itself on an investment, on something that provides a return, and it's a very slippery and dangerous slope." He used Malawi as an example, and showed us their three major commitments: improving their score on the Doing Business Index to top 100 countries, increasing the dollar value of private sector investment in agriculture and value-added agro-processing, and increased private investment in commercial production, sale of inputs, and produce and value addition. Raj pointed to this slide, and said, "You might say: Where's the nutrition? Where's the food?"

Well, the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities Project (SFHC) is a farmer-led organization in Ekwendeni, northern Malawi, which uses agroecological methods to answer that very question. Through farmer research groups, information sharing, growth of plants other than staple crops like corn, and Family Recipe Days, where men and boys learn about cooking and food preparation from women in the community, SFHC has shown improvements in child nutrition, food security, healthcare, and soil management for smallholder farming families. They have many peer-reviewed scientific publications about their work, which result from a participatory research model in which farmers do their own experiments and teach other farmers about their findings.

So anyway, if there's anything I've learned since arriving in Vermont it's that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to food production, food security, and food sovereignty. Every region has varying climates, types of soil, and lengths of growing seasons. Every region also has different demands from the people, different levels of interest from policymakers, different median levels of income, and most importantly, different values. SFHC seemed to do a great job of approaching food security from a community level, using agroecological methods, real relationships, and hard work.