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Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture 1St Edition

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Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture 1St Edition Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture 1st edition Miguel A. Altieri Clara I. Nicholls University of California, Berkeley 9 Basic Textbooks for Environmental Training First edition: 2000 (Spanish version) First edition: 2005 (English version) © United Nations Environment Programme Environmental Training Network for Latin America and the Caribbean Boulevard de los Virreyes 155, Colonia Lomas de Virreyes 11000, Mexico D.F., Mexico ISBN 968-7913-35-5 CONTENTS PREFACE 5 INTRODUCTION 9 Chapter 1 MODERN AGRICULTURE: ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS AND THE ALTERNATIVES TO CONVENTIONAL FARMING 13 Chapter 2 AGROECOLOGY: PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIES FOR DISIGNING SUSTAINABLE FARMING SYSTEMS 29 Chapter 3 TEN REASONS WHY BIOTECHNOLOGY WILL NOT ENSURE FOOD SECURITY, PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT AND REDUCE POVERTY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD 39 Chapter 4 THE ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF TRANSGENIC CROPS 53 Chapter 5 A DIALOGUE OF WISDOMS: LINKING ECOLOGISTS AND TRADITIONAL FARMERS IN THE SEARCH FOR A TRULY SUSTAINABLE A GRICULTURE 73 Chapter 6 AGROECOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR POOR FARMERS IN MARGINAL ENVIRONMENTS 99 Chapter 7 ENHANCING THE PRODUCTIVITY OF LATIN A MERICAN T RADITIONAL PEASANT FARMING SYSTEMS THROUGH AN A GROECOLOGICAL A PPROACH 145 Chapter 8 BIOLOGICAL CONTROL IN AGROECOSYSTEMS THROUGH MANAGEMENT OF ENTOMOPHAGOUS INSECTS 179 Chapter 9 AN AGROECOLOGICAL BASIS FOR INSECT PEST MANAGEMENT 199 Chapter 10 DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING A HABITAT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY TO ENHANCE BIOLOGICAL PEST CONTROL IN AGROECOLOGY 239 Chapter 11 AGROECOLOGY: TRANSITIONING ORGANIC AGRICULTURE BEYOND INPUT SUBSTITUTION 263 Cahpter 12 A RAPID, FARMER-FRIENDLY AGROECOLOGICAL METHOD TO ESTIMATE SOIL QUALITY AND CROP HEALTH IN VINEYARD SYSTEMS 277 PrefacePreface Environmental education and training is the process whereby new knowledge and practices evolve to understand and to intervene in the solution of the complex socio-environmental problems of our time. Also, to construct a new social and productive rationality that would enable to transit towards a sustainable development. This process implies the elaboration of new theories, methods, techniques, and their incorporation in new educational programmes, productive strategies and environmental management projects. To face-up this challenge, the publishing programme of the Environmental Training Network for Latin America and the Caribbean was established in 1995 to disseminate knowledge, methods and techniques for environmental management, in order to serve as basic educational materials for environmental training programmes and as an instrument to give support to the sustainable development policies for the countries of the region; to prepare different social sectors at different professional levels, as well as citizens groups and community development programmes. Ten years later, the ETN has published 40 basic text books and manuals, and a series on Latin American Environmental Thinking. However, these publications have privileged the Spanish-speaking countries of the region. Now, we are thus proud to present this basic text book on “Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture”, by Miguel Altieri and Clara Nicholls. With this first title published in English we start to cover our debt to the English-speaking Caribbean sub-region and to the English-speaking countries at large. The subject of this book is the sustainable agriculture and its importance to the sustainable development; capitalized agriculture impinged the earth’s 6 conditions of sustainability by ignoring its ecological conditions and potentials, deriving a devastation of resources, soil pollution, land erosion and loss of biodiversity. It broke the organization and resilience of ecological systems, degrading the planet’s life support systems. All this caused productivity losses and rural employments, and a high rural migration, hampering the self- sufficiency and food security of an increasing impoverished rural people. The book analyze these problems to offer tools to enable a more ecologically rational use of our soils, land, biodiversity and natural resources, to preserve and enhance its sustainable productivity in order to ensure food security and the sustainable agriculture of the countries of the region. Altieri and Nicholls do not only question the over capitalization of agriculture and its illusion of literally “planting with oil”, and the evils of Green Revolution. They go further to demystify the latest wave of biotechnological revolution as a renewed panacea to solve the world’s hunger. Agroecology seeks to root sustainable agricultural production in ecological potentials and cultural values, to open a dialogue between scientific knowledge and traditional wisdoms; to empower farmers, peasants and indigenous peoples as social actors to renew their community based productive practices, to enable them to inhabit their cultural territories. A first version of this book was published in Spanish under the series of Basic Texts for Environmental Training in 2000. There, the authors developed problems derived from the capitalization of agriculture, the privatization of land, the Green Revolution and the production of transgenic crops that have generated serious problems of soil erosion and pollution, loss of biodiversity, hampering the sustainable ecological productivity of agricultural land and affecting the productive processes and livelihoods of rural populations of the Third World. After the false promises of Green Revolution, Agroecology emerged as a paradigm shift, to internalize the ecological conditions of agricultural production. Agroecology is the Science of the Ecological Management of Natural Resources. The book opens new paths towards agricultural sustainability, food security and self-management of the local resources through agroecological productive practices. 7 This updated English version is not simply a translation of that first publication in Spanish. The new book includes more recent studies and publications by Miguel Altieri and Clara Nicholls. Altieri has been a pioneer researcher and one of the most outstanding proponents and leaders of agroecology, particularly in the Latin American and Caribbean region. He is a promoter of this emergent field of knowledge, and practice and author of various seminal publications in the field of agroecology. He founded the Latin American Consortium of Agroecology and Development (CLADES) and the Project “Sustainable Agriculture Networking and Extension” (SANE). For over 20 years Altieri, later followed by Nicholls, promoted a change of paradigms in agriculture, contributing to the professional training of a network of scientists, technicians and practitioners trainers and community leaders in different Latin American and Caribbean countries and establishing a fruitful collaboration with the Environmental Training Network. With this book we intend to extend to the Wider Caribbean the benefits that agroecology can offer for the betterment of the livelihoods of the people and the sustainability of the territories of the Caribbean region. Enrique Leff Coodinator Environmental Training Network for Latin America and the Caribbean IntroductionIntroduction There is increasing evidence that warns that the growing push toward industrialization and globalization of the world’s agriculture and food supply imperils the future of humanity and the natural world. Industrial agriculture which is corporate controlled, and promotes agrochemically based, monocultural, export-oriented systems are negatively impacting public health, ecosystem integrity, food quality and nourishment, traditional rural livelihoods, and indigenous and local cultures, while accelerating indebtedness among millions of farmers, and their separation from lands that have historically fed communities and families. This transition is increasing hunger, landlessness, homelessness, despair and suicides among farmers. Meanwhile, it is also degrading the planet’s life support systems, and increasing alienation of peoples from nature and the historic, cultural and natural connection of farmers and all other people to the sources of food and sustenance. Finally, it is also destroying the economic and cultural foundations of societies, undermines security and peace, and creates a context for social disintegration and violence. By confronting myth with reality, the objective of this book is to challenge the false promises made by the genetic engineering industry. The industry has promised that genetically engineered crops will move agriculture away from a dependence on chemical inputs, increase productivity, decrease input costs, and help reduce environmental problems (Office of Technology Assessment, 1992). By challenging the myths of biotechnology, in chapters of this book we expose pose genetic engineering (the latest wave of agricultural intensification) for what it really is: another technological fix or «magic bullet» aimed at circumventing the environmental problems of agriculture (which are the outcome of an 10 earlier round of modern agro-technological fixes) without questioning the ecological upset that gave rise to the problems in the first place. Despite all the above problems associated with industrial agriculture, there are many optimistic developments. Thousands of new and alternative initiatives are now flowering across the world to promote ecological agriculture, preservation of the livelihoods of small farmers, production of healthy, safe and culturally diverse foods, and localization
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