2010 2010 Report Fighting poverty through enterprise AGRISUD INTERNATIONAL 2010: Pushing Agroecology Editorial In 2010, hunger worldwide did not decrease. Almost soil conservation and human health, and doors wide nobody had heard the FAO ringing the alarm bells. open for agribusiness to take the helm, bringing the Still, we saw through that year a dreadful repeat of the risk of new disasters. 2008 «hunger riots», with the same violence and due to Do we really want the human and environmental situations equally inhuman. Food scarcity even ignited tragedies that we are witnessing today in India to be revolutions in some Arab countries. When people repeated in Africa? starve, conflicts, wars and now revolutions are not far This is not the path Agrisud is following. We believe behind. This announces troubled times. in reinvesting in the local production of food which Once again, the causes of these tragedies should be uses methods that are both efficient and human. We emphasised. believe in agroecology. Along with many others, we are Theoretically, the food supply is globally sufficient. The proving that agroecology can be intensive and offer a problem is its distribution. Very bad distribution brings serious alternative to the noxious models of intensive local food shortages, which have sudden and dramatic agriculture, thanks above all to practices which simply consequences. Such events arise when harvests are build a common sense and, often, on tradition. low – either in the country which is hit or worldwide As developed by Agrisud, ecology means sustainable – and when prices soar. More broadly, scarecity farming paying care to the environment and soil and high prices come from numbers of factors: the fertility, and to the health of the farmer as well as the decline of agricultural production for the local markets consumer. It can be highly efficient in economic terms. along the last few decades in poor countries; climate Agroecology also reduces the farmers’ dependence change, which badly hit several regions in 2010, from on these companies who sell seeds, fertilizers, and Russia to Australia as well as sub-saharian countries; all sorts of polluting products. It finally contributes to a Speculation on international food markets, which sustainable human and agricultural development. scandalously pushes up the prices when various 2010 was Agrisud’s agroecology year. After years of events bring shortage. on-site pratice, we published our guide «Agroecology, The tragic difficulty of access to food for the world’s best practices». It comes from a long process of poorest is another equally serious problem. Inequitable collecting and capitalizing that we have experienced access to global public goods – affordable and in about fifteen countries, over nearly twenty years. appropriate food and drinking water in particular – This guide is welcome by practitioners and by our on- is a plea of our times. With the praiseworthy idea of site partners. It has been an opportunity for us to team increasing food production, new “Green revolutions” up with persons such as Pierre Rabhi and Olivier de are planned. This often means a lack of concern for Schutter - the United Nations Special Rapporteur of the Right to Food -, either enlightened practitioners or supporters of agroecology. Alongside with many prominent actors, we want to support, and to take action in, the global focus of food sovereignty and agroecology as a response to challenge of feeding the world population through the next decades. This will be the major issue in the coming times. On-site, Agrisud increased its activities in 2010 with 39 operations run in fifteen countries. In particular, we started projects in Haiti, connected to the post- emergency situation. As a whole, 3,400 new family-size farms has been launched. At the same time, our training programmes strengthened the professionalism and ability to take action for numerous local associations. We helped 97 of these in five years. We can here pay tribute to our 175 employees, at the headquarters and site, as well as our thirty operational partners. 2 2010 Report This year our consolidated budget was up to 4.8 million Yvonnick Huet, our Chief Executive, and I are setting a Euros. 80 % of the funds we used came from public entities challenge: that of doubling the number of these new and 20 % from the private funds. As with the previous enterprises within five years, which means up to 60,000 years, the accounts were balanced. family-size farms initiated by Agrisud by 2015. We believe In 2011, Agrisud is set to overpass the figure of 32,000 family- we can take up this challenge thanks to the expertise and size farms launched and is getting ready to celebrate its enthusiasm of our teams as well as the loyalty of our partners. twentieth year of activity. Thanks in advance to everyone. Robert Lion, Chairman An agroecological best practices guide Almost two years were necessary to identify and set out the good practices built up over a period of almost 20 years by Agrisud in its various fields of operation. The teams in each country were called upon to pass on their own on- the-ground experiences. Credit for this work is due in particular to a vital core group composed of Sylvain Berton, Elphège Ghestem and Ivonig Caillaud, as well as Leïla Berton. To back up the content, Iden Studio brought the essential finishing touches in terms of graphic design. This guide to “Agroecology, best practices” comes in the form of a compendium of files: f files on the basics of agroecology: water-soil-plant-animal- landscape interaction. f files on the main production systems: market gardening, fruit- growing, food crop production and rice-growing systems. f files on the agroecological practices associated with these systems of production. These practices are described in both economic, social and Two emblematic personalities wrote prefaces for the guide: environmental aspects Pierre Rabhi, founder of the “Terre et Humanisme” movement, who This research is not exhaustive and will be enriched by contributions observes that while rich countries stubbornly persist in an agriculture that from the field on new subjects and by the exchanges to which it will cannot produce without destroying, developing countries are caught give rise. in a dilemma between insufficiently effective traditional production and modern practices, which are impossible for them to sustain. He asserts The guide is distributed in French and in English in a paper edition that agroecology is the only possible path for the future of food production and in electronic e-book format, which can be downloaded at in general, and that of so-called developing countries in particular. www.agrisud.org For his part, Olivier de Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur In order to facilitate the transfer of these skills on the ground, on the Right to Food, asserts that agroecology and the right to food pedagogical tools have been elaborated using the contents of are set to converge and, eventually, to form a natural alliance in this guide. They have served as the basis for perfecting a training order to better guarantee food security in the long term. He cannot programme, which is henceforth offered to local NGOs, field accept that, in the face of the challenges facing the food supply, technicians and farmers (Cf. page 12). agroecology is not more widely disseminated and that it does not The production of this guide was actively supported by the Caisse appear at the top of the agricultural programmes of countries that, des Dépôts, Veolia Environnement and Club Med. today, are trying to boost their agriculture. Consequences of various practices on the soil Method NOTE Proposed agroecological practices 1-Setting-up embankments While soil-fi xing plant growth does not provide effective embankment Unsuitable practices Agroecological practices The agroecological practices proposed by Agrisud and implemented by farmers stabilization and good water draining, establishing dissipation ditches in Madagascar provide for meeting the challenges of irrigated rice production. - Create ploughing stop-lines by making ridges following the contour lines downstream from the embankment allows recovering the water and soil it identifi ed by stakes. Establishing ridges takes place in 2 stages: carries as it runs off and redistributing it. Direct effect - rough ridge establishment with a plough; Establishing dissipation ditches: right at the foot of the embankment and - manual fi nishing being attentive to always bring up the earth from following the contour line, dig a 50 cm wide x 30 cm deep dissipation ditch. Indirect effect downstream to upstream (creating contour ridges). Crop associations Fertilization: EFFECTS - Vegetate the embankment using soil-fi xing plants. The habitual plants are Slope and run off direction small quantities of Single-crop farming: and rotations, diversification: generally perennials, with rugged deep root systems (vetiver, brachiaria, Embankment along unrecycled manure soil depletion PRACTICES Soil Water Plant Landscape Greencovering variation in elements pennisetum...) or very dense shrubs (tephrosia, fl emingia, leucæna, cassia...): contour lines + synthetic chemical 1 / Basics Manure recycling withdrawn from - fertilizers Compost production, Swath composting prepare the plant material (break dormancy for seeds, trim the vetiver the soil; permanent manure recycling stems, prepare pennisetum cuttings...) ; plant cover for the soil Intensive Rice-farming System, IRS Burning crop Organic - plant the soil-fi xing plants on the ridges. Dissipation Rice nursery 0,3m waste material: fertilization ditch along Tree species Planting methods 2m contour mineralization 0,5m and adding K Vetiver 20 cm x 20 cm staggered pattern lines Plant NOTE Double line sowing: 20 cm interline spacing, 5 cm inter-plant cover Brachiaria Agroecology involves biological mechanisms: a practice has direct and spacing indirect effects on various elements such as the soil, water, plants, the Compact soils Leaching mineral Nutrients available Good retention landscape.