By Jesús Quintana
Published in IFAD Newsletter, September 2011: http://www.ifad.org/newsletter/pl/e/8_full.htm#3
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| Creating natural-resource management plans in Venezuela is an important part of the project’s implementation. (Photo © Thomas Korczowski) |
IFAD recently launched a new planning tool to better its investments and align them with other leading rural developmental institutions with the approval this May of its new Environment and Natural Resource Management Policy. The new policy focuses on the promotion of a more sustainable model for agriculture, with better productivity and maximized benefits – both economic and non-economic.
This informative document, which provides guidelines and examples of best practices, also responds to the priorities contained in the new Strategic Framework for 2011-2015, which aspires to promote a more sustained approach to environmental-based poverty reduction.
Unsustainable practices, a threat to food and environmental security
Many of the environmental problems related with agricultural practices are well known. The poor use of water, a scarce resource, is one of these. Agriculture consumes 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water, with anywhere from 15 to 35 per cent of this use considered unsustainable. There are 950 million hectares of salinized lands in arid and semi-arid zones (almost a third of the total arable land). And around 20 per cent of irrigated land (450,000 km2) is affected by salinization.
Another alarming tendency is the degradation of the world’s soils. Around 2 billion agricultural hectares are degraded due to deforestation or inappropriate practices. It is estimated that each year we lose between 20,000 and 50,000 km2 globally from land degradation, with erosion the leading culprit. These losses are anywhere from two to six times as strong in Africa, Latin America and Asia than they are in Europe or North America.
The net results of land degradation, climate change, the incorrect use of water, diseases, blights and unsustainable practices, combined with the phenomena of spiking urbanization and demand for land for other uses, could create a production decrease of somewhere between 5 and 25 per cent by 2050. The immediate consequences, without any change to the existing models, would be an increase in prices with a greater expansion of agricultural lands, creating negative impacts on poverty reduction, food security and natural resource conservation.
Sustainable agricultural intensification
Despite the advances of the last century brought by the Green Revolution and industrial intensification, nearly 1 billion people remain hungry, with another 2 billion malnurished. And this industrialization has not only failed to solve our food security issues, it has also carried with it severe environmental degradation, not to mention the economic and social exclusion of small-scale producers who have not been able to access to necessary tools (machinery, fertilizers, etc.) to put these “unsustainable” practices into place.
This agricultural model, with its “high external negatives” – the costs of which oscillate between US$80 and US$300 per arable hectare per year – has been brought to question frequently. But the food price crisis of 2008 (which may repeat itself soon) and the growing threat of climate change, combined with the upcoming 20-year anniversary celebration of the Rio Conference of 1992 (where the first principal international environmental accords were approved), are giving new steam to promoters of a “green economy” (and green growth) that will work together with balanced and long-lasting development models.
According to the United Nations Environmental Program (one of the principal institutions supporting this paradigm), a green economy is one that “results in the betterment of human beings and social equality, at the same time significantly reducing environmental risks and the scarcity of ecological resources.” In the simplest of terms, a green economy is low in carbon, efficient in its use of resources and socially inclusive. In a green economy, increases in incomes and job growth should come from public and private investments that have been earmarked to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, to promote the efficient use of energy and resources, and to avoid the loss of biodiversity and environmental services.
What would a “green agricultural system” – that is to say more sustainable and more resistant – look like? There are diverse forms to achieve this objective, but in general it implies the use of systems based in ecological practices (no till, agro-forestry, crop rotation, inter-planted crops, integrated pest management, etc.) that seek to build productivity without an increase in inputs.
There are other priority areas that can facilitate this transition to a new green economy. These include research and agrarian development, extension and formation, the support for associations and agricultural consortiums dedicated to changing the paradigm, improved value chains (that are integrally sustainable and carbon neutral), new farming technologies (that are use little carbon or are carbon neutral), storage and treatment post-harvest, and finally, better use and management of water.
Applying the new paradigm to family agriculture
IFAD has comparative advantages in many of these areas given the organization’s long-standing experience supporting smallholder farmers and poor rural communities to overcome poverty through research, social organization, optimized resource management and commercialization. Nevertheless, greater and more focused efforts are needed to achieve a “greener” agriculture, scaling-up investments with a focus on ecological and sustainable agri-businesses, as proposed by the Strategic Framework and the new Environmental Policy.
This effort will not be totally new. There already exist many positive experiences in different regions including Latin America. With the goal of resuscitating and systematizing these experiences, the Latin America and the Caribbean Division is finalizing an environmentally-based analysis of its portfolio with an eye on identifying best practices and trends. This analysis will propose priorities and options for future investments following the recommendations of the new environmental policy.
Some of the best practices from the region include the design and certification of ecological value chains in Guatemala, the contest system that is applied in Bolivia and Peru as an optimized social mechanism to assign funds that help to improve sustainability, the promotion of sustainable forest management combined with new mechanisms (REDD+) that help in the mitigation of climate change as seen in Mexico, the adoption of an agro-ecological focus as proposed in Ecuador, the projects for sustainable land management in Brazil, projects that include carbon sequestration (as are the cases in Venezuela and Panama), or, finally, those investments that look to improve people’s adaptation to climate change as we see in Haiti and Argentina.
The region offers good opportunities to continue experimenting with and expanding sustainable investments given the institutional interest and the social backing of ecologically-centered paradigms (those close to the idea of Mother Earth, or Buen Vivir – living well). The leadership in ecological agriculture (the region contains almost half the total agro-ecological cultivation in the world) also plays a factor. Or, looking at it from another point of view, another key ingredient will be the application of new instruments (like paying for environmental services and certification) that can ensure resource conservation, and job and income generation work hand-in-hand.
Jesús Quintana is the Regional Climate Expert for IFAD’s Latin America and the Caribbean Division.
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