Food for All - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 83

improvements in developing countries. The aim was to audit progress
towards agricultural sustainability, and assess the extent to which such
initiatives, if spread on a much larger scale, could feed a growing world
population that is already substantially food insecure. 6 We looked at more
than 200 projects in 52 countries, including 45 in Latin America, 63 in
Asia and 100 in Africa. 7 We calculate that almost 9 million farmers were
using sustainable agriculture practices on about 29 million hectares, more
than 98 per cent of which emerged in the past decade. 8 These methods
are working particularly well for small farmers; about half of those
surveyed are in projects with a mean area per farmer of less than 1 hectare,
and 90 per cent are in areas with less than 2 hectares each. 9
We found that improvements in food production are occurring
through one or more of four different mechanisms. The first involves the
intensification of a single component of farm system, with little change
to the rest of the farm, such as home garden intensification with vegetables
and/or tree crops, vegetables on rice bunds, and the introduction of fish
ponds or a dairy cow. The second involves the addition of a new productive
element to a farm system, such as fish or shrimps in paddy rice, or agro-
forestry, which provides a boost to total farm food production and/or
income, but which does not necessarily affect cereal productivity. The third
involves better use of nature to increase total farm production, especially
water (by water harvesting and irrigation scheduling) and land (by
reclamation of degraded land). This leads to additional new dryland crops
and/or increased supply of additional water for irrigated crops, and thus
increases cropping intensity. The fourth involves improvements in per
hectare yields of staples through the introduction of new regenerative
elements into farm systems, such as legumes and integrated pest management ,
and new and locally appropriate crop varieties and animal breeds.
As a result, a successful sustainable agriculture project may substantially
improve domestic food consumption or may increase local food barters
or sales through home gardens or fish in rice fields, or better water
management, without necessarily affecting the per hectare yields of cereals.
Home garden intensification occurred in one fifth of projects; but given
its small scale, it accounted for less than 1 per cent of the area. Better use
of land and water, giving rise to increased cropping intensity, occurred
in one seventh of projects, with one third of farmers and one twelfth of
the area. The incorporation of new productive elements within farm
systems, mainly fish and shrimps in paddy rice, occurred in 4 per cent of
projects, and accounted for the smallest proportion of farmers and area.
The most common mechanisms comprised yield improvements with
regenerative technologies or new seeds/breeds, which occurred in 60 per
cent of the projects, with an uptake of more than half of the farmers and
about 90 per cent of the area.