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What do we need to produce food? (Access to productive resources) (30)

There is a direct relationship between food sovereignty and access to natural resources. Securing the access of peasants to all natural resources necessary for food production is a key element to guarantee the right to food. 

Land (7)

Land is considered an essential factor in food producing. Land is the vital element of a plant, and the largest the surface of an arable area is, the higher will be its production potential. The land has been an object of conflict all over the history of Humanity. An unsolved problem that continues breeding big situations of economic, social and environmental unfairness. 

Agrarian reform (4)

Agrarian reform is understood as a set of political, economical, social and legislative measures, whose objects aim to modify the structure of the owning and the production of the land.

The land reforms look for solving two interdependent problems: the concentration of the land property in a few owners (Landlords) and the weak productivity due to a non-use of technologies or the speculation on land prices, preventing or rejecting its productive use.

The ways to change land possession are wither through the expropriation of land with no indemnity, or through some mechanism of compensation to former owners. Generally social results are the creation of a class of small and medium farmers who shift the hegemony of the landowners. 

Land grabbing (1)

Land is a safe value that in times of financial crisis like the current one, attract large capitals. Private investors are renting or buying tens of millions of hectares of good farmland in Asia, Africa and Latin America to produce food and biofuels. This grabbing of lands is a serious threat to food sovereignty of our people and for the right to food in our rural communities. 

Land banks (0)

The object of a land bank is "marketing" with unproductive lands.

Therefore, it implicates a controversial instrument since it might carry a highly positive and /or negative impact depending on its use. 

Water (0)

It is necessary to understand that a river is much more than a channel of water, as we presently understand that a forest is much more than a wood store.

Understanding the social, cultural and identity values, both territorial and collective of rivers, lakes and wetlands, knowing the complex pyramid of life that they shelter, appreciating the importance of equilibrium and functions of the natural hydrological cycle and the services they provide; recover the playful sense and the aesthetic value of water, both in nature and in our urban environments, etc…

All this, without forgetting the necessity of managing efficiently the economical utilities of water as a productive resource, shapes the keys of that modern culture. Keys, definitively, of a new and necessary interdisciplinary focusing.

A focusing in which, more than assuring a reasonable social equitable and efficient use of the water as a resource that may warrant also a sustainable management of rivers and aquatic ecosystems.

Hydric policies (0)

Talking about the need of new water policies is talking about the challenge of a new culture of sustainability that our times demand. And it’s also talking about the necessity of taking on a new holistic and integrative focusing of values regarding water management.

Undoubtedly, nowadays the traditional water policy fails in collecting the needs and concerns of our society and giving appropriate answers to the challenges resulting from the new paradigm of sustainability.

Conciliating the aspiration of improving the welfare of everyone, with the recognition and respect for the limits of the natural environment, so as to ensure its preservation requires not only a shift in the objectives of the politics, but also a change in the scales of values and in the culture that impregnates our society. 

Water management models (0)

There are many different experiences of water management in agriculture and food. Its recognition, appreciation and socialization can inspire new management experiences adapted to each local reality. 

The use of water (0)

Agriculture uses some 80% of the annually consumed hydric resources. Aside, new uses of water increase, like and urban use (cleaning, gardens), industrial or recreational (aquatic parks, golf).

The inefficiency in managing hydric resources or their speculative are a source of strong social debates, often lacking a global vision and most of them impregnated by mercantile criteria that threaten the access to this natural resource, essential for the  development of life at all its levels. 

Hydric infrastructures (0)

The sustainable use of water also requires the development of hydric infrastructures that respect the environmental rights of the territories and the social and cultural rights of its inhabitants. A whole series of appropriate technologies to the public service are nowadays in full development and implementation. 

Genetic resources (12)

The dependence of the human population on biodiversity for the continuation of life on Earth is total, and therefore its preservation is strategic. This biodiversity is nowadays threatened, among other factors, by an industrial agriculture and fishing, that standardized agricultural and stockbreeding production and exhausted the seabed. Food sovereignty defends the historical right of people to get the seeds of their own crops, to cultivate and share them.

Farming biodiversity (6)

Every human being has the right to live without hunger and feed properly. This human right includes also the right to productive resources, especially seeds.

Food sovereignty can only be achieved long long-term through crops whose ecological and cultural richness is based on locally adapted varieties and the care and common development of this diversity. 

Livestock biodiversity (2)

The industrial system of raising and livestock production is emerging as the dominant model all across the planet. This model requires large investments in technology and has caused a concentration and a dependence of the livestock industry with no precedents. Nowadays there are only four companies engaged in poultry farming that operate globally and two of them control half of the global production of eggs. This production model presents a danger since it relays on a limited genetic repertoire, powered by the widespread use of veterinary drugs. 

Agroforestry (0)

The main feature of agroforestry systems is its ability to optimize the production of the territory through a diversified exploitation, where trees play a fundamental role. This role is reflected in that trees can provide many products (wood, forage, fruits, etc.) and services (soil conservation, increase of soil fertility, etc). 

GMO (1)

The transgenic or genetically modified foods come from living organisms that have been created artificially manipulating their genes. Genetic engineering techniques include isolating segments of DNA (genetic material) of a living being (virus, bacteria, plant, vegetable and even human) to insert them into the genetic material of another. The fundamental difference with traditional breeding techniques is that they allow crossing the barrier between species to create creatures that did not exist in nature before.

The dangers of these crops for the environment and agriculture are real and they are based in the increase of the use of toxic in agriculture, genetic pollution, soil pollution, loss of biodiversity, development of resistance in insects, and weeds, or unwanted effects on other organisms. The effects on ecosystems are irreversible and unpredictable. 

Biofuels (3)

Every year the world consumes more than 30 000 million barrels of oil, which supposes a bill of over 3 trillion dollars. In this situation, the diversification of energy has become an important foreign policy issue, which makes necessary finding alternatives to fossil fuels that would allow to undo more than a century of energy monopoly. In the current renewable energy sources, biofuels are those best placed to replace oil in the short and medium term, but the present serious doubts. Is the energy balance of biofuels positive?  Do this jeopardize human feeding using feed crops like corn? Do it distorts food prices since they generate a financial speculation on these crops? 

Fishery resources (4)

Fish is the major source of animal protein for over one billion people. His contribution to the map of the world food is essential. But is the sea a food panacea? Marine resources are finite and its industrial exploitation has caused economic, social and environmental damages. How to manage sustainably these resources? 

Marine resources (1)

During the last 50 years marine ecosystems have been so deeply altered that not only the sustainability of fisheries, but also the survival of other species and gerenal marine resources are in danger. 

Inland fisheries resources (1)

Rivers, lakes, reservoirs, marshes and other wetlands constitute what is so called as "continental waters". Traditionally, fish stocks in rivers and lakes have been used as food and sale or local trade. But the nature of inland fisheries is evolving, then nowadays the waters should be shared frequently with many groups of people that are not dedicated to fishing activities. Such groups are associated with major projects and activities such as dam construction, miner extraction and irrigation systems for agriculture. 

Formation (6)

Formation policies and pedagogical methods of instruction are key issues in the formation of free citizens, who can make their own decisions in a critical way. Food sovereignty as a set of policies and approaches to food requires a participatory citizenship and responsible to design their own future

Formation in leadership (3)

In order to move towards a more sustainable society, it is essential to renew the ways to train and act. The leaders of social organizations need today intellectual and practical tools for understanding the world, managing their organizations, manage large amounts of information, recognize the complexity, cooperate with others to solve conflicts.

Peasant-to-peasant formation (0)

The peasant-to-peasant methodology, is as a last resort a strategy to promote the development of sustainable agriculture. Sustainable agriculture represents a response to environmental and social deficiencies that resulted from agricultural modernization. 

Credit (0)

Credit, understood as the change of a present wealth for a future one, based on trust and solvency given to the debtor, is a fundamental tool for the development of rural communities. The access to credit and its economic and political conditions determine even today the patterns of development for the poorest people of the planet. 

Ethical banking (0)

Economic activity is not neutral. Any business decision is, in a last resort, an ethical decision, taken from a particular framework of beliefs and with consequences that favor some and discriminate others. In our environments, more and more people and organizations are becoming aware of this reality and try to make their own decisions about the destiny of their savings, or their applications for credit or their investments with responsibility. 

Agricultural credit (0)

Giving credit to the agricultural sector remains a challenge, meanwhile is one of the most important issues in the development of rural economies. International financial organizations, in defense of the interests of productive agriculture, have contributed to the elimination of public agricultural credit systems. Nowadays, the small and medium farmer is left to the usurers and is the victim of an unsustainable debt that leads to the abandonment of their activity and to the rural exodus. 

Microcredit (0)

How could we produce food sustainably? (Productive models) (20)

In the second half of the twentieth century, the motorization of a part of agriculture linked to the green revolution (hybrid plants, synthetic fertilizers, feed compounds, etc.) Progressed in the economically developed countries and in limited areas of the developing countries. In these countries the vast majority of peasants had no financial means to reach this technological revolution. The high productivity of the industrial agricultural model, coupled with production support and other instruments of producer support in industrialized countries, produced a fall in agricultural prices in the second half-century. As a result, 90% of the less advantaged farms saw their developing blocked and became impoverished. 

Agroecology (10)

Agroecology is the science that allows us to interpret and manage the agrarian, raising and fishing activities accepting their economic, social, cultural and environmental complexity. Biodiversity, adaptation to the environment, economic and social profitability, preservation of patrimony, short channels of marketing, etc. constitute the basis of agro-ecological science. 

Ecological farming (2)

The ecological, organic or biological farming, is a system to cultivate an autonomous  agricultural exploitation based on an optimal use of natural resources, without using synthetic chemicals, nor genetically modified organisms (GMOs), neither for fertilizers nor for plagues control - achieving in this way getting organic food while conserving the fertility of the land and respecting the environment. 

Ecological farming (1)

The organic livestock raising is based on the principle of strong link between animals and the physical environment. This need to link with the land requires animals to have access to open areas and food to be ecological, preferably produced on the same exploitation; moreover would be governed by strict rules referring to animal welfare and veterinary care. 

  • Guía sobre ganadería ecológica

    Guía para productores que estén interesados en acogerse a la producción ganadera ecológica. Aquí encontrarán las respuestas sobre lo que es la ganadería ecológica, sus ventajas, condiciones y pasos necesarios para su certificación.

    Themes : Ganadería ecológica

    Territories related : Spain

Permaculture (0)

Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human settlements. The aim is to create systems that are environmentally healthy and economically viable, producing what is necessary to satisfy their own needs, not to exploit their own resources nor pollute them and being therefore sustainable for the long-term. 

Sustainability indicators (0)
Plagues and diseases (2)

Biological control was conceived in the early nineteenth century (Badii et al., 2000a) when some naturists from different countries outlined the important role of entomophagous organisms in nature. With the use of biological control or fight we try to restore the disturbed ecological balance, through the use of living organisms or their metabolites, to eliminate or reduce damage caused by harmful organisms. 

Soil and fertilization (2)

One of the basic principles of organic agriculture is to be a system for promoting and improving the health of agro-ecosystem, biodiversity, biological cycles and soil. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to implement activities leading to these goals, which involve the restoration of mineral and living elements (micro-organisms, beneficial bacteria and fungi) and maintain the vitality of the soil where plants develop. 

Artisanal fishing (4)

Artisanal fishing is a type of fishing that uses traditional techniques with little technological development. It’s practiced by little boats in coastal areas, no more than 12 miles away, inside what is called territorial sea. Every day  is greater the presence of large fishing companies on the coast, and the lack of technical resources and trained personnel are compromising the future of the artisanal fishing, an activity with ancestral origins that supplies 80 percent of the national markets.

Techniques and tools of artisanal fishing (2)
Criteria for responsible fishing (0)

In the last years, world fisheries have transformed in a sector of the food industry depending on the market. At the end of the eighties it became clear that fisheries resources could no longer sustain such rapid and often uncontrolled exploitation and development, and that we needed an urgent formulation of new criteria of fishing that had on account the aspects related to environment. 

Industry and appropriate technologies (3)

Traditional technologies are often highly adapted to environmental conditions, economic and social aspects of all, thanks to that have been developed and used for long periods of time… However, there is often a technology that, in a context of economic changes in national or international market, offering an inadequate production and income. That is why the modernization of these traditional technologies can bring benefits to small farmers, artisanal fishers and other vulnerable sectors. Technologies that are matched with low energy requirements and / or capital for use and maintenance.

Post-harvest technology (1)

The two main objectives of applying post-harvest techniques on food are to maintain quality (appearance, texture, flavor, nutritional and health value) and reduce losses between harvest and consumption. The key for achieving these objectives is an efficient management during the post-harvest period, rather than the use of technology with a high level of development.

Industrialization techniques (0)
Animal traction (1)

Animal power is a sustainable and renewable source of energy for agriculture and transport. Animal traction plays a significant role in the rural economies of poor countries. Animal traction will maintain its relevance to small and medium producers in Asia and Latin America and could be a new agrarian revolution in certain African countries where it is not known. 

The path of food. From field to table (Marketing. From local to international trade). (8)

The modern agri-food chains and systems, despite their quantitative effectiveness, are not sustainable. Even if the technical progress and the development of trade enabled, globally, to solve many problems of food, "modern food systems" are the cause of problems of great magnitude. Agricultural policies related to "modern food systems" have maintained and even deepened the marginalization of hundreds of millions of small farmers who constitute the bulk of the malnourished battalion. They have contributed in accentuating social differences and the development of poverty. They have introduced new foods models that contribute to malnutrition, especially the spread of obesity and cardiovascular disease. These food systems contribute furthermore, in many cases, to the destruction of natural resources and biodiversity. To develop these food systems towards sustainability, the different actors and stakeholders of the agri-food, must be mobilized around the resolution of these problems, even if their immediate interests appear to oppose it.

Organization of producers (2)

Peasant organizations, also called local, community, rural or popular are groupings of base, formal or informal, voluntary, democratic, whose first object is to promote the economic, political or social purposes of their members. Regardless of their legal status or degree of formalization they are characterized by being groups of people who share at least one common goal. They work together with local authorities associated with the idea of a "bottom-up" development and provide mechanisms for obtaining credit, inputs, training and other services promoting the welfare of their members. Small farmers, rural workers, landless peasant and other disadvantaged groups of the rural population do not have enough negotiation power to get their requests attended; hence the importance of grouping and uniting their efforts in order to formulate requests before the authorities that represent the interests of the whole of their members. 

Short channels of marketing (1)

The excessively low prices that large chains of distributions pay to farmers, joined to the paradoxical increase of many basic food prices are leading the generation of new food circuits that connect directly the producer with the consumer, like one century ago, but using the most modern technologies. They are the known as "short channels of marketing," an alternative that improves the economic situation of farmers and consumers, while helping to preserve the environment by reducing the carbon trail in food. 

International trade (5)

The liberalization policies have had extremely negative impact on rural economies of developing countries which saw their already weakened states abandoned to all types of accompaniments which until then had been for the farmer (agricultural extension, agricultural credit, tariffs border, etc.).. With the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 through the Agreement on Agriculture, the differential treatment which until then had been the international agricultural trade in the GATT has been eliminated. The liberalization of international agricultural trade impoverishes more, if it’s possible, the world peasantry, without competitiveness before the industrial farmers, so it is evicted from its activity and its territory (rural exodus). The crisis of peasant economies starts a migratory flood to the city for economic reasons, generating unhealthy large cities in developing countries and with no real alternatives for employ these rural workers (absence of industrial net).

Right to food. (Governance. Right to food.) (22)

The development of food sovereignty policies require an international, national, regional and local framework for their complete development. In the international domain, food sovereignty is part of the scope of the right to food, contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. It was later developed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1976. The right to food is therefore a right universally recognized and accepted by those countries that signed the ICESCR. So is delegated to the States the responsibility of ensuring a proper level of food for their population.

Recognized rights (5)

The right to food deals with both the international and national levels. It doesn’t lay in a particular set of policies but focuses on defining the obligations of States, who despite of being obligations have no constraining character. The countries, therefore, must guarantee the right to food but have instruments to implement it. Anyway, the breach of this obligation entails no penalty. 

Proposals on legal matters (1)

Current WTO rules are undoubtedly a threat to small and medium peasants and make impossible any implementation policies for food sovereignty. Now, could the WTO become an opportunity? The proposal of social movements of to transfer the accords relating to international agricultural trade to the United Nations after a previous reform of this institution, is it an attainable reality in the medium term? 

Political experiences (11)

Some economically developed countries and donors of funds to the Official Development Assistance (ODA), have integrated the concept of food sovereignty. The rural sector and food sovereignty appear in the strategic plans of the ODA in these countries as a priority in both actuation areas and specific objectives of the same. From the perspective of poor countries, food sovereignty has been translated into national legislation to guarantee the right to food of his countrymen. Some Latin American countries have legislations relating to food sovereignty (Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Venezuela). 

Women and food sovereignty (6)

At a global level, most of the world food is grown, collected and harvested by more than 2500 million small farmers, migrating shepherds, forest dwellers and fishermen, more than half of whom are women. The knowledge and the work of women play a key role in supporting various local food systems that still exist in the world, particularly in developing countries. Despite their central role in productive activities, in managing the household economy and food processing, women are the most vulnerable among weakened groups by neoliberal policies and patriarchal and sexist visions. 

Food Sovereignty, a gender perspective (6)