Neth Dano (ETC Group) discusses the findings of the IAASTD report on incentivizing the right kind of agriculture.

1. Incentivizing Small-Scale
Sustainable Agriculture
Neth Dano
Action Group on Erosion,
Technology and Concentration
(etc group)

2. IAASTD Overview
International
Assessment of
Agricultural Knowledge
Science and
Technology for
Development

3. IAASTD Overview
 Assessment process initiated by the World
Bank
• In partnership with FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, WHO
and UNESCO and representatives of governments,
civil society, private sector and scientific
institutions from around the world
 Uses a strongly consultative 'bottom-up'
process that recognizes the different needs
of different regions and communities

4. IAASTD Overview
 Multi-thematic approach
 Multi-level: global & 5 sub-global assessments
 Multi-temporal (1950 to 2050);
 Involved more than 400 authors
 Peer reviewed by Governments and experts
 Integrates local Knowledge with institutional
Knowledge and looks at policy and
institutional issues in light of history (50
years) and proposes options for action
 Created a common vision of the future of
agriculture approved by 58 countries in April
2008, and welcomed by 61 countries

5. IAASTD: Role
 To comprehensively, openly and
transparently assess the scientific, technical
and socioeconomic literature, experience
and knowledge relevant to how agricultural
science and technology can:
• Reduce hunger and poverty
• Improve rural livelihoods, and
• Facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and
economically sustainable development through
the generation, access and use of agricultural
knowledge, science and technology

6. Global Report:
Some Key Findings
1. Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology
(AKST) has contributed to substantial increases
in agricultural production over time, contributing
to food security
2. People have benefited unevenly from these yield
increases across regions, in part because of
different organizational capacities, socio-cultural
factors, and institutional and policy environments
3. Emphasis on increasing yields and productivity
has in some cases had negative consequences on
environmental sustainability

7. Global Report:
Some Key Findings
4. The environmental shortcomings of agricultural
practice associated with poor socioeconomic
conditions create a vicious cycle in which poor
smallholder farmers have to deforest and use
new often marginal lands, thus increasing
deforestation and overall degradation
7. An increase and strengthening of AKST towards
agro-ecological sciences will contribute to
addressing environmental issues while
maintaining and increasing productivity
8. Strengthening and redirecting the generation and
delivery of AKST will contribute to addressing a
range of persistent socioeconomic inequities

8. Global Report:
Some Key Findings
12. Targeting small-scale agricultural systems by
forging public and private partnerships,
increased public research and extension
investment helps realize existing opportunities
13. Significant pro-poor progress requires creating
opportunities for innovation and
entrepreneurship, which explicitly target
resource poor farmers and rural laborers
14. Decisions around small-scale farm
sustainability pose difficult policy choices

9. Global Report:
Some Key Findings
15. Public policy, regulatory frameworks and
international agreements are critical to
implementing more sustainable agricultural
practices
16. Innovative institutional arrangements are
essential to the successful design and adoption
of ecologically and socially sustainable
agricultural systems

10. Global Report:
Some Key Findings
17. Opening national agricultural markets to
international competition can offer economic
benefits, but can lead to long term negative
effects on poverty alleviation, food security and
the environment without basic national
institutions and infrastructure being in place
22. Achieving sustainability and development goals
will involve creating space for diverse voices and
perspectives and a multiplicity of scientifically
well-founded options, through, for example, the
inclusion of social scientists in policy and
practice of AKST helps direct and focus public

11. A Major Challenge and Opportunity:
Small-scale Farmers
• Produce the bulk of global food
• Are the largest number of stewards for the
environmental services and biodiversity
• Higher and sustainable productivity increase at
their level will have a major impact on all the
development goals
• Critical need to inform and support policy
approaches that address small-scale/family
producers, including AKST designed to improve
profitability of the sector

12. Who Feeds Us?
Peasant cultivatio
hunting gatherin
Urban production
Industrial produc

13. A Major Challenge and Opportunity:
Small-scale Farmers
•Pro-poor progress requires:
•Creating opportunities for innovation and
entrepreneurship
• Increased public research and extension
investment
• Small scale farm sustainability – poses
challenging policy choices
•Payment for ecological services
•Decentralized governance systems and
choices

14. Climate-ready Agriculture?
 Industrial  Small-scale local
model agriculture
 Food chain (seed to  Food web
supermarket)  Small scale system
 Corporate control  Production-
 Proprietary consumption relation
technology  biodiverse
 Consumption far  Informal networks
from production  75% of global food
 Fossil fuel intensive production
 Cash economy
 30% of food
production
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15. Options for Action: New Equitable &
Sustainable Way Forward
 Empower, involve and support farmers
(women) in sustainable agricultural practices,
restoration and management of ecosystem
services; crop/animal and labor productivity
increases; safety nets
 Improve access to production resources and
remunerative employment on and off farm;
recognize the critical role of women and
empower them (education, land tenure, add
value locally to agricultural products)
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16. Options for Action: New Equitable &
Sustainable Way Forward
 Improve markets, infrastructure, and
institutions
 Expand and disseminate ecosystem
sustainability oriented research, knowledge,
and technology with stakeholder participation
 Bring all sectors responsible for sustainable
development into a comprehensive systematic
analysis, to recognize that policy decisions in
one sector (i.e., transportation) strongly affect
other sectors (input & market access)
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17. Options for Action: New
Equitable & Sustainable Way
 Promote responsible governance at
global, regional and local levels
 Invest in long term gains versus
short term quick fixes (i.e., deal
with the cause not the symptoms)
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18. Options for Action:
Empower, Involve and Support farmers
 Targeting AKST strategies that combine
productivity with protection of natural
resources (i.e., pollination)
 Using natural systems to regulate pest
outbreaks
 Using natural systems to restore and maintain
soil fertility
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19. Incentivizing Small-Scale
Sustainable Agriculture
 Eliminating perverse subsidies to the
un-sustainable agricultural systems
and practices
 Leveling the playing field by:
• correcting programs that are biased to
large-scale, un-sustainable farming
practices
• corrective policy measures
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20. Incentivizing Small-Scale
Sustainable Agriculture
 Providing direct incentives through:
• Redirecting subsidies to small-scale
sustainable agricultural practices
• Providing appropriate infrastructure
support and mechanisms, including
credits
• Research, extension and education
services
• Market access, information and support
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21. Transforming Policies to Real Solutions:
Thailand’s Green Net
 a Thai social enterprise established in 1993 to
promote sustainable agriculture through
providing fair-trade market access to producer
groups, producing organic products
 Vision: to be a leader in promoting and
supporting "Organic Farming" and “Fair Trade”
through environmentally and socially
responsible living as "Life Fair, Live Organic"
 With 1,100 members, most of whom are
organic producers with registered capital of
around THB 1.8 million.
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22. Transforming Policies to Real Solutions:
Thailand’s Green Net
 One of the largest organic producers and
wholesaler in Thailand
 with over 20 product lines sold through some
40 retail outlets in Bangkok and around
Thailand
 Operates fair-trade exports to Europe
 Products are purchased from 8 farmer groups
in the Northern, Northeastern and Central
regions of Thailand
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23. Transforming Policies to Real Solutions:
Thailand’s Green Net
 Founded to support small-scale farmers to adopt sustainable farming
practices in order to improve their livelihood and agro-ecological
conditions in the rural areas by raising farmers’ awareness on the
negative impacts of agro-chemicals and the dependency on external
markets and promoting indigenous knowledge of sustainable farming
practices
 since early 1990s, had started revolutionizing the strategies through
incorporating economic (market) incentive and revising extension
methodologies
 established a local organic certification body to provide inspection and
certification services to ensure better market access
 took advantage of market opportunities for organic products in
Thailand and abroad
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24. Transforming Policies to Real Solutions:
Philippines’ Organic Agriculture Act
• Republic Act 10068: Organic Agriculture Act of
2010
• state policy to promote, propagate, and further
develop the practice of organic farming in the
Philippines
• establishes a comprehensive National Organize
Agricultural Program (NOAP) which will
promote, commercialize and cultivate organic
farming methods through farmers' and
consumers' education
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25. Transforming Policies to Real Solutions:
Philippines’ Organic Agriculture Act
 The program will be carried by the National
Organic Agriculture Board (NOAB), a policy-
making body that will provide the direction and
general guidelines for the implementation of
the national program
 The NOAB will also identify funding sources to
expand organic agriculture, monitor and
evaluate the performance of programs for
appropriate incentives.
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26. Transforming Policies
to Real Solution
 Can the CDM incentivize small-scale
sustainable/organic agriculture?
 Concerns:
• scale
• monocropping: impacts on agricultural
biodiversity
• mono-practices: impacts on traditional
farming practices and knowledge systems
• accessibility and affordability
• elite capture
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27. Business as Usual
is NOT an Option
You cannot solve the problem with
the same kind of thinking that
created the problem
- Albert Einstein
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