At a time when European farmers have just staged protests against the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy which, according to them, prevents them from earning a living, at a time when food scarcity is making a comeback in Europe, when famines are reappearing in under-industrialized countries, especially in Africa, the ordinary citizen might think that international public policies would focus on how to secure global agricultural production. This is in particular the role of WFP, the World Food Program, and FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. What is the real situation?
Conservation Agriculture in the spotlight at FAO
FAO’s Global Soil Partnership (GSP) celebrated its tenth anniversary in Rome on 4 June, with a series of round tables where its partners (NGOs, scientists, institutions, companies) were invited to present to United Nations officials their activities and proposals for the preservation and improvement of agricultural soils to secure food production for society. It is therefore quite natural that farmers from GCAN, APAD, AAPRESID, and a Moroccan scientist presented CA, Conservation Agriculture.
As a reminder, this agriculture was defined by the FAO in 2001 by the simultaneous use of three methods:
1) Permanent soil cover with cash crops or cover crops or environmental service plants intended to protect and nourish the soil and its inhabitants,
2) Total absence of mechanical tillage,
3) Diversity of crops and/or cover crops in succession or mixtures, in order to create an unfavorable environment for weeds, crop diseases, insects and other crop pests.
CA is now well known for preserving agricultural soils, and even restoring them when they are degraded by traditional cultivation practices used in Africa and Europe, based on manual or mechanical tillage (e.g. ploughs or other tools), which are particularly destructive to the soil: water or wind erosion, compaction, loss of organic matter and biodiversity, runoff, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions (especially CO₂). This was shown by the SoCo study of the European Union’s Joint Research Centre in 2008/2009 (1)
Improving soils and soil fertility through CA leads to an increase in agricultural yields per hectare, labor productivity and farmers’ incomes, all of which are fundamental elements of food security and economic and social development.
Zoom: CA in Morocco and around the world
In the case of Morocco we have presented, the transition to CA has made it possible to increase the tonnages per hectare of wheat and lentils by three times and their commercial value by four to five times.
The large-scale adoption of CA has been the main key to the success of agriculture dominant countries, with a share of CA ranging from 50% to 90% of arable land in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. The global total in CA has reached 200 million hectares, about 12% of agricultural land, and is constantly increasing.
The other regions of the world all have a share of CA below 5%, as in Europe and Africa.
It is therefore clear that it is possible to rapidly increase global food production by accelerating the deployment of CA in countries with soil-degrading agricultural practices and significant agricultural land, particularly in Europe and Africa.
Morocco has launched a program to convert one million hectares to CA.
The GCAN, APAD, AAPRESID, dedicated associations bringing together farmers and engineers, are very familiar with the obstacles to the adoption of CA encountered by their colleagues, and the strategies to overcome them:
- Knowledge and know-how can be brought by experienced farmers to their dedicated development associations.
- The technological tools adapted to CA; seeders, machines, fertilizers, crop protection products, must be available, which requires that they be authorized for sale and that suppliers are interested in selling them, so that a viable market exists.
- Viable markets must exist and offer sufficient conditions of profitability for producers.
- Storage and transport infrastructure must be operational.
- In drought-prone areas, water storage and irrigation systems infrastructure must be operational.
- The support of society and appropriate public policies are necessary because farmers and other citizens cannot spend their time confronting a hostile social environment, resulting in nitpicky, technically unsuitable, costly and bureaucratic regulations.
Some of these actions depend on the farmers themselves, but most depend on the will of policymakers. This desire exists in countries where CA is deployed. African countries are seeking to develop CA wherever the private sector has the freedom to become involved. Some (Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea) have seen very fruitful project partnerships established with Argentinians from AAPRESID. Others in Southern and Eastern Africa are launching with private entrepreneurs, who invest as soon as endemic insecurity subsides.
Progress has been impressive. For example, the Argentinian project in West Africa has seen production increase in seven years from $120/hectare/year to $4000, a 30-fold increase.
EU: CA suppressed by the primacy of the F2F?
Europe, meanwhile, has chosen to drastically reduce its production, with its Green Deal “Farm to Fork” (F2F) strategy, very dirigiste, very restrictive for producers, stemming from anti-technical ideological environmentalism, dreaming of a “natural” agriculture 100% without pesticides, fertilizers, genetics, irrigation…
This policy, which is in the process of putting farmers out of business throughout Europe, increasing consumer food prices, and potential dramatic shortages, also has a very significant influence on agricultural policies in Africa.
Indeed, the regulation of phytosanitary products and seeds (GMOs and NGTs) is often copied by local African authorities from those of the EU, with local pressure from western NGOs. It takes all the determination of farmers and local populations to convince their governments to exercise their sovereignty and right to decide for themselves, their destiny and their modes of food production.
Because, if the still well-fed European citizens imagine that they can do without productive agriculture, the Africans still know that this is not the case for them, and that it is imperative for them to increase their production to cope with the reality of their demography.
Europeans should also ensure that soil degradation, droughts and famines in Africa are not too damaging to the population. A continent of 1.5 billion people must be carefully monitored. It is better for all that they are well fed and prosperous.
Dialogue between public authorities and farmers
It is in the United Nations working groups that the need for coherence of public policies between countries and continents becomes clear, in order to avoid conflicts generated by unilateral decisions by some that create serious difficulties for others.
FAO, WFP and GSP establish the recommendations for public policies of United Nations member countries on agricultural and food production, sustainable management of soils and agrarian ecosystems.
It is in these forums that coherent and effective agricultural policies, capable of rapidly resolving the problems of food, soil, water and the environment, could and should be drawn up, taking into account the proposals and needs of farmers.
The CA solves all these problems. Its farmer networks are ready to play their role, to share their experience of practitioner and developer know-how with experts, scientists and officials from countries and the United Nations.
It seems simple and common sense that it should be easy to implement this co-construction between agricultural actors, public policy thinkers and decision-makers. It would be beneficial for decision-makers to want it and organize it.
And yet, we are still waiting. Our workshop went well, the audience was curious to meet and hear farmers. However, the essence of the exchange was still: “you use glyphosate, it would be good to do without it by doing Regenerative Agriculture” (interpreting RA an organic version of CA without chemicals or fertilizers, with cows).
We have opened a door, after 25 years of advocacy, repeated attempts and diligent presence at our own costs (farmers are essentially self-financed individual companies).
But by forcing open some doors and seeing them close each time, the hope of finally leading to concrete action one day is dwindling. In the meantime, erosion is taking our planet’s precious soils to pollute rivers, droughts are increasing, production is decreasing in the countries where they need it most. And Europeans dream of the Holy Grail of Natural Regenerative Organic Farming without tools. End of story.
(1) https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC50424/jrc50424.pdf
https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/SOCO/FactSheets/EN%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
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Glossary
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
WFP: UN World Food Program
GSP: Global Soil Partnership = FAO Global Soil Partnership
CA: Conservation Agriculture
GCAN: Global Conservation Agriculture Network
APAD: Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture, French association of farmers in CA.
AAPRESID: Argentine Association of Direct Sowing Producers.
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Further reading
The EU Continues Its Unscientific, Anti-Innovation Policymaking
Nutrition and food production: Our greatest challenges for the next 30 years
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