by Abigail Conrad
The Guardian
Excerpts:
Small-scale farmers produce food for 70% of the global population. Yet, they are some of the world’s poorest and most food insecure people. Alternatives to conventional farming should be embraced to improve subsistence farmers’ yields and to ensure adequate food production for the growing global population. The stark reality, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, is that the world needs to produce more food with fewer resources.
In contrast, conventional farming is characterised by monocropping, green revolution technologies, and synthetic fertiliser. It is resource intensive in terms of capital, land, water, and fossil fuel use. Conventional farming threatens future food production by reducing biodiversity, and contributing to environmental degradation and climate change which lower yields.
Permaculture, a contraction of permanent agriculture, is a promising design system for the application of agroecology. It was developed in Australia in the 1970s based on agroecology and indigenous farming systems. In practice, permaculture farms are organic, low-input, and biodiverse, and use techniques like intercropping trees, planting perennials, water harvesting, and resource recycling.
Permaculture programmes are more multifunctional than typical agricultural development programs. This is important given the growing call for “triple-win solutions” for agriculture, health, and environmental sustainability. For example, Partners in Health ran a model permaculture farmer programme in Malawi which helped HIV/Aids patients get the additional caloric and micronutrient intake that they need. Elsewhere, in Malawi and South Africa, permaculture is used “as a sustainable, non-donor dependent tool for improving the health, food and nutrition security, and livelihoods,” of orphans and vulnerable children, according to a recent USAid report. Indonesia, Oxfam funded a permaculture school that taught ex-combatants and tsunami survivors how to improve their food security and livelihoods, while protecting the environment.
Read the Full Article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development-professionals-network/2013/apr/23/farming-methods-agroecology-permaculture
