Deep Roots

[

] 35

Image: Percy Ramírez, Oxfam America

Luz Sinarahua, president of the women’s group that maintains the traditional garden in Chirikyacu, spreads out a fresh harvest of beans to dry in the sun in Peru

heavily focused on increasing production, mostly under the

slogan ‘more with less’.

This approach is still very much

biased towards the expansion of ‘somewhat less polluting’

industrial agriculture, rather than more sustainable and

affordable diversified food production in rural areas.

Generally, such an approach focuses on the intensive use

of chemical inputs and the concentration of farming on

a handful of dominant crops in monocultures. Industrial

agriculture is also a main contributor to greenhouse gas

emissions at a time when governments have to commit

to deep cuts in emissions to stay below 1.5 degrees of

warming.

Although this type of agriculture is often framed

as a solution, it doesn’t account for the real-world heteroge-

neity and complexity of agriculture, the limited resources

most farmers, especially women, have access to and the

increased vulnerability many farmers face due to climate

change. As every farmer will tell you, every plot is differ-

ent. To put it bluntly, this approach is failing farmers who

most need support.

There are alternatives. Practices based on agroecological

principles – aligning agricultural practices and strategies

with natural systems and with traditional knowledge –

have multiple values and deliver real results. For example,

agroecological approaches can help to maintain genetic

diversity the raw material on which breeding for increased

production and greater resilience depends. Further loss

of genetic diversity in plant crops and animal breeds is

dangerous. It makes our food supply more vulnerable to

outbreaks of pests and diseases and to loss of capacity to

adapt to changing climatic conditions. Agroecology can

help to safeguard traditional seed varieties that are impor-

tant sources of diversity.

eep

oots