TWN Info Service on Biodiversity/Traditional Knowledge and Sustainable Agriculture
18 September 2023
Third World Network
www.twn.my
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Agricultural Biodiversity Indispensable for a Just Agroecological Transition
This briefing highlights the pivotal role of agricultural biodiversity in a just transition in food and agricultural systems globally, and on the African continent in particular. Diverse, territorial food systems, built on smallholder farmers’ seed systems, offer important entry points to support such a process.
Smallholder farmers/peasants must be central to the restoration, maintenance, development, and distribution of agricultural biodiversity. Linked to this is the call for a new conservation paradigm, which emphasizes plurality, multifunctionality, democracy and socio-ecological justice, and integration of sharing and sparing approaches. The role of an agroecological transition, based on agroecological practices and principles for developing this new conservation paradigm, requires urgent attention. It is thus necessary to scrutinise national and regional frameworks on the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and to substantially reform policies and laws that inhibit farmers’ dynamic practices and systems and undermine farmers’ rights.
A just transition must be situated within real, transformative systems change.The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) presents some opportunities for systems change to begin to take root. Operationalizing the human rights-based and gender just apporach that was hard won in the GBF is intrinsic to implementation, as well as to strengthening the relationship between the Seed Treaty and the CBD, in particular regarding agricultural biodiversity and its reliance on and interdependence with farmer seed systems and farmers’ rights.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
CULTIVATING DIVERSITY FOR A JUST AGROECOLOGICAL TRANSITION IN AFRICA THE INEXTRICABLE LINK BETWEEN AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY, AGROECOLOGY, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND BIODIVERSITY
African Centre for Biodiversity
https://acbio.org.za/uncategorised/cultivating-diversity-just-agroecological-transition-africa/
16 August 2023
In this briefing, Cultivating diversity for a just agroecological transition in Africa: the inextricable link between agricultural biodiversity, agroecology, climate change, and biodiversity, we highlight the pivotal role of agricultural biodiversity, in particular, crop diversity and its interrelatedness and dependence on farmer managed seed systems and the unfettered exercise of farmers’ rights, as integral to agroecology.
In this regard, agricultural biodiversity is indispensable for a just transition in food and agricultural systems globally generally, and on the African continent in particular. Agricultural biodiversity is an inextricable component to reform and adapt agricultural and food systems, in the context of the multiple intersecting social-ecological crises we face today.
Agricultural diversity is being depleted at an alarming rate, as a result of multiple extractive activities, including especially industrial agriculture and the institutions and policies that uphold this system, including seed marketing and intellectual property laws. Commercial seed regimes severely restrict and, in some cases where countries have adopted International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991-based PVP laws, prohibit and criminalise farmers’ fundamental right to use, save, exchange, and sell farm-saved seeds.
To date the international community has failed to ensure the realisation of farmers’ rights, as articulated under Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and peasant farmers’ right to seed, articulated under Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. This has also resulted in the absence of effective and appropriate regional and national policies and laws to guide the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity even in the face of plummeting agricultural biodiversity. The right to seed and farmers’ rights must be understood as part of a bundle of human rights, in particular for smallholders, peasant farmers, and food producers.
With attention now being shifted to developing monitoring frameworks and resource mobilisation for the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at the Convention on Biological Diversity (GBF), national-level civil society advocacy efforts, consultations, and participation are urgently needed to ensure agroecology, agricultural biodiversity, and the rights of farmers are fully integrated into revised National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans.
Crop diversity must thrive within agriculture and food systems, as well as the re-establishment of local autonomy and markets supporting the practices and systems that foster the ongoing evolution of this diversity as integral parts of a just transition in food and agriculture on the continent. The African Union and African States must move towards the recognition of the dynamism and importance of small-holder/ peasant seed systems in maintaining agricultural biodiversity, sustaining food supply and sovereignty, and responding to climate change.
KEY POINTS OF ENGAGEMENT AND CONSIDERATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK
[Excerpt from briefing]
https://acbio.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Cultivate-diversity-Africa-food-systems.pdf
It is clear that, with global environmental change and varying threats from globalised agricultural production and food systems, an agroecological transition that anchors crop diversity and farmers’ rights as core components is needed. It is therefore necessary to revise national, regional, continental and international policies to reflect this inextricable linkage. The biodiversity, climate, food and agriculture agendas continue to be addressed in silos – despite their obvious intersections, synergies and mutual reinforcement. A just transition needs to look beyond pathways to decarbonise economies and at the impacts and ramifications beyond solely a climate focus, and to the intersecting crises that can be addressed through multiple pathways. Diverse, territorial food systems, built on smallholder farmers’ seed systems, offer important entry points and pathways to support such a process (Wezel et al., 2020). It is necessary to further expand on what a just transition in food and agricultural systems means, and embed agroecology, agricultural biodiversity and farmers’ rights into the narrative and associated policies. Such a just transition must be situated within real, transformative systems change that challenges the cancer of capitalism. The system of capitalism is literally feeding off its own base of existence, in terms of endless growth, accumulation and private appropriation of surplus. While nature is finite, capitalism is based on the paradigm of infinite growth.
While colonial structures played a key role in enabling extractivism, particularly in the Global South, and especially in African countries, neo-colonial structures have remained intact on the continent. Current policies are still rooted in colonial structures, which are epitomised by neoliberal policies, and continue to impede transformative change. Linked to this is a call for a new conservation paradigm, beyond the unjust and unsuccessful ‘fence and protect’ conservation approach. This requires an emphasis on plurality, multifunctionality, democracy and socio-ecological justice, and integration of sharing and sparing approaches (IPCC-IPBES, 2021; Obura et al., 2021).
The CBD presents some opportunities for systems change to begin to take root. Section C (9) of the Kunming-Montreal GBF acknowledges plural value systems and concepts, such as the rights of nature and the rights of Mother Earth, as integral to the successful implementation of the GBF. In addition, Target 16 (consumption) and Target 19 (financial resources) emphasise living in harmony with Mother Earth and using Mother Earth-centric actions and non-marketbased approaches to ensure that the environmental functions of Earth are not commodified and reduced to financial or economic value. The African philosophy of ubuntu is among these diverse world views – linked to Mother Earth, with the emphasis on an Africancentric approach. This philosophy has been adopted in South Africa’s White Paper on Conservation and Sustainable Use (DFFE, 2023). As such, it presents an alternative approach to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and its financialisation, and affirms the intrinsic value of nature, socio-ecological interdependencies, and particularly the role of humans in caring for nature (ACB, 2022). The role of an agroecological transition, based on agroecological practices and principles for developing this new conservation paradigm requires urgent attention.
Smallholder farmers/peasants must be central to the restoration, maintenance, development, and distribution of agricultural biodiversity, and need support for the ongoing functioning of farmers’ seed systems and the adaptive capacity of biocultural diversity more broadly (Argumendo et al., 2021). Efforts must focus on the integration of ex-situ and in-situ/onfarm conservation (Khoury et al., 2021), and ensure that farmers’ rights and farmer seed systems are centralised in legal frameworks, to maintain adaptive seed systems. It is necessary to scrutinise national and regional frameworks on the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, such as NBSAPs, and to substantially reform policies and laws that inhibit farmers’ dynamic practices and systems and undermine farmers’ rights, such as seed trade and marketing and PVP laws. In this regard, it is necessary for farmers’ rights – and more so, the right to seed – to be understood as a human right, rather than being retrofitted into already existing commercial policy and legal measures. This requires further articulation on the substantive issues of farmers’ rights, drawing substantially on UNDROP.
Essential work remains to be undertaken, to ensure the recognition of the fundamental role and rights of family farmers, smallholder and peasant food producers across the Rio Conventions. Realising Target 22 of the GBF, which deals with the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and Section C, which also affirms a human rights-based approach under the GBF, especially require operationalisation. This is intrinsic to implementing the GBF, as well as to strengthening the relationship between the Seed Treaty and the CBD, in particular regarding agricultural biodiversity and its reliance on and interdependence with farmer seed systems and farmers’ rights. We urge the Agroecology Coalition18 to develop this as part of its work regarding agroecological transitioning. Since the AU Commission, as well as 19 individual countries, are members of the Agroecology Coalition, this represents an opportunity to articulate the necessity for revision of national and regional laws to be revised to reflect this intention and mandate.
It is essential that crop diversity be valued, not only as a genetic resource to be exploited, but for its significant cultural and ecological meaning (Fenzi and Bonneuil, 2016). Crop diversity must thrive within agriculture and food systems, reintegrating species, varietal and genetic diversity into agricultural systems, both temporally and spatially. Additionally, local autonomy and markets must be re-established, to support the practices and systems that foster ongoing evolution of this diversity (Khoury et al., 2021).