TWN Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture
7 February 2022
Third World Network
www.twn.my
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Funding Agroecology the Right Way
Agroecology has emerged in the international policy arena as an alternative paradigm for food and farming that can address multiple crises in the food system and enable a just climate transition. Yet, agroecology is severely hampered by the quantity and quality of financing available for its development.
Most finance for agriculture is allocated to conventional agriculture and solutions like ‘climate-smart agriculture’ or ‘nature-based solutions’ which largely re-entrench the inequity and ecological degeneration of today’s food system. In contrast, agroecology explicitly enhances bottom-up processes of development and food system transformation based on the needs, knowledge, priorities and agency of people and nature, rooted in territories.
This paper offers a series of considerations and recommendations to increase the quantity and quality of funding for agroecology, based on principles of participation and equity. Funding programmes should also target multiple domains of transformation and take a systemic and integrated approach.
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Third World Network
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SHIFTING FUNDING TO AGROECOLOGY FOR PEOPLE, CLIMATE AND NATURE
Colin R Anderson and Janneke Bruil
ActionAid USA
Shifting-Funding-to-Agroecology.pdf (actionaidusa.org)
November 2021
Summary
There are growing calls to transform the current food system in response to hunger, malnutrition, climate change and biodiversity loss. Financial institutions and donors and other actors have tended to focus on increasing productivity and developing global value chains, which has caused great harm to the environment while failing to end hunger, poverty, and inequalities.
This is where agroecology comes in: an alternative vision that reflects a more fundamental and systemic transformation towards fair and sustainable food systems. Millions of farmers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples around the world are already producing food in ways that build on the principles of agroecology. In an enabling policy context, agroecology has proven to achieve robust gains in poverty reduction, food and nutrition security, women and youth empowerment and biodiversity and climate resilience.
A growing number of agencies, research institutions, governments, and donors are adopting policies and developing tools to scale up and scale out agroecology. Yet, agroecology is severely hampered by the quantity and quality of financing available for its development. The organizations, food producers and proponents that are advancing agroecology around the world have little access to public or philanthropic financing or other institutional support. Most finance for agriculture is allocated to conventional agriculture that, while having achieved productivity gains in some places, has been highly uneven and come at great expense to the environment, equity and sustainability.
The solutions being proposed by most funding agencies to address the hunger and climate crises are distinct from agroecology. Approaches like ‘climate-smart agriculture’ or ‘nature-based solutions’ address just some aspects of the crisis in the food system and largely re-entrench the inequity and ecological degeneration that is so characteristic of today’s food system. In contrast, agroecology explicitly enhances bottom-up processes of development and food system transformation based on the needs, knowledge, priorities and agency of people and nature, rooted in territories.
This policy brief offers a series of considerations and recommendations to increase the quantity and quality of funding for agroecology:
- Funding for agroecology should be underpinned by a principle of co-governance where donors are accountable to the most affected. Donors should consider long-term multi-phased support for building agroecology in territories.
- For financial support to be effective in supporting agroecology, a large portion of it needs to be comprised of small to mid-scale grants through food producer organizations and civil society organizations who are close to the ground.
- Currently, agroecology is often marginally, or not at all, included in agricultural funding programs. Donors should closely evaluate their funding programs and shift towards agroecology explicitly as a target of funding.
- Agroecology transitions are complex social and participatory processes that require adaptability in how plans are developed and implemented. In this context, it is vital that funders allow for flexibility in spending, activities and in monitoring and evaluation.
- We recommend that donors engage in an in-depth and ongoing dialogue with food producer organizations to examine and increase the quantity and effectiveness of funds that are allocated towards agroecology, and to improve the quality of delivery.