The SARD Initiative Newsletter

Transcription

1 The SARD Initiative Newsletter Issue 5 December 2007 FAO/G. Bizzarri/Cambodia Welcome to the fifth issue of the SARD Initiative Newsletter! The fifth and last issue of the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) Initiative newsletter focuses on the role of fair trade labelling in the elimination of Child Labour in Agriculture. This was one of the many subjects presented and discussed during the World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL) in FAO Rome. The SARD Initiative, in collaboration with ILO and IFAD, organized a series of events on 12 June 2007, to raise awareness about child labour in agriculture, this year s WDACL theme. This issue also reports on Alternatives to Illicit Narcotic Production and Holistic Management, the subjects of two SARD seminars, recently held in FAO Rome and organized by the Initiative. The article on Holistic Management also includes information from a visit to the Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe, undertaken by a member of the Initiative team. Finally, are also present details on SARD related events and training opportunities. The SARD Initiative newsletter provides updates and information on activities implemented by the Initiative and its progress and achievements in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The newsletter is addressed to different stakeholders implementing SARD and is devoted to stimulating dialogue among them, facilitating innovative approaches, exchange of lessons learned and good practices, as well as information and knowledge sharing. It is distributed by and circulated among civil society organizations, government representatives, project managers and other stakeholders working on SARD. Please feel free to forward it to other interested parties. Contents The Fair trade label and the elimination of child labour: Based on an interview with a FAO Economist, during the World Day Against Child Labour Day, in Rome. Alternatives to illicit narcotic production FAO s approach to developing and supporting alternatives to the cultivation of illicit narcotic crops. Holistic management and the Africa Centre for Holistic Management, Zimbabwe With the contributions of civil society This newsletter can also be downloaded from the SARD Initiative website

2 Fairtrade label and elimination of Child Labour social, moral or physical capabilities. FLO registered companies should also demonstrate a commitment to phase out child labour. To ensure that FLO standards are respected, inspectors regularly monitor companies that have been certified with the fair trade label to make sure that there is no abuse and that the standards are complied with. Read more about Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO): FAO/A.Proto/Ghana Pascal Liu, an Economist at the FAO Trade and Markets Division, was interviewed during the celebration of the World Day Against Child Labour, in FAO Rome. He explained that registered Fairtrade labels can help gradually to eliminate Child Labour from crop plantations and food exporting companies in developing countries. Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), represent the majority of fair trade labels for foods, and is by far the predominant voluntary system for fair trade in the food sector. It is an umbrella organization that unites 20 Labelling Initiatives in 21 countries and Producer Networks, representing Fairtrade Certified Producer Organizations in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. The FLO-registered trade mark guarantees that products meet specific standards for fair trade. The FLO system helps to reduce child labour, by prohibiting further recruitment of children under the age of 15. Children hired in the past, before the company was certified, there is also a system to monitor that those children who no longer work in the company will not become forced labourers or enter in dangerous or more exploitative working conditions. FLO also recognizes that in some cases, child labour is important for the shortly term economic wellbeing of the family, and therefore can be difficult to abolish. For this reason, FLO allows some children who were previously employed in the company, to continue to work on a part time basis, e.g. for only a few hours a day. These children are monitored to ensure that they do not enter into dangerous forms of work, (such as managing chemicals or physically strenuous tasks), are paid regularly and decent, and that their work does not jeopardize their ability to attend school, receive an education, or develop FLO Generic Fairtrade Standards for Small Farmers Organizations: tent/generic_fairtrade_standard_sf_march_2007_e N.pdf The dark side of agriculture: sustainable alternatives to illicit narcotic production The article describes FAO s approaches to developing and supporting alternatives to the cultivation of illicit narcotic crops. An estimated three million people in more than 10 countries are engaged narcotics production on more than one million hectares in the world s poorest and least well governed countries. The industry has more than 200 million consumers worldwide and an estimated value of US$500 billion, more than 95% this value comes from the added value of manufacturing and sales. Narcotic growing communities are frequently outside the mainstream of national development, and sometimes the control of central government resides in tribal or ethnic regions that have long been isolated and outside. These regions present opportunities for external control by illegal narcotics trading groups, many of which are linked into guerrilla wars against central government, terrorism, arms trading and money laundering. The reality is that communities become captive to a vicious circle of poverty, lack of access to basic services and food insecurity. FAO and the illicit narcotic industries FAO recognizes that the production and trafficking of illicit drugs has devastating social and economic costs. For this reason, has been working in support of international efforts to combat illicit narcotic

3 industries for more than 20 years. Although fighting illicit narcotic production is not a key part the mandate of the Organization, some of the models for alleviating poverty, fostering food security and promoting people-centred development are also successful in replacing illicit narcotic crops. So far FAO has been focusing on alternative development strategies in countries like Myanmar, Cambodia, Bolivia, Lebanon, Colombia and Afghanistan. For example one agro-forestry project in Cochabamba, Bolivia, funded by the European Commission (Development in a drugs environment mainstreaming a strategic approach to alternative development, GCP/INT/992/EC), has succeeded in eliminating 14,000 hectares of coca during a six year period between the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the project is currently moving to an expanded phase of investment. Since 2001, FAO has been working to rehabilitate agriculture in Afghanistan, which is the largest producer of opium worldwide and accounts for more than two-thirds of global opium production FAO assistances has focused on emergency activities, such as the distribution of seeds, tools and fertilizers, and locust control. Long-term projects include seed production, the cultivation and marketing of fruits and vegetables, veterinary services, poultry raising projects for women, milk production and marketing projects, the rehabilitation of irrigation systems and the strengthening of fragile Afghan institutions and services. An agro-livelihoods project in Afghanistan, begun in 2005 (Alternative agriculture livelihoods to poppy production programme for Afghanistan, GCP/AFG/036/UK), aims to reduce dependency on poppy cultivation by increasing on- and off-farm income generation opportunities in the four main poppy-growing provinces. The programme, mostly funded by the UK for a period of five years, is based on the Afghanistan's national drug control strategy and has six main components: capacity building; rehabilitation and expansion of agricultural infrastructure; rehabilitation and diversification of farming systems; off-farm employment generation; community development and support services, and programme management. Attention will also be given to communities in which poppy eradication has taken place and families are facing severe income losses. Key challenges The key challenge is to diversify and strengthen local economies and mainstream development alternatives, as a means of shifting communities away from illicit narcotic industries. There have been a number of successes with this approach, but the actual rapid expansion of illicit crop cultivation calls for more integrated and wider action. Opium and heroin production have declined in South East Asia, but expanded in Central Asia and South and Central America. In Afghanistan for example, the area under opium cultivation increased from 71,000 ha in 1994 to 165,000 ha in 2006 and the livelihoods of about 2.9 million rural people (around 12.6% of Afghanistan s population) are now directly dependent on poppy cultivation. Source: Afghanistan Opium Survey 2006, UNODC The profitability of opium production is hard to beat: farmers are estimated to earn approximately eight times more income per hectare than wheat, using less water and fewer inputs. Individuals involved in illicit crop production form a large and diverse group: producers include large landowners, smallholders and landless households who farm as tenants or sharecroppers. Production also involves a large body of itinerant labourers who do much of the harvesting. Women and children are trained in crop harvesting and derive an income from sales. Narcotic growing communities tend to suffer from greater drug dependency, and social degradation and disintegration. For these reasons sustainable elimination of illicit narcotics production can only take place in the context of a long-term commitment to foster good governance, ad hoc policy

4 formulation, elimination of conflict and access to social services such as education and health, environmental protection, diversification of employment opportunities and alternative sources of income within a stable living environment. The principles of alternative development, along with a strong Government commitment, offer promise to liberate farmers from a captive production system while obtaining income and livelihoods from other crops. References: FAO (2005) Development in a Drugs Environment Mainstreaming a Strategic Approach to Alternative Development, Project Document GCP/INT/992/EC. FAO, Rome, Italy (Unpublished) FAO (2004) Alternative Agricultural Livelihoods Programme, Project Document GCP/AFG/036/UK. FAO Rome, Italy (Unpublished) Steele, P.E., Latham, J., and Sessa R. (2006), Mainstreaming Alternative Development Activities to Combat Illicit Narcotic Production. Strategic Position Paper. FAO, Rome, Italy (Unpublished) United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC (2006) Afghanistan Opium Survey. UNODC, Vienna, Austria Holistic Management This article presents an overview of holistic management, a somewhat controversial approach to livestock and grazing management methods, increasingly demonstrating benefits to environmental restoration. A member of the SARD Initiative team visited the Africa Centre for Holistic Management, Zimbabwe, to learn more about its work, its capabilities and priorities as a potential SARD Initiative partner in Southern Africa. The Centre manages 20,000 acres of land and was established by Holistic Management International in 1992, near Victoria Falls, as a learning site to demonstrate and train local communities on how livestock and grazing can reduce environmental degradation and restore lost wildlife habitat. The Holistic Management approach argues that in seasonal rainfall environments (Savannah and arid and semi-arid lands), livestock grazing is essential to the health and productivity of land and water resources. In these regions, livestock can be managed in a way that actually restores land to perennial grasslands, that is, - improves soil aeration, fertility, biodiversity, water filtration, and the quantity of grass and land cover - providing forage for domestic animals and wildlife. In many cases, livestock owners can actually increase their herd numbers, provided that they learn how to manage the animals in a way that provides sufficient recovery periods for plants and soil. Proponents of this approach argues that these lands are not due to too many animals but rather poorly managed grazing which subjects plants and lands to grazing stress. The approach has been adopted by smallholders of farmers up in South Africa, North America, and Australia with the most notable benefits being increased land productivity livestock health, and profit. Rough estimates suggest that approximately 5,000 farmers have adopted the holistic management over approximately 1 million hectares of land. In addition, more than 100 people have been trained as educators in holistic management and are engaged in disseminating the methodology in Latin America, Africa, North America, Australia and New Zealand. So far, uptake has been steady among large scale farmers with significant herds and livestock management skills, but slower among poor communities which face institutional and cultural constraints in pooling animals (and in some cases grazing land) from different households in order to manage herds of a sufficient size to have a sustainable impact on common grazing areas. Heifer International and World Vision are attempting to address this issue by combining holistic management with community participatory development approaches and by broadening the constituency to which the approach can be applied beyond herders and pastoral groups to include small scale farmers. To learn more about Holistic Management International go to: To learn more about the Africa Centre for Holistic Management go to: ica/af2_africa_centre_07.html

5 The SARD Initiative The Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Initiative is a multi-stakeholder umbrella framework designed to support the transition to people-centred sustainable agriculture and rural development and to strengthen participation in programme and policy development. The Initiative helps to achieve SARD by supporting pilot efforts and building the capacity of rural communities, disadvantaged groups and other stakeholders to improve access to resources (e.g. genetic, technological, land, water, markets and information), to promote good practices for SARD, and to foster fairer conditions of employment in agriculture. This initiative contributes to the implementation of Chapter 14 of Agenda 21 and to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and offers all stakeholders an opportunity to participate in rural development to promote more equal benefit-sharing, reduce poverty, enhance livelihoods, and promote sustainable development. Since the launch of the SARD Initiative in Johannesburg by Major Groups and FAO in 2002, numerous new organizations such as policy advocacy and grassroots community groups at local and national level have expressed interest in the implementation of SARD (Agenda 21) and participation in the SARD Initiative. Agenda 21 recognized the roles and responsibilities of nine major groups of civil society, which are Indigenous Peoples, Farmers, Workers and Trade Unions, Business and Industry, Local Authorities, Scientific and Technological Community, Children and Youth, Women, NGOs. Participation in the SARD Initiative is open to all interested governments, civil society organizations and inter-governmental organizations agreeing to the spirit of the Initiative and willing to contribute to it. For more information, see our website at Other recent and upcoming events 16 th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) will focus on the following thematic issues: Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Drought, Desertification and Africa. (5-16 May 2008, UNDESA, New York) International Labour Conference organized by ILO (28 May - 13 June 2008, Geneva) Stakeholders consultation on World Food Security and the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy, FAO (Private sector consultation, February 2008 and Civil society consultation, February 2008). Internet: no_cache=1&l=6 High Level Conference on World Food Security and the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy, FAO (3-5 June 2008, FAO Headquarter, Rome, Italy). cccb-secretariat@fao.org Internet: html?l=6 Training on SARD Information on a number of graduate and postgraduate courses related to SARD is available at the following sites: Organic Agriculture Systems (OAS) Major. College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Science (CAHNRS), United States, Master program in Agroecosystem Science. ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ) Zurich, Switzerland. /index_en Master of Science Degree in Agricultural Development. University of Copenhagen, Denmark, r_studyprg_uk.pdf The SARD Initiative would like to hear from any organization which has conducted training on SARD, in order to collect experiences and lessons, identify knowledge gaps, and explore opportunities for collaboration. Contact