Putting nature back into agriculture: FAO

Save and Grow farming model launched by FAO
FAO 13 Jun 11;

13 June 2011, Rome - FAO today announced the launch of a major new initiative intended to produce more food for a growing world population in an environmentally sustainable way.

FAO's call for sustainable crop production intensification, more than half a century after the Green Revolution of the 1960s, is contained in a new book, Save and Grow published by FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division.

Smallholder farmers

The new approach calls for targeting mainly smallholder farmers in developing countries. Helping low-income farm families in developing countries – some 2.5 billion people – economize on cost of production and build healthy agro-ecosystems will enable them to maximize yields and invest the savings in their health and education.

Green Revolution technology saved an estimated one billion people from famine and produced more than enough food for a world population that doubled from three to six billion between 1960 and 2000.

New millennium

However, the present paradigm of intensive crop production cannot meet the challenges of the new millennium. In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save.

The Save and Grow approach draws partly on conservation agriculture (CA) techniques which do away with or minimize ploughing and tilling, thus preserving soil structure and health. Plant residues provide cover over fields and cereals cultivation is rotated with soil-enriching legumes.

Precision farming

Other techniques developed by FAO and its partners over the past several years as part of the Save and Grow toolkit include precision irrigation, which delivers more crop for the drop, and "precision placement" of fertilizers, which can double the amount of nutrients absorbed by plants.

Integrated pest management, whose techniques discourage the development of pest populations and minimizes the need for pesticides, is yet another key element.

Such methods help adapt crops to climate change and not only help grow more food but also contribute to reducing crops' water needs by 30 percent and energy costs by up to 60 percent. In some cases crop yields can be increased six-fold, as shown by trials with maize held recently in southern Africa. Average yields from farms practicing the techniques in 57 low-income countries increased almost 80 percent, according to one review.

Ecosystems approach

The Save and Grow model incorporates an ecosystem approach that draws on nature's contribution to crop growth – soil organic matter, water flow regulation, pollination and natural predation of pests. It applies external inputs at the right time and in the right amount – no more and no less than plants need.

The approach builds on lessons learned from the Green Revolution of the 1960s which focused on raising crop production without much attention to the environment.

Biodiversity

Decades of intensive cropping may have degraded fertile land and depleted groundwater, provoked pest upsurges, eroded biodiversity and polluted air, soil and water and it can be noted that the yield growth rate of major cereals is declining.

To feed a world population projected at 9.2 billion in 2050, which involves meeting double the demand for food in developing countries, there is no option but to further intensify crop production. To eradicate hunger and meet demand by 2050, food production needs to increase by 70% in the world and 100% in developing countries.

The key to meeting the challenge lies in sustainable crop production intensification, or Save and Grow. But this will involve a shift from a homogeneous model of crop production to farming systems that are knowledge-intensive and adapted to specific locations.

Support to farmers

It will also require significant support to farmers so they can learn the new practices and technologies, while governments will also need to strengthen national plant-breeding programmes so as to deploy new seed varieties that are resilient to climate change and use external inputs more efficiently.

Policymakers must provide incentives for adoption of the new model such as rewarding good management of ecosystems. The key is boosting agricultural investment. Developed countries should increase the share of agriculture in official development assistance to the developing world. Developing countries themselves should allocate a larger part of their national budgets to the agriculture sector. And domestic and foreign private investments need to be increased.

UN calls for eco-friendly farming to boost yields
Yahoo News 13 Jun 11;

ROME (AFP) – The United Nations food agency on Monday called for greater use of environmentally sustainable techniques by poor farmers in order to increase crop intensity to feed the world's growing population.

"The new approach calls for targeting mainly smallholder farmers in developing countries," the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a statement accompanying a report entitled "Save and Grow".

"Helping low-income farm families in developing countries... economise on cost of production and build healthy agro-ecosystems will enable them to maximise yields and invest the savings in their health and education," it said.

"In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save," it said, pointing to lower crop yields in recent years despite an increase in environmentally unsustainable farming practices aimed at increasing intensive farming.

The eco-friendly techniques recommended by FAO include using plant residues to cover over fields, rotating cereals cultivation with soil-enriching legumes, more precise irrigation for fields and better use of fertilizers.

"Such methods help adapt crops to climate change and not only help grow more food but also contribute to reducing crops' water needs by 30 percent and energy costs by up to 60 percent," the report said.

"In some cases crop yields can be increased six-fold, as shown by trials with maize held recently in southern Africa," it said.

"Average yields from farms practicing the techniques in 57 low-income countries increased almost 80 percent," it added.

FAO called on governments both in the developed and in the developing world to increase investments in order to provide incentives for poor farmers to adopt the new, more environmentally friendly farming techniques.

Farmers Must Boost Sustainable Crops To Feed World: FAO
Svetlana Kovalyova PlanetArk 15 Jun 11;

The ravages from half a century of intensive farming must give way to a more sustainable approach if farmers are to feed the world in 2050, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.

Global farm output must increase 70 percent, including a nearly 100 percent jump in developing countries, to feed the world in 2050, the FAO said.

At the same time, farmers must conserve resources and protect environment, said the FAO, which expects the world's population to rise to about 9.2 billion in 2050 from 6.9 billion in 2010.

Climate change and growing competition for land, water and energy with industries mean agriculture can no longer rely only on intensive crop production.

That approach has caused land degradation, excessive water use, pest resistance and other problems in many countries, the FAO said in its Save and Grow report.

"It is also clear that current food production and distribution systems are failing to feed the world," it said pointing that the total number of undernourished people in 2010 was estimated at 925 million, higher that it was 40 year ago.

The goal of feeding the world is further complication by the shortage of new arable land for crop expansion, the agency said.

A new approach based on sustainable intensification of crop output is necessary to allow farmers produce more from the same area of land by raising yields and at the same time conserve resources and cut the negative impact on the environment, it said.

Required steps include the use of high-yield seeds, including genetically improved ones, as well as mix of mineral fertilizers and natural sources, efficient water use and limited use of pesticides alongside crop rotation.

INVESTMENT NEEDS

This should help small farmers increase their incomes by raising output and reducing costs, the report said.

Small farmers, especially in the developing world, would need financial, technical and educational support from governments and international organisations, it said.

The world needs to invest a total gross $209 billion, at constant 2009 prices, a year in agriculture in developing countries to achieve the needed increases by 2050, the FAO said, reiterating its 2009 estimates.

The figure includes primary agriculture and services, such as storage, processing and marketing.

The FAO reiterated that current investment in agriculture in developing countries is "clearly insufficient."

(Editing by Jason Neely)