Rethinking agriculture research to meet people's needs

People in Africa, Latin America and South and West Asia will have their say about the future of food and farming under a major project that aims to make agricultural research better at serving people's needs.

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) initiative comes as a landmark intergovernmental report finds that agriculture must be more ecological and locally relevant to protect soils, biodiversity and livelihoods worldwide.

IIED's work will complement and build on the final report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), to be launched simultaneously in several capitals including London, Paris, Washington, on 15 April.

The IAASTD gathered the views of hundreds of scientists, policymakers, and others over three years. It did little to engage directly with farmers and consumers to find out and incorporate their views in the final reports, however.

IIED's project will enable food providers, food workers and consumers to have their say about the kind of food and agricultural research they want in four regions, with individual countries acting as hosts.

Over three years, it will gather the views of small-scale farmers, indigenous people, nomadic pastoralists, rural communities, food workers and other citizens in West Africa (Mali), South Asia (India), the West Asia (Iran) and the Andean region of Latin America (Bolivia and Peru).

"While the IAASTD was truly remarkable for its breadth and detailed analysis, it mainly involved scholars, representatives of large nongovernmental organisations and other professionals who spoke and wrote on behalf of farmers, indigenous people, pastoralists and forest dwellers," says Dr Michel Pimbert, director of IIED's sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and livelihoods programme.

"The knowledge and directly expressed needs of rural communities — and of poor, marginalised food providers and food workers in particular — are largely absent from the IAASTD report," he adds.

"The new project will overcome this deficit and enable citizens to exercise their imagination to decide how to design a food and agriculture research and policies that are accountable to wider society. There is a need for a complementary space to directly involve food providers and consumers in defining upstream strategic research agendas for food and agriculture," says Pimbert.

"Publicly funded research shapes the choices available to farmers, food workers and consumers worldwide, and affects the environments in which they live and work," says Pimbert. "There is an increasing need to democratise the governance of science and technology, ensuring that it serves the public good rather than narrow economic interests."

"The IAASTD report indicates that a door has opened. Food providers and consumers now have an opportunity to push the door further open, and add their voice directly to the change of direction and recognition that things cannot go on as before."

The project will enable farmers and other citizens to participate in the design of new approaches to agricultural research.

In Bolivia and Mali, indigenous peoples, farmers and others will focus on how to transform research to achieve these nations' new national policy of 'food sovereignty', which seeks to ensure that people are in control of what food is produced and how.

"Instead of being seen as passive beneficiaries of trickle-down development or technology transfer, citizens should be viewed as knowledgeable and active actors who are centrally involved in both the choice of policies and technologies, and their implementation, spread and regulation," says Pimbert.

"Technological fixes and policies decided from above are not enough. Science and knowledge should be part of a bottom-up, participatory process in which citizens themselves take centre stage," he adds.

Contact details for interviewees

IIED: Dr Michel Pimbert (michel.pimbert@iied.org), +44 (0)207 388 2117

Bolivia:  Diego Muñoz at Maynumbi (ogeid759@gmail.com)

India: PV Satheesh, director, Deccan Development Society (satheeshperiyapatna@gmail.com), Tel: 0091 4027764577

Mali: Barry Boukari, Director, Kene Conseils (keneconseils@yahoo.fr) Tel: 00223 2293257

Iran: Dr Taghi Farvar at CENESTA (Centre for Sustainable Development), taghi@cenesta.org, Tel: +98 21 66-972-973

For more information, or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Mike Shanahan

Press Officer

International Institute for Environment and Development

Email: mike.shanahan@iied.org

Tel: +44 (0)20 7872 7256

Fax: +44 (0)20 7388 2826

www.iied.org

Notes to editors

The International Assessment of Agriculture Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was launched as an intergovernmental process guided by a multi-stakeholder bureau, under the co-sponsorship of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), UNESCO, the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO). The project is a major global initiative, developed from a consultative process involving 900 participants and 110 countries from all regions of the world. See: http://www.agassessment.org/

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers and users. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal-fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just incomes to all peoples as well as the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social and economic classes and generations. www.nyelini2007.org

The new IIED project arose from three years of dialogues with farmers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, policymakers and representatives of social movements.