From Policy to Field

The high profile the environment received during the UNCED conference has died down.  But have the issues been forgotten?  The FAO is the lead UN agency on sustainable agriculture and has just held its biennial conference reporting on progress. There may be as many views on what makes agriculture sustainable as there are farmers.  This report looks at the process of moving sustainable agriculture from the drawing board to the field.

Sustainable agriculture is like motherhood.  No one is against it. The environmental case against the over-use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers is accepted, and the health of agricultural workers and rural people cannot be sacrificed as it has been in the past.  The key questions are:  What do we mean by sustainable?  And how do we get there?

      Governments agreed at the 1992 UNCED conference in Chapter 14 of Agenda 21—Promoting Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD)—to "increase food production in a sustainable way and enhance food security.”  However, while endorsing the FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides, the chapter said nothing about reducing pesticide use.  It endorsed integrated pest management (IPM) and sustainable plant nutrition (fertiliser management), but set no targets to alter high input practices.  Non governmental organisations (NGOs) stress participation, agro-ecology and low external inputs.  The pesticide industry stresses its interests: according to Jochen Wulff, head of Bayer’s agro-chemical division, “The best way toward sustainability is through intensive agriculture, by optimising inputs and increasing yields, while reducing acreage.” (1)

SARD at FAO Conference

FAO, lead UN agency implementing SARD, uses this working definition:

The management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations.  Such sustainable development [in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors] conserves land, water, plant and animal genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.        —FAO Council  1988

Delegates at the biennial Conference in November 1993 heard of policy developments which will re-orient FAO programmes and activities towards the objectives and criteria of SARD.  However, there is a time lag for implementation, and funds are short.  The Conference on Sustainable Development (CSD), established to monitor and guide the follow up to UNCED, held its first substantive session in June and expressed “concern that funding falls significantly short of expectations and requirements”. 

      Nevertheless, there is a climate of change. At the FAO Conference, many NGOs, including farmers organisations, endorsed the FAO initiatives, and expressed a will to work together(2).  Crucial to SARD is the concept of participation.  Any project has a greater chance of success with genuine people’s involvement in its development and implementation—better still if it meets a demand from the people.  This implies more time devoted to democratic decision making processes.  One successful model of participation is the field farmer programme in South East Asia developed by the FAO under its IPM programme.  Farmers are trained to manage pests rather than to use pesticides, and its application on rice production in Indonesia has saved the government $120 million a year in pesticide subsidies, while increasing farmers’ incomes.

      A detailed investigation of FAO policies by Michael Hansen of the US Consumers' Union was launched at the Conference, Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development:  FAO at the Crossroads(3).  While making significant recommendations, it welcomed the seeds for far-reaching change.  Governments liked the FAO Special Action Programmes for implementing SARD, many emphasising the importance of intensive collaboration with farmers’ and rural peoples organisations.  Delegates saw SARD as more than a technical exercise, with many echoing the Jamaican delegate’s call for income-generating activities to reduce poverty in support of sustainable use of resources.  The US noted that it is time to incorporate the environmental and sustainable development initiatives into the FAO’s regular programme budget. The Netherlands echoed a number of governments in endorsing the success of IPM programmes, and the re-orientation of FAO’s fertiliser policies.  Many NGOs endorse IPM as one element of sustainable agriculture, but want to see concrete links between work on IPM and the FAO Code, for example identifying pesticides which encourage insect resistance. At a meeting of international NGOs with FAO, significant recommendations to promote SARD, included a call for a tighter definition of IPM(4) which is closer to that used in FAO’s guideline for its field workers(5):

The presence of pests does not automatically require control measures, as damage may be insignificant.  When plant protection measures are deemed necessary, a system of non-chemical pest methodologies should be considered before a decision is taken to use pesticides.  Suitable pest control methods should be used in an integrated manner and pesticides should be used on an as needed basis only, and as a last resort component of an IPM strategy.  In such a strategy, the effects of pesticides on human health, the environment, sustainability of the agricultural system and the economy should be carefully considered.

Agriculture: Towards 2010

Past criticism of FAO addressed its publication, Agriculture: Towards 2000, which promoted high chemical inputs.  In line with its reorientation, FAO launched a new edition, Agriculture: Towards 2010(6), which adopts a more balanced approach: while noting the  role of chemical pesticides and mineral fertilisers. It also notes their undesirable consequences, and looks at the broad role of low external input, agro-ecology and IPM. These approaches do not totally reject a role for chemical pesticides, but they emphasise use as a last resort.  A recent study tour and meeting in South East Asia showed some of the considerable successes achieved already with IPM, many stemming from the work of  FAO’s Peter Kenmore (see box), and discussed how to expand the model.

Industry's plans

Not surprisingly, there is lively interest from the agrochemical industry.  Jack Kennedy, director/product development at Monsanto Agriculture Group in the US calls sustainable agriculture “a major trend. You can’t sit on the fence with it, industry has got to figure out where they are.”(7)  However industry objectives often clash with  IPM and the participatory approach.  John Finney, director of development at Zeneca Agrochemicals, stresses a high-technology approach, saying industry should concentrate on “creating and transferring totally new technologies that improve economic and environmental performance.”(8) But industry markets many pesticides as compatible with IPM, suggesting lower usage, or rotation with other chemicals to allay insect resistance.  Some in FAO support this approach. Alain Angé, plant nutrition director, says agrochemical companies can play a key role by “developing new sustainable markets in developing countries.”(9)

A global issue

Intensive use of pesticides remains highest in industrialised countries. A recent conference at Mulheim, Germany looked at broad policies for change(10).  In the UK a conference of farmers and  NGOs pointed to the significant effort needed to transform the current agricultural model into one less environmentally damaging.  Participants made recommendations to the UK government, in response to its Consultation Paper, UK Strategy for Sustainable Development(11).

      The outcome of the GATT Uruguay round must be watched closely for its impact on sustainable agriculture.  This is likely to increase agricultural exports from Third World countries to the north, It may affect internal food security, and exacerbate health and environmental problems of intensive agriculture, although it should inhibit the dumping of highly subsidised agricultural products from industrialised countries.  These trends may increase the market for pesticides in the South, where  World Bank/IMF Structural adjustment programmes encourage agricultural exports(12).  Structural adjustment policies and free trade must not be allowed to take precedence over sustainable agriculture.

      There has been significant progress on developing a policy framework for SARD within the FAO and the difficulties of getting this far should not be under-estimated, however this has yet to be internalised at a national level.  Translating these policies into field practice, while ensuring the changes are participatory is the major task ahead, but there are many exciting examples showing it can be done. (BD)

References:

1. 'Working Towards Globally Sustainable Agriculture’, Chemical Week, 17 November, 1993.

2. For example, Sustainable Agriculture after UNCED, Paper presented to the FAO Conference, November 1993, International Organisation of Consumers Unions/Conumer Policy Institute, and PAN groups, November 1993 (available from The Pesticides Trust [now PAN UK]).

3.  Hansen, Michael, Consumer Policy Institute/Consumers Union and Pesticide Action Network, Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development:  FAO at the Crossroads , available form Consumer Policy Institute, 101 Truman Avenue, Yonkers, new York, NY 10703 (914) 378 2455.

4. FAO, Report of Informal Meeting of International Non-Governmental Organisations, 9 November 1993, C93/INF/1.

5. FAO Field Programme Circular, No. 8/92 of December 1992, “Pesticides Selection and Use in Field Projects,”  by J. Perez de Vega.

6. FAO, Agriculture: Towards 2010, C93/24, Rome, November 1993.

7. Op. cit., 1.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. West European NGO Position Paper for the Bringing Rio Home International NGO Conference, Mulheim, 31 August-3 September 1993, Available from NEAD, 38-40 Exchange Street, Norwich NR2 1AX.

11. Report of UK Conference, Bringing Rio Home, and Response to UK government Consultation Paper, September 1993.Available from NEAD, as above.

12. FAO is critical of World Bank policies in its Medium-Term Perspectives in Food and Agriculture 1994-99, COAG/93/4, January 1993.  Background paper for the FAO Committee on Agriculture Twelfth Session, 26 April-4 May 1993. 

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 22, December 1993, pages 12-13]