The quest for an ecologically, socially and economically compatible use of resources was one of the topics discussed during the Development Policy Discussion Days in Berlin towards the end of May 2012.

How can food security be attained on a sustainable basis? How can marginalised sections of the population gain access to important resources? And what must agriculture be like in future? These were key questions discussed during the 2012 Development Policy Discussion Days organised for the eleventh time by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Seminar for Rural Development at Humboldt University in Berlin/Germany.

Mass alone is not enough
 
“We have to break through the equation that hunger has something to do with agricultural production,” noted Michael Windfuhr, Deputy Director of the German Institute for Human Rights. Why else had it not been possible to combat hunger world-wide despite years of producing surpluses? Much of the blame had to be put on decades of agriculture and rural areas being neglected. Whereas, for example, around 20 percent of funding provided by German development cooperation was still benefiting rural development towards the end of the seventies, levels had diminished to less than four percent by the turn of the millennium. Moreover, in the context of the structural adjustment policy run in the 1980s, part of the vitally required infrastructure in the countries of the South, such as agricultural extension services, had been destroyed. In addition, marginalised groups had been permanently ignored in international cooperation. 

However, the impacts of new attention being devoted to the rural areas since the onset of the 2008 food crisis were not all positive, Windfuhr reported. Land grabbing and the increased growing of energy plants were threatening the availability of the scarce resource of land for food security. This pressure that the soil was being subjected to was being exacerbated by the effect of desertification, overexploitation of water reserves and urbanisation. For example, the UN World Food Organization estimates that by 2030, around 1.5 billion people will be living in cities in Asia. “If we wish to combat hunger, we have to value the rural regions and the people living there,” Windfuhr said.

Reducing the urban-rural bias
 
Thomas Breuer of Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) called for a reversal of years of focusing on the cities, above all in the countries of the South. Increases in income rather than in yield had to be at the centre of future policies for rural regions. This required raising agricultural prices, albeit while coupling them with stable food prices, as well as sound basic training for farmers and secure access to resources. “Farming once again has to become a modern, sustainable profession that young people find attractive,” Breuer said. Inclusive business models based on close cooperation with the private sector and enabling the poor to become part of the value added chain were suitable to achieve this.

Gender blindness has to stop
 
Christine Chemnitz, who is responsible for agriculture at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, reminded the participants that more than 60 percent of those suffering from hunger are women. Also, the latest FAO report on “The State of Food and Agriculture” had shown that agricultural yields could be raised by up to 50 percent if women had access to important resources. However, many solutions that had been discussed regarding the problem of hunger did not consider the needs and potentials of women, for instance in technology transfer or research. “We need a gender-sensitive land tenure reform and gender-sensitive agricultural extension services,” Chemnitz demanded. But fundamental power structures had to be changed for such measures to become effective. For example, women frequently did not claim their right to access to land because social pressure was simply too great. “The first step is the legal framework; then changes have to take place step by step in society,” Chemnitz maintained.

Voluntary guidelines welcomed
 
In this context, the conference participants unanimously welcomed the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance for Tenure of Land, by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For instance, these guidelines provide for land users, and not only land owners, being registered by the country and the state observing due diligence regarding their rights.
 
And they give civil society the opportunity to claim its rights vis-à-vis the land registry or potential investors. A very pragmatic answer was given to the question raised by the audience why the guidelines were “only” voluntary: time. “If we had called for a binding convention, which was indeed discussed, preparing it would have taken at least ten to 15 years. And many more years would have passed before its being signed,” Windfuhr explained, looking back on his several years as Secretary General of the human rights organisation FIAN, where he had also played a crucial role in preparing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food. “And we do not have the time,” he added.

Does the right way exist?
 
The lecturers at the meeting were also unanimous in their opinion on how farming should be oriented in future: not conventional or organic, not on a smallholder or a large scale, but diversified. “We need different models. In each individual case, we have to see what is needed locally, and what can reckon with success, always also bearing social and environmental aspects in mind,” said Astrid Jakobs de Pádua of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV). Resources could be used more efficiently by reducing post-harvest losses. “Twenty to 50 percent of the harvest is lost in developing countries because there are not enough storage facilities, but just two to three percent of research focuses on this aspect,” Christine Chemnitz remarked critically. A vision of a comprehensive agricultural policy was needed addressing crises such as climate change as well as the scarcity of resources while integrating trade policy and human rights issues.

Author: Silvia Richter, editor, Rural 21