The new blog of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative was launched on January 30th, 2012! This three-year collaborative Initiative, which officially commenced in November of 2011, aims to scale up successful strategies for integrated landscape management that simultaneously support rural livelihoods, improve food security, and conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. Such an integrated approach combines interests across multiple sectors to improve landscape management.

The Landscapes Blog will help build and sustain momentum around the Initiative, increase awareness of integrated agricultural landscapes, foster a dynamic community of practice, and highlight the work of Initiative Co-Organizers and other practitioners on a landscape scale. Leaders and innovators will provide their insights and commentary, encouraging discussion around the blog topics.

Three ongoing series will serve as the foundation of the blog, with current events, relevant links, interesting photos and other media showcased throughout the week.

• Voices from the Field will feature stories and perspectives of people actively engaged in integrated agricultural landscape management on-the-ground and at the programmatic and policy levels.
• Landscape of the Week will focus on a specific country or landscape, presenting mini case studies where integrated landscapes is currently practiced or has the potential to be utilized.
• Exploring the Evidence will provide updates on research underway that is relevant to integrated agricultural landscapes.

Check out the first post of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Blog at: http://blog.ecoagriculture.org. If you are interested in contributing to one of the blog’s thematic series, please contact Rachel Friedman.

For more information on the Initiative, please visit the website http://www.landscapes.ecoagriculture.org, or contact Erik Nielsen, Senior Manager, Knowledge Sharing and Policy Advocacy, EcoAgriculture Partners.

The initiative is facilitated by EcoAgriculture Partners and Co-organizers from leading international institutions: Bioversity International; Conservation International; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation; United Nations Environment Programme; United Nations University; and World Agroforestry Centre.

An International Advisory Committees provide guidance and support to the Initiative Co-organizers and is composed of a diverse group of innovators and experts working with ecoagriculture landscape approaches around the world, including the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research and others.

The Initiative will consist of three rated components:

A Global Review in 2011 and 2012 will amass the evidence base for ecoagriculture from diverse disciplinary and sectoral perspectives, including its prevalence and rate of development on each continent, innovations in production systems and conservation practices, costs and benefits under different circumstances, conditions leading to effective implementation, and potential roles in addressing food security, climate change, species loss and ecosystem degradation.

A multi-stakeholder Dialogue, beginning with the Nairobi 2012 Forum, will bring together innovators engaged in applying and promoting integrated landscape approaches. The dialogue events will serve as venues in which to interpret the results of the Global Review and craft the action agendas for policy, investment, capacity, building and research.

Action and Advocacy to implement these agendas through 2014 and beyond will be promoted at the landscape level through collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., farmers, governments, NGOs, donors and the private sector) and at national and international levels through support for policy formulation in influential forums including the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20); UN conventions on climate change, desertification, and biological diversity; and key regional platforms such as NEPAD in Africa.

The Initiative blog, scheduled to be launched on Monday 30 January 2012, will allow individuals from different sectors and countries to learn about and share the perspectives of others and contribute their own insight and opinions to Initiative discussions and outcomes. Specifically, the blog will help to create a dynamic community around the Initiative and generate momentum throughout the Global Review and the series of Dialogues.

Blog readers will learn about the knowledge products developed during the Global Review and have regular access to the insight of leaders in the environmental-agriculture field. Individuals unable to participate in the Dialogues will be kept up-to-date on the progression of events and members of the press will be able to read about the Initiative and help disseminate the information. It will build a dynamic community around ecoagriculture whose energy can be channeled toward action and advocacy. To go to the blog, click here.

Source:  http://landscapes.ecoagriculture.org/

Further reading:

International Landscapes for People, Food and Nature – An international effort to scale up sustainable rural development

The catastrophic failure of grain harvests in 2008 and subsequent price hikes for rice and wheat provided dramatic evidence for the fragility of both agricultural production and the wider food economy in many developing countries. Long-term food and livelihood security can be achieved, but if productivity and yields are to be stabilised and improved, a two-pronged approach is essential. In particular, a wide array of underutilised crops must be retained and promoted, in order to diversify agro-ecosystems and optimise the productivity and ecological benefits of crop rotation.

As far as food is concerned, the bulk of the calories in the world’s diet will continue to come from a few major staple crops. These will, nevertheless, need to be continually improved to maintain long term productivity, within the limitations of a sustainable agroecology. However, other food and livelihood security plants – which range from grains and pulses, fodder and fibre plants, root and tuber crops, fruits and vegetables to an array of non-timber forest products (NTFP) – must increasingly be used to provide a balanced diet, protect the farm ecosystem, and provide protection from internal and external market disruptions, especially in developing countries.

These ‘development opportunity’ plants and crops have great untapped potential to support smallholder farmers and rural communities through improved food and nutrition security, as well as income. Many are well adapted to extreme climatic conditions or to high pest and disease pressure, offering resilience to both biotic and abiotic stresses and providing harvestable yields where major crops may fail. Preserving and drawing on such valuable genetic resources is imperative if we are to address present and future environmental challenges.

Global initiative for diversity

In January 2011, a collective movement was formed at a stakeholder meeting to promote collaborative action to strengthen the role and value of agrobiodiversity in the context of development. Provisionally termed the Development Opportunity Crops Network (DOCNet), members and prospective members include UN organisations and international research networks and institutions, together with NGOs and representatives of civil society. The initiative is supported by the secretariats of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA)…

Read more here.

LI-BIRD is proud to present its annual report for the period from 16 July 2009 to 15 July 2010. The year was productive and successful in reaching out to their impact groups and achieving target goals through several projects under five programmes:
i) Agricultural Innovations for Livelihood Security,
ii) Biodiversity for Sustainable Livelihoods,
iii) Ecosystem Health and Services,
iv) Policy and Social Research for Wider and Inclusive Impacts, and
v) Knowledge Management and Capacity Building.

Through implementation of more than 25 projects under these programmes, they were able to enhance food security, increase household incomes, and improve livelihoods of more than 50 thousand households in their project sites in Nepal.

Major achievements under the Agricultural Innovations for Livelihood Security programme include crop improvements in rice and maize leading to four pipeline rice varieties, identification of 12 promising lines of ricebean (Vigna umbellata Thunb.), increased income and reduced migration in landless communities, identification and promotion of local innovations and production, and marketing of seeds of rice, wheat and different legumes by community based seed production (CBSP) groups.

Achievements in the Biodiversity for Sustainable Livelihoods programme include the adoption of guidelines for home garden by the Department of Agriculture and the allocation of programme budget for home garden promotion in at least seven districts by respective District Agriculture Development Offices (DADOs). Through LI-BIRD’s partnership, 10
DADO partners and four NGO partners are implementing community based biodiversity management (CBM) in Nepal as well as in…(to know more, download the Annual report here)

To know more about LI-BIRD, visit their Website here.

Read more here. And read more about Erna’s life here: “Searching for Erna Bennett”

And also: “Biography: Erna Bennett: A Lifetime of Conservation”

If anyone has any thoughts or recollections they might want to share about Erna please feel free to leave a comment at the first link above. It will contribute to keeping the spirit and vision of Erna alive and kicking.

An informative research paper on how ecological, social, and cultural factors are influencing the  loss and conservation of tuber varieties.

 Read the abstract

The festival actively involved 14 local communities who were provided space to prepare and showcase their favourite food. These groups – belonging to three major tribes of North East India: Khasis, Garos and Ao Nagas – presented a little more than 110 dishes, with many coming directly from the traditional shifting cultivation lands.

Over 1700 visitors were attracted by the wonderful display of local foods and joined the Mei Ramew Festival, with young people dominating the initiative. At the Sensory Stall, young school students learnt how to use their senses to indentify the tasty but disappearing food of their own communities. The Meghalaya Water Foundation presented a model of a traditional bamboo drip irrigation system used by some Khasi communities for the cultivation of betel leaf,
demonstrating how rural communities can be sophisticated.

Krai – a nearly extinguished variety of local millet – was the special attraction of the Stall of Chef Lambert Chiang from a Sheraton Hotel in Delhi. He demonstrated how to make tasty snacks and other items with this underutilized cereal, proving his value in terms of health and food security. Proposed recipes were included in a simple Slow Food’s Recipe Book, produced in a local language to document what was presented at the Festival.

The inspiring success of the initiative encouraged the partners of the event to schedule the Third Mei Ramew Festival on 10 December 2012. Furthermore it was agreed to campaign to have 1000 local community Food Festivals in North east India by 10 December 2013 by working closely with the self help groups promoted in the last 10 years by the IFAD funded projects.

Read related stories

Indigenous Food Fest at Mawphlang (The Shillong Times)

Terra Madre Day in Mawphlang (Terra Madre website)

Read more about The Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty.

Find out more

This is the title of IPAACs web page set up after that Indigenous pastoralists from the IPACC network met with international agencies, African meteorologists and members of Chadian national cabinet to discuss adaptation strategies and priorities ahead of COP17 on 7-9 November 2011 in N’Djamena, Republic of Chad.

Amongst the points made and from the N’Djamena Declaration on IPACC web, a couple follow:

• More research funding and technical support should be provided to help protect indigenous species of plants and livestock
• A new framework for establishing a comprehensive Management Information System (MIS) will be discussed at the Ministry before the end of the year and deployed within 2012. The system will cover different knowledge systems including traditional knowledge.

Read all about it on IPACC web site here

IPACC is now heading to COP17 and, amongst other things on the agenda, convening an event on “Building on Traditional Knowledge and Climate Science to Contribute to Sound Climate Change Adaptation Policies: The Case of M’Bororo-Fulani people in Chad” during ARDD on 3 December.

This new e-book from IIED and IUCN CEESP may be helpful in discussions on the future of food, farming, energy, climate change, human well being, and bio-cultural diversity.

Our current way of providing food and other basic needs involves industrialised systems that are linear, centralised and globalised. In the linear approach, it is assumed that at one end of a system there is an unlimited supply of energy and raw materials (which there isn’t), while at the other the environment has an infinite capacity to absorb pollution and waste (which it hasn’t). The inevitable result is resource shortages on the one hand and solid waste, climate change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution problems on the other.

An alternative to the current linear paradigm is to develop productive systems that minimise external inputs, pollution and waste (as well as risk, dependency and costs) by adopting a circular metabolism. There are two principles here, both reflecting the natural world. The first is that natural systems are based on cycles, for example water, nitrogen and carbon. Secondly, there is very little waste in natural systems. The ‘waste’ from one species is food for another, or is converted into a useful form by natural processes and cycles.

This book shows how these principles can be used to create systems and settlements that provide food, energy and water without consuming large quantities of fossil fuels and other finite resources. In the process, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution are minimised whilst human well being, food and livelihood security, and democratic control are enhanced.

Read IIED Press release

Download the book for free here