In a paper, you analyse agroecology from an economic perspective, presenting it as a disruptive model. Why is conventional agriculture problematic?
Today, industrial agriculture is a highly concentrated sector. Four companies alone control around 60% of the global market for patented seeds and agrochemicals, raking in billions. Unfortunately, the wealth accumulated eludes farmers, even though they are the ones who cultivate the land and produce added value. The conventional agriculture system creates a tiny number of winners and a huge number of losers: farmers and consumers.
Is this system viable?
No, because it is not profitable once its hidden costs are revealed. Indeed, conventional agriculture relies on farmers’ dependence on commercial seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, as well as public subsidies. This often amounts to treating a complex ecosystem like a patient with a chronic illness. Instead of focusing on a healthy lifestyle, we prescribe antibiotics and synthetic vitamins. Not only is this unnecessary for a healthy body, but in the long term it destroys the body’s natural defences and creates resistance to treatment. Farmers pay the cost of their destroyed soils and consumers pay the cost of the consequences of pesticides with their health.
Could agroecology serve as a counter-model?
Absolutely. Numerous studies show the socio-economic and environmental benefits of agroecology. First, because it is synonymous with a plurality of producers, which leads to a healthy degree ofnatural competition and encourages innovation. Agroecology can therefore be a factor for economic growth. Its systems are also more resilient to climate change. Finally, agroecology creates value that remains within a community. The supply chains are shorter, allowing everyone to benefit equitably from production. Agroecology can feed the world, that is a fact, but it suffers from an image of being ‘kitchen garden agriculture’. We need to change this narrative.
How can SWISSAID help change this narrative and make agroecology more visible?
SWISSAID’s projects, like other NGOs, are of paramount importance. We need to document the concrete successes of agroecology: prove, with figures to back it up, that it increases farmers’ net incomes by freeing them from dependence on expensive inputs and that it promotes viable business models that do not need subsidies to thrive*. We must also continue to question the current system and denounce its flaws. It is by raising awareness that we can gradually bring about change. Much has changed in the field of agroecology over the last ten years, and this must be acknowledged. This is the core activity of NGOs such as SWISSAID.
Can you give a concrete example of an agroecology project that is bearing fruit?
The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is home to the world’s largest agroecological transition project, involving 630,000 farmers. The impact of this transition is astonishing: farmers using agroecological methods such as mulching and cyclical cultivation of local varieties have achieved twice the seed diversity of conventional farms and have brought previously abandoned land back into cultivation. Yields of the main crops – rice, maize and millet – have increased by an average of 11%. Farmers’ net income has increased by nearly 50%, thanks to a significant reduction in the cost of fertilisers and pesticides. In villages using intensive agriculture and chemicals, healthcare costs are 26% higher than in villages practising agroecology. This example shows not only that agroecology is a means of improving food security, but also that it can be a real economic driver and allows for a better distribution of wealth, thereby reducing inequalities.
*The SUFOSEC alliance, of which SWISSAID is a member, regularly publishes figures on the results achieved by agroecology. Its latest report can be viewed in French and German.
Read Francesco Ajena’s paper, which was published in Le Courrier
