“The Politics of Knowledge“是全球粮食未来联盟的新汇编，内容涉及资助者，研究人员和决策者可以帮助扩展全球的农业生态实践。
“Companies and governments have supported [industrial agriculture] by billions of dollars of investment, which has gone into systems that lock farmers into certain types of production,” says Ronnie Brathwaite, Senior Agriculture Officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), at a recent symposium focusing on the African region.
Industrial agricultural systems rely heavily on inputs from a few major suppliers and often require shipping food products across the globe, Brathwaite says. And weaknesses in these systems threaten food security across Africa and the globe, as recent crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exposed.
Brathwaite emphasizes that systemic change is necessary for food security and food sovereignty. And it’s important for the additional benefits that communities can gain from better farming practices, such as employment opportunities, income generation, strengthened rural economies, and more.
“这可能来自农业生态学，” Brathwaite说。
Janet Maro, Executive Director of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania, defines agroecology as a sustainable and holistic farming system that works with nature, reducing the use of heavy external inputs, improving and sustaining biodiversity, recycling resources, and prioritizing local supply chains—all of which contribute to climate change mitigation.
马洛说，这是一种变革性的方法：“如果我们打算养活不断增长的人群并确保我们能够以对后代的可持续发展方式生产食物，那么农业生态学就是要走的路。”
According to the results from the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) in Africa, households using more advanced agroecological practices are linked to a range of benefits. They have higher scores in soil health, agrobiodiversity, and the presence of natural vegetation and pollinators, more diversified diets, and better economic performance.
Rural areas in Africa with more agroecological farms can sustain more people. They tend to have a higher population and higher employment in farming, and “as a result, young people are less prone to emigrate,” says Dario Lucantoni, Agroecology and Livestock Specialist at the FAO.
录像带还表明，在拥有更多农业生态家庭的地区，“妇女享有更高的性别均等，并且在决策中具有更多的声音，”卢坦托尼说。
土壤，食品和健康社区（SFHC）的农业和营养经理Lizzie Shumba说，农业生态学实践已经促进了整个马拉维北部的性别平等。SFHC是通过参与式共学习方法进行基于社区的农业生态学培训的非营利性培训。
“After applying different agroecological practices involving both men and women, we have seen significant changes in terms of gender relations within the household as well as the community,” says Shumba. This includes equality in ownership of assets, control over income, input in agriculture decisions, workload and leisure, and more.
同时，这些家庭具有显着改善土壤的生育能力，气候韧性和生物多样性。据Shumba称，每增加粮食农作物的粮食不安全的可能性降低了32％。
但是，尽管进行了研究，但坦桑尼亚政府的高级经济学家Gungu Mibavu说，没有足够的科学证据来支持农业生态实践的商业化。
“We’re missing a common platform on this, in the region or as a continent… we could have some agroecological centers or a kind of platform where we can all share what we have, our experiences, and also build knowledge and disseminate issues,” says Mibavu.
根据Brathwaite的说法，有足够的证据证明农业生态学是有效的，但没有看到专门用于大型化学或种子公司的资源数量。
“That is where the big money lies, and it is within the private sector,” says Brathwaite. “We either need foundations to help us upscale agroecology or we need to woo the private sector over to our way of thinking more about sustainability rather than profit—the latter is more difficult.”
Brathwaite emphasizes that while the FAO has joined several partners to consolidate agencies, institutions, and farmers’ groups under the Agroecology Coalition, these activities still need donor funding: “Many of the activities that we do are quite modest in terms of the scale at which we can do them because funds are not available.”
在整个讨论中，演讲者都同意，在非洲有效扩大农业生态实践的规模将需要所有部门和利益相关者。
“Farmers alone, scientists alone, or policymakers alone cannot make really big change and also bring the transformation that we need in the food system,” says Maro. “We need interaction, co-creation, collaboration, and working together.”
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照片由史蒂文·周（Steven Weeks）提供
