Within this section, you will find a selection of AGTER’s and other authors’ background papers which provide key elements on family farming and food security. Most of them have been published, but sometimes are difficult to access to.
Faced with the negative impacts of and limits to agriculture based on the agricultural revolution of the 20th century – known by the term ”Green Revolution” in the Southern countries and often qualified as ‘productivist’ agriculture – many approaches around the world are seeking to implement a type of agriculture that reconciles production objectives with ecological or even social objectives (such as job generation, standard of living and life quality, and food security). The practices (...)
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The FAO report on the state of food insecurity in 2012, published last autumn, presented new estimates of the number and proportion of undernourished people.
The methodology leads to estimate that chronic undernourishment affects 870 million people worldwide, including 850 million in developing countries. There was no scoop or polemic about this publication.
And yet... an important observation should be made. The methodology used in the 2012 report has indeed been adjusted. Among its (...)
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The outcomes of an electronic conference that took place from april to july 2005, on the ‘Future of Food and Small Scale Producers’ are presented in this report. The conference was organised by The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Progressio (formerly CIIR – Catholic Institute for International Relations), The Small and Family Farms Alliance
The UK Food Group, and The Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education (TEBTEBBA).
"The (...)
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What kind of agricultural system can better tackle the biggest present challenges of humankind?
to provide healthy food in sufficient quantity to the population of the world,
to manage natural resources without destroying them,
to provide work to peasants and rural workers unable to be employed in cities or in non agricultural activities,
to reduce conflicts and be part of building a peaceful context.
We have to add to this list the struggle against the climate global warming.
In (...)
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Two billion human beings out of the six billion that make up the world’s population suffer from malnutrition and 854 million go hungry according to the FAO’s latest estimations for 2001-2003. Three-fourths of the undernourished are either poorly located farmers on poor land with poor equipment, or are former farmers banished to the slums.
Understanding the origins of poverty and malnutrition is something absolutely fundamental for being able to fight its causes. This becomes an unavoidable (...)
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The highlands of Central Africa are defined by an altitude tropical humid climate, very low urbanization, very small farm-holdings with manual agriculture for family self-consumption.
Burundi farmers have confirmed their outstanding capacity to innovate. While most international experts and Burundi agronomists thought since decades that demographic growth and land pressure had become incompatible with the sustainable intensification of the use of natural resources, Burundi farmers have (...)
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