Agriculture for Development

Agriculture is back in the spotlight! There is growing awareness that sustainable agricultural development including a holistic approach to land use and management is key to solving many of the defining challenges of our times. Feeding an increasingly prosperous global population of more than nine billion people in 2050 will put tremendous preassures on our already very strained natural resources as well as on the world's two billion poor smallholder farmers. Add to that the increasing preassures on agricultural lands from non-food sectors such as bioenergy and textiles and picture these growing and multiple demands on agriculture against the background of climatic unpredictability. This is what we refer to as the 21st century Food and Farming Challenge.

It is clear that something has to change, or give. With current poor agricultural land management practices, we are accelerating biodiversity loss despite promising to halt it, releasing huge amounts of CO2 and methane into the athmosphere and loosing 5-10 million hectares of agricultural land each year to severe degradation, just when we can least afford it. It is our understanding that unless we address agriculture in all its complexity, including the various drivers behind unsustainable agricultural practices, we risk undermining the very basis of all other development efforts and achievements. How things should change, however, is a very contentious issue. At SIANI we encourage and facilitate dialogues on whether farming should be large-scale or small-scale, organic or conventional, intensified or biodiverse etc. As with so many other things, we have to accept that there are no easy answers, many different soultions will be needed and much depends on local contexts.   

In the right-hand column you'll find links to some major reports and organizations dealing with various aspects of Agriculture for Development.