"To date, agroecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80% in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116% for all African projects", explains De Schutter. "Recent projects conducted in 20 African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a period of 3-10 years."
The report notes that the positive impact of agroecology on food production and climate change mitigation is so spectacular that a growing range of experts are now supporting agroecology as the best way to feed the world in the 21st century. "Conventional farming is expensive, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks. It simply is not the best choice anymore today", De Schutter said. "Even Malawi, a country that launched a massive chemical fertilizer subsidy program a few years ago, is now implementing agroecology. The government now subsidizes farmers to plant nitrogen-fixing trees in their fields to ensure sustained growth in maize production. This programme benefits more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, and yields already increased from 1 t/ha to 2-3 t/ha with such practices."
The report also indicates that projects in Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh recorded up to 92 % reduction in insecticide use for rice, leading to important savings for poor farmers. "Knowledge came to replace pesticides and fertilizers in these projects. This was a winning bet, and comparable results abound in other African, Asian and Latin American countries", adds De Schutter. "The approach is also gaining ground in developed countries such as United States, Germany or France. However, despite its impressive potential in realizing the right to food for all, agroecology is still insufficiently backed by ambitious public policies and consequently hardly goes beyond the experimental stage."
The report identifies a dozen of measures that States should implement to scale up agro-ecological practices.
"Agroecology is a knowledge-intensive approach. It requires public policies supporting agricultural research and participative extension services", says De Schutter. "States and donors have a key role to play here. Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don't open markets for chemical products or improved seeds."
The Special Rapporteur on the right to food also urges States to support small-scale farmer's organizations, which demonstrated a great ability to disseminate the best agroecological practices among their members. "Strengthening social organization proves to be as impactful as distributing fertilizers. Small-scale farmers and scientists can create innovative practices when they partner", explains De Schutter. "We won't solve hunger and stop climate change with industrial farming on large plantations. The solution lies in supporting small-scale farmers' knowledge and experimentation, and in raising incomes of smallholders so as to contribute to rural development."
"If key stakeholders support the measures identified in the report, we can see a doubling of food production within 5 to 10 years in some regions where the hungry live" affirms De Schutter. "Whether or not we will succeed this transition will depend on our ability to learn faster from recent innovations. We need to go fast if we want to avoid repeated food and climate disasters in the 21st century."
