Conventional agriculture has relied heavily on chemical inputs that have negatively impacted the environment and increased production costs. Transition to agricultural sustainability is a major challenge and requires that alternative agricultural practices are scientifically analyzed to provide a sufficiently informative knowledge base in favor of alternative farming practices. Agricultural research in the past century made significant strides toward developing improved germplasm, devising integrated pest management, and defining cultivation practices. This has led to increased crop production and contained losses caused by pests. Thus, conventional agriculture used knowledge-based technologies to produce food crops that were safe, high yielding, and cost effective. Conventional agriculture depends on synthetic nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous fertilizer, pesticides, and heavy machinery driven by fossil fuels. Heavy reliance on chemical inputs has, unfortunately, resulted in increased production costs and has detrimentally impacted ecosystems by introduction of agrochemicals, raising serious concerns for human and animal health. There has been a continuing reliance on the use of pesticides, particularly for fruits and vegetables, as a means of preserving yield and quality. Concerns about the environment and ecosystem have catalyzed efforts to seek alternative agricultural practices for long-term sustainability of agriculture. The alternative systems approach based on enhancing biological interactions to sustain and enhance production agriculture has had some success. This approach has innovatively reduced off-farm chemical inputs, and put emphasis on improved farm management and conservation of soil, water, energy, and biological resources.
At 31, Tapos Kumar Mondal has already spent more than two decades in farming. A resident of Burigoalini Union’s Abad Chandipur village, he lives with his nine-member family and has transformed their small homestead into an integrated farm producing vegetables, livestock, fish, and vermicompost. Tapos grew up helping his father irrigate fields and plant seedlings. […]
PAN International’s Agroecology Workgroup recently published a series of case studies spotlighting agroecology in action around the world. Agroecology provides a robust set of solutions to the ecological, environmental, social, and economic pressures we face when it comes to growing food. These case studies illustrate the validity of agroecology as a climate-resilient solution. Agrichemical corporations […]
It features a compilation of stories of women who are survivors of pesticide poisoning and their journey to agroecology. Despite facing challenges, they have turned their sufferings into determination to reclaim what has been lost: whether it be their health, seeds, traditional knowledge, connection to land and community, or economic security.
Four IPAM field learning sites shared how the farmer-centric and indigenous perspective re-orients and widens the idea of innovation to advance people-led climate solutions: Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge/BARCIK from Bangladesh, Partners Of Community Organisations Trust/PACOS Trust from Malaysia, Thanal Trust from India, and Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura/MASIPAG – Visayas […]
In How to Grow Green Amaranth, Nasira Habib talks about the importance of native plants and their health benefits. She also guides how to grow chaulai.
“Nature no longer behaves as it used to. Over the course of her long life as a farmer, 60-year-old Krishani Rahima Begum of Nayabari village of Singair upazila has witnessed the climate changing in Bangladesh. In the past her country enjoyed six seasons; now there are only three–summer, monsoon, and winter. It’s a massive shift […]
Kabuga Experito, a trainer at St. Jude Family Projects, discusses its Banana Agronomy Project in Central Uganda, which tries to help small scale farmers improve the productivity of their banana farming. He covers the importance of banana as food in Uganda, and the production requirements and constraints.
Growing up in a rural village in Wonogiri, Central Java in Indonesia, Majinah was used to hearing about and experiencing for herself the negative impacts of pesticides—the “unpleasant smell” that reaches her when her neighbours spray pesticides, the nausea that her friends usually complain of after spraying. She also observed that soil fertility goes down […]
Sudha Chechi is a remarkable woman who has defied traditional gender roles to become a rural woman leader and manager of Thanal’s Agroecology Centre in Kerala, India. Sudha’s journey began at the age of 19. As is customary in many parts of India, she became a homemaker in the early days of her marriage. “My […]
Rising seas and floods are seriously affecting the agriculture and livelihoods of farming communities. Learn how Pakistan farmers are coping with the impacts of massive flooding, and how Bangladesh farmers have used the floods to create a sustainable community development initiative.
