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GA's Food System Analysis

GA’s work is based on the analysis of the current food system, the opportunities of innovation and the proof to scale gap that blocks the mainstreaming of Agroecology and Productive Forest solutions.

Food System Challenges require innovation and large-scale transformation

The current mainstream of cultivation methods, food systems and related industries are in urgent need of innovation and large-scale transformation.

 

Their expensive chemical inputs depend on petroleum products, their fluctuating prices and unpredictable availability. They are responsible for 85% of biodiversity loss, use 70% of the world’s freshwater and emit 35% of global GHG, while challenging the health of billions of consumers, farmers and foresters. Chemical farming has not solved hunger and malnutrition. 800 million people remain food insecure, even as conventional agriculture occupies 50% of habitable land, causing massive deforestation and gradually degenerating farmland. In Brazil alone, experts estimate that around 100 million hectares of farmland, much of it former forests, have become unusable – more than the combined size of Kenya and Germany. 

Even after centuries of trial and error, conventional agriculture has also not yet resolved the economic challenges of most of the 550 million family farmers that produce 80% of global food supply. Yet, according to the World Bank, the vast majority live in financially precarious situations, earning less than US$2 a day. Especially in the Southern Hemisphere, countless farmers are financially trapped by ever more expensive chemical inputs and copyright protected seeds, combined with high interest rates and rising debt that has led to many suicides. Therefore, unsurprisingly, the average age of farmers has grown to around 55 years because youth leave the land due to limited economic opportunities. For these and other reasons the current mainstream of agriculture is a system in urgent need of innovation and large-scale transformation.

 

Chemical agriculture will be a key aspect of food systems for many more years and will benefit from its own innovations. But like the combustion engine and carbon-based energy sources, carbon-based chemical agriculture is fundamentally a technology of the past with too many negative side effects. In fact, the United Nations and research institutions using ‘true cost accounting’ estimate that the combined direct and indirect financial cost of the current food system already exceeds the total market value of global agricultural production.

 

Mainstreaming Agroecology and Productive Forests

There are already highly innovative Agroecological and Agroforestry approaches in Africa, Asia and Latin America that not only regenerate nature and social systems but outperform chemical agriculture regarding the productivity, resilience and the financial success of farmers and rural economies. They are internationally respected and well researched, adaptive and scalable. They overcome the current mainstream’s conflict between food security, economic development and conservation that in regard to forestry is summarized in the term productive forests.

 

Agroecology and Productive Forests 

The largest and fastest growing example is the Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF) approach that over the past 10 years grew from 40,000 to 1.8 million family farmers. By 2030 it is expected to be used by over 50% of all farmers in Andhra Pradesh, a state of 50 million inhabitants with very diverse ecosystems. APCNF grows so fast because its ongoing innovations deliver better results than conventional chemical farming, including in regard to the quantity, diversity and resilience of farmer incomes – a key motivator for change. In partnership with Global Academy and its co-founder NOW Partners Foundation, APCNF was introduced to ecosystems as diverse as Sri Lanka and Zambia where the locally adapted versions of APCNF are already outperforming conventional cultivation methods. For details about APCNF and its co-innovation with local approaches in Africa, Asia and Latin America, please click here.

 

The speed and scale of APCNF’s growth demonstrates that innovation in cultivation methods, bioinputs, appropriate mechanization and technologies, combined with effective capacity building, scaling and finance approaches can catalyze new agroecological mainstreams that gradually replace the current mainstream of chemical agriculture with innovative solutions. 

 

Proof to Scale Gap and how to overcome it

The most innovative Agroecology and Productive Forest approaches already outperform the current mainstream of chemical agriculture. Yet, throughout the Southern Hemisphere transition is slow, especially when we consider the many economic, social and environmental challenges of conventional agriculture. As always in diverse and complex systems, comprehensive answers need to be locally adapted and consider regional and personal contexts. 

A key element that Global Academy is contributing to solve is the proof to scale gap.

  

Even while there is ample proof that the most innovative Agroecology and Productive Forest approaches already outperform conventional agriculture and forestry, most agroecological implementation initiatives do not scale. They often are small and fragmented, remaining at the creative pilot stage and dependent on hard to obtain grant funding. They frequently are not profitable enough to inspire other farmers to risk such a fundamental change. 

 

Even if the motivation is there, these agroecological initiatives often lack scalable expansion methodologies and accessible capacity building in cultivation methods, economic and management know-how for appropriate mechanization and technology, value addition and market access. Most initiatives can not secure profitable offtake agreements and blended finance opportunities that require profitability and scale. The purpose of Global Academy (GA) is to bridge this proof to scale gap. 

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