The agriculture and environment CSO stakeholders recommend that ASEAN and/or its member states:

1. Stop forced evictions in the interests of large-scale agriculture;
2. In all cases where development projects will result in dispossession, international human rights standards should be fully observed. Affected communities should be fairly compensated, including by ensuring access to agricultural land
3. Ensure sufficient budgets for sustainable agriculture and develop policies and programs to support small-scale farmers – women, men and young persons. In particular ensue access to land, waters and seed, provide support to organic farming, cooperative marketing, access to affordable credit, infrastructure, agricultural extension and meaningful participation of small-scale farmers in decision-making processes towards ensuring food and nutrition security;
4. Ensure that all agriculture development programs and policies are gender sensitive and gender responsive;
5. Extend technical assistance to improve competitiveness of small-scale farmers through sharing and learning exchanges on sustainable farming technologies, the establishment of an ASEAN Farmers’ Bank and ASEAN Small-scale Farmers’ Council to ensure institutionalized participation in ASEAN processes;
6. Install monitoring mechanisms to hold transnational corporations accountable for their role with respect to large-scale food and agro-fuel production, toxic chemicals, land grabbing and the displacement of food crops including provision of guidelines for ASEAN governments on how to strengthen coherence between national and global food policies;
7. Ratify and implement international treaties and provisions pertaining to natural resource management and agriculture, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provides for the right to adequate food and to a decent living, which in the case of small-scale farmers includes the right to seeds and land.

Read full ACSC-APF 2012 Statement

Ms. Lany Rebagay in behalf of Asiadhrra, presented during the Opening Plenary of the ACSC-APF 2012 the AsiaDHRRA-AFA Experience in Engaging ASEAN on Agriculture and Rural Development. Download the presentation here…

About the ACSC/APF

The ACSC/APF is an annual gathering of civil society which was started in 2005 during Malaysia’s chairship. It follows with the Philippines in 2006, Singapore in 2007, Thailand in 2009, Vietnam in 2010 and Indonesia in 2011. At the end of each Forum, civil society comes up with a collective statement and recommendations for ASEAN.

The ACSC/APF is a main space for democratic and constructive debates on ideas, formulation of proposals for ASEAN, exchange of experiences among civil society and peoples’ movements, expanding networks across issues in the region, and doing joint actions, especially on community building process. This year, reflecting the major concerns of the ASEAN people towards the Association, ACSC/APF 2012 chooses the theme “Transforming ASEAN into a People?Centered Community”.

Here’s another take on the fair trade issue which of late has been under criticism for its less than convincing performance in helping out poor farmers

Today, on World Fair Trade Day, we have something else to feel guilty about. That fair-trade cup of coffee we savour may not only fail to ease the lot of poor farmers, it may actually help to impoverish them, according to a study out recently from Germany’s University of Hohenheim.

The study, which followed hundreds of Nicaraguan coffee farmers over a decade, concluded that farmers producing for the fair-trade market “are more often found below the absolute poverty line than conventional producers.

“Over a period of 10 years, our analysis shows that organic and organic-fair trade farmers have become poorer relative to conventional producers.”

continue reading fixing the fair trade coffee here….

IPS|By Stephen Leahy

How’s this for short-sighted: A billion people go hungry every day, food prices have climbed 30 to 40 percent, climate change is reducing agricultural production – and for the past two decades, the world has slashed investments in publicly-funded agriculture until it is a pittance in most countries.

“Moral outrage is needed. We must abolish this… It can be done. It must be done,” Ismail Serageldin, director of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt and a former World Bank economist, told nearly 700 World Food Prize laureates, ministers, scientists and a few representatives from development and farmer organisations at the first Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) last month here in southern France.

“This is the launching pad to transform hunger in our time,” Serageldin concluded.

The “rocket” on the launching pad is a major transformation of the 500 million dollars of public funds for international agricultural research carried out by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an alliance comprising some 8,000 researchers in 100 countries.

read the full news article here….

What can sustainable livelihoods approaches and pro-poor market approaches learn from each other?

Similarities and complementarities between SL and PPM include:

• They are both multidisciplinary, in that they draw on political economy, social analysis and economics to generate insights into the way these influences affect the livelihood processes and outcomes.
• An emphasis on sustainability is critical for both approaches, although pro-poor market approaches prioritise the economic and financial aspects more than the environmental and social.
• Both approaches refer to institutions, in themselves complex. The greater focus on understanding market institutions of PPM approaches, has unpacked the ‘policies institutions and processes’ box contained in the SL framework that often went unexamined.

Differences between them include issues of scale and empowerment: PPMs are seeking to realise impact at a scale that SL approaches have failed to achieve. They seek to influence whole market systems to ensure benefits for poor people.

Specific interventions are needed to build people’s confidence and self-esteem and encourage them to engage in market-based livelihood activities. Social differences clearly create barriers: better understanding is needed of how systems of exclusion operate and how pro-poor market approaches can overcome them.

download the full text here…

The Department of Agriculture (DA) of the Philippines is setting up multifunctional freezers across the country in keeping with government efforts to provide farmers and fisherfolk with easy access to state-of-the-art postharvest facilities that will considerably shave their production plus marketing expenses and thereby boost their incomes.

A project of the DA’s National Agribusiness Corp., the government is acquiring this year 98 multi-functional ice-making machines using a relatively new brine immersion freezing (BIF) technology that will allow fisherfolk, for example, to store their fish in standard Styrofoam boxes for two to three days without using ice and still retain their fresh quality and taste, according to Nabcor spokesperson Kathyrin Pioquinto.

By first freezing fish or meat items in these BIF freezers using the liquid quick freeze (LQF) method, users can then store these commodities in conventional freezers or refrigerators for as long as six months to a year and still retain their quality and taste, Pioquinto added.

continue reading about RP Gov’t Providing Farmers, Fisherfolk with State-of-the-Art BIF Freezers here…

“In Davos, I intend to show business leaders how linking smallholder farmers to the private sector is key to building the economy of developing countries. The private sector is increasingly crucial to drive economic growth in the developing world,” emphasized Nwanze, “IFAD will continue to be the voice of smallholder farmers because they are fundamental to transforming the agricultural system and bringing about economic growth”.

“Agriculture, irrespective of the size of the farm, generates business. And every entrepreneur, whether it is a smallholder farmer or a large commercial farmer, needs or wants to make money. We have the responsibility to transform smallholder agriculture into smallholder businesses,” Nwanze said.

Continue reading here about how Agriculture makes good business sense….

The CRS has partnered with the Province of Nghe An to promote a territory approach to agro-enterprise development. This means that the project needs to 1) be implemented through the Government administration structure; 2) improve the skills and knowledge of government staff in promoting market oriented production; 3) promote ownership and sustainability; and 4) aim for policy improvement for poverty alleviation through agro-enterprise development.

Following the 5 processes/steps for agro-enterprise development, the project has strengthened the ability of government agencies in promoting agro-enterprise development and project management. It has also contributed to more diversified agricultural products and improved the lives of target communities (through more jobs, value-added, increase incomes and reduced environmental and health issues)
Continue reading the CRS Experience – Support to Agro-Enterprise Development in Nghe An Province (Vietnam)….

Mr. Guarin introduced the Upland Marketing Program and related about its nearly twelve years of experience in selling directly to supermarkets. He said that direct selling to supermarkets is inevitable given the worldwide trend of increasing rate of grocery sales due to various factors, such as the modernization of procurement, increasing incomes, and the growing preference of buyers for safety and convenience which the supermarkets can offer. He explained about the three waves of supermarket diffusion and noted that increasingly, supermarkets are adding more and more carts of fresh produce , fully allowing retail purchases for such just as the public markets would. More and more have flocked to the supermarkets instead of the usual public wet markets, as the latter has stricter standards for food safety and product quality.
Continue reading the Mechanisms for Product Quality and Food Safety: Tips for Entry into the Supermarket….

A market research scanning on calamansi that was done revealed important statistics and information for any farmer or group of farmers interested in producing and marketing. It was found that the production of calamansi in the country has been increasing, with major supplies coming from Central Philippines (although it can only be produced there 4-6 months in a year because of typhoons) and less but more consistent (all-year round) supplies coming from Southern Mindanao. A minimum of half a hectare is required to make calamansi production successful and it costs around 4 Philippine Pesos (Php) or 9 US cents to produce one kilo of calamansi. Potential returns are estimated to be about US$2000/year for one farmer.

The value chain actors are comprised of the farmer, the assembler or distributor (who brings the calamansi to the capital of Manila), the retailer (markets that make the calamansi accessible) and the consumer. The price increase from farmer to consumer is almost 1000%!
Continue reading the Value Chain Analysis of Calamansi….

He added that small farmers are much weaker now than 15 years ago due to many changes such as changes in the global agricultural market, changes in national government, increasing urbanization, emergence of new market segments, and the ever-increasing challenges of economies of scale. He enumerated the various types of small-farmer commodity organizations, their roles and functions, and some of the specific challenges (for instance, the investment requirements governing cooperatives) that each of them might soon have to address.

Continue reading the Overview of Challenges Experienced by Small Farmers in Engaging with Markets….