Miguel Altieri Agroecology in a Post-pandemic World
La agroecología en un mundo tras la pandemia
Chilean agronomist and entomologist Miguel Altieri has dedicated his career to researching and teaching about the environmental and social benefits of agroecology. After studying agronomy at the University of Chile and earning a PHD in entomology at the University of Florida, he went on to publish more than 250 scientific papers, 20 books, and was a professor at the University of California at Berkeley for 37 years. He is best known for promoting agroecology as a way to combat rural poverty, especially in Latin America. In 2007, he co-founded the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA), and since 2011 has been an advisor to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) program, which aims to conserve traditional farming systems around the world.
Recently retired from teaching at UC Berkeley, he now lives in Colombia where he and his wife and colleague, Clara Inés Nicholls, have an agroecological
“Agroecologists question the structure of industrial agriculture; they want to transform the food system.”
demonstration farm. In March, they co-authored a paper titled “Agroecology and the Reconstruction of Post Covid-19 Agriculture,” outlining the fragilities of the dominant agri-business food system exposed by the global pandemic and opportunities for agroecology to build much-needed resilience within our food systems. “As we work our land during these days of the COVID-19 imposed national quarantine,” says Altieri, “I am convinced more than ever that agroecology is the only option available to humanity to design and manage agricultural systems best able to withstand future crises, whether pest outbreaks, pandemics, climate disruptions, or financial meltdowns.”
From his home in Colombia, Altieri spoke with Patagon Journal about lessons from Covid- 19, agroecology, and what's needed to design resilient, sustainable agricultural systems in Patagonia, Chile, and worldwide. Excerpts:
PATAGON JOURNAL: You define agroecology as “a transformative science, practice, and movement.” How does agroecology differ from other terms and concepts related to sustainable agriculture?
ALTIERI: What's really interesting is that agroecology was born in Latin America, and then it caught on in Europe and the United States, but much later. The way agroecology is known today – as a science but also as a political tool for the transformation of food systems – was started in Latin America by NGOS, then jumped into the universities, and then to Via Campesina, the largest peasant movement in the world. It has some political connotations, and for that reason there are some circles that don't use the term or if they do, they strip it of its social and political context.
For example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) talks about agroecology, but it doesn't talk about land reform or food sovereignty. And then there are other groups that are coming up with new terms like climate smart agriculture or regenerative agriculture to avoid the political implications of agroecology.
Agroecologists question the structure of industrial agriculture; they want to transform the food system. Whereas other approaches try to kind of take advantage of certain cracks left in the system, like organic farming. That is a great concept, but if you look at most organic agriculture it is for export. In Chile, 80% of organic agriculture is for export and that doesn't solve the problem of food security. Whatever is left over for the national markets goes for the middle class and up. The same is happening in the U.S. With my class [ in California] I used to send students to the organic farmers' market and do a racial profiling of the consumers there: it was always 98% white, middle class and up.
As an agroecologist, I respect the schools, for example, of Steiner with biodynamics, or the people that came up with permaculture. But I can go to a permaculture farm or a biodynamic farm or an organic farm and see from an agroecological perspective that they need to
improve. For example, if you go to one of the most famous biodynamic farms in California, Benzinger, which is a vineyard, from a biodynamic perspective it works, but it has a major flaw which is that it is a monoculture. So, I worked with Mike Benzinger and we introduced cover crops and flowers into the system in order to diversify it and increase the function.
The practice of agroecology also provides ecosystem services such as pest control, soil regeneration, and water conservation. Are such ecosystem services becoming more valued generally by society?
As Einstein once said, you cannot solve the problem with the same mentality that created it. The crisis in industrial agriculture that we're facing today was exposed by Covid-19 but for many years we've been criticizing the environmental, economic and social impacts of industrial agriculture. When you use economic terms from a neoliberal perspective that were not designed to account for the services of nature, then you're using the wrong tools.
Are you familiar with the planetary boundaries concept? [Planetary Boundaries, Stockholm Resilience Center, 2009] These people in Sweden came up with the concept that certain processes at the global level have already gone beyond their threshold. For example, climate change – it has already passed the threshold. Biodiversity extinction, we've passed the threshold. So, what we need to do is to try to develop an economy that is going to take into account the limits of nature. And this is not new. In 1972 there was a guy who came out with a book called The Limits to Growth that first sounded the alarm that the capitalist economy is not compatible with nature.
I'm not opposed to measuring services, but let's not do it only in economic terms. For example, many farms in Cuba and Colombia have zero external inputs. When you realize that a farm doesn't need any input except for labor, then you know the ecological services that are working: fertility is happening, pest regulation is happening, water is abundant, and on top of
“When you use economic terms that were not designed to account for the services of nature, then you’re using the wrong tools.”
that you are saving a lot of money, more than 90% of your cost of production. I can translate that into money. That's what nature is providing, it is natural capital.
You’ve often said that eating is both an ecological act and a political act. What is our responsibility as consumers?
When I support the small farmers in my region, especially younger ones, I'm creating local resiliency and local sustainability, and that's very important. The quality of life in small cities could be determined by what kind of agriculture surrounds your region. For example, in Brazil there was a study that found that towns surrounded by sugar cane as opposed to towns surrounded by small farmers were 10 degrees hotter because of the albedo effect.
In our current food system, here's what's happening: you have the producers [hand up high] and the consumers [hand down low] and then you have the big corporations that are strangling the whole system [makes hands into fists in the space between]. They determine what farmers are going to grow, how much they're going to grow, and then through the big supermarkets they control what people eat, how much they pay, and the quality of the food. They have control of the food system. To change that food system is going to be very difficult, so what we need to create is a bypass – a bypass from producers to consumers directly, so that there is exchange between them, but it's more so ruled by an economia de la solidaridad, which is actually a term that doesn't even exist in English. The idea there is an exchange of money, but it's governed by solidarity.
You can do it by creating this bypass, or also by pressuring the local government, or electing sympathetic mayors. Brazil, for instance, has an agroecology law that provides a framework for municipalities to promote what they call institutional markets where: a mayor can decide that all the food that is served in schools and hospitals will come from local farms. That revitalizes totally the small farm agriculture in their region. Uruguay just came out with a national law of agroecology too. I think that the new constitution in Chile could also introduce this kind of thing. It could be a national agreement where we say how we're going to treat nature, how we're going to feed our people and after we agree that we're going to feed our people ecologically, with local produce and supporting local farmers, and we put these principles in the constitution, then that would provide the elements to create laws and regulation at the local level. There is a huge opportunity in Chile right now.
Today, the average age of farmers in Patagonia, like the rest of the world, is around 60-years-old. The farmers’ kids have access to better education and are leaving the countryside for higher paying jobs. Meantime,
“Many young people are realizing that the answers to their aspirations are not in the cities anymore.”
the aging farmers are then often subdividing and selling off their land. We know that agroecology works; how can we encourage young people to pursue it as a career and lifestyle?
This is a problem all over the world. But things are changing. Right now, for example, the unemployment in Colombia is 42% because of Covid. So here in our little town, the young people are returning. Others are coming back because of the Institutos Agroecológicos Latinoamericanos (IALAS), a university created by Via Campesina. In Latin America, what they found was that universities were actually expelling the youth from the countryside. The young people went to study agronomy, but they trained them to work in the big fruit orchards and the big vineyards of Chile. They didn't train them to go back to their land to work with their parents and revitalize their communities.
So, Via Campesina created their own universities, called IALAS. There's one in Brazil, Paraguay, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua – there are many IALAS – and they have 50 to 60 young people every year coming out of those schools.they are trained not only technically, but also politically about things like why their parents were poor, why their parents didn't have land, why their parents were being pushed off their land.
In the U.S., too, the Young Farmers Association of America have a report showing that [ young people] want to farm there but they don't have access to land. It is a major constraint for young people.
Many young people are already realizing that the answers to their aspirations are not in the cities anymore. Especially now, with Covid-19. They know they need to go back to their lands,
but they need to figure out how to survive there. The first thing is to have land, and the second thing is to link to the local community so they can create networks between producers and consumers that are more ruled by la economia de la solidaridad, which I mentioned earlier. We cannot put the weight of the return of young people on the young people only; local consumers must also realize that they need to support those young producers.
Patagonia has many opportunities when it comes to implementing agroecological practices, like a culture of self-sufficiency, agricultural traditions, and vast expanses of land. But it also faces many challenges, among them a harsh climate and often extreme distances between farmers and urban markets. How could agroecology best be implemented in Patagonia?
Agroecology always promotes self-sufficiency first. That doesn't mean we are opposed to marketing to Puerto Montt or Coyhaique. But the first priority of food sovereignty is self-sufficiency of the local people. With extreme weather, you need greenhouses that can produce year-round. Promoting self-sufficiency in little towns that are dependent on imports would increase their dietary diversity, especially their consumption of vegetables and eggs, and that would improve their health. The immune system is highly dependent on the antioxidants, vitamins and minerals present in fruits and vegetables. I know there are limitations due to the climate, but apples and pears can be produced in Patagonia, and all those vegetables in greenhouses in the winter, and in the summer in open air. Plus, the integration of animals – goats, lambs, chickens, etc. – is essential.
In Aysén, I gave some seminars not long ago and went to look at the opportunities for developing agroecological approaches among small farmers there. One thing clear to me: there is potential to design silvopastoral systems – where you combine trees, shrubs, and grasses for cattle grazing. There is a huge opportunity for that if it is well-designed. You know a silvopastoral system doesn't mean that you just let your cattle in the forest randomly; you have to manage the composition of the forest, open some spaces for grass to grow.
The second thing: you first have to restore the soil through ecological restoration. I saw so many degraded landscapes in Patagonia because of overgrazing and deforestation. We identified a lot of legumes that were growing spontaneously there, similar to lupines; collect the seeds and start reproducing them in order to create a cover for the soil to fix nitrogen and create biomass. That would be the beginning of a strategy for soil conservation.
The third thing is crop production. Obviously, you need greenhouses in Aysen. Low-impact greenhouses, not something sophisticated that people can't adapt to because they don't have the means. The whole eco-architecture combined with agriculture is important in that region. The principles of agroecology apply everywhere, it just takes different forms depending upon the place. And that's the main thing for people to understand; it's principles, not practices.