Conference 2023 Panel Recap - "Addressing a History of Unsustainable Production: Possible Approaches"

Photo by Srikanth Thakkolam

Panel: Addressing a History of Unsustainable Production: Possible Approaches

Speakers: Patrícia Galvão Ferreira and Tiphaera Ziner, Jeanette Tramhel and Nadia Lambek

Unsustainable agricultural practices have long been detrimentally impacting the natural environment. Unsurprisingly, climate litigation is on the rise, and civil society actors around the world are increasing their calls for more ecological approaches to farming. For this panel, our speakers drove home the importance of cultivating sustainable food systems, and the consequences that will follow if we don’t.

We heard first from Patrícia Galvão Ferreira and Tiphaera Ziner, who presented the findings from their paper on climate change and agribusiness. Patrícia and Tiphaera mapped out various climate-related lawsuits, which have been advanced around the world. Climate-litigation aims to hold governments and large corporations responsible for their role in furthering the negative impacts of climate change.

Current research shows that food systems account for almost a third of all GHG emissions. This number may be an underestimate, as GHG reporting requirements fail to capture all emissions from the agricultural sector. Despite the foregoing, food policies fail to include adequate strategies for reducing their emissions.

Global Feedback Ltd v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a claim presently proceeding in England. Feedback, a large NGO, commenced its litigation when the British Government released a food strategy which failed to include policies aimed at reducing emissions. Feedback argued that this was contrary to s. 13 of the UK Climate Change Act, which provides that the Secretary of State has a continuing duty to prepare policies enabling carbon budgets to be met.

Tiphaera explained that the OECD has also been an important forum for climate “litigation”. She shared that a network of Italian lawyers recently commenced claims on behalf of various NGOs, who say they were denied information about intensive livestock facilities operating in the country. More specifically, the complaints to the OECD claim that the impugned livestock facilities are in breach of their duty of transparency, and that they have violated a series of duties outlined in the OECD Guidelines.

At the end of their presentation, Patrícia and Tiphaera emphasized that without significant change, Canada’s agri-food businesses will likely end up in court for their contributions to the climate crisis.

We heard next from Jeannette Tramhel and Nadia Lambek, who spoke about the importance of adopting agroecological approaches to farming.

Jeannette presented her paper titled “Policy Support for Agroecology: Lessons from the Global South”. Jeannette contrasted a techno-centric approach to farming with an eco-centric one. The latter relies on agroecological principles, which strive for an “integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems.” Jeannette noted that the social aspect is an important inclusion. Techno-centric approaches are born from precision agriculture, and you guessed it; technological advances in the agricultural sector.

After introducing the foundations and regenerative significance of agroecology, Jeanette walked us through various case studies, highlighting agroecological advances in India, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Philippines, Ecuador, El Salvador and Haiti. She shared that India has seen the largest transition to agroecology in the world to date. The shift began in 2016 with support from the APCNF programme, operated by a not-for-profit company called Ruthu Sadhikara Samstha. Thanks to the programme, there are over 2 million farmers in India today who have adopted natural farming practices.

Moving West to the Americas, Jeannette shifted the focus to Costa Rica, and the role that governments can play in supporting agroecological approaches to farming. In Costa Rica, the enactment of stronger forestry laws has caused a shift away from monoculture farming, which relies on large-scale deforestation. The government also established what was called the National Forestry Financing Fund, aimed at financing small or medium producers through credits and other mechanisms. The goal was to promote sounder forest management. By way of another example, Jeannette pointed to Cuba, where the central government has offered support, training and expertise to farmers who wish to adopt more traditional practices.

Our final speaker, Nadia Lambek, canvassed recent negotiations before the UN Committee on World Food Security. The committee was convened to address the furtherance of more sustainable production methods, with a focus on agroecology. Unfortunately, Nadia explained that most of the conversation was co-opted by large producing states bent on broadening the narrative. They fought to include discussions on “other innovative approaches”, drawing the focus away from agroecology and the broader social principles underlying it. For example, using jurisdictional arguments, the conversations were steered away from discussing overlapping human rights, on the basis that the UN Human Rights Council was better placed to address those concerns. Human rights are, however, central to agroecology.  

Nadia explained that there has been a “corporatization” of our food systems, and that industry drove a lot of the negotiations. Ultimately, many civil society actors who were invited to take part felt did not feel that their perspectives were heard.

This panel presented agroecology as a viable alternative to large-scale intensive farming, and canvassed how it has been put into practice around the world. However, Nadia’s account of what transpired before the UN Committee on World Food Security makes clear that there is more work to be done before we will see broad adoption of agroecological practices. In the interim, climate-litigation will play an important role.