. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Anand Chandrasekhar, Swiss Info

Between 1990 and 2009 the number of small farms in Switzerland halved and the average farm size doubled. With family farming chosen as the theme for this year’s World Food Day, leading activist Vandana Shiva is calling for more support to small farmers.

Photo Source: https://vimeo.com/103764529 (Becket films: http://vandanashivamovie.com/ – screenshot)

Shiva is an “earth democracy” activist and founder of the India-based NGO Navdanya, which works to protect biodiversity, defend farmers’ rights and promote organic farming. According to Shiva, Switzerland’s attempts at food self-sufficiency could show an alternative way for farming.

swissinfo.ch: Swiss farms are getting fewer and larger. How can Switzerland become more self-reliant and still retain the family-farm model that is an important part of the cultural identity of the country?

Vandana Shiva: The reasons farms are becoming fewer and larger is a highly twisted economy that punishes small farmers and rewards industrial agriculture. One reward is the $400 billion in global subsidies for large-scale farms. The other reward is that every step of law-making, such as regulations concerning standardisation of food, retail chains, and intellectual property laws, puts a huge burden on small farmers.

For 10,000 years small farmers have done the job. Why only in this century has small farming become unviable? It is because the trade-driven, corporate-driven economic model for agriculture has been designed for large-scale farming. It has been designed to wipe out small farms. Around 70% of the food eaten globally today is produced by small farms. Small farms produce more and yet there is mythology that large scale farming is the answer to hunger.

We need to revisit the subsidy question that destroys the planet and other peoples’ food economies. The moment policy internalises small farming, small farmers are going to flourish.

swissinfo.ch: Developed countries like Switzerland provide subsidies in the form of direct payments to farmers that are linked to activities like protecting the environment and maintaining the landscape. What is your opinion on this?

V.S.: I differentiate between subsidies and support. A nation should support the maintenance of its waterways, watersheds, soil, biodiversity and communities. Small countries in Europe like Switzerland and Norway have taken this path. If Switzerland supports its mountain farmers it is causing zero damage to dairy farmers in India. The subsidies that cause damage are the ones that are linked to agribusiness and exports because that is where dumping starts to happen.

So I would say that ecological payments to farmers are necessary because agriculture is not just the production of commodities for global markets. It is also about taking care of the land, biodiversity, soil and water. A good farmer who is ecological and organic is doing the work of a physician giving you healthcare, which then reduces national expenditure on diseases.

So, I would completely separate subsidies to agribusiness for grabbing markets from support to small farmers to maintain a society, its ecosystems and culture. However, I am glad about this discussion over reduction of subsidies, as it can then link to issues like transition to ecological agriculture, localised food systems and that issues like increasing self-reliance and food sovereignty are coming into the picture.

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What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

swissinfo.ch: In Switzerland, the Swiss Farmers Association has submitted an initiative that will be put to vote by Swiss citizens calling for more self-sufficiency in food production. Do you think this is realistic or idealistic for a rich but small country?

V.S.: I think if there is one country that could show another way for farming it is Switzerland. Even though Syngenta has its headquarters in Switzerland, it was the Swiss people who had the first national referendum to keep genetically modified organisms (GMOs) out. This shows that corporate power cannot take over citizen’s power in Switzerland because of the referendum system. Corporations can lobby the government to change a law but how do they get to every citizen in every canton?

Switzerland unlike the American Midwest is a mountainous area. Therefore industrial agriculture just doesn’t work there. Thus the advantages of a decentralised democracy and a mountain ecosystem makes it possible for Switzerland to even conceive such an initiative for more self-sufficiency. Mountain ecosystems and communities should be the basis for food reliance in healthy economies.

I would be very happy to this initiative grow and wish all strength to the Swiss people and Swiss farmers.

swissinfo.ch: Indian agriculture is often viewed as inefficient and backward. What can the world learn from Indian small farmers?

V.S.: India is after all supporting 1.2 billion people. We recently prepared a report called “Health per acre”. What we did was first measure the biological productivity of small, diverse farms and we converted this into nutrition per acre. A small, biodiverse Indian farm is so productive that if scaled up to all the available agricultural land in the country, we could feed twice the Indian population. Small, biodiverse farms also provide a higher net income.

The world should start seeing that these giant monoculture farms are producing commodities that are not feeding people but are transformed into biofuel and animal feed. More land for this would aggravate hunger and not reduce it. Whatever does go to human food is nutritionally empty or toxic.

Brazil has followed this path of large scale commercial production, whether it is soyabean or sugarcane, by basically destroying its campacinos [small farmers]. That is why you have the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) who are now occupying these large farms in Brazil.
The one thing no government can touch is the sanctity of the small farm and the dignity that goes with

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by William French, for The Elders (abridged)

India is an increasingly dynamic player in the modern digital economy, but many thousands of poor and rural communities still have their lives and work dictated by the rhythms of the sun and the moon. A lack of access to affordable energy means sundown equals shutdown, a loss of productivity, efficiency and valuable income.

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Ela Bhatt with members of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). Photo: The Elders | Tom Pietrasik

“No light means we cannot continue to work after sunset. This means less income, and often we cannot afford to eat on the next day”, in the words of Santokben, an artisan from the village of Bakutra in Gujarat.

To break this cycle, the grassroots trade union SEWA (Self- Employed Women’s Association) has been working since 2009 to promote its “Green Livelihoods Campaign” – known as “Hariyali” in the local language – to provide cheap access to sustainable energy across India. SEWA, founded in 1972 by Elder Ela Bhatt, has argued for decades that access to energy is vital in emancipating communities and especially women who are otherwise marginalised both economically and politically.

“The Hariyali Campaign has been structured to deliver Energy Access, financial inclusion and gender empowerment for SEWA’s members,” said Ela Bhatt. “The key to success was in building a model which is sustainable, replicable and scalable.”

n practice, portable solar LED lanterns and clean cooking stoves are provided to SEWA members, paid for by instalments. SEWA has negotiated an unsecured bank loan of Rs 250 million ($4.2 million) from an Indian private bank to provide this service to its members.

The result has been electrifying – in the most literal sense. In the words of Kapilaben, a widow and small farmer from the Gujarat village of Rasnol:

“When my husband died I had to bring up three daughters. Life was dark as we had no electricity and everything felt hopeless. How do I cope? Thanks to ‘Hariyali’ I now have a solar lantern and a cooking stove. Now I do all the work, send all my three daughters to school and am now a grassroots leader at SEWA!”

Underlining the complex nature of its work in a country as vast and diverse as India, SEWA has identified three major challenges which highlight the importance of listening to local communities and learning from their own needs and experiences. It aims to raise awareness, for example of how to use more efficient and healthy cooking stoves; to determine availability so the right sort of stove is delivered to the right people (ie, the stove made for the South Indian population who mainly eat rice isn’t suited to those who eat roti in North and Central India); and guarantee affordability by closely working with local communities and financing partners.

SEWA has also developed “Project Urja” to provide solar lights to women’s self-help groups across the deprived Bihar-Mungar region using a special “energy loan product” in cooperation with India’s Ministry of Rural Development. By February 2013, 177 LED lights had been provided to seven villages, meaning that children could study after dark, the women could cook better meals at night and they could also charge their mobile phones.

For Ela Bhatt, this is a shining example of how innovation and cooperation can transform lives and raise communities out of poverty.

Do women have a special role in poverty reduction?

According to the target articles (below), as well as many other economic analyses and reports, the key to poverty reduction is the education and employment of women and their actions for economic justice.

The Road Ahead: Strategies to Support Women Entrepreneurs in Latin America
In Cambodia, the women are saying, “No!”
The Self-Employed Women’s Association: Shining a light on India’s poor

. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .

an article by Youth Delegates from IIPT India who came to IIPT Conference in South Africa

IIPT India is a new initiative which we need in India because our country has not realized in potential in tourism. We want people to come to India to experience its beauty.

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We are students in management at SVIMS Mumbai University. Our professor Kiran Yadav together with one of his colleagues Ajay Prakash organized an initiative of IIPT (Institute for Peace through Tourism) in India earlier this year and told us about it. We had never before imagined how tourism could promote peace, so we like the concept.

We were pleased at the opportunity to come to this conference in Johannesburg (South Africa) on peace through tourism. We are 14 students, part of a youth leadership forum.

The new Prime Minister of India is now promoting tourism with an “incredible India” campaign. We spoke here with the head of the United Nations World Tourism Organization who told us that when he visited India in 2002 he found that the government was not very interested in tourism. Now that has changed.

Before coming here we mobilized about 500 students to sign the credo of the peaceful traveler developed by the international IIPT.

When we go back we will try to put into practice what we have learned here – especially community-based tourism.

For example, the Dharavi zone in the heart of Mumbai, traditionally considered as a slum, has thousands of small household industries. The entrepreneurs there want to invite tourists to visit them. So now we have guided tours of Dharavi where they show how small- scale industry can play an important part in the Indian economy.

We are inspired by the example we have heard here about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and we could do similar tours in the mountains in Maharashtra which is a popular site for trekking not too far from Mumbai.

We have made videos of speakers here at the conference, and we will show them to the students who couldn’t come with us, and to other whom we can interest in the future of IIPT India.

We are interested in internship possibilities for peace through tourism that we have heard about here. And then we can become ambassadors of peace.

Since Indians love the Bollywood cinema, maybe we can interest some actors and actresses to promote peace tourism.

For us tourism used to mean just seeing new places, but now we realize that it can be a chance to know new people and to promote peace.

How can tourism promote a culture of peace?

Comment by Liliana Mota, October 23, 2013

Why tourism?

Can tourism be seen as an instrument to achieve complicity between people’s minds?

“There is nothing better that connects two people’s mind than a good conversation” The above quote could be used to describe the effect which tourism has on people. Like a great conversation, tourism could be said to play a vital role amongst people all over the world. It fosters communication in all its senses, intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding.

In today’s world it is evident that there is a shortage of moral or ethical values amongst people across the different nations in this world, resulting in a globalised world lacking these morals and ethical values. Ignorance, the failure to consider the needs of others, and selfishness are a few of the ways which hinder us from embracing diversity and a common human perspective, which would result informal empathy, internal moral compassion, tolerance of differences, historical consciousness and interpretation. The above mentioned features are intrinsic, inherent and can be found in the practice of tourism.

Tourism has been emphasized as one of the most effective instruments which continue to tackle to tackle social and economical poverty, as well as encourage the culture of peace practice amongst people. In looking at the UN architecture, one is able to see the growing implications which the tourism sector has on the world and world policies. The touristic phenomenon has achieved a world record of 5% of world’s GDP contribution and is responsible for 235 millions jobs, according to the UNWTO’s data. Often the tourism sector counts more than 20% of the countries’ GDP.

On the negative side of this, it is evident that tourism focuses on economical matters, depriving any focus on the global implications of the constant interaction tourism encourages.

In the literal sense, tourism is nothing more or less than people meeting with the willingness to understand each other’s differences and point of view and simultaneously creating the opportunity for dialogue, mutual understanding and peace to take place.

Apart from tourism, various factors could be seen to play a role in encouraging integration and diversity amongst societies across the world. For example, the cultural segment has played an essential source of people’s integration and inclusiveness in developing countries.

Education has also played a significant role in encouraging integration, and incorporation amongst people all over the world. Education has been reconsidered and proposed to being the catalyst for exchange between countries, cultures and sectors, and most importantly for enhancing the lives of people by granting them the opportunity to leave their poverty stricken lives and societies in exchange a for better future which includes job and exchange opportunities.

In the tourism world, differences play the most essential role, differences among people represents the added-value. Being different is always a positive factor that usually motivates and encourages people to get to move and engage with each other and embrace the differences with the use of spiritual, religious and cultural meanings.

This notion of tourism needs to be addressed in multilateral governance discussions, where all the main actors, the international community, the ministerial and experts, private sector, local institutions and civil society engages are all present, and are all willing to work together in combined efforts and initiatives (from poverty alleviation to the promotion of awareness of sustainable development addressing special needs like regional development, urban planning and protection of natural and cultural landscapes). This combined approach of working at the local level within communities and at the national and international level, in order to reach and engage the poor, has been considered as potentially being the “one possible and effective answer” and effective approach towards the world’s poorest areas where it can make a difference.