Agriculture and Communities, Inclusion and Exclusion

It was a tight squeeze in room 107 for this session but I managed to get in to listen to two presentations. The first was a presentation by Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington, Lessons from two contrasting organic growing systems - Chiapas, Mexico and Cuba. While there was much of interest in this presentation it would have been interesting to know more about how farmers learned about new methods and approaches for organic agriculture in Chiapas. Where there any attempts to undertake farmer field school (FFS) or farmer participatory research approaches to empower farmers to learn more about organic agriculture systems. Approaches which have been reasonably successful in other places where outreach or extension services have been dismantled, allowed to deteriorate or non-existent. And given the problem which Micheline highlighted regarding pesticide use in Chiapas FFS would seem a suitable strategy to help farmers learn about the dangers of pesticides and how they impact on a farming system. While the Zapatista's who control the Chiapas region have shunned neo-liberalism and globalisation, which has been embraced by the rest of Mexico, there was no discussion of how this might affect farmers from the Chiapas region who might want to (or need to) embrace such markets beyond the current confines of the Zapatista autonomous controlled region. Stephen Onakuse's presentation, Livelihood systems and rural linkages in Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, highlighted the dramatic negative impact of oil companies on agriculture in the region and how environmental degradation is seriously undermining livelihood strategies. Seemingly massive changes and transformations are required if issues of resulting poverty, environmental degradation and livelihood insecurity are to be addressed in this particular region. Issues that the Nigerian government and the international community up to now have largely turned a blind eye to. Interesting and challenging!