Eco-agriculture: a new green revolution with cultural and ecological substance

Can rural work be separated from agriculture? Like many concerned with rural development, we at PCD were constantly reflecting on this question five years ago, when considering whether to go a step further and become actively engaged in agriculture.

Discussions on the rural question have become much more complicated in recent years. The immediacy of global challenges such as food security and climate change have brought new perspectives to our discussions on agricultural development. As we buried ourselves in rural work, these debates reminded us of the need to define more clearly our roles and strategies. In the end, all staff came to a consensus that we would write eco-agriculture into our core work, while upholding the spirit of “learn in action and improve oneself in the learning process.”

What followed was of course one worry after another: how do we solve the technical problems? Will our products have a market? Even if we had support from agricultural scientists and technicians and were able to solve the technical problems, farmers would face big risks posed by the market. Isn’t farmers’ self-reliance and self-sufficiency a principle of eco-agriculture?  But if there were no market demand, farmers might lose motivation, and what then would be our roles?

After a few years of practice, it is time we looked back to see whether we have found answers to these questions. At the same time, by sharing our experience, we hope that more people will be encouraged to work together and to help each other with ideas.

Eco-agriculture should go beyond the project

Richard Norgaard, a renowned American professor of agriculture and resource economics, says that eco-agriculture is rooted in the experience of developing countries. Eco-agriculture emphasises the co-evolution of society, culture and ecology and the inseparable relationship between social and natural systems. He argues that eco-agriculture is close to social sciences, including eco-anthropology. Guizhou scholar Prof. Yang Tingshou has similar ideas. In his book An Introduction to Eco-Anthropology, he analyses how traditional lifestyles of various ethnic groups are adapted to their ecological surroundings.

If we look at our work from this perspective, when we launch our activities on eco-agriculture, we should not only focus on short-term and individual factors, such as techniques and markets. We should also take communities and their situations as a cohesive whole. Though inevitably constrained by the duration of a programme, we must bear in mind that the conversion of a community to eco-agriculture means a long-term paradigm shift.

Some will now raise the question of programme implementation. Paramount in the idea of “whole” suggested above is the perspective it implies. There are many points of entry for our concrete work: health, culture, ecological protection, resource recycling, seed diversity, markets, etc. We can make a choice taking into consideration our strengths and the conditions of the communities we work with. We can make use of individual entry points to build the “whole” pillar for community development.

We shouldn’t forget: over the last thirty years, the wholeness of agriculture and the diversity of human values have been crushed by the tank of chemical industrial agriculture. Farmers who were baptised by chemical agriculture, naturally focus on discussing how the programme may help them to market their products, and on technological development.

Eco-agriculture is not a thesis on paper

Some of our scientist partners have conceded that their past work was scientist-centred. Farmers usually felt they were helping the scientists to do their work. After taking part in promoting eco-agriculture in the last few years, the scientists felt that their roles should change and that their work should be farmer-centred. What they meant was: “Before it was our work.  Now we should help the farmers do their work!”

Bernhard Glaeser is a scholar on agricultural policy. In his book Environment, Development, Agriculture he says that eco-agriculture places emphasis on culture and unequivocally emphasises farmer-based approaches. We have been fortunate in having a group of committed and open-minded scholars as our main partners in our agricultural work. They have helped us solve immediate technical problems and overcome problems of reduced production as we moved into ecological and organic farming. In this process, space has been created for farmers and ourselves to rebuild the mechanisms for local knowledge production and learning. We are able to continue with our exploration of long-term sustainable living and to gradually discover the diverse values of agriculture.

We have yet to find an organisation in China, like the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) – an NGO that works simultaneously on organic farming research, village development and capacity building. But we do have a group of passionate scientists in our provinces who are willing to write their thesis in the soil.

Eco-agriculture is not the export of organic products

According to the statistics of IFOAM, in 2007 our country ranked fourth in terms of total hectares of land used for organic agriculture (1,553,000 ha), preceded only by Australia, USA and Brazil. If there is such a great demand for organic products, why do we often feel helpless when we discuss the issue of markets? Let us review the history and development of organic agriculture since the 1990s, which will give us some clues.

In the early 1990s, a few years after the introduction of the household production system of bao chan dao hu [Household Responsibility System], farmers used a lot of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to maximize production. As a response to food safety concerns, the Ministry of Agriculture established the Green Food system. Around the same time, the State Environmental Protection Administration (since renamed the Ministry of Environmental Protection) established the Organic Food Development Centre in Nanjing to promote organic farming. It was an effort based on the results of organic agricultural projects launched in the 1980s to build ecological model villages.

After 20 years of development, only a small portion of the green products certified as AA grade are sold domestically as organic products. The Organic Food Development Centre has always focused on developing the certification system. If we read the statistics closely, over 80% of the organic products are for export. In other words, local markets for organic products are yet to be developed. In fact, even in the European Union, the share of organic products in the market is only 5–10 %. What insight does this give us?

In fact, organic certification is only a bridge of trust built between consumers and organic producers. It is not a “market tool” and the building of this “trust” is very costly. From a macro perspective, there is still a long way to go in terms of the development of markets for organic food. In the short run, if we want to use marketability to attract farmers to organic farming, we have to evaluate carefully whether the conditions are ripe. We should also try not to lead farmers into the high-risk market of “comparatively environmentally-friendly and healthy” products.

Of course, we cannot separate our agricultural work from the market, but neither should we put all our eggs in one basket, as it is quite unlikely we will witness market success in the near future. The invaluable experience we have accumulated in our programme should help us reflect on our ultimate goal. Is it to build a brand name for our organic products, or to build self-reliant, self-sufficient, environmental and healthy communities through the multiple values of agriculture? Of course, the road to the latter goal is a long one, which will need regular reorientation in a fast-changing world.

We hope more friends will join in and work together to bring about a new and truly green revolution: this time, one with cultural and ecological substance.