Session Name: Climate Change in Southeast Asia: lived experiences within global environmental governance
1 - Farmer Field Schools in ecosystem restoration: can farmers become central agents in climate change mitigation?
Monday, July 29, 2024
14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)
Presentation Abstract Agrifood is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions associated with climate change. The earth is reaching a dangerous tipping point where its biosphere may be shifting from a net sink to a source of atmospheric carbon in two to three decades, putting into question local food production. How can agriculture feed growing populations while contributing to the urgent restoration of ecosystems? While initially developed to address concerns over intensive rice production in Indonesia, over the last 35 years, millions of rural families, communities, and support agencies have adopted the FFS approach to tackle other challenges in rural development and natural resources management. Diversification of FFS began in the 1990s and has led to manifold forestry-related applications, including fruit tree production, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, climate change adaptation, and to a lesser extent, management of landscapes, watersheds, and natural forests. Currently, a pioneering network of thousands of farmers and agronomists in the Americas, Africa, and Asia has been drawing on specialized knowledge of forest ecologies for more regenerative agriculture. Through pilot FFS, participants build an understanding of basic ecosystem functioning, including soil pedology, plant-microbial evolution, and ecological succession. Using lively learning experiments, farmers applying insights, conducting assessments of soil health and devising rehabilitation strategies, for example, by manipulating functional microbial groups that favor seed-plant-soil symbiosis and the maximization of photosynthesis. Graduates demonstrate how, through greater ecological literacy and strategic research, they can sustain or increase regenerative food production and productivity while contributing to measurable, stable atmospheric carbon draw-down.
Presenter(s)
SG
Stephen G. Sherwood
Knowledge, Technology and Innovation, FundaciĆ³n EkoRural, Ecuador and Wageningen University, Ecuador