Documentation and dissemination of results

Implementation in Ndiob

Visiting fields with members of CAPCOMMUN

Municipality of Ndiob

Responsible for the policies are the Mayor and Municipal Council of Ndiob, with input from the local communities. The policies are implemented through the municipality, with support of strategic partners such as ENDA PRONAT, and in cooperation with the Collective of Friends and Partners of the Community of Ndiob (CAPCOMMUN).

To implement its vision, the Ndiob Municipal Council has set itself a certain number of objectives both in terms of self-sufficiency in certified seed and production for sale of cereals and peanuts seeds which are the main cash crop of the municipality. Ndiob’s minimum goal is to produce the village’s annual consumption of 3,650 tonnes of millet and to plant peanuts on 2,500 ha to be sold as certified seeds on markets and thereby create cash revenues. It selected 84 seed breeders, each one planting one hectare for breeding stock. Each of these producers has received from Ndiob municipality and from CAPCOMMUN partners seeds and reinforcements in technical capacities.

Support from the Collective of Friends and Partners of the Community of Ndiob (CAPCOMMUN) is critical. CAPCOMMUN shares the vision of the municipality and serves as a forum for consultation, exchange and multi-stakeholder action. Among the partners are Institut de Recherche Agricole (ISRA), Agence National de Conseil Agricole (ANCAR), Service Régional de l’agriculture, ENDA PRONAT, CLUSA, WORLD VISION, Coopérative des Agriculteurs (set up by Ndiob), University of Cheikh Anta Diop.

In terms of its objectives to achieve self-sufficiency in certified seeds and production of millet and peanuts, Ndiob worked extensively with its CAPCOMMUN partners. Regarding millet, Ndiob achieved 2018 self-sufficiency in certified seeds (about 10 tonnes). It is already planting 300 ha of millet using ecological agriculture this year, with an estimated production of 450 tonnes, ensuring food self-sufficiency for 300 families. In terms of peanuts, the collected 84 tonnes of seeds will be used on 560 ha. By 2020, Ndiob plans to achieve self-sufficiency in certified peanut seeds (375 tonnes per year). Each of the farmers has earned more than EUR 530 of income each in just one season. Moreover, Ndiob’s multifunctional farmers’ cooperative has been approved as a seed producer by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Inception phase

Implementation

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Local

Using a metric-based flexible framework for implementation

Lady proud of her produce

Minneapolis

The Good Food Purchasing Program’s metric-based, flexible framework encourages large public institutions to measure and then make shifts in their food purchases. By adopting the framework, food service institutions commit to improving their regional food system by implementing meaningful purchasing standards in all five value categories:

Local Economics: the Good Food Purchasing Program supports local small and mid-sized agricultural and food processing operations.
Environmental Sustainability: the Good Food Purchasing Progam requires institutions to source at least 15% of the food from producers that employ sustainable production systems.
Valued Workforce: the Good Food Purchasing Policy promotes safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation for all food chain workers and producers.
Animal Welfare: the Good Food Purchasing Policy promotes healthy and humane care for farm animals.
Nutrition: Finally, the Good Food Purchasing Policy promotes health and well-being by outlining best practices that offer generous portions of vegetables, fruit, whole grains and minimally processed foods, while reducing salt, added sugars, saturated fats, and red meat consumption, and eliminating artificial additives.

The Good Food Purchasing Program is nationally regarded as the most comprehensive and metric-based food procurement policy in the country. Verification, scoring and recognition are central components. When an institution enrolls in the Good Food Purchasing Program, staff of the Center for Good Food Purchasing work with them to collect in depth information about purchasing and food service practices.

To become a Good Food Provider, the food service institution has to at least meet the baseline (equal to one point) in each of the five values. Meeting even higher standards results in more points being awarded. The accumulation of points across all values is used to calculate and award a star rating. The baseline and higher standard purchasing criteria are set out in the Good Food Purchasing Standards, which are updated every five years, most recently in September 2017. There are five status levels of a Good Food Purchaser (1-5 Stars) that correspond to a respective range of points. In order to achieve a 5 Star level, the institution must achieve 25 or more points. As of June 2018, five out of 27 institutions have achieved a star rating, amongst them Boulder Valley School District that achieved 5 Stars in 2017 and Oakland Unified School District that achieved 4 Stars in 2016. After one year, purchasers are expected to increase the amount of Good Food that they purchase.

Implementation

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Subnational

TEEBAgriFood’s Evaluation Framework and methodologies

Sustainable Food Systems

TEEB

TEEBAgriFood’s Evaluation Framework answers the question: What should we evaluate about food systems? And TEEBAgriFood’s methodologies answer the question: How should we do these evaluations? TEEBAgriFood illustrates five families of applications to compare: (a) different policy scenarios; (b) different farming typologies; (c) different food and beverage products; (d) different diets/ food plates; and (e) adjusted versus conventional national or sectoral accounts.

TEEBAgriFood gives ten examples showing how to apply this framework and methodologies for various types of evaluations. One of them is, for example, a study in New Zealand of 15 conventional and 14 organic fields that valued 12 ecosystem services and found both crops as well as other ecosystem services to be higher in the organic fields.

The TEEBAgriFood evaluation framework provides a structure and an overview of what should be included in the analysis. However, methods of valuation depend on the values to be assessed, availability of data, and the purpose of the analysis. Ideally one should be able to say with some confidence what are the externalities associated with each euro or dollar spent on a given kind of food, produced, distributed and disposed of in a given way. The application of the framework requires an interdisciplinary approach, where all relevant stakeholders, including policy-makers, businesses, and citizens, understand and identify questions that are to be answered by a valuation exercise. Therefore, stakeholder engagement across sectors is critical to the effective application of TEEBAgriFood in specific contexts and policy arenas.

Inception phase

Implementation

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Potential as a Transferable Model

Collecting a lettuce

CONQUITO

AGRUPAR could well serve as a model for other cities and form the basis for a national policy on local production.

CONQUITO has favoured observation tours and exchanges of experiences as well as transfer of methodologies, including among ministries and NGOs, for example the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries and the Peace Corps.

Since 2015, AGRUPAR contributed to both the City Region Food Systems Project of FAO and the RUAF Foundation, which evaluated Quito’s food system. As a result, AGRUPAR staff decided to work towards a food policy for the city in a more systemic sense, within which urban agriculture is a strategic activity.

Commitment from the municipality to keep continuing and investing into the programme in the long term
A great equipe
The buyin of CONQUITO

Over its 16 years of existence, AGRUPAR has achieved impressive results. These results helped to make it an international well-known example of exemplary urban participatory agriculture and serve now as benchmark for all others that follow their path.

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Review phase

Subnational

Promotion of food consumption, healthy diets and nutrition through bio-fairs and education

Young women collecting carrots

CONQUITO

Through the biofairs and other activities, AGRUPAR promotes healthy diets and sustainability. The Programme created 17 bio-fairs where 105 types of food are offered. Through these, 25% of the produce is commercialized, for about USD 350,000 per year.

Since 2007, a total of 6,663 bio-fairs have been organized.
Aall produce is organic.

Nearly 170,000 consumers have attended the bio-fairs and were sensibilized on healthy diets and nutrition. Surveys have identified increased dietary diversity among producers and their families.

Inception phase

Implementation

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Subnational

Food supply and distribution

Woman farmer showcasing her produce

CONQUITO

Food is sold in organic produce markets – the bioferias –located in low-income neighbourhoods and peri-urban zones, as well as in better-off parts of the city. As well, the District Trade Coordination Agency has begun to consider the large-scale commercialization of agro-ecological and organic foods through its markets and opened a first market of this kind, including for farmers supported by AGRUPAR. To help producers meet food quality and safety standards, AGRUPAR has introduced improved processing technologies and the use of containers, packaging and labels. AGRUPAR is registered as a producer and marketer of organic produce at the national level allowing it to share the cost of product certification with participating producers.

In addition to the bio-fairs, networks of farmers are also formed to deliver organic produce baskets directly to producers and to hotels or restaurants selling traditional food. AGRUPAR is registered as a producer and marketer of organic produce at the national level and shares the cost of product certification with producers.

To ensure quality of production, the bio-fairs are only open to producers who have followed the Programme.
In addition to the bio-fairs, networks of farmers have been formed to deliver organic produce directly to local food processing companies and to hotels and restaurants.
To ensure the widest possible availability and consumption of organic food, bio fairs
are located in low-income neighbourhoods and peri-urban zones.

Today AGRUPAR’s participants annually produce more than 960,000 kg of food products. Almost half of the production (47 per cent) is used for home consumption, strengthening food security and diversifying the diets of the 12,000 participating urban farmers and their families, while the other half is marketed. The Programme created 17 bio-fairs where 105 types of food are offered. Through these, 25% of the produce is commercialized, for about USD 350,000 per year. Since 2007, a total of 6,663 bio-fairs have been organized and all produce is organic. Both formal organic certification for orchards with marketing possibilities (since 2007) and the internal control system (SIC, since 2013) are used. As of 2010, the Programme had created five associations of producers and therefore generated better opportunities for the commercialization of products.

Inception phase

Implementation

Documentation and dissemination of results

Subnational

Tackling food insecurity and reintegration of former combatants

Training on cooking organically grown food

Municipality of Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte

Kauswagan’s From Arms to Farms Programme is one of the 19 components that frame the strategy of the integrated SIKAD peace agenda. The programme addresses sustainable agriculture and food security while providing for the reintegration of ex-combatants through organic farming. Fighting poverty and increasing food security were prioritized. Organic farming was seen as two-fold tool to develop a resilient agricultural system that does not heavily rely on external inputs and at the same time fosters job creation, providing a source of income for the fighters that surrendered.

At the beginning, 200 rebel commanders as well as farmers were introduced to the programme through a series of meetings and workshops, implemented with help from the Philippine army and the Agricultural Training Institute. A key focus was on capacity building. The local government, together with the Assisi Development Foundation, built a school for agriculture. Once the facility was ready, the local government was able to start supporting ex-combatants and their families, as well as local farmers, to learn how to implement organic and agroecological practices.

In order to facilitate access to microcredit and governmental support, the municipality is supporting the creation of Rebel Returnees Associations and their registration as agricultural cooperatives.
Access to inputs, such as seeds, is also supported through the programme.
In the last five years, development funding from the central Government has been made available and the Programme now receives between EUR 50,000 to 65,000 every year.

Without any doubt, the From Arms to Farms Programme has proven successful. No incidents of crime related to armed conflict between Muslims and Christians have been registered in the last four years in the area. Today all rebels active in the area have surrendered and many ex-commanders are now leaders in organic farming and are trying to convince Muslim fighters in other communities to cease fighting and surrender.

Implementation

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Local

Frugal Rehabilitation Demonstration (FRD): developing and adapting the methodology (FRM) through action-research

Once demonstration sites are selected, local ASM groups receive training and are contracted to implement FRM through six steps:

Preparation & Planning: degradation, boundary, hydrological & equipment assessments; labor, volume estimates; waste management; OHS standards
Technical Rehabilitation: infill, regrading and reprofiling; use of limited mechanisation
Topsoils: identification, conservation and re-distribution across sites
Biological Rehabilitation: topsoil enrichment ; natural regeneration assessments; identification of native and key vegetation communities; seed collection; seeds and natural fertilizers distribution into topsoils; tree, shrub and grass plantings
Mitigation Hierarchy: integrating rehabilitation planning into active ASM design and operations so as to reduce primary environmental impacts and unnecessary rehabilitation efforts
Handover of completed rehabilitation site to relevant government administrations for approval/sign-off

National and local government permission to implement Frugal Rehabilitation Demonstration projects.
Resources to fund demonstration labour effort and technical application of methodology at site.
ASM capacity and willingness to receive training and implement the methodology on site.

Successful application of the FRM: all the key physical and ecological requirements for successful rehabilitation are (with few exceptions) available within reasonable proximity of the site. They just need to be identified and adapted to context.
Habitat rehabilitation targeted to native vegetation communities can be successful without the use of non-native species.
Identification and recovery of topsoils are critical to success.
Biological rehabilitation works well together with topsoil seedbank to establish a path to ecological recovery.
Low level mechanised approaches to heavy-lifting of material in topographic filling can be effective but a dependence on mechanisation in the later stages of rehabilitation is not recommended. Overuse of machinery in these latter phases can result in reduced capacity for biological recovery.
FRM can be applied in abandoned areas, where mineral reserves are exhausted, and it can also be integrated into current ASM operations to reduce rehabilitation efforts.
Handover and sign-off from local authorities is key to ensure ongoing commitment.

Documentation and dissemination of results

Establishment of National FRM working group with government and sectoral stakeholders

On the basis that government ministries are willing and able to work together to develop solutions to address impacts of ASM on the wider environment, Protected Areas and on stakeholders impacted by such mining activity, a national working group (which includes such ministries, agencies and relevant representative stakeholders) needs to be established. This will help steer the process of project engagement with local government, artisanal miners and wider stakeholders at the local level to set the scene for Frugal Rehabilitation Demonstration (FRD). A key step in this process is to select sites for FRD that can serve the development and application of the methodology within the ecological, economic and social context. The purpose of establishing this FRM working group is to ensure a participatory, consultative approach to the development of the methodology, and to enable a demonstration site selection process that ensures an informed and strategic approach based on agreed criteria. Sites selected for methodology demonstration need to be typical, representative and associated with formalised ASM capacity to undertake the rehabilitation.

The key enabling factors were the collaborative approach to developing the FRM and adequate resources to undertake the participatory approach both at meetings and in the field. The working group was involved in a coordinated travel program to select, assess, monitor and review rehabilitation progress and approaches at sites.

The working group’s participation and involvement in the development of the FRM was critical to its eventual endorsement and adoption. Key ministries and associated agencies played a role in selecting FRD sites, visiting them through the rehabilitation process and discussing the development of a methodology that was informed through action-research across a range of representative sites. It was also important to have exposure and engagement with formalised artisanal miners, who were keen to participate in the work and help develop a mechanism for promoting best practice and their association with such practice.

Planning phase

Implementation

Monitoring

Documentation and dissemination of results

Ministerial and Sectoral Alignment: a partnership-based approach to developing a Frugal Rehabilitation Methodology

Acknowledging and identifying conflicts between ministries and sectoral stakeholders is important. It is important at the early stages of an initiative to recognise these problems and to establish and work through a consultative platform to make the case for a methodology that is of value to all stakeholders, that is inclusive of artisanal miners and the stakeholders impacted by such mining as well as government ministries. It is only through such collaboration that a methodology can be developed that addresses environmental concerns, meets artisanal miners needs for performance-based incentives and access to land, and can be valued by government in formalising condition-based permitting for mining. It is within the context and platform of engagement that the FRM can be demonstrated to be of value to all stakeholders, and deliver outcomes at the local as well as national level.

Government recognition of range of problems across the sector
Government alignment on best environmental practices and effective enforcement
Government willingness to engage in wider partnerships to assess problems associated with informal ASM and to seek solutions and incentives for better environmental practices
National and stakeholder willingness for ASM formalisation to be conditional on environmental performance
ASM sector willing to implement FRM
Stakeholders willing to endorse ASM licensing based on improved environmental practices

It is critical for the initiative to have support from the national government, as a gateway to engaging with local government and other local stakeholders impacted by artisanal mining. Also, it is important that leading ministries that may potentially hold conflicting views (e.g. mining and environment) appreciate and support the initiatives’ capacity for developing solutions and approaches that can deliver benefits of interest to all parties (ministries).

Documentation and dissemination of results