Ndiob is the first municipality that launched the territorial approach to rural development in Senegal. In June 2014, a new municipal council had been installed, which formally defined and adopted its vision “to make Ndiob a green municipality, resilient through a process of economic and social development and welfare, inclusive and respectful for human rights, in particular towards vulnerable communities.” This orientation had been already defined by the municipal members during the election campaign and had then been also endorsed by the Green Party of Senegal.

To implement its vision, the municipality – led by a very engaged Mayor – was supported by the NGO ENDA PRONAT that is promoting agroecology in West Africa. ENDA PRONAT conducted a participatory analysis of community needs involving more than 1,000 local people and actors (50 percent were women). It carried out an evaluation of production systems and developed an Agricultural Development Programme, which was understood and accepted by the local community.

Adopted first by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, the Good Food Purchasing Program ® creates a transparent supply chain and helps institutions to measure and then make shifts in their food purchases.

Its objectives are:

• To harness the purchasing power of major institutions to encourage greater production of sustainably produced food, healthy eating, respect for workers’ rights, humane treatment of animals and support for the local small business economy.
• To shift as many dollars as possible towards Good Food in order to achieve an economy of scale.

TEEB, known for its pioneering research on the economic values of nature in 2010, brought together more than 150 experts from 33 countries to deliver a strong and urgent message to the global community on the need for a transformation of our agriculture and food systems that is sustainable, equitable, and healthy. The TEEBAgriFood initiative brings together scientists, economists, policymakers, business leaders, and farmers’ organizations to agree on how to frame, undertake and use holistic evaluations of agricultural systems, practices, products, and policy scenarios against a comprehensive range of impacts and dependencies across food value chains.

TEEBAgriFood is a systems approach for bringing together the various disciplines and perspectives related to agriculture and food, a framework for evaluation that supports the comprehensive, universal and inclusive assessment of eco-agri-food systems, a set of methodologies and tools for the measurement of positive and negative externalities, and a theory of change to help integrate TEEBAgriFood into the wide landscape of platforms and initiatives, like the SDGs, that are tackling these complex issues. It therefore plays a crucial role in the transformation of food and agriculture systems.

When Mayor Rommel C. Arnado was elected in May 2010, Kauswagan was still heavily affected by the Moro conflict. The first initiative that the administration made was to understand the causes at the root of the conflict in its community. A multisector technical working group was established and sent out to the remotest areas of the municipality to discuss directly with civilian and fighters. Additionally, several peace workshops were organized in conflict-affected areas. Arnado and his staff came to the conclusion that to achieve peace and stability it was necessary to address food security, poverty, hunger and inequalities. Through this bottom-up approach, a comprehensive community driven plan for peace and development called Sustainable Integrated Kauswagen Development and Peace Agenda (SIKAD-PA) was initiated, of which the From Arms to Farms Programme is a subcomponent.

Rooted in the Danish political ambition to design policies that enable the private and public sector to become more innovative and competitive, the Minister of Agriculture put in place clear procedures for involving relevant stakeholders in order to ensure that the plan could meet the needs of the sector. Involvement was secured at the beginning of the plan development process based on a year-long consultation process and collaboration with the organic sector.

The history of governmental support to organic farming in Denmark starts in 1987, when the Danish Parliament adopted the Organic Farming Act, which laid down the basic structure of Danish organic farming policy, which still remains today. Permanent subsidies for organic farming were introduced in 1994. Early Organic Action Plans (OAPs) were established from 1995 to 1999.

The current OAP ‘Working together for more organics’ covers the period 2011 to 2020. It was revised and expanded in 2015, following a change of Government. The plan aims at doubling the land area of organic production by 2020 (against a baseline of 2007), and earmarks specific budgets over the period 2015 to 2018 to a set of different action-points. This plan was initiated by the Ministry for Agriculture and developed with the assistance of an external consultant.

Between 2003 and 2010, several pilot programmes supporting organic farming were launched, including the implementation of bio-villages where farmers were trained in organic farming practices and the production of organic inputs such as composting, organic fertilizers and organic pesticide using with local plants and cow urine. During this period, the government also invested substantially in the construction of vermicomposting pits. By 2009, more than 100 villages had benefited from these programmes, reaching 10,000 farmers in all four districts of the state.

Under the Sikkim Organic Mission, launched in 2010, a number of additional actions to support organic agriculture were implemented, including capacity building, organic seed and planting material production, setting up a seed and soil testing laboratory, operation of Sikkim Organic retail outlet at New Delhi, the inclusion of organic farming in school curricula, the conversion of the two state government farms at Nazitam and Mellidara, which became Organic Centres of Excellence for conducting organic farming demonstrations and trials, and the launch of three livelihood schools as training centres for unemployed youth.

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

1. Preparation & Planning: degradation, boundary, hydrological & equipment assessments; labor, volume estimates; waste management; OHS standards
2. Technical Rehabilitation: infill, regrading and reprofiling; use of limited mechanisation
3. Topsoils: identification, conservation and re-distribution across sites
4. 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
5. Mitigation Hierarchy: integrating rehabilitation planning into active ASM design and operations so as to reduce primary environmental impacts and unnecessary rehabilitation efforts
6. Handover of completed rehabilitation site to relevant government administrations for approval/sign-off

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.