Summary Report of Activities, 2012-2013
This report has been prepared for the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research Steering Committee meeting of 21 February, 2013. It summarizes the work in which PAR, its secretariat and collaborators have been involved during 2012 and provides information about activities planned for 2013.
Secretariat provided and hosted by Bioversity International
1. Programme activities
1.1 Climate change and agrobiodiversity
The use of agrobiodiversity to cope with climate change
The analysis of the use of agrobiodiversity by rural communities and indigenous peoples coping with climate change has been published as a paper in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability as:
The role of agricultural biodiversity in strengthening resilience to climate change: towards an analytical framework, Dunja Mijatovic , Frederik Van Oudenhoven, Pablo Eyzaguirre and Toby Hodgkin.
The summary of the paper states:
A review of 172 case studies and project reports from around the world shows that agricultural biodiversity contributes to resilience through a number of, often combined, strategies: the protection and restoration of ecosystems, the sustainable use of soil and water resources, agro-forestry, diversification of farming systems, various adjustments in cultivation practices and the use of stress-tolerant crops and crop improvement. Using social–ecological systems theory as a conceptual framework, these practices are examined to identify indicators of resilience in agricultural landscapes. The indicators are a first step in the development of a framework for assessing and building climate change resilience, intended both for local communities and for the scientists and organizations working closely with them. The framework can be used to (i) identify biodiversity management practices and social institutions that can be encouraged as ways to strengthen resilience, (ii) monitor the resilience of a landscape/community over time and (iii) aggregate and compare data across communities and landscapes
Access to genetic resources and climate change
In 2011, work was initiated with indigenous communities and national research partners in Bolivia and Sarawak, Malaysia, with the ultimate aim of developing a general methodological framework that could help secure meaningful access by communities to methods that improve agricultural adaptability to climate change without threatening indigenous agrobiodiversity (see the Report “Strengthening the maintenance and use of agrobiodiversity by indigenous and traditional agricultural communities adapting to climate change[1]”). The work undertaken focused particularly on the development of fair and informed working relationships between the different groups (indigenous peoples, genebank researchers and scientists) and on the processes involved in determining the need for new materials in ways that were driven by the communities.
The work provided additional information on the maintenance of traditional materials and access to new adapted resources suitable for different climate change scenarios for the different communities who have chosen to work with PAR. The operation of a Free Prior Informed Consent Agreement was tested and reviewed by all partners; the maintenance of diversity was evaluated; and the feasibility of introducing practices such as community biodiversity registers, participatory varietal selection and community seed stores, was explored by the participating communities. Most importantly, both participating communities have been able to access and evaluate new materials in their key staple crops – rice and potato. From these experiences, PAR believes it is possible to develop some general methodological approaches which recognize community interests and aspirations, help maintain existing agrobiodiversity and provide pathways for introducing new useful materials as environmental and agronomic conditions change.
1.2 An assessment of current knowledge and debates on alternative land use approaches to achieving agricultural and conservation objectives.
The ongoing debate over “land sparing” versus “land sharing” revolves around the questions how to feed 9 billion people by 2050 and whether biodiversity can be best conserved through agricultural intensification that increases the productivity of existing cropland (land sparing) or through alternative approaches (e.g. agroecology, wildlife-friendly farming) that enable the coexistence of biodiversity and agriculture on the same land (land sharing). The knowledge and evidence gaps surrounding the land sharing or land sparing question are large, particularly in the context of environmental and social change. Moreover, the issues of, for example, land grabbing and the production of biofuels, make the identification and implementation of sustainable land use strategies highly problematic.
In the debate, the importance of agrobiodiversity for the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and rural communities is largely neglected. In response, PAR is undertaking an analysis of available information and experiences on ‘land sparing’ and ‘land sharing’ approaches, and bringing together a small group of civil society and indigenous peoples’ representatives with agricultural and conservation scientists to explore the issues raised by this debate from the perspective of indigenous rural communities. The four main activities, and the progresses made so far, are described below.
1. Collection and review of available information and experiences on land sharing and land sparing (December 2012 – April 2013)
Relevant scientific and other literature is being compiled and reviewed. Scientific literature on land sparing or land sharing approaches is being analyzed to assess the extent of evidence and the validity the claims made in relation to biodiversity conservation, agricultural productivity and ecosystem services. In addition, information from and community-based projects and communities who have relevant experiences is being compiled to be reviewed.
2. Preparation and circulation of a discussion paper (April, 2013)
The collection, review and analysis of available information will provide the basis for the preparation of a discussion paper which will summarize the findings and identify major issues identified by the analysis. This discussion paper will be circulated for comment and review by selected scientists and individuals from indigenous organizations and scientists.
3. Convening a workshop (3-7 June 2013, Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Together with the Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples Foundation (IKAP), PAR will convene a meeting which will bring together indigenous peoples and civil society groups with selected agricultural and conservation expertise to consider the findings of the information gathering process, to identify areas of concern or where further work is required and to relate the findings to wider issues in current agricultural land management (such as land grabbing). A key task of the meeting will be to ensure that the findings and proposals are developed in ways that are directly relevant to the realities and experiences of indigenous peoples and rural communities.
4. Preparing and publishing final documents (July- December 2013)
The conclusions of the workshop will be integrated into a final set of documents which will be distributed and used to raise awareness of the issues, present a clear analysis of issues and options, and to present an agenda for relevant research and other appropriate actions. Publication of key elements of the work in scientific journals and preparation of other materials for use by different civil society and indigenous peoples’ groups will also be undertaken.
The information collection, review and analysis are undertaken by Dunja Mijatovic supervised by Toby Hodgkin and Pablo Eyzaguirre. Dunja also coordinates the organization of the workshop.
1.3 Landscapes for People Food and Nature
During 2012 PAR supported the work of the Ecoagriculture Partners led initiative “Landscapes for People, Food and Nature”. The Coordinator participated in the development of one of the knowledge products “Assessing the scale and scalability of agroecological approaches to increasing productivity and securing ecosystem services” and, thanks to financial support from Bioversity, participated in the global meeting of the initiative held in Nairobi in March, 2012. PAR also publicizes the work of the initiative on its website. PAR would hope to make the knowledge products from this initiative available through its website as they become available.
1.4 EU Project – LIBERATION
PAR has been identified as a partner supporting FAO in the EU funded project: Project full title: "LInking farmland Biodiversity to Ecosystem seRvices for effective ecofunctional intensificATION " (LIBERATION). Over the 4 years of the project we will work with FAO on the development of a glossary, supporting preparation of case studies, some relevant training activities and helping with the organization of an international workshop. The project will be further discussed during the SC.
2. Website development and communications
PAR’s web site is organized in a family of integrated web sites that share information news and metadata (fig 1)
The PAR website (http://agrobiodiversityplatform.org/), dealing with general agrobiodiversity matters now hosts three sub-sites that focus on specific agrobiodiversity thematics:
· PAR Researchers’ Database or PAR-RD (http://agrobiodiversityplatform.org/database/);
· PAR Climate Change or PAR-CC(http://agrobiodiversityplatform.org/climatechange);
· PAR Crop Biodiversity to Reduce Pest and Disease Damage or PAR-P&D (http://agrobiodiversityplatform.org/cropbiodiversity/)
This information architecture construction and the opportunity to add on additional sub sites meets PAR’s objective to facilitate partnerships and sharing of information.
In summer 2012 we experienced a large amount of spam and server overload due to malfunctioning of some parts of software. We therefore had to shut down parts of the web site, appoint a new web master (Urska Merc) and address the bugs. The following tasks have been undertaken by Urska:
■ Testing server was set up
■ System analysis - initially, a lot of attention was dedicated to figuring out why the server overload occurred and how best to avoid this in the future; the analysis served to draw up a workplan.
■ Plugins analysed, tested, and redeployed if needed, or left deactivated if unclear or not needed - currently, 28 plugins are active (as opposed to 81 plugins at the time of server overload).
■ Debugging (debugging of PHP code of plugins and widgets) and testing (all operations are first tested on the testing server and only brought to the production server once approved).
■ Additional plugins installed, e.g. a caching plugin to address server load and performance issues, a plugin for advanced custom fields (employed for segmenting content, e.g. the Source field used for the input of name of author/organisation if this is different from the person posting the article), etc.
■ Updates WordPress and plugins updated (version 3.5.1 is currently installed, the latest stable release of WP; plugins are updated regularly).
▪ Backup (daily backup has been reinstated, weekly backup is made off location).
▪ Monitoring - the website and its impact on the server are regularly monitored.
▪ Google Analytics account unified (one account to monitor all websites).
▪ Search engine examined, databases reindexed, and search results are now displayed properly, without empty hits; search navigation has been reinstated, “Community area” tab has been removed.
■ Carousels have been debugged and redeployed
■ Researcher DB website - the functionalities of the website have been redeployed after having been examined, corrected and tested. Queries and relations between elements (e.g. researcher-field of expertise, or researcher-institution, etc.) now work, as do the forms for submitting information on researchers/institutions.
■ Styling - changes to the look and feel have been proposed and are being gradually implemented with a focus on usability, simplification, readability, and removal of clutter, but in line with the original style of the websites
○ Central content section on aggregate pages like the homepage and category pages, is now a single column with a cleaner and de-cluttered look
○ Single pages have also been redesigned to a single column, a category as a navigational aid appears above the title, the metadata includes the date of posting and the additional field “Source” has been introduced and is displayed only if content has been repurposed from other information outlets.. Metadata previously displayed left of the main content has been moved below the main content to improve the reading experience.
○ Footers now have a more unified look across all sites offering improved readability and usability.
■ Information architecture - a proposal has been submitted - and approved - to change the way content is categorised, and to change navigation accordingly. The proposal is currently under deployment.
■ Content management - in parallel to styling changes, a number of posts have been re- edited to ensure consistent display. For these items, semantic markup has also been optimised. Spam was removed from Comments.
■ Researchers database functionalities were reestablished. This database seeks to improve communication between those working on agrobiodiversity and to place scientific expertise more directly at the service of other users of the website. At present 150 experts are included in the database and an equal number of experts that have registered will soon be uploaded to the system.
Additional web site activities
ResilienceFARM web site
PAR will soon host a new database driven web site that compiles research and reviews on climate risk management in smallholder agriculture, creating a versatile web tool to search, aggregate and analyze attributes and outcomes of farming systems under different scenarios and risks. This web site on resilience, indicators and farming practices supports learning and sharing the opportunities provided by for example agrobiodiversity by exploring evidence based strategies that improve livelihoods and safeguard natural resources. The tentative name for the web site is The ResilienceFARM (Resilience Framework for Agriculture and Risk Management Database). It seeks to add value to existing work and reviews conducted by CGIAR centres through the creation of an analytical database of global case studies. The work that led to this database has been commissioned by CCAFS and will be presented at the CCAFS Science meeting “Achieving more impact through connecting, engaging and learning with communities and other key actors[2]” scheduled for 18th and 19th of March 2013 in California.
3. International links and activities
PAR has continued to be active in a number of international processes and initiatives throughout 2012. The list below is incomplete but gives an indication of the range of PAR’s involvement over the last year.
Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
Inputs made on the preparation of the first report on the State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture in response to the call by the Commission Secretariat.
Convention on Biological Diversity, COP11 Hyderabad
PAR participated in COP11. The delegation consisted of Toby Hodgkin, Dunja Mijatovic and Cornelis Van Duijvendijk. Toby facilitated a side event on agrobiodiversity and we participated in many others working closely with Bioversity, FAO and other partners. Agrobiodiversity was a significant topic in events associated with COP although it was largely absent from the formal debates. In a new initiative, the PAR website provided coverage of the COP11 activities of ourselves and our partners, flagging upcoming events and reporting on some of the activities.