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      > SDIN & CSD
      Summary Points from Sections on Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Drought, Desertification and Africa from the Discussion Papers Submitted by the Major Groups for CSD 16

    Commission on Sustainable Development
    Sixteenth Session

    5 - 16 May 2008

    Thematic cluster for the implementation cycle
    2008-2009 - review session

     
    Women

    • Lack of effective monitoring and evaluation of existing systems
    • Overgrazing and soil erosion
    • Lack of financing
    • Low level of education among women
    • Lack of access, ownership and control over land
    • Climate change
    • Rural-urban migration
    • Loss of agricultural workers and farmers due to HIV/AIDS
    • Gender inequality as a constraint to growth and poverty reduction
    • Limited research attention to gender and women’s issues in agriculture
    • Ignorance of women’s fundamental human rights
    • Low numbers of women in agricultural extension
    • Inadequate training on bookkeeping
    • Lack of women’s participation in decision making
    • Low resource allocation to rural development
    Farmers

    • Lack of risk management tools
    • Climate change (adaptation and mitigation) and bioenergy as a promising tool for rural development
    • Limited access to land and high concentration
    • Weak institutional frameworks
    • Lack of financing
    • Reducing high cost of agricultural structures as a key to farmers’ profitability
    • Lack of education
    • Poor infrastructures
    • Lack of investment in agriculture for rural development
    • Inadequate rural services
    • Intensive use and high concentration on land
    • Inappropriate technology
    • Turning dry and degraded land areas into economic assets
    • Low participation in decision making process
    • Need to increase the market power of farmers and connect them to the markets
    • Payments to farmers for ecosystem services as a way to enhance sustainable agricultural practices
    • successful agricultural and rural development strategy requires investment in small farm agriculture so that subsistence farmers become small scale entrepreneurs
    • Promoting a farmers’ centred research approach
    Youth and Children

    • Climate change
    • Over-cultivation
    • Lack of technological training
    • Devastation of forests, monoculture and soil deterioration
    • Inadequate soil conservation, land management practices and natural resource programs
    • Decrease rainfall and overexploitation of dry lands
    • Lack of education
    • Increased number of HIV/AIDS
    • Urbanization
    • Lack of education and infrastructure
    • Food security problems due to the production of ethanol, biofuel and products for exportation
    • Lack of financing
    • Lack of control of and access to land
    • Increased use of genetically modified seeds
    • Injustice and inequality, which exacerbates widespread poverty and hunger
    Workers and Trade Unions

    • Climate change
    • The expansion of biofuel crops linked to deforestation
    • Lack of education
    • Lack of access to land and healthcare
    • Lack of financing
    • Increase number of HIV/AIDS leading to loss of household income
    • Child labour
    • The use of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) in food and agricultural production
    • The use of chemicals in agriculture increases environmental and human health problems
    • Inadequate environmentally sound technologies
    • Human insecurity, particularly job insecurity
    • Ethical recruitment of healthcare workers
    • Inadequate economic, political and social systems and services
    • Liberalized trading patterns buttressed by international agreements make it difficult for countries to protect themselves against inappropriate or dangerous innovations
    Non-Governmental Organizations

    • Water shortages and increasing competition for freshwater
    • Climate change and increasing vulnerability of poor populations
    • Nutrient imbalances, leading to an increase in dead zones and potentially exacerbated by initiatives such as ocean fertilization
    • War and conflict over land and natural resources
    • Insufficient agro ecological approaches to pest control and fertility management
    • Lack of control and access to land and water resources
    • Lack of financing
    • Lack of attention to sanitation
    • Poor extension services
    • Inadequate rural infrastructure
    • Rural urban migration and its impacts on rural areas
    • Rural voice unheard at policy and decision making levels
    • Food insecurity due to drought
    • Increasing use of GMOs in agricultural and food production.
    • Urbanization puts pressure on water and sanitation services
    • Lack of effective policy and local management approach
    • High cost of agricultural structures
    • Unimproved water management practices
    • Biofuel production, which imposes trade-offs
    • Weak institutional framework
    • Lack of effective monitoring and evaluation systems
    • Insufficient attention to water resource management
    • Inappropriate technology
    • Expropriation of forest land to give way to large scale industrial logging, industrial tree plantation and mono-cropping plantations
    • Promote food sovereignity, support existing cultures and boost the rural economy
    • Green revolution in Africa as an avenue for introduction of untested or insufficiently tested and proven crop varieties (GMOs, for example)
    • Fair trade and good pricing
    Indigenous Peoples

    • Climate change
    • Impacts of dams and mines on water resources
    • The use of agricultural chemicals which contaminates the natural water and irrigation sources
    • In Africa, inadequate potable water, sanitation and waste disposal in rural areas leave populations vulnerable to waterborne and other environmental diseases
    • Expropriation of forest land to give way to large scale industrial logging, industrial tree plantation and mono-cropping plantations
    • Recent developments affecting land rights
    • Inappropriate drainage system and flood protection measures
    • Loss of traditional riverine livelihood due to exploitation of river sources
    • Expansion of biofuel plantations
    • Increased use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture and food production (impact of biotechnology on food security
    • Lack of attention to income sources and income generating activities (such as charcoal)
    • Inequality of access to water
    Business and Industry

    • The lack of appropriate tenure in many developing countries serves as a disincentive to maintain and improve agricultural land
    • High (sustained) demand for agricultural goods against the backdrop of strained productive and natural resources
    • The need for site-specific (and therefore knowledge-intensive) solutions
    • A need for greater efficiency throughout the agri-food value chain (including the need to reduce pre- and post-harvest losses which average about 50% of yields)
    • The dramatically changing agricultural context (demographic, natural resource base and market picture)
    • Lack of financing
    • Agriculture is a key driver of the wider economy; smallholders must be assisted in transitioning to being entrepreneurs
    • Agriculture is a key driver of the wider economy; smallholders must be assisted in transitioning to being entrepreneurs
    • Increasing productivity on existing cropland is better than expanding into uncultivated areas
    • The importance of integrated farming within an ecosystem management approach
    Scientific and Technological Communities

    • Multifunctional agricultural systems: increasing production AND providing ecosystem services
    • Adaptation to climate change
    • Knowledge and technology transfer to small farmers in developing countries/lack of extension services
    • Benefits and risks of biofuels
    • Opportunities of biotechnology
    • Changing and enhancing agricultural S & T investments
    • Integrated land and water management to combat desertification
    • Locally suitable technologies in drylands
    • Insufficient monitoring of drylands
    • North-South and South-South S & T cooperation
    • Education for all among rural populations
    Local Authorities

    • Lack of infrastructure and rural services
    • In developed country cities, urban food production may be less sustainable in practice than its alternatives due to household-level energy consumption patterns, although there is much scope for changing practices towards sustainability
    • Increasing use of land for commercial purposes
    • Ineffective land use policies
    • Lack of access to land
    • Lack of effective urban investment, planning and management to deal with urban migration
    • Lack of the necessary infrastructure, mostly in a developing country context, to handle increases in urban migration as a result of desertification
    • Lack of effective water demand management and water conservation plans
    • Lack of appropriate land tenure
     
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