Summary of 4.5/ Open Space Format Session Brave Farmers, Green Belts and Wrong Debates ,2 l T h u r s d ay ek 20 e W 3 April 15 al Soil b o § G Open Space Format Session 4.5 Brave Farmers, Green Belts and Wrong Debates 23 Date Thursday, 23 April 2015 OSFS Rapporteur: Ingrid Hartmann – DRYRES, Consultants for drylands research and drylands resilience, Germany ([email protected]) Hailu Araya – ISD-Institute for Sustainable Development/BPA- Best Practice Association, Ethiopia ([email protected]) Summary The session combined a puzzle of presentations and a simulation game which were connected by a red thread of multi-stakeholder approaches of soil protection to ensure food security and development. It was highlighted in the introduction, that within food security as composed of food production, food accessibility and food utilization it would be the soils, which would determine the level of food production, but different stakeholders who would determine food access and utilization, while it would also the access to soils, and therefore land tenure issues, which would also determine food access to a certain degree. The first presentation (Hailu Araya, Best Practice Association and Institute for Sustainable Development) showed examples of multi-functional agricultural practices in Konso, Ethiopia, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site, famous for its terraces. A particular agricultural practice of accelerated soil generation and accumulation of organic matter, based on the crushing of natural rocks was illustrated. Participants mentioned that the system enabled the building © Hailu Araya © Hailu Araya Figure 1 – Hillside squared terraces supported by mulching 2_ Rapporteurs_ Reports_Global Soil Week 2015 Figure 2 – teff field in mulch and squared of microbial body substance through the mechanical accumulation of organic matter in the system and therefore enabled the establishment of a “living soil”. The photo shows a lie bund in hilly background. The support or the bunds are also used as mulch. © Ingrid Hartmann A second presentation by the same author under the title “The Wrong Debate” addressed the claim of different “schools” of agriculture to be the only one to feed the world, a discourse mainly led between organic/traditional versus conventional agriculture. Participants mentioned other claims, which would go beyond the view of these schools, such as “farmers feed the world” or “microbes feed the world”. Finally, the claim of any school to provide food security was led ad absurdum, as was intended to show. Participants discussed, how boundaries between different agricultural schools and systems could be overcome through more common categories instead, and it was concluded these could be the characteristics of a system to ensure sufficient quantity of food in sufficient quality without damaging the environment and environmental services. The responsibilities of current generations for the coming generations to ensure ecological sustainability in food systems was mentioned. Sustainability studies as currently offered in various German Universities were highlighted as an instrument to create better awareness on these issues. © xxxxxxxxxxxxx The invisibility of soils became an important issue during the discussions, and one participants compared the need to address the invisibility of soils with the same engagement as in earlier days the danger of the invisible nuclear energy had been addressed. The third presentation (Ingrid Hartmann, DRYRES) added to the topic of physical invisibility of soils also the political invisibility of initiatives which address soil and desertification issues, with the Great Green Green Wall as a most prominent initiative, which still has not received sufficient attention within the current political agenda up to now. In a final contribution the problem of invisibility of soils by the same author was attributed to the position of soil functions within the ecosystem as mainly sustaining or regulating other -provisioning – ecosystem services, such as water, food, biodiversity etc.. While it would be those provisioning services which would be at the interface between humans and ecosystems, these would receive higher awareness and political attention, while there would be less attentation and awareness for soil functions, since they would not have direct impacts on human well-being, therefore remaining in the realm of invisibility. To demonstrate these relations through a simulation game, the author introduced a prototype of a simulation game (European type like Monopoly, Agricola etc..), which simulates actors’ behaviours under different scenarios, based on assumptions like increasing costs for rehabilitation with increasing degradation, policy impacts which enhance soil erosion and pollution, climate change impacts of land use changes, the impacts of soil quality on food crop productivity. One round of the game was played by all participants. Rapporteurs_ Reports_Global Soil Week 2015_ 3 23