GREEN ECONOMY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
3.1.2
3.1.3
Case Study: An Organic Action Plan for Scotland16
Case Study: Striving for self-reliance through green agriculture in Cuba18
In 2011 the Action Plan for Organic Food and Farming in Scotland was prepared by the Scottish Government, in partnership with the Scottish Organic Forum. It aims to promote organic agriculture in Scotland, which in 2009 consisted of 4% of the country’s total agricultural area.
Up until the 1990s, Cuba was heavily reliant on the Soviet Union for food and fuel, leaving the country in a difficult position when the Soviet Union collapsed and the US trade embargo took full effect. As a result, the government declared an ‘Alternative Model’ as the overarching official policy, which focused agriculture on resource conserving technologies as well as local knowledge and resources. Incentives included the diversification of agriculture (an important premise of green agriculture), the breeding of oxen to replace tractors and the replacement of pesticides with traditional methods of pest control. Efforts went beyond methods of agriculture, to the social impacts of green agriculture: encouraging people to remain in rural areas, promoting cooperation and providing wide-spread training. Policies that intended to make Cuba self-reliant and promote food security, led in fact to significant and long-term changes in the agricultural system.
There is funding for both conversion to, and maintenance of, organic farming under the auspices of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP). The funding is competitive and based on recognition of the environmental public benefits delivered by organic farming. However, some problems with access to the funding have been reported, with unfortunate consequences. The area of certified organic land in Scotland is down from 225,137 hectares in 2008, to 176,000 hectares in 2010. 80% of farmers leaving the sector attributed their choice to the lack of access to maintenance funding.17 This highlights the value and need for government support of the organic industry. The Action Plan makes a commitment on behalf of the government to issue better guidance on access to funding through the use of regional coordinators. Through this Action Plan, Scotland is committing to a strong institutional framework for disseminating information about organic farming. A promising element of the funding system consists in the fact that a farmer must make a 5 year commitment to farming the relevant land organically. This helps ensure that the practices are not abandoned where setbacks are encountered.
16 “Organic Futures: An Action Plan for organic food and farming in Scotland” (2011). Available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/ Doc/917/0115995.pdf (last accessed 7/11/2011) 17 “News - Scottish organic farmers in crisis as sales plummet”, Organic Portal (2011). Available at http://www.organicportal.info/index. php/home-mainmenu-1/news-mainmenu-2/1-latest/1120-newsscottish-organic-farmers-in-crisis-as-sales-plummet.html (last accessed 7/11/2011)
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Under this ‘Alternative Model,’ the Cuban National Program of Action for Nutrition (PNAN)19 was established to produce policies aimed at addressing the food crisis. The resulting strategies included the reduction of post-harvest losses. Selling directly to consumers in cities by way of urban agriculture promoted the effective use of vacant lots in cities. Changes in land use promoted the widespread decentralisation of land holdings and management, diversification of agricultural production and the transformation of land tenure for State-owned lands. The Grupo de Agricultura Organica (Organic Agriculture Group) brings together farmers, field managers, experts and government officials. The aim of the Group is to convince farmers that organic based agriculture is viable. There have been some problems, such as coordinating the various actors, decentralising food production and convincing sceptical farmers. Overall, the result of the agricultural changes have nonetheless been widely hailed as an important achievement, with food production up from 1000 kcal/day in the early 1990s, to 2700 kcal/day by the end of the 1990s. 18 FAO, “Challenges and Perspectives for the World Summit on Sustainable Development Johannesburg 2002” (2002) Part 3. Available at http:// www.fao.org/docrep/006/Y3951E/y3951e07.htm (last accessed 13/11/2011) 19 Funes-Monzote “Towards sustainable agriculture in Cuba”. Available at http://campus.usal.es/~ehe/Papers/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20 Towards%20sustainable%20agriculture%20in%20Cuba%201st%20 August%5B1%5D.pdf (last accessed 21/11/2011)