The Brussels Development Briefing n. 59 on “Agroecology for Sustainable Food Systems” organised by CTA, the European Commission/EuropeAid, the ACP Secretariat, CONCORD and IPES-FOOD was held on Wednesday 15 January 2020 (9h00-13h00) at the ACP Secretariat, Avenue Georges Henri 451, 1200 Brussels. The briefing brought various perspectives and experiences on agroecological systems to support agricultural transformation. Experts presented trends and prospects for agroecological approaches and what it implies for the future of the food systems. Successes and innovative models in agroecology in different parts of the world and the lessons learned for upscaling them were also discussed.

1. By Mr Ibrahima Coulibaly
President of the Board of Directors of the
ROPPA
AGROECOLOGY PROSPECTS
FOR FAMILY FARMS: WEST
AFRICA

2. 1) SHORT
PRESENTATION
OF THE ROPPA
2) STRATEGIC
ISSUES IN THE
AGRICULTURAL
AND FOOD
ECONOMY IN
WEST AFRICA
3) FUNDAMENTALS
AND FAILURES OF
INTENSIFIED
FARMING BASED
ON THE GREEN
REVOLUTION
5) AGROECOLOGICAL
TRANSITION: WHAT
ARE THE PROSPECTS
FOR FAMILY FARMS
AND THE ROPPA?
4) AGROECOLOGY IN
WEST AFRICA: A
NECESSITY IN THE FACE
OF THE CURRENT
SITUATION AND
CHALLENGES
This presentation includes the following
sections:

3. 1) SHORT PRESENTATION OF THE ROPPA
The ROPPA: an initiative and desire by producer’s organisations (POs) to collectively
promote and defend family farming though the following priority areas:
Developing and increasing access for POs and family farms to appropriate and
adequate services for the sustainable transformation of family farms.
Developing/strengthening an inclusive political dialogue that promotes meaningful participation
of POs in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of development policies and strategies
in the agrosilvopastoral, forestry and fishing sector, with the aim of ensuring that the concerns,
desires and dynamics of family farms are taken into consideration. The ROPPA’s actions have
allowed the adoption of policies promoting food sovereignty and inclusion of family farming in
current agricultural policies (ECOWAP, PAU).
Support in strengthening the structure and institutional and organisational capacities of POs.
The ROPPA has assisted with the creation of national platforms in 13 ECOWAS countries that
serve to represent the opinions of POs in their respective countries.

4. 2) STRATEGIC ISSUES IN THE AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD ECONOMY
IN WEST AFRICA
Family farming is a production system that is affected by strategic issues in the agricultural and
food economy in West Africa, however it receives little support from public policies.
• Increasingly, the majority of demand for foodstuffs and agrifood by populations is handled
through territorial markets. Trade involving foodstuffs currently accounts for 90% of food
consumption in urban areas and around 50% of expenditure on food in rural areas. This
demand is increasingly served by local agricultural and food products from family farms.
• The food economy is currently the primary sector for wealth and job creation, despite the
growth of the service and mining sectors. It accounts for USD 178 million, some 36% of regional
GDP (OECD, 2018).
Production, dominated by family farming, remains the biggest segment, contributing around 60%
of the added value in the food economy; almost 32% of regional GDP and around 15% of export
revenue. Around 60% of the active population of close to 280 million inhabitants depends on the
agricultural production segment to cover their needs.

5. 2) STRATEGIC ISSUES IN THE AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD ECONOMY
IN WEST AFRICA
• Family farming dominates the production segment, providing over 90% of
agricultural and food produce and cultivating nearly 80% of farming land.
• This means that it ensures food security and sovereignty in production areas
and regions while also preserving natural resources.
• Despite this, family farming has long been severely marginalised with respect to
agricultural development policies and strategies, which have focused on crops
for export. At the same time, population growth, the effects of climate change
exacerbating pressure on natural resources and constraints from implemented
policies that have been decided on have over the years contributed to the
weakening of family farming strategies and preventing family farming from fully
playing its role in sustainable economic and social development in the region.

6. 3) FUNDAMENTALS AND FAILURES OF INTENSIFIED FARMING
BASED ON THE GREEN REVOLUTION
• The fundamental transformation of agriculture in West Africa began with the
series of droughts that occurred at the beginning of the 1970s.
• The resulting series of famines highlighted the limitations of the dual approach
that supports intensification of production in export sectors but abandons
family farming itself in favour of other production, in particular production
oriented towards the needs of territories.
• In this context, the solution devised and prescribed by international
cooperation, with the blessings and complicity of the local political elites, was
to spread agricultural intensification based on the principle of the green
revolution. This approach encompassed all crops in production areas, with the
aim of increasing yields and economic returns: mechanisation, improved seeds,
chemical pesticides and fertilisers, etc.

7. 3) FUNDAMENTALS AND FAILURES OF INTENSIFIED FARMING
BASED ON THE GREEN REVOLUTION
• As was the case in its European homelands, this vision of agricultural intensification
was not able to achieve the expected results in West Africa.
• In particular, the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) implemented from the
middle of the 1980s crippled multiple farming and food systems promoted by family
farming, resulting in measures that weakened investment and public services supporting
development in the sector, such as those providing agricultural advice.
• This resulted in West Africa becoming increasingly dependent on imports from the
international market from the middle of the 1990s. This fracturing of the food system
resulted in an annual food trade deficit of around 3 billion dollars (ECOWAS 2016).

8. 3) FUNDAMENTALS AND FAILURES OF INTENSIFIED FARMING
BASED ON THE GREEN REVOLUTION
• Public policies were also unsure of how to provide the necessary support so that the
potential of young people and women to contribute to the transformation of the sector
could be fully realised: lack of training, little access to productive resources, equipment and
technology, etc.
• To summarise, this intensification approach has, with the arrival of the SAP over the past
20 years, demonstrated the limitations of its marginal improvements in West Africa. The
agrosilvopastoral, forestry and fishing sector thus faces challenges that have become
both numerous and complex (sustainable nutrition and food security/sovereignty, securing land
rights, climate change, profitability of family farms to be able to keep running them in the future, etc.).
• For several years now, these challenges have resulted in a range of market
crises, themselves provoking increased migration of young people and armed
conflict, that are weakening social cohesion and peaceful coexistence in
certain communities.

9. 4) AGROECOLOGY IN WEST AFRICA: A NECESSITY IN THE FACE OF
THE CURRENT SITUATION AND CHALLENGES
• Despite current challenges in the agrosilvopastoral, forestry and fishing
production sector, it remains the primary source of livelihood and resilience in
many communities in West Africa.
• This is why, when faced with the dual crises in traditional production
practices and reservations with respect to the effects of industrial
agriculture, many communities have developed and/or consolidated
initiatives based on the principle of agroecology in order to maintain and
improve the productivity and production of family farms.
• In West Africa, these innovations founded on the principles of farming
agroecology are a result of an accumulation of practices, observations,
experiences, knowledge and expertise by farmers and communities over the
years.

10. 4) AGROECOLOGY IN WEST AFRICA: A NECESSITY IN THE FACE OF
THE CURRENT SITUATION AND CHALLENGES
• Across these innovations, the issue at stake is sustainable development and peace through the future of
agriculture in West Africa, maintaining it and the role it should play with respect to the expectations of
communities in the regions. This approach recommends rethinking the current agricultural and food system in
order to move away from instability, dependency (technical, financial, cultural, etc.) and ecological fragility.
• Agroecology thus appears to be a holistic response to the agricultural
challenges in West Africa and contributes to the ensuring the right to food
by proposing new foundations for a sustainable and nutritional food
system.
• It is backed by many farmer’s and civil society organisations. It is of course
difficult to measure its progress due to lack of statistics, however the tangible
results that it has allowed family farms to achieve suggest that an increasing
number of farmers are adopting it. A large amount of research has also
allowed the quality and relevance of farmers’ agroecology practices to be
receive greater recognition.

11. 4) AGROECOLOGY IN WEST AFRICA: A NECESSITY IN THE FACE OF
THE CURRENT SITUATION AND CHALLENGES
Overcoming challenges and scaling up agroecology: The solutions identified
focus primarily on two areas:
Due to the cross-sector nature of the transition to agroecology, it requires
simultaneous action in different spheres of influence (politics, research,
farming and civil society) and at different levels (local, national, regional
and international) to break free of the status quo.
Each stakeholder, at their respective level, is essential for the desired change.
The coordination of actions by different groups of stakeholders, the sharing of
their experience and the strengthening of their technical capacities in
agroecology are essential in providing the tools to allow scaling up.

12. 5) AGROECOLOGICAL TRANSITION: WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS
FOR FAMILY FARMS AND THE ROPPA?
At present, national platforms that are members of the ROPPA and their
farmers’ federations have tools to provide training and guidance for family
farms and their grassroots organisations to adopt an agroecological vision and
practices adapted to their context, to move from the individual level of the
territorial and national level. This is true of the CNOP in Mali, the CPF in Burkina
Faso, the CNCR in Senegal and the PFPN in Niger which themselves hold large
events such as the Agroecology Night in Senegal and the International Forum on
Agroecology in Nyéléni, Mali, to name but two.
ROPPA and its platforms are also committed to implementing peasant
agroecology with a holistic vision, as expressed in the seven pillars of the
Nyéléni Peasant Agroecology Manifesto1.

13. Pillar 1: Ensure that land, water, and other natural resources are safeguarded
This is the essential pillar. There can be no harmonious agricultural development
without the safeguarding and rational management of land and water by, and for, rural
communities. Farmers are the principal investors and the main food providers. Their
rights to land and natural resources must be safeguarded.
This means:
The safeguarding and legal recognition – with the exclusion of privatisation and
commodification – of traditional collective landholding rights and rights to natural
resources of villages and families.
Protecting the community rights of hunters, gatherers, fishers, and nomadic herders
to use and have access to common goods, namely forests, pastures, transhumance
routes, and water sources; simultaneously promoting the ecological and cultural
restoration of the past abundance of these common goods by means of local
agreements for the fair and balanced management of natural resources.
Establishing local institutions for conflict management and conflict resolution at the
village level that are inclusive of all community members, particularly women and
young people.
Adopting a territorial and holistic approach to social and economic questions
concerning natural resources.

14. Pillar 2: Place value on and safeguard biodiversity, peasant seeds and local breeds.
Natural biodiversity and the diversity of crops and farm animals
is the mainstay of present and future life.
It must be fostered and this means:
Making an inventory of the diversity of local peasant varieties
and animal breeds, working towards their multiplication and
recognising their nutritional and therapeutic qualities.
Guaranteeing the collective rights of peasants and
communities to freely use, save, exchange, and sell their
peasant seeds (putting into effect Article 9 of the ITPGRFA).
Preventing the bio-pirating of our natural resources and the
privatisation of life.
Resisting efforts by corporations and institutions to
misappropriate agroecology and their attempts to use it as a
way of promoting GMOs and other false solutions and
dangerous new biotechnologies.
ITPGRFA: International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture

15. Pillar 4: Promote local food systems that provide a range of foods that are
nutritious and therapeutic.
Our local food systems are the primary guarantors of our health,
our jobs, our environment and our identity.
This means:
Promoting local markets and local products: valuing these
products because they are healthy, flavourful, nutritious,
therapeutic...
 Supporting the development of infrastructure, institutions and
alternative means of financing in order to assist producers and
consumers.
Promoting peasant agroecology as the best way to reduce
losses and waste in the food system.
Ensuring that production, processing and marketing
regulations are adapted to the realities of local and peasant
agriculture, in order to relocalise food systems.

16. Pillar 5: Support and value the participation of women and young people.
The participation of women, who bring with them their knowledge, values,
vision and leadership is essential in order for agroecology to progress and to
fulfil its potential. The development and practice of peasant agroecology, with
its potential for social and ecological transformation now and in the future,
depend to a great extent on the participation of young people and women.
This means:
Fairness and equality with regard to landholding, decision-making, access
to services, rights, social status and remuneration.
Creating secure situations where women and young people can develop
their autonomy and providing them with the tools to do so.
Within the framework of peasant agroecology, establishing and supporting
social initiatives to keep young people in the countryside by creating a
flourishing collective life and providing decent incomes.
Encouraging the exchange and handing on of knowledge, especially from
one generation to the next.

17. Pillar 6: Strengthen synergies and alliances and collective organisational
processes.
It is of crucial importance to increase the development of peasant
agroecology on a larger scale through self-organisation and collective action.
This means:
Expanding and strengthening networks by promoting discussion spaces
and activities relating to peasant agroecology, from local to regional level.
Encouraging and supporting collective organisation directed towards
dynamic and living agroecological areas that contain a wealth of
environmental, productive and human diversity.
The expansion of our peasants’ and citizens’ movement to include public
research institutions and organisations, in order to serve the interests of
the people by giving priority to subjects related to peasant agroecology
and by developing truly collaborative research programmes that put
peasant knowledge at the heart of solutions.
Establishing continuing education training programmes to ensure the
sustainability of Agroecology.

18. Pillar 7: Act at the institutional, legislative and regulatory levels.
Ensure that peasant agroecology, according to the definition in this document, is recognised and put into
effect by our governments and by international institutions – as has begun to happen with the FAO – and by
local and regional authorities.
This means:
 Including peasant agroecology in public policies, particularly in policies concerning agriculture, health,
nutrition and education.
 Ensuring that 10% from Maputo goes towards supporting family farming based on peasant agriculture and
food sovereignty, while protecting our local economies in a context of regional integration involving the
actors of the AEP.
 Ensuring that produce from peasant agroecology is supplied to all food programmes and restaurants linked
to public services. This includes food that is served during workshops, forums, meetings and summits.
 Creating and maintaining peasant agroecology green belts, in conjunction with the relevant local
authorities and administrations, through the promotion of genuinely participative decentralised planning
processes.
 Opposing any agreement or treaty that jeopardises our peasant economies and identities.
 Peasant agroecology is the answer to the need for protection, security and sustainability for the world and
for humankind. Solidarity between peoples, as well as between rural and urban populations, is an essential
element in bringing it to fruition.

19. 5) AGROECOLOGICAL TRANSITION: WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS
FOR FAMILY FARMS AND THE ROPPA?
• The ROPPA is also committed to taking advantage of all events and
opportunities to advocate and work towards the development and
implementation of policies to promote peasant agroecology in West Africa and
its inclusion in PNIASAN, PRIASAN and PCD/TASAN to coordinate between
agricultural, trade and environmental policies. For this, the ROPPA is
committed to supporting and defending the rights of communities and rights-
holders, especially land and seed use, and to include them in these public
policies.
• In order for the changes to be effective and support broad scaling up, PO and
CSO networks must coordinate their actions in synergy, in the short-, mid-
and long-term. This mainly concerns:

20. 5) AGROECOLOGICAL TRANSITION: WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS
FOR FAMILY FARMS AND THE ROPPA?
• Strengthening coalitions to create a critical mass by involving all of the various stakeholder groups at the local,
national and regional level.
• Assisting farmers through consolidation of their training and apprenticeship tools and by developing synergies
with the tools of other stakeholders (NGOs, public authorities, projects, etc.).
• Promoting the consumption of agroecology products (developing local supply chains, strengthening
participatory guarantee systems in certain countries and the creation of a regional PGS – participative
certification, etc.).
• Reorienting research priorities and approaches via decompartmentalisation and by ensuring participative
creation of technologies and improved dissemination (production of standards, support in the participative
certification process).
• Encouraging producers to adopt agroecology practices (risk management, making agroecology products
synonymous with a quality standard, dissemination of tools adapted to agroecology, etc.).
• Strengthening ownership of agroecology through policies (food programme purchases by local authorities,
inclusion of agroecology in public health policies, appropriate measures and instruments to encourage and
support agroecology, strengthening innovation management instruments, promoting the protection of
natural resources and biodiversity, easing access to lucrative markets for products produced via agroecology,
etc.).

21. 5) AGROECOLOGICAL TRANSITION: WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS
FOR FAMILY FARMS AND THE ROPPA?
• It is with these prospects that the ROPPA, in
collaboration with IPES/FOOD and other stakeholder
groups, has founded the West African Agroecology
Alliance (Alliance pour l’Agroécologie en Afrique de
l’Ouest – 3AO) with the aim of consolidating efforts and
deepening discussions on agroecology. It is an inter-
sector cooperation platform that aims to (i) promote and
assist with the agroecology transition in West Africa and
(ii) strengthen synergies between various bodies and
action at different levels to increase advocacy, the
visibility of the movement and the impact of agroecology
initiatives.

22. What are the objectives of
3AO?
West African Agroecology Alliance (Alliance pour l’Agroécologie en Afrique de
l’Ouest – 3AO) is an inter-sector cooperation platform, that aims to:
• Promote and assist with the agroecology transition in West Africa
• Strengthen synergies between various bodies and action at different levels
to increase advocacy, the visibility of the movement and the impact of
agroecology initiatives.

23. 3AO action plan
The 3AO action plan includes around 50 initiatives, categorised into five priority areas:
Improve and strengthen
the governance of food
systems and reorient
farming funding.
1
Maximise the
combination of science
and farmer expertise:
Participative research
and consolidation of
knowledge.
Consolidate the
agroecology network and
mobilise civil society.
Strengthen our training
and farmer-to-farmer
apprenticeship systems.
Develop and strengthen
the local food system,
local and collective
partnerships/market
access.
2 3 4 5
The Alliance’s activities are organised around an evolving action plan that is used as a reference
and coordination framework.

24. How we operate
Members of the Alliance are involved in action plan initiatives, either:
- by being initiative leaders
- or being part of a support group
The initiatives listed in the action plan are generally the responsibility of so-called ‘leaders’, but
these leaders receive support, expertise and experience from organisations in the ‘support
group’.
This pooling of knowledge and expertise:
• Develops contacts
• Promotes the exchange of best practices
• Increases the visibility of work by members
• Avoids the risk of duplications efforts to achieve shared objectives

25. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION