FARMERS – A SOURCE OF HOPE
Traditional farmers, family farmers, and Indigenous peoples use dynamic time-tested knowledge and cultural practices developed over the ages.
They successfully overcome multiple stresses and respond to diverse social and environmental needs with diversity-based approaches and their deep ingenuity.
Domesticators, users, managers, and conservators have stewarded ancient agroecosystems across varied landscapes and seasons. The biodiversity they preserved generates the heterogeneity of crops required for resilient and sustainable agriculture and food systems.
This agricultural biodiversity perseveres as our only source of genetic variations for any agriculture. Further, this genetic material is supported by time-tested knowledge and cultural practices that can enhance the resilience and adaptive response of all humanity‘s food supply.
Traditional farmers are a source of hope for the world.
Where we must go
Most of the challenges facing world agriculture emanate from denying the critical importance of crop diversity and from ignoring or denigrating traditional farmers.
If we want agricultural resilience, sustainability, and adaptive response capacity, we must embrace heterogeneity and diversity in all forms.
We must foster synergistic collaboration with family and traditional farmers and Indigenous peoples. Family farmers who are custodians of a treasure trove of genetic variations hold the key to meeting the challenges of food and livelihood security and environmental sustainability.
For all of humanity and for the environment, commercial/industrial agriculture needs to work with family farmers’ cropping systems. And traditional farmers, Indigenous peoples, and pastoralists are available and committed to collaborative work. Synergism is the farmers’ way! Let’s work with them!
