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 About the Program
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 Enhancing Access to Land
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 Sustainable Agriculture
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 MODULE 2 - Sustainable Agriculture:
Proceedings Summary
Under the Third Country Training Program (TCTP) of the Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Government of
Japan and the Government of the Philippines through the Asian
NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) organized the course entitled, ?Building Capacities of Asian NGOs in Poverty Eradication through Community Action.? The module for FY 2005 was ?Sustainable Agriculture: a Viable Alternative for Resource-poor Farmers.?
Eradicating absolute poverty is becoming the single biggest challenge of development work today. The Asia-Pacific region is home to 75% of all poor people in the world. Most of them are in highly marginalized rural agricultural communities.
Poverty especially in rural communities places heavy stress on the natural resource base. At the same time, Asian agriculture is experiencing the backlash of years of environmental neglect. Studies have shown that the growth in aggregate output of rice has been declining over recent years due to rapid degradation of the environment. Pesticides poisoning, declining soil fertility, soil erosion, flash floods, and loss of biological diversity ? all these are reaching an alarming stage.
Global and regional trends denote a pattern of polarizing resources and markets to globalization with obscure benefits to the poor. Field initiatives should thus prepare for or change the effects of the threats globalization poses to food security and empowerment at the village level. Policy work that neutralizes these trends must be linked to practical field action, factored into strategies and applied at the regional level. As such, ensuring household food security is the best antidote to grassroots communities subjected to the forces of globalization.
It is imperative that household food security concerns as well as promoting community-based natural resource management are undertaken within the context of reducing poverty within rural communities. Among the many agricultural systems, Sustainable Agriculture (SA) practices and technologies have shown potential as an effective poverty reduction intervention. Moreover, it is a holistic approach to farming that is characterized by regenerative techniques inspired by indigenous knowledge systems.
The Internship program undertook to provide technical knowledge and practice on sustainable agriculture technologies. In general, it aimed to enhance the capacities of the participants in participatory research and documentation, community development planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.
At the end of the Internship program, the participants were expected to:
- Discuss the issues and trends in sustainable agriculture practices in Asia;
- Describe the basic concepts and principles of sustainable agriculture and apply the concept in developing agricultural activities;
- Demonstrate and explain sustainable agriculture practices and models;
- Understand the basics in community organizing in sustainable agriculture;
- Design sustainable agriculture training programs and conduct appropriate participatory training methods;
- Articulate sustainable agriculture policy issues and identify the different opportunities and resources available for sustainable agriculture programs and initiatives; and
- Promote/implement sustainable agriculture projects in the community.
The course proper was conducted for 20 days (inclusive of travel to the Philippines), from 06 November to 25 November 2005. It consisted of nine days of formal lecture, nine days of exposure visits to various places in Luzon and Mindanao, and one day to consolidate the training output.
The training program culminated in an action planning, where the participants agreed on the common goal of ?ensuring good quality of life to modern/environmentally conscious small farmers (men and women) in Asia?.
The participants? action plan consisted of the following components:
- Capacity building for sustainable agriculture;
- Information dissemination and management;
- Organization and networking;
- Policy reform/dialogue;
- Production enhancement;
- Marketing;
- Resource mobilization; and
- Enhancing relations among TCTP alumni.
In particular, the participants agreed to form the Asian Alliance on Sustainable Agriculture (AASA), whose objectives are, among others:
- Establishment of a website (updated monthly, to include databank of experts);
- Publication of an SA journal;
- Networking and membership building;
- Holding of annual meetings and regional workshops; and
- Training and exchange visits.
other modules:
MODULE 1 - Enhancing Access to Land (2004)
MODULE 3 - Participatory Local Governance (2006)
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