Agroecology, an answer to farmers’ anger?

While farmers’ anger is growing in Switzerland, voices are being raised calling for more local and sustainable agriculture. Is agroecology the solution? For SWISSAID, it is the right way to improve food security in the South and at the same time protect our environment sustainably.

But can agroecology feed the planet and its nine billion inhabitants?what is the experience in Switzerland and in the countries of the South, especially where SWISSAID is active? What are the results of agroecological practices? What are the prospects and challenges?

🌱 Take part in our online event and exchange views on the realities of farmers in Switzerland and the Global South 🌱

Join us on April 25, 2024 to discuss the following topics:

• Field reports from Guinea-Bissau, where agroecology is already showing its effectiveness.
• The pressing challenges of our global food system and what concrete and sustainable answers agroecology offers
• The prospects for healthy nutrition in harmony with our environment.

Share your thoughts and opinions or learn more about agroecology. To enrich this discussion, three speakers will be present on this day.

• Aissé Barry, Program Manager for SWISSAID in Guinea-Bissau
• Bernard Lehmann, former Director of the Federal Office for Agriculture and President of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL
• Anne Chenevard, farmer, president of the Lait équitable cooperative and nurse

Date: Thursday, April 25, 2024, 12:30 p.m. (Swiss time) and 10:30 a.m. in Guinea-Bissau

Place: Online

Language: Discussion and moderation will be simultaneously translated from French into German

Registrations are closed

The current farmers’ protests in Europe highlight the difficulties of the rural world and the weaknesses of our food system. Droughts, floods, unstable weather conditions: The consequences of climate change are making the work of farmers increasingly difficult. Added to this is the pressure of competition from imported products, the opaque margins of large distributors, consumers who are paying more attention to their food expenditure in this time of rising costs and critical voices on the costs of agricultural policy.

Farmers in countries of the global South are also facing complex realities. They are particularly hard hit by the effects of climate change, even though they hardly contribute to global warming. In the Horn of Africa, farmers have been unable to harvest anything for five years because the rains have failed more and more often. There is an acute food shortage. In this region, one person dies of hunger every 36 seconds.

In Chad and Niger, where SWISSAID is active, heavy rains have fallen in recent years over areas of land that were already parched by extreme heat. Entire harvests were destroyed, further exacerbating food insecurity in these countries, which were already severely affected by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Hunger is also spreading in West Asia and the Caribbean.

There are ways to improve the situation: local production and consumption, promotion of short supply chains and natural cycles, use of traditional seeds, far-reaching reforms of our food systems and support for the transition to more sustainable agriculture. For SWISSAID, agroecology is the sustainable solution to improving food security. This approach is a cornerstone of its commitment to access to healthy and sufficient food for all and to the sustainable protection of our environment.