Ecological Agriculture Promotion Project

What is the Ecologistas en Acción's Proyecto de Fomento de la Agricultura Ecológica (Ecological Agriculture Promotion Project)?

This project comprises Training Actions dealing with ecological food production and trading, a Consultancy Service concerning ecological agriculture production and an International Seminar about Canales Cortos de Comercialización (Short Supply Networks) for Ecological Agriculture as well as an agricultural activity promotion and ecological food consumption campaign.

This programme is addressed to workers in rural areas from the Spanish Autonomous Communities Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura and Andalusia and it is to be developed between October 2009 and February 2011.

Target group of this project

This project is addressed to those workers on active service from the rural areas residing in the Spanish Autonomous Communities Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura and Andalusia. On the whole, we intend 820 workers from those territories to join our project.

Among the residents from those areas, those who have preferential rights to profit from these services are:
Women.
People with disabilities.
Foreign population.
People over 45.
Low-skilled workers.
Residents from uninhabited or protected areas (Biosphere Reserves, Regional, Natural and National Parks, Common Interest Places, Special Protection Bird Areas, etc.).
Environmental sector workers (Management of wastes, alternative energy, Natural Areas Management, Environmental Education, Ecological Agriculture).

Planned Actions

The project will be carried on between October 2009 and February 2011 from an integral intervention through three action lines: training, consultancy and the promotion of Short Supply Networks. Through this project the ecological agricultural activity is intended to be increased in those territories concerned with emphasis on socially sensitive communities such as women, low-skilled workers and foreign population.

The training will entail an introduction to ecological agriculture as a whole, as well as to the correct economic management of agroecological farms. This task focuses on some of the main and most common cultivations from the areas concerned by this project, in particular on those cultivations more likely to be turned into ecological farming such as olive fields. It also focuses on those cultivations that create more employment, that are more incoming-producing by unit of area and are more likely to open the ecological market such as fruit trees farming. Finally, we will deal with the management of agriculture wastes that have become a big problem, even though they can be reused as fertilizers for ecological farming in order to develop Ecological Agriculture in less productive areas.

This training task entails a permanent Consultancy Service addressed to people wanting to change their conventional agriculture practices into ecological cultivation and to improve the agriculture practices from already certified ecological cultivations as well as to market their products. Moreover, a wide campaign will be developed to promote ecological agriculture among workers and consumers from rural areas in the territories concerned by this project.

The promotion of the Short Supply Networks will be the core of our project because it represents the best opportunity for the small farms that are more likely to be changed into ecological agriculture and to provide the permanent population of rural areas with incomes. This way, our project is to conclude at the end of February 2010 when an International Seminar dealing with Short Supply Networks will be held. During this seminar some examples of successfully developed relationships between producers and consumers in Japan and the U.S., France, Italy and Portugal will be put forward in order to energize this movement throughout the territory concerned by our project.

Agroecology: a sustainable development alternative

During the second half of the 20th century, the agricultural activity in Spain has gone from being the main economical activity in human society to a remaining activity. Since 1975 the economically active population from the agriculture sector has fallen from a 25% to the current 4%, one million and a half jobs have been lost as a consequence. It meant a huge transformation that provoked deep social and cultural changes related to the urbanization of the Spanish population that went from the 75% in rural areas during 1900 to the current 25%. Along with this trend towards giving up the activity, a productive extensification process was developed in less productive areas and labor was reduced due to the introduction of subsidized cultivation with a guaranteed marketing and prices directed by the EU. It has provoked a wide underutilization of agriculture resources in many areas.

However, since 2009, Spain is the European country with the highest extension of ecological cultivations and the number of certified cultivations is growing more than a 10% a year since the mid nineties. This means an important opportunity for rural development in those areas as well as an undeniable positive impact on environment. Supporting the change of new cultivations into ecological farming is a very interesting endeavour that may create wealth and employments in these areas through a more intensive use of territory and workforce1, by means of more productive and sustainable practices. At the same time, the development of ecological food domestic consumption in Spain and local consumption in the production areas is the complementary support to the creation of new agroecological models of Rural Development. These models, along with Short Supply Networks, enable the value added of the agriculture production to be to the benefit of small cultivations and rural population in such a way so as to improve rural economies through sustainability.

Ecologistas en Acción has thereat proposed an ecological production and consumption promotion project in three of the Spanish regions where productive extensification processes have had a deeper impact: Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura and Andalusia. Therefore, we believe the reactivation of abandoned or underutilized agriculture resources during the agriculture production industrialization and the decrease of farming in rural areas may be an interesting alternative for the weakened rural economies.