Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 1 • 19th January 2007

CONFERENCE CONCLUDES INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF DESERTIFICATION


CONFERENCE CONCLUDES INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF DESERTIFICATION

Participants at a conference marking the end of the UN International Year of Deserts and Desertification (IYDD) in December 2006 explored key policy options for reversing land degradation in drylands. While trade was not on the agenda as such, participants highlighted both possible negative impacts of international trade on land management, and trade-related factors that could enhance sustainable practices in drylands. Market incentives, new market opportunities and market access for small farmers and pastoralists — even at the international level — could foster investment in sustainable land management (SLM), the experts said.

The Joint International Conference "Desertification and the International Policy Imperative" took place from 17-19 December 2006 in Algiers, Algeria. The conference was convened by the United Nations University (UNU) in partner with 10 international agencies. It aimed to facilitate dialogue on desertification-related policy issues in the context of poverty reduction and threatened human security, and built on the work undertaken over the year by the international community on IYDD initiatives.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the 250 participants emphasised the importance of involving a wide range of stakeholders in designing sustainable policies for land management. They also stressed the need for political commitment and cooperation for building capacity in order to achieve this objective. Six partner research institutes present at the meeting committed to support an international master’s programme for drylands at the UNU.

Trade an incentive for SLM?

Throughout the three-day conference, participants made comments acknowledging that while international trade and market factors can be drivers of land degradation, this need not be the case. Market incentives and the creation of accessible and efficient markets for small farmers and pastoral products — also at the international scale — can contribute to enhancing SLM. Assétou Kanouté of the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme identified agricultural market failure of as one of the most significant constraints to reviving African agriculture. Her programme seeks to develop technologies for sustainably intensifying subsistence-oriented farming systems and smallholder sustainable production systems, and to facilitate the formulation and adoption of policies that will encourage innovation to improve the livelihoods of smallholders and pastoralists. Additionally, it aims at improving the accessibility and efficiency of markets for small farmers and pastoralists.

Some participants said there is a need to design trade policies that foster investment in SLM. In a session on "new policy directions to mainstream desertification policies," Jonathan Davies, World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism, noted that pastoralism is the most economically viable means of managing drylands. While the economic viability of this activity is undermined by policy failures in many countries, the role of pastoralists could be enhanced through the introduction of market incentives, he said.

According to a paper by Barry Shapiro, International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), poor farmers can manage land sustainably, especially when there are emerging market opportunities. The right technologies, rural infrastructure and policies must be in place, however. His paper on "Linking Poor Farmers to Markets to Provide Incentives for SLM" explores the relationship between increasing market access for the poor and agricultural intensification, and the role of policies and investments in determining whether market integration and intensification results in land degradation or SLM. The exploitation of local comparative advantages (such as soil, climate, biodiversity, and labour), access to technologies, and improved access to growing markets are factors that foster development in dryland regions. The paper specifies that incentives for dryland dwellers to invest in SLM and improve their competitiveness and profitability include land rights, health and education, and financing and access to capital for small producers. Government policies such as food import subsidies undermine the ability of the poor to use sustainable agricultural practices.

Payments for environmental services

Participants also considered to the possible creation of systems for payments for environmental services in order to combat desertification and reduce climate change. Céline Dutilly-Diane, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) reflected on the potential of these new markets. She highlighted that dry rangelands, if managed well, provide environmental services (i.e. wind erosion protection, conservation of biodiversity, soil carbon sequestration, and water productivity) and suggested that payments to those who produce such services could be considered as a means to reverse land degradation in semi-arid and arid areas of West Asia and North Africa. However, to be able to evaluate the potential benefits of healthy rangelands and identify who should pay for those benefits, scientific knowledge of both the assessment of land rehabilitation and environmental services has to improve, and numerous questions remain. For example, since most of the rangelands in arid regions are common-pool or open access resources, the task of determining who bears the costs of proper rangeland management and who should receive the payments will be difficult, she said. The use of financial services to combat desertification is a response to the view that socio-economic and market factors are a major driver of the unsustainable land use practices that cause land degradation.

Background: Impact of trade on land degradation

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) report on desertification, which was published in 2005, recognised that the international trade regime and related government policies, as well as macroeconomic reforms and a focus on raising agricultural production for exports can affect the resilience of dryland ecosystems directly or indirectly. These factors may lead to inappropriate crop intensification, especially under monocropping systems; expansion of agriculture to marginal lands; inefficient and wasteful use of land and water resources; and the use of farm machinery and agronomic practices that are not suitable for local soil and water conditions. Also, the growth of large-scale export-oriented agriculture often pushes small farmers onto marginal lands (those which are inherently incapable of sustaining food production) and forces them to adopt unsustainable farming practices, which in turn decrease soil fertility and exacerbate land degradation.

Additional resources

The meeting documents are available at http://www.inweh.unu.edu/inweh/drylands/IYDD.htm.

The presentation summaries are available at http://www.inweh.unu.edu/inweh/drylands/IYDD_Conference_2006-Abstracts.pdf.

A comprehensive summary report by IISD’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin is available at http://www.iisd.ca/africa/desert/jicd/.

To access the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) report on desertification, visit http://www.maweb.org/en/Products.aspx?.

ICTSD reporting; ENB Vol 6, No. 1; "Better Farming Urged to Limit Deserts, Refugees", REUTERS, 15 December 2006.