Grassroots Innovations Assembly for Agroecology

= "An agroecology assembly of local networks active to value grassroots innovations worldwide".

URL = https://www.gia-agroecology.org/

"We promote, support and defend local knowledge, tools techniques, as innovative solutions for food producers communities autonomy and sovereignty."

Description

1.

"While diverse in approaches, what unites these organizations and networks is their shared emphasis on peasant and farmer-led innovation, ecological sustainability, peer to peer exchange, and creative commons and open-source diffusion models. What’s more, this form of innovation goes beyond technology. In responding to a lack of appropriate tools, these grassroots innovation networks are simultaneously developing novel forms of organization, production, and knowledge exchange that trouble profit motivated, competitive models of innovation. The result is an emergent socio-technical ecosystem that supports agroecology, strengthening local and regional economies while contributing to a growing innovation commons. In addition to this critical innovation infrastructure, these networks can also foster critical discourse as well as participatory technology assessment. It is therefore not a question of whether another vision of innovation and technology in agriculture is possible. As the ongoing work of these organizations demonstrates, it is already happening. (Extract from Gallese report, Maya Cohen)"

(https://www.gia-agroecology.org/index.php/who-we-are/)

2.

"GIA is a place of sharing on local tools, technologies, innovations and the related social processesd of identifying the technological need, the search for solutions, the recovery of ancient knowledge, the co-design and development of a solution, the documentation of the innovation, and its sharing and dissemination within farmer and food producers communities.

It aims at developing a grassroots narrative, agenda and strategy to advance agroecology in the field of technologies, including digitalization."

(https://www.gia-agroecology.org/index.php/vision-mission/)

Directory

of member organizations:

• OpenTEAM USA: The Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural Management, is equipping food systems leaders with shared knowledge, collaborative frameworks for problem-solving, and open-source, connected technologies to build climate change resilience and thriving communities.

• Honey Bee Network India: HoneyBeeNetwork identify and promote local innovators that provide solutions for rural communities, all across India.

• Schola Campesina Italy: International agroecology school active in the Biodistretto della Via Amerina e delle Forre (Viterbo) facilitating knowledge sharing across agroecology organisations.

• Serikat Petani Indonesia: SPI is a farmer union representing two million farmers in Indonesia. They have their own agroecology schools and innovation processes based on ancestral knowledge and culture.

• WikiMaraicher, Quebec, Canada: The WikiMaraicher is a platform collecting innovations for small-scale organic farmers in Québec; it's hosted by the Fermier et Fermières de Familles (Family farmers association)

• Tzoumakers Greece: A makerspace to collaboratively build tools for small-scale farming.

Discussion

Grassroots alternatives to technological development

Severine Fleming, Andrea Ferrante et al. :

"In response to this big tech vision of the future of food and agriculture, peasant organizations have been mobilizing in support of technological sovereignty (Clerc & Jarrige, 2020). Just as food sovereignty, based in agroecology, embraces both traditional knowledge and peasant know-how, technological sovereignty draws on the long standing practices of farmers building their own tools and technology founded on farmer and worker knowledge. This approach stands in stark contrast to the industrial model of external, profit-oriented, expert-driven research and development that often does not account for regional and local specificities (Giotitsas, 2019). Rather than top-down development, technological sovereignty calls for grassroots innovation (Seyfang & Smith, 2007), an approach which centers the experience, traditional knowledge, and skill of food producers.

While this form of innovation is not a new phenomena, the difficulty of sourcing appropriate technology for small scale food systems has spurred the growing movement of peasant-led innovation networks that are developing and sharing novel technologies and practices adapted to agroecology. Although grassroots innovation often prioritizes accessibility and affordability, it would be a mistake to mischaracterize it as “low tech”. Indeed a better term for the breadth of approaches is “wide tech” (ETC Group). That is to say, grassroots agricultural innovation does not stand in opposition to what is typically considered high tech, but seeks to find ways to appropriate the range of technologies and practices to suit the needs of farmers. Information and communications technologies have been an important catalyst in the networking, sharing, and prototyping of these emerging technologies and practices (Bauwens et al., 2020).

• In France, l’Atelier Paysan works with farmers across the country to build custom tools and infrastructure adapted to the needs of small scale farms ( Giotitsas, 2018). The organization hosts collaborative fabrication and training events where farmers gather to produce their own equipment. The plans for the technology are shared under creative commons licenses and hosted online.

• In India, the Honey Bee Network has documented over 100,000 examples of grassroots innovations over the last 25 years (Honeybee Network, 2015). The organization conducts rural walks throughout the country collecting, documenting and sharing peasant-developed innovations and traditional knowledge through online databases and print publications produced in local dialects.

• The U.S based organization Farm Hack serves as an open source repository for farmer-developed tools which allows anyone to add, modify, or contribute to the database.

• In Canada the CAPÉ, a co-operative of over 200 farms, collaboratively designs and develops small scale farm technology, from tractor implements to greenhouse automation tools. The co-op works with regional technical schools and institutions to host fabrication events, where the cost of the final tool is dramatically reduced in comparison to those available on the market.

These networks have spawned similar sister organizations across Europe; with the Tzoumakers in Greece, and Farmhack Scotland and England.

While diverse in approaches, what unites these organizations and networks is their shared emphasis on peasant and farmer-led innovation, ecological sustainability, peer to peer exchange, and creative commons and open-source diffusion models. What’s more, this form of innovation goes beyond technology. In responding to a lack of appropriate tools, these grassroots innovation networks are simultaneously developing novel forms of organization, production, and knowledge exchange that trouble profit motivated, competitive models of innovation. The result is an emergent socio-technical ecosystem that supports agroecology, strengthening local and regional economies while contributing to a growing innovation commons. In addition to this critical innovation infrastructure, these networks can also foster critical discourse as well as participatory technology assessment. It is therefore not a question of whether another vision of innovation and technology in agriculture is possible. As the ongoing work of these organizations demonstrates, it is already happening."

(https://www.gia-agroecology.org/index.php/vision-mission/)

Technological Sovereignty as a Integral Part of Food Sovereignty

Andrea Ferrante, Jim Thomas, et al. :

"As nations begin to implement strategies to recover from the effects of the global pandemic, agriculture, and its potential for ecological, social, and economic transformation, is at the top of the agenda. Although this is a promising opportunity for food sovereignty movements, the rapid expansion of big tech along with the major investment by the tech industry into agriculture signals a troubling trajectory for the future of farming. Concepts like regenerative agriculture and sustainability are quickly moving to the mainstream only to be instrumentalized to justify increased digitalization, labour displacing technologies, and biotechnology ventures (IPES-Food & ETC Group, 2021).

The Nyéléni declaration of food sovereignty emphasizes the rights of people to not only have access to healthy, culturally appropriate food, but the right to define and govern their food systems. Traditional knowledge along with technology and innovation are an integral part of agroecological food systems. Therefore, the right to define the trajectory of technological innovation must be considered a critical component of food sovereignty. Across the world peasants, farmers, and workers continue to design and build tools and technology that support vibrant agricultural systems that are socially, environmentally, and economically just.

Now is the time for organizations, networks, and communities that have been developing these grassroots agricultural innovations to come together to articulate a shared perspective of how to describe, protect and strengthen community, farmer and worker-led technology. Just as the Nyéléni Declarations on food sovereignty and agroecology brought peasant rights to the forefront, a collective understanding of technological sovereignty rooted in agroecology could serve as a vital counter narrative to dominant technology and innovation models aiming to define and disrupt the future of food and agriculture."

(https://www.gia-agroecology.org/index.php/vision-mission/)

More information

• Against Agriculture 4.0

Bibliography

Bauwens, M., Kostakis, V. and Pazaitis, A. (2019) Peer to Peer : The Commons Manifesto . University of Westminster Press. Available at : https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25288 (Accessed: 15 November 2020).

Clerc, F. and Jarrige, F. (2020) ‘L’Atelier Paysan ou les Low-Tech au service de la souveraineté technologique des paysans’, La Pensee ecologique , N° 5(1), pp. 3–3.

Clercq, M. D., Vats, A. and Biel, A. (2018) ‘AGRICULTURE 4.0: THE FUTURE OF FARMING TECHNOLOGY’, World Government Summit , p. 30.

Deschutter, O. (2010) Report: Agroecology and the right to food . Rome: UN. Available at: http://www.srfood.org/en/report-agroecology-and-the-right-to-food (Accessed: 6 July 2021).

FAO (2019) Transforming the World through Food and Agriculture: FAO and the 2030 Agenda – FAO and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development . Rome. Available at: http://www.fao.org/3/ca5299en/ca5299en.pdf .

FAO (2020) FAO COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme – Food systems transformation: Building to transform during response and recovery. Rome. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4060/cb0281en .

FAO (2021) “Digitalization is the way of the new life and the new economy” | E-Agriculture . Available at: http://www.fao.org/e-agriculture/news/%E2%80%9Cdigitalization-way-new-life-and-new-economy%E2%80%9D (Ac cessed: 26 July 2021).

Giotitsas, C. (2019) Open Source Agriculture: Grassroots Technology in the Digital Era . Palgrave Pivot (Palgrave Advances in Bioeconomy: Economics and Policies ). doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-29341-3 .

Honey Bee Network (2015) ‘Honey Bee Network 25 Years’ https://www.honeybee.org/magazine-all.php

IPES-Food & ETC Group (2021) A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045 . Available at: https://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/longfoodmovementen.pdf .

Klerkx, L., Jakku, E. and Labarthe, P. (2019) ‘A review of social science on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0: New contributions and a future research agenda’, – NJAS – Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences , 90–91, p. 10031 5. doi: 10.1016/j.njas.2019.100315 .

Nyéléni (2007) Declaration of Nyéléni . Sélingué , Mali: Forum for Food Sovereignty. Available at: https://Nyéléni.org/sp ip.php?article290 (Accessed: 26 July 2021).

Seyfang, G. and Smith, A. (2007) ‘Grassroots Innovations for Sustainable Development: Towards a New Research and Policy Agenda’, Environmental Politics – ENVIRON POLIT , 16, pp. 584–60 3. doi: 10.1080/09644010701419121 .