Food Security and Agriculture

Practice Guide

This practice guide is meant to:
• Explain what farmers’ seed management involves
• Provide entry points for understanding how farmers manage diversity,
breed varieties and produce seed
• Help identify opportunities for strengthening farmers’ seed management

• Launch: 2022
• Publisher: Misereor
• 4 pages

Practice Guide

This practice guide is meant to:
• Promote awareness of farmers’ multiple roles as seed system actors
• Explain how farmers can strengthen seed system functioning in practice
• Enhance understanding of what can be achieved by focusing on farmers as seed system actors

• Launch: 2022
• Publisher: Misereor
• 4 pages

A Comparative Study

Based on Empirical Evidence from 20 Years of Misereor Partner Efforts in Uganda Uganda’s small-scale farmers could successfully intensify their agriculture, ensure their food security all year round and increase their income. A study commissioned by Misereor/KZE shows that agro-ecological methods are particularly effective to overcome rural poverty. Based on a survey conducted on a total of 714 rural households in ten districts, the study compares smallholder farmers receiving agricultural advisory services by Misereor partner organisations with reference farmers and tea out-growers. With comparable asset endowment, the smallholders practicing an agro-ecological agriculture do best by comparison.

• Commissioned by Misereor/KZE

Policy Paper

Background information: What the merger of Bayer and Monsanto means for  our food system and small-scale farmers all over the world.

Publication

The importance of camelid herders for the conservation of our world's rangelands is increasingly recognized internationally. To mark the International Year of Camelids (IYC), this thematic dossier introduces camelid pastoralists, how they sustainably manage rangelands in the Andean highlands, East Africa and Mongolia, and why the global community should support camelid pastoralism for a resilient future of our planet.

• Publisher: Misereor, League for Pastoral Peoples, DITSL
• Pages: 20 
• Responsible in terms of the law: Sabine Dorlöchter-Sulser, Rural Development Specialist at Misereor (sabine.dorloechter-sulser@misereor.de)

Publication

The German pesticide manufacturers Bayer and BASF sell a number of active ingredients in South Africa and Brazil that are not approved in the EU because they are hazardous to health and the environment. From a human rights’ perspective, such activities are questionable as they are based on so-called double standards. This brochure presents cases of indigenous groups in Brazil and farm workers in South Africa whose health is put at risk by the use of pesticides.

• April 2020
• Misereor, INKOTA, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Southern Africa, Campanha Permanente contra os Agrotóxicos e pela Vida, Khanyisa
• 24 pages

For a Fundamental Transformation of Agri-Food-Systems

In the position paper, 59 civil society organisations call on the Federal Government to make agroecology the central support concept for poverty reduction and adaptation to the climate crisis and to use it as a basis for reforming EU agricultural policy.

The concept of agroecology is scientifically sound, sufficiently tested in practice and pursues a holistic approach. The paper formulates ten equal elements which the signatories of the paper consider to be core elements of agroecology.

Publikation

For years Nigeria has been repeatedly shaken by bloody clashes between pastoralists and settled farming communities, the so-called "Farmer-Herder" conflicts. Especially in the preelection campaign year 2018, for the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for February, 2019, violent clashes in Nigeria increased. The "Farmer-Herder" conflicts in particular, however, were politically captured by the parties, politicians and other actors in society, including church representatives. Shepherds were stigmatized and the conflicts classified as religiously motivated. Criminal acts of people disguised as herdsmen contributed the rest. The stigmatization of herders was and is fuelled by media coverage and social media. An objective public debate on how to resolve these conflicts and on adapted models of animal husbandry is hardly possible. There is a lack of studies that include all parties involved and shed light on the background and causes. Field studies financed by Misereor in 2016-17, aiming to examine the concrete conflicts in Nigeria in 13 zones more closely, have been summarized in the brochure.

Report

Comparative studies from Brazil, India and Senegal show multiple advantages of agroecology for smallholders in semiarid regions. This report relates the study results to the current debate on hunger and malnutrition, climate, biodiversity and policy frameworks and provides recommendations for the transition to ecologically sustainable and socially just food systems.

Research reports on the herder farmer conflict in Nigeria

Research reports by Roger Blench, who carried out several field missions in Nigeria between 2016 and 2018. The project was commissioned by Misereor and contributed to identify solutions to the ongoing conflicts between herders and farmers. 

Report of a Participatory Action Research, Kayah State, Myanmar

This report is the result of a participatory action research (PAR) conducted by members of Kwaingan community and KMSS Loikaw in 2016. The report documents Kwaingan’s customary land and natural resource rights and management practices.

for land rights advocates

This resource book is part of a two-volume publication which aims to equip the users with the necessary knowledge, attitude and skills on Community Mapping and Participatory Geographic Information System (PGIS). It focuses on data collection, database management, data processing, and analysis for the production of digital maps useful in advancing the land rights agenda of rural communities, particularly indigenous communities and smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia.

It is intended for land rights defenders, institutions advocating for land rights, development practitioners, and communities to defend their rights to land and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Part two with the focus on the "how to" is in progress.

Transforming Food Systems through Agroecology

Food and Agriculture could work differently, if they had Agroecology, shortened and innovative marketing circuits and participatory forms of shaping the food system as its basic principles. The contributions in this publication show how farmers in the global South and North enhance soil fertility, biodiversity and seed productivity, and how local markets are strengthened.

Report of a Participatory Action Research in Myanmar

This report is the result of a participatory action research (PAR) conducted by members of Khupra community in Kayah State/Myanmar and Karuna Mission Social Solidarity-Loikaw (KMSS-Loikaw) Livelihood Program team between October 2015 to November 2016. In its first field work, the research team was joined by members of the Indigenous Peoples/Ethnic Nationalities (IP/EN) network

A Study on the Carbon Footprint of a Shifting Cultivation Community in Kayah State, Myanmar

The study is part of a participatory action research (PAR) conducted by members of Khupra community together with staff members of Karuna Mission Social Solidarity-Loikaw between October 2015 and July 2016. The PAR is one of the components of the project that supports indigenous communities in Kayah State to document and seek official recognition of their customary land and natural resource rights and management practices.

• Publication of our partner organisation KMSS-Loikaw

A Comparative Study

Based on Empirical Evidence from 20 Years of Misereor Partner Efforts in Uganda Uganda’s small-scale farmers could successfully intensify their agriculture, ensure their food security all year round and increase their income. A study commissioned by Misereor/KZE shows that agro-ecological methods are particularly effective to overcome rural poverty. Based on a survey conducted on a total of 714 rural households in ten districts, the study compares smallholder farmers receiving agricultural advisory services by Misereor partner organisations with reference farmers and tea out-growers. With comparable asset endowment, the smallholders practicing an agro-ecological agriculture do best by comparison.

• Commissioned by Misereor/KZE

Dossier

How agricultural research works together with farmers. A dossier by Misereor, Prolinnova and McKnight Foundation in collaboration with the editors of welt-sichten.

Position Paper

Urgent appeal from European and African milk producers to policy-makers in the EU and Burkina Faso.

Study

The European Union's agricultural policy and hunger in the developing countries. With this brochure, Misereor aims to contribute towards explaining the complex links between world agricultural trade and its impacts on developing nations as well as to highlight ways in which an EU agricultural policy could focus on the interests of small farmers in the southern continents and farmers in Europe.

Study

The aim of our baseline study is to contribute to a solid base for debates and to consequently gain a thorough understanding of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in the agricultural sectors of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and India. This includes collecting information about the developments as well as the nature and extend of the FDIs. Study by Martin Franz and Philip Müller (2015).

Report

This report was written against the backdrop of a pending decision at the European Patent Office (EPO) that will have a major impact on the international market for seeds and food, and, consequently, on global food security. To illustrate the severe consequences created by excessive seed patenting this report will describe the situation of farmers in the United
States, where patents on seeds have been allowed for several decades.
This report will also present the results of new, detailed research on patents in the field of conventional breeding.

Policy

This policy document, compiled in October 2008, reflects Misereor’s fundamental position on the role of agriculture and rural development. Experience gained with project partners on all continents demonstrates that alternative paths to poverty alleviation are possible if development processes are based on human potential and sustainable agriculture.

Guideline

Voluntary guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.

Publication of our partner organisation KMSS-Loikaw

This report is a result of a participatory action research (PAR) conducted by members of Yusomoso community in Kayah State/Myanmar between January and June 2016. The report documents the community’s natural resource management, customary tenure and governance system and proofs the community’s long and close relationship to and dependence on its land and resources.

Policy

Large-Scale Foreign Investment in Land. In the wake of the food price fluctuations in 2007 and 2008, and further driven by the rising demand for agricultural raw materials for energy production, interest in foreign land investment has increased dramatically. Although foreign land purchases and leases are nothing new, their numbers and magnitude have surged in recent years. Misereor is very concerned about the current trend of increasing land acquisitions by foreign companies and governments because they harbour the following risks and developments...

Discussion Paper

A Misereor discussion paper for dialogue with its partners. The policy paper identifies several problems involved, such as the lack of access to productive resources, including land, water, forests, biological diversity etc. and the diverse problems concerning ownership which may even evolve in violent conflicts. Not only the growing concentration of land and the failure of land reform processes, but also the fragmentation of land and the overuse of existing natural resources have a tremendous impact on the scarcity of land.

Report

The question of access to land being one of the key questions of our time, Misereor has drafted a discussion paper on ‘access to land’ for the dialogue with partner organisations in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. From July to September 2005, the paper has been sent to a number of Misereor partners for critical commenting. The following issues have been in the focus of discussion...