Giving Compass' Take: 

• Food Tank discusses the benefits of agroecology, an innovative solution plan that employs creative agricultural practices and recycling tactics to help ensure that everyone on the planet will have enough food.

• How can the development of new innovative agricultural models help us move towards sustainability? How can philanthropy help accelerate the agroecology processes?

• Speaking of innovation, the New Food Economy reported in February that agriculture robots are being used to pick and sort crops. 

Since World War II, the availability of food per capita in the world has increased by about 40 percent. Today, there is sufficient food in the world to adequately feed everyone.

The Green Revolution introduced in the late 1960s is mainly responsible for this. The Green Revolution was the right solution for the challenge of that time: to quickly increase food production and productivity based on an input-intensive agriculture. It worked. It saved hundreds of millions from hunger. But almost 50 years later, its limits have also become apparent.

First, because hunger still persists—about 815 million people in the world suffered from undernourishment in 2016 on a daily basis. First, because hunger still persists—about 815 million people in the world suffered from undernourishment in 2016 on a daily basis.

It is time to innovate again. The emerging field of agroecology can offer several contributions in this regard.A tailored combination of both science and cultural wisdom, agroecology’s core elements comprise a strong emphasis on diversity, synergies, recycling, efficient use of resources, ecological and socio-economic resilience, the co-creation and sharing of knowledge, and the link between human values and sustainable livelihoods.

There are many concrete examples of the benefits of agroecology. In Trinidad and Tobago, where years of sugarcane farming led to degraded and acidic clay soils prone to compaction, family farmers used lemon grass mulch to cool the ground, impede erosion, and crowd out rival weeds that would need herbicides. This, along with a clever water recycling system, has turned even modest plots into prosperous and high-yielding fruit and vegetable operations.

In recent years, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been promoting and facilitating an international debate on the potential of agroecology.

Read the full article about agroecology by José Graziano da Silva at Food Tank.