By Ramachandran K G, Governance and Livelihoods Programme Coordinator, Community Wellbeing
Keystone Foundation is one of the key partners of the network called Asian People’s Exchange for Food Sovereignty and Agro-ecology (APEX), which is an alliance of different organisations in South and South East Asia.
The Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (PANAP) and Asian People’s Exchange for Food Sovereignty and Agro-ecology Platform (APEX) together organized a workshop on the documentation of agro-ecology as a climate solution and in order to further support ongoing efforts to document agro-ecology’s experiences, best practices, lessons, challenges, and benefits. The workshop took place in Penang, Malaysia, on the dates of 18, 19, 20 of June 2024, during the International Festival for People’s Rights and Struggles (IFPRS), 2024.
The workshop has the following specific objectives:
- To understand and assess current documentation practices and efforts of APEX partners on agro-ecology
- To train APEX partners on how to document agro-ecology’s benefits and impacts in terms of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience
- To start the process of building scientific evidence from the ground on agro-ecology as a climate solution that will be the basis for advocacy and campaigning at local, national, and global levels
Many rural communities worldwide have been practicing agro-ecology but do not get the needed support from the policymakers, who tend to be biased toward chemical-intensive, ground water dependent irrigation, corporate farming. APEX is trying to double the efforts to promote agro-ecology as a climate solution, encourage more communities to adopt it, and compel governments to support it. Toward this, there are attempts being made to systematize data and information gathering from the ground to build a collection of scientific evidence that will support our advocacy efforts for agro-ecology (Documentation of agro-ecological practices already exists for sure. A recent book by the Asian People’s Exchange on Food Sovereignty and Agro-ecology (APEX) gathered stories from communities practicing people-led development and agro-ecology. Many communities and their organizations continue to document their agro-ecological practices).
POST-WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES
Ramachandran K G of Keystone has been selected as one of the 6 members of APEX Working Group on climate justice and food systems for asserting climate justice through Agro-ecological practices.
The Working Group on climate justice and food systems will set a follow-up online meeting to share the survey results and start planning in the next steps. The survey and follow-up meeting shall take place not later than mid-July 2024.
