Experts who attended an international meeting on "The contribution of agroecological approaches to meet 2050 global food needs" in Brussels last June 21-22 urged the international community to re-think current agricultural policies and build on the potential of agroecology. Agroecological farming approaches include agroforestry (interplanting trees and crops on the same parcel), biological control, water harvesting methods, intercropping, green manure cover crops, mixed crop and livestock management.

“Governments and international agencies urgently need to boost ecological farming techniques to increase food production and save the climate,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. “With more than a billion hungry people on the planet, and the climate disruptions ahead of us, we must rapidly scale up these sustainable techniques.” Policies to develop agroecological approaches were identified during the meeting. De Schutter noted that sustainable models of agriculture can be scaled up so that they work for poor farmers.

The original article is at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35105&Cr=food+production&Cr1