Sustainable Agriculture: An Assessment of Brazil’s Family Farm Programmes in Scaling up Agroecological Food Production

Abstract

Agroecological methods of agricultural production have been shown to be an ecologically sustainable and socially and economically viable way to support national food systems (Altieri and Toledo, 2011; IAASTD, 2008). When the prices of key staple crops more than doubled during the 2008 food crisis, it became apparent that alternatives to the current global food system are desperately needed. The current global food system—from seed to supermarket—has become increasingly monopolised by agri-food supply chains. This has led to overproduction of food while simultaneously leaving roughly 925 million people hungry worldwide, and has also contributed to severe environmental degradation and malnutrition (IAASTD, 2008). (…)