Neek ’Capital es un company builder que nació en el 2017 con la misión de crear compañías mexicanas nuevas con potencial de crecimiento, dedicadas a la implementación del uso sustentable de la energía, el agua, los sistemas alimenticios y la biodiversidad a grande escala. El objetivo era crear empresas destinadas a resolver los desafíos planteados por el uso sustentable de los recursos naturales en un mundo con restricciones climáticas.

A través de nuestras operaciones de producción, procesamiento y comercialización, buscamos la regeneración del campo como fuente sustentable de proteína animal de alta calidad e invertir directamente en la restauración de la selva Yucateca.

Buscamos ser un ejemplo de sustentabilidad mediante el uso de sistemas productivos regenerativos que se mantengan en el largo plazo, mejorando así los ingresos de los productores y la calidad agroecológica de sus ranchos ganaderos.

Los derechos de uso y la escasez de agua han causado conflictos en la cabecera de la subcuenca del Rio Sumpul (867 km2), compartida entre Honduras y El Salvador, lo que hace que, bajo un escenario de cambio climático, sea crucial la búsqueda de soluciones integrales que generen paz, desarrollo transfronterizo y resiliencia.

La gobernanza para la adaptación permite avanzar en esa dirección, promoviendo el trabajo multidimensional (multinivel y multisectorial), participativo, flexible y ecosistémico. Así, buscando el uso sostenible del agua como necesidad de adaptación en Sumpul, se reforzaron estructuras existentes de gobernanza, ampliando su representación, conocimientos y capacidad de gestión. A través del Comité Comunitario Binacional, se logró construir una agenda común basada en la construcción de confianza, diálogo y articulación de los actores de la cuenca alta. La agenda consideró la implementación de sistemas agroforestales y la conservación de suelos y fuentes de agua.

The Waters of the Cerrado Consortium unites coffee growers, producers, researchers and environmentalists in maintaining ecosystem services on which agricultural supply chains including coffee depend. Its focus is conservation and restoration of native vegetation in Brazil’s Minas Gerais State to safeguard water supplies. The Cerrado, in the country’s central highland plains, is a major source of water for Brazil.

The consortium works with stakeholders across the coffee supply chain focusing initially on a pilot site – the Feio watershed in Patrocinio, a major coffee growing area. Efforts are under way to improve soil and water management; promote information and knowledge exchange through outreach services for farmers; and promote legal compliance on farms, including applying Brazil’s Forest Code at the landscape level.

Growth corridors are regions where natural resource-based industries, such as agriculture and mining, are being developed to boost economic growth. SUSTAIN (Sustainability and Inclusion Strategy for Growth Corridors), an IUCN-led initiative, aims to shape the investment and design of these corridors so that they are environmentally and socially sustainable.

Located in a vast floodplain, Tanzania’s Kilombero district hosts wetlands, waterfalls and iconic wildlife species, such as elephant, hippo, antelope and lion. The mountain rainforests are a vital water source  for the surrounding area and its economy. As part of SUSTAIN, the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is working with one of Tanzania’s biggest rice producers, valley farmers and mountain villages in Kilombero to increase agricultural productivity while conserving forests, water sources and wildlife at a coordinated landscape level. A pillar of the programme is a payment for ecosystems services (PES) scheme.

• Home gardens are usually small plots of arable land near households. These plots are typically adjacent to the home to ensure easy mobility and convenience for women. A variety of herbs and vegetables are most commonly grown in these gardens for household use, and the surplus is often sold for additional income. 

• Such gardens host a variety of crops ranging from vegetables and spices which will provide food security, nutritional diversity, and help become self-reliant. 

• The aim of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Bethany Society’s project IKI Biodiv as an implementing partner is to develop and enhance the community ‘s ability to adapt the various techniques common to home gardens. Efforts were made to encourage the cultivation of a wide variety of indigenous vegetables and spices to foster rich biodiversity which provided a clear understanding of the strong relations between sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation.

Kinyara Sugar Works Ltd. is a Ugandan business that produces sugar and grows sugar cane on its estate. Due to increasing demand, Kinyara sought to expand their sugar cane out-grower scheme, which, in addition to the impacts of a growing population, would threaten biodiversity and water resources of the Kiiha watershed, and community livelihoods. Ecotrust provided research to Kinyara on the sustainability threat to their value chain, which depends on water resources. Remedial actions would need to go beyond their nucleus estate; they should consider engaging with outgrowers and the local community on environmental and biodiversity actions. Kinyara now focuses on production efficiency rather than expansion, financially supports community-led restoration efforts, and has adopted the State-led Kiiha Catchment Management Plan for sustainable production and investments. They also signed an agreement, facilitated by Ecotrust, with Kiiha-dependent communities to develop alternative livelihoods. 

La ganadería es una de las actividades productivas con mayor potencial en la Región Trifinio, donde colindan El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras. Para muchas familias ya es una de sus principales fuentes de ingreso. No obstante, la mayoría de las unidades de producción ganadera se encuentran ubicadas en suelos de ladera, y se caracterizan por un pastoreo extensivo. Estos sistemas tradicionales o convencionales de producción tienen un fuerte impacto sobre el medioambiente, son poco rentables y vulnerables a efectos del cambio climático. La solución promovió un manejo más diversificado e intensivo en más de 100 unidades de producción piloto. Los ganaderos integraron de forma complementaria prácticas de protección del medioambiente, aumento de la productividad, y de mejora en sus capacidades de comercialización de leche.

Fondo para la Paz (FPP)  trabaja con comunidades indígenas en 5 estados de México; la agricultura forma parte de una línea dentro del proceso de desarrollo con el objetivo de empoderar y fortalecer a las comunidades y su organizaón, con una actividad que conserve servicios ecositémicos y biodiversidad, y promueva el desarrollo de capacidades y competencias. FPP tiene esta línea de trabajo en Veracruz, San Luis y Oaxaca trabajando con café, vainilla y maíz. La finalidad es incrementar ingresos y cambiar paradigmas sobre conservación y agricultura. Trabajamos con las personas para buscar que se responsabilicen de su proceso de desarrollo, de su ambiente y de las acciones que realizaran en el futuro, tomando la agricultura como el camino yel desarrollo es el último objetivo por alcanzar. Para lograr esto, trabajamos con cada comunidad de to 10 – 15 años, buscando el desarrollo y doonde las comunidades sean autogestivas, cohesionadas y con visión de desarrollo.

En la Región Trifinio colindan 3 grandes cuencas hidrográficas que proveen vitales servicios ecosistémicos a El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras. La cuenca del Río Lempa es por ej. clave para el abastecimiento en agua de la capital de El Salvador. En vista de mejorar la recarga hídrica en la Región Trifinio se promovió y acompañó un cambio de uso de suelo con pequeños productores de escasos recursos, viviendo hasta entonces de una agricultura de subsistencia con bajos rendimientos y poco sostenible. Fueron incentivados a probar en parcelas piloto el cultivo de frutales aplicando prácticas de conservación de suelo. La solución comprobó una importante mejora en la infiltración del agua en los suelos. Además, fortaleció el tejido social en las microcuencas piloto promoviendo el intercambio entre los habitantes y actores externos (gubernamentales, no gubernamentales, sector privado). Complementariamente se fortalecieron capacidades de acceso a mercados, lo que mejoró los ingresos familiares.

Jhum as a farming practice is mostly found in the North East India and it is the way of life and deeply embedded in the tradition and culture of the local communities of the region.  However in the recent past due to changes in the socio-economic condition and  land use pattern, shortcomings like reduced jhum cycles, reduced fallow period, loss in soil fertility and poor crop yields have started to emerge in the jhum field of Mizoram thereby threatening degeneration of the state’s rich natural resource and well being of the community directly depending on them.

The IKI- Biodiv  project has helped in generating awareness  and  strengthened the capacity of the land users on measures of jhum optimization and intensification which will contribute to promoting biodiversity and ecosystem services while ensuring food and livelihood security of the farmers.

Kitchen gardens are very important for improving the nutrition of Tajik families in rural areas as they contribute to food and nutrition security by providing a diversity of vegetables, herbs, and berries.

Thus, they are a central nutrition source for subsistence farmers.

Vegetable, herbs, and spices, berries and fruits are cultivated in small-scale kitchen gardens, often directly adjacent to houses. The diversified kitchen garden approach aims to improve the management system of kitchen gardens by diversifying cultivated crops, enhancing irrigation systems and improving techniques for better soil fertility management.

Irrigated cultivation of onion, potatoes, corn and other crops is hampered by poor agricultural practice and these challenges are increasingly exacerbated by the impact of climate change. The impacts of already visible trends and predictions cause a reduction of available irrigation water, while higher temperatures and expansion of irrigated agriculture lead to higher irrigation water demand. Current irrigated agriculture has low irrigation water use efficiency.

The solution addresses these problems in an integrated way, combining several elements through an agricultural extension service:

– Agricultural extension service provides tailored advise;
– Adapted agricultural inputs are provided at part loan basis through the extension services to ease the application of technical advice and reduce transaction costs for the farmers;

– Technological assistance in form of seeding machines, cultivation and irrigation technologies;

– Crop diversification considers climate change and market demand.
 

In Kirenga, Lari, Central Kenya the low and erratic rainfall and lack of irrigation facilities limits the production of vegetables. Still, exotic vegetables are grown in kitchen gardens, whereas nutrient-rich indigenous vegetables are rarely produced nor consumed. Consumption of vegetables is limited despite the occurence of malnutrition among children and women. In addition, indigenous vegetables have a ready market in Nairobi, which is about 50 km away. Consequently,  production of indigenous vegetables would  enhance  livelihoods of these farmers through income generation while consumption of the same would enhance their nutritional status.

To achieve this, farmers were trained in techniques of farming these indigenous species. In addition, training on how to  prepare and consume the vegetables was offered. The activities also included the raising of awareness on the nutritional value of these vegetables to further encourage consumption by the local farmers and their families.

The project is working on providing alternative livelihoods for former Borana pastoralist, who have settled down to try agro-pastoralist production as a means to food security. In a first step, households joined hands to harvest rain water by creating a small pan near their homesteads and use this for a small home garden. Although creating a pan takes a bit of time, when people joined hands, they were able to work on a single pan for relatively shorter time. In the gardens vegetables like kale, onions, pepper, cassava, tomatoes, spinach, watermelon are grown. Some farmers are also piloting a small agroforestry in one corner of their garden. The food produced is used for home consumption and surplus is sold to the neighbouring villages.These pans and gardens are done for one household at a time but the long term goal is to reach every household in the community. Thus, this marks a departure from overreliance on pure pastoralism, which is negatively affected by climate change.

Yala wetland communities are dependent on the ecosystem goods and services offered by the wetland for their livelihoods; mainly small-holder subsistence agriculture. In the recent past, farmers have experienced reduced crop production human, an increase of wildlife conflicts, and continuous drought and floods are accelerating local poverty and food insecurity. In order to reverse some of these effects, we identified and piloted in a participatory process alternative livelihoods that are less wetland-destructive and environmentally friendly. These included agroforestry, sustainable farming and water harvesting techniques that would be sustainable under the changing climatic conditions.

Fondo para la Paz (FPP) works with indigenous rural communities’ in 5 States of Mexico. One line is farming as part of development process with the goal to empower community organization and strengthen them through activities that could conserve environmental services (ES) and biodiversity, and promoting development skills and abilities at the community. With the FPP facilitation communities are working with coffee (Veracruz) and maize (Oaxaca) inside agroecological schemes. These projects help them increasing profits and switch old paradigms about conservation and farming. We work with people, sensitize them about being responsible and main actors about their development, their environment and their actions for a long time: farming is just the way, development is the ultimate goal. We work with each community up to 10 – 15 years, seeking development and people with the vision to achieve mature communities, self-administrated and with social cohesion.

Farming with Alternative Pollinators (FAP) is a new low cost and economically self-sustaining approach to protect pollinators (Christmann and Aw-Hassan 2012; Christmann et al. 2017; Christmann 2019a, b). FAP increases the net income per surface substantially and thus obviates rewards. FAP compares FAP fields (75% of the area for the main crop, 25% of the field for habitat enhancement including different marketable plants to attract a higher diversity of pollinators, provide shelter against wind, nesting and water support out of local materials), with control fields (100% for the main crop) concerning insect diversity and abundance (pollinators, predators and pests) and total net income. The approach is replicable across continents and affordable also for Low Income Countries. FAP focuses on capacity building, a performance and productivity related incentive for farmers and a cross-sector policy mix. It generates many cross-cutting benefits (Christmann 2019c).

• Home gardens are usually small plots of arable land near households. These plots are typically adjacent to the home to ensure easy mobility and convenience for women. A variety of herbs and vegetables are most commonly grown in these gardens for household use, and the surplus is often sold for additional income. 

• Such gardens host a variety of crops ranging from vegetables and spices which will provide food security, nutritional diversity, and help become self-reliant. 

• The aim of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Bethany Society’s project IKI Biodiv as an implementing partner is to develop and enhance the community ‘s ability to adapt the various techniques common to home gardens. Efforts were made to encourage the cultivation of a wide variety of indigenous vegetables and spices to foster rich biodiversity which provided a clear understanding of the strong relations between sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation.

Agriculture expansion and human settlement in the Kilombero valley of Southern Tanzania has severed wildlife corridors connecting the World Heritage site of Selous Game Reserve with the Udzungwa Mountains. As a result people and wildlife are increasingly in conflict over access to resources. Focusing on an area at the boundary of the Kilombero Nature Reserve, the solution involves a sequential process of working with the villagers, local authorities and nature reserve to plan for human activities and wildlife needs at a landscape scale, helping farmers improve their production and market access for cocoa through better tree stock and links to private sector operators, and mobilising village environment committees to reforest degraded areas using the ROAM methodology. The aim is to create a cycle of sustained interventions that are internally incentivised through market driven mechanisms and good governance. The approach is being shared through SAGCOT and Nane Nane agriculture fair. 

The participatory approach seeks to work with the community to come up with locally available, affordable and sustainable ways to tackle food, nutrition and livelihood security. We encourage the use of local agrobiodiversity to enhance the nutrition status, especially of women of reproductive age and children aged 6-23 months. The communities are actively involved in the choice and implemetation of suitable interventions thus the solutions are community-specific.

The approach has been successfully implemented in Vihiga County, Kenya. We would like to scale it to Turkana County in Kenya and the Tigray area in Ethiopia.

Once perceived as “food for the poor”, African Leafy Vegetables (ALVs) and other forgotten crops are making a comeback in Busia County, Kenya, thanks to a pilot project supported by ACIAR and GEF and a participatory multi-sectoral platform that brings together farmer organizations, non-governmental organizations, and national and international government agencies. The project is helping revive interest in nutritious ALVs  by building the capacity of entrepreneurial farmer groups to sustainably produce, use and respond to market demands for these crops from institutional markets (e.g. school feeding and health clinics). At the same time, education activities are taking place to increase the appreciation and use of local biodiversity to improve dietary diversity and nutrition and environmental resilience but also to provide sustainable, long-term support and empowerment to children, families and communities.

To achieve peace and stability, Kauswagan is addressing the root causes of conflict: food insecurity, poverty, hunger and inequalities. Kauswagan’s From Arms to Farms Programme turned the city from a territory disrupted by decades of war into a platform for sustainable agricultural development. Based on a broad participation of different actors, led by the Local Government Units and other support groups, the programme proved very successful by helping over 600 former combatants to reintegrate into society through farming and by decreasing the rate of poverty in the area to 40 per cent in 2016. The Arms to Farms programme shows that agroecology can be a powerful tool for radical and beneficial changes. For its achievements, Kauswagan’s programme was recognized with an Honourable Mention of the Future Policy Award 2018, awarded by the World Future Council in partnership with FAO and IFOAM – Organics International.

Konegummez village is located in the southwestern part of the Kopetdag mountains of Turkmenistan, bordering with Iran, at an altitude of 1,350 meters above sea level. The village hosts 200 families, with a population of about 1,229 people who live in a semi-arid climate and make their living by livestock keeping and agriculture, mainly.

Based on the villagers’ social strengths and will and supported by international development projects, nowadays the village is an excellent example for collectively planning and managing natural resources and agriculture with improved ecosystem services and biodiversity whilst generating income in a sustainable way.

In the following, the social, organizational and technical issues which led the Konegummez community to having success, will be described.

Against a backdrop of declining soil quality and fertility from incessant use  of synthetic fertilizers and agro-chemicals,  low farmgate prices offered by traders, steadily increasing prices of farm inputs and loss of farm labor to other higher paying jobs, a group of small-farmers initiated a regenerative organic agriculture project using the climate and environment-friendly System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to change the way Filipinos cultivate rice. 

The Zarraga Integrated Diversified Organic Farmers Association (ZIDOFA) is spearheading this initiative using a holistic value chain approach in order to produce high quality, safe, affordable and healthy organic SRI rice to Filipino consumers, protect, conserve and restore biodiversity in the farm and marine and  coastal ecosystems and bring the benefits and the credit back to the farmers and empowering them through the creation of a closed-loop organic SRI rice value chain devoid of exploitative middlemen and traders.  

Assisting farmers to implement land conserving approaches and to foster biodiversity through Farmer Field Schools (FFS) is an initial and important step to tackle challenges in Tajikistan’s agriculture. During FFS farmers are taking the lead during an adult educational approach where everyone meets at eye level. The knowledge and experience of the farmers is a driving factor during the workshops.

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Deutsche Welthungerhilfe (WHH) as implementing partner held 37 FFS in two districts in Tajikistan.

The focus of the FFS was not on a specific crop, but on diversification of crops and cultivation methods. The technical approaches came from an assessment that was done prior to the FFS and the participating farmers itself. The emphasis was on local needs and included good practices in pasture management, orchard management and diversified irrigation methods. In addition, approaches to reduce soil erosion were implemented.

The solution targets threats to coral reefs related to scuba diving, one of the fastest growing tourism industries. Its best practice guidelines promote commercial sustainability and a contribution to increase coral reef resilience. Members are equipped with the necessary information, tools and training to mitigate threats, implement sustainable practices and promote environmental education and awareness amongst the dive industry and local communities and limit their impact on the environment.

With over one-third of the planet’s land used for agriculture—and over one-quarter used for livestock grazing—farms and ranches offer both a great threat and a tremendous opportunity for wildlife conservation. Applying strategies to protect key species on agricultural lands is critical to the viability of wildlife populations, especially as open space diminishes and once-remote areas become accessible. By offering scientifically-sound, measurable standards to agricultural producers round the world, Certified Wildlife Friendly™ celebrates farm-level wildlife stewardship. Through this approach, the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network (WFEN) works to support both communities and wildlife alike by creating incentives for sound ecological management of farm and ranch lands around the world.

Developed by involving a broad spectrum of stakeholders, Denmark’s Organic Action Plan is a holistic strategy that increases, on the one hand, the overall demand for organic products and, on the other hand, stimulates research and product innovation. Supported by substantial dedicated funding, the Plan produced very clear positive outcomes: Today Denmark has the highest market share of organic products in the world, with almost 80 percent of Danes purchasing organic food. Also thanks to high demand, the Plan has amply met its original target of doubling organic farm land compared to a 2007 baseline. For its achievements, Denmark’s Organic Action Plan (2011-2020) was recognized with the Future Policy Silver Award 2018, awarded by the World Future Council in partnership with the FAO and IFOAM – Organics International.