Land
All over the world, individuals and communities are taking hard looks at their relationship with land and its bounty. New techniques in agriculture seek to ensure long-term health of the land and its inhabitants without huge outlays of capital for equipment and petroleum fuels. Forests are more than mere sources of wood, but permanent entities that need protection while also providing valuable services in terms of water filtering, flood protection, tourism, and carbon sequestration.
Theme Introduction
Date: 3 June
Time: 14:00-16:00
A panel conversation will link the global land-use challenges with the on-the-ground initiatives on sustainable practices for food production, forestry and use of other
ecosystem services. This session will also highlight a few of the
initiatives with the purpose to illustrate more general challenges of
innovation, distribution, policy and financial mechanisms.
Invited participants to this panel include:
Juergen Voegele, World Bank
Lars Idermark, Swedish Co-operative Union, Sweden
Chair: Adam Kahane, Reos Partners, USA and South Africa
You can also find the session on our on-line community.
The projects
In the area of land, a large number of ventures an projects building on innovations and new approaches will be showcased and developed further, each indicating one small step in the much larger context of change.
These initiatives include sustainable farming practices, irrigation solutions, initiatives to prevent deforestation and sustainable tourism.
Building distribution channels for sustainable coffee growers, LIFEMATE
LIFEMATE, Rwanda, is a social business where canopy farming of organic coffee is used as the revenue generating vehicle for driving youth employment.
E-Choupal model: Empowering small farmers through rural hubs, ITC
The E-Choupal model illustrates how new technology can allow agricultural markets to function more efficiently and help improve the quality and reward of jobs at the very beginning of the value chain.
Apuí Greener Project: an innovative model for income generation and reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, IDESAM
Setting up a model to control deforestation by combining sustainable economic activities as forest management, reforestation, and efficiency improvement in cattle ranching. The project is funded by carbon credits that will be generated through REDD and reforestation activities and will generate income for more than 400 families, creating permanent and seasonal jobs for around 1,000 people up to 2035.
Sustainable business models for farmers, Gramin Suvidha Kendra
By cooperating with the Indian Post this initative reaches out to rural Indian farmers and cater to their marketing, warehousing and advisory needs. Thus farmers become better informed and are able to make sound business decisions leading to a rise in their standard of living at the same time as it bridges the rural-urban divide.
Avoiding deforestation through canopy agriculture of mate-tea, Guayaki
Guayaki has pioneered an innovative business model called Market Driven Restoration in which Guayaki serves as a bridge linking consumer purchases of healthy yerba mate products in North America with indigenous communities engaged in sustainable agriculture and reforestation projects in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.
Please click here to read more about these and other projects.