From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

3 POVERTY AND WEALTH LIVING OFF THE LANDBOX 3.2A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTUREKey principles are to:• Integrate natural biological and ecological processes suchas soil regeneration, predation, and parasitism into foodproduction;• Minimise the use of those non-renewable inputs that causeharm to the environment or to the health of farmers andconsumers;• Make productive use of the knowledge and skills of farmers;• Work together to solve common problems in areas such aspest, watershed, irrigation, forest, and credit management.Defining practices and technologies include:Integrated pest management, which uses ecosystem resilienceand diversity for pest, disease, and weed control;Integrated nutrient management, which seeks to fix nitrogenwithin farm systems rather than import nutrients, and to reducenutrient loss through erosion control;Conservation tillage, which reduces the amount of tillage,sometimes to zero, so that soil can be conserved and availablemoisture can be used more efficiently;Agroforestry, which incorporates multi-functional trees intoagricultural systems and collective management of nearby forestresources;Aquaculture, which incorporates fish, shrimp, and other aquaticresources into farm systems, to increase protein production;Water harvesting, which allows for irrigated cultivation of abandonedand degraded lands owing to better rainwater retention;Livestock integration, which incorporates livestock into farming,including the use of zero-grazing cut-and-carry systems.Source: J. Pretty (2006) ‘Agroecological Approaches To Agricultural Development’,background paper for World Development Report 2008, World Bank.131