Round 5 grantees

Lead Organization: La Via Campesina

Partner Organizations: GRAIN, ETC Group

Location(s): Global

Award: $120,000 over 17 months

This collaborative will continue to defend and amplify the peasant-led agroecology and seeds agendas, globally and in farmers’ fields, by strengthening the capacities and strategies of farmers’ movements and their allies. It will also analyze, influence and hold accountable relevant policies and practices of governments, agencies and the private sector through information and advocacy work. The partners will build upon the already substantial achievements of this collaborative, including the historic 2018 approval of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other international successes in the UN food and biodiversity governance processes, further broadening and deepening their impact.

Lead Organization: IITC

Partner Organizations: 100 Indigenous affiliates

Location(s): Global

Award: $120,000 over 21 months

IITC, founded in 1974, represents over 100 Indigenous affiliates from 5 regions and is the alliance’s lead organization. Food Sovereignty is one of IITC’s four core program areas. The Indigenous Peoples Alliance for Traditional Knowledge, Food Sovereignty and Climate Change works to restore, revitalize, protect and strengthen local food systems through sharing and protecting seeds, practices and methods among Indigenous food producers based on time-tested traditional knowledge. It organizes collaborative food sovereignty gatherings in indigenous communities and expands impacts through networking, informa- tion and seeds sharing, movement building and engagement between youth and elders.

Lead Organization: The INMIP network

Partner Organizations: The Potato Park, Asociación ANDES

Location(s): Global

Award: $140,000 over 12 months

Over the last decade, Asociación ANDES and the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples (INMIP) have been promoting a “Food Neighborhood” (FN) approach to tackle major challenges around food and nutritional security, agricultural production and environmental sustainability. For this, the collaborative has been advancing a three-pronged strategy designed to address these issues and facilitate an interconnected global working environment; including: 1. A Pluriversity (a transformative and pluri-epistemic learning and decolonial educational approach); 2. scaling out the Potato Park’s FN model; and, 3. promoting the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ biocultural rights associated with food producing habitats. Using this strategy, the collaborative seeks to forge a global village of “diverse food neighborhoods” spread throughout the planet, productively interconnected with one another and nourishing the global food system as a whole, putting diversity at the heart of food systems so that they are more sustainable, resilient, and equitable, and better equipped to provide healthy and delicious food to all. The collaborative proposes to: 1. Work with the Pluriversity “Yachaykuychi” to develop an intercultural curricula and toolbox on methods to implement and manage Food Neighborhoods; 2. Organize a biocultural knowledge exchange, food celebration, and hands on training in March 2020 in the Potato Park, involving INMIP partners from Asia, Central Asia, Africa and Meso and South America and, 3. Support INMIP’s work on fostering this inspiring global network of Food Neighborhoods by promoting collaboration and alliance building among Indigenous Peoples in centers of crop origin and diversity.

Lead Organization:  Grupo Autónomo para la Investigación Ambiental, A.C. (GAIA)
Partner Organizations:  SICOBI, KUKOJ, CEDICAM, UCIRI, CESMACH, Triunfo Verde, San Fernando, Tosepan, Catholic Relief Service (CRS)
Location(s): Mexico
Award: $140,000 over 16 months
The project will strengthen the extension and leadership structures of eight organizations of small producers in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Puebla. During the last three years, GAIA has developed a process of accompaniment and facilitation for these organizations to integrate the sustainable management of soils with coffee and corn (milpa) production systems. Through this, it seeks to increase the productivity of their crops and reduce the precariousness of household food supply, especially as droughts and floods are becoming more frequent. The proposal will guarantee the strengthening of eight technical teams and at least 60 working groups or cooperatives of small producers/promoters (PP). The project will reach about 1,200 families. 

Lead Organization: CEDAC – Centro de Desenvolvimento Agroecológico do Cerrado (Center for Agroecology Development in the Brazilian Savanah)

Partner Organizations: Rede de Comercialização Solidária de Agricultores Familiares e Extrativistas do Cerrado

Location(s): Brazil

Award: $140,000 over 24 months

This collaborative focuses on biodiversity conservation of both food and other species in the Brazilian Cerrado. The collaborative is working with 270 species of which 171 are native species. CEDAC and RCS will partner with academic institutions to valorize traditional knowledge associated with biodiversity and to open new markets for the generation of income as a strategy to conserve biodiversity. In 2014, CEDAC obtained a license from the Ministry of Agriculture to work on participatory organic certification. In order to support more families with certification, CEDAC will co-construct a peasant-to-peasant training process through various “Agroecology Experiment Centers” located in communities. The centers will prioritize the participation of women and young people.

Lead Organization: European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC)

Partner Organizations: ECORURALIS, ELKANA, Agency of Development Initiatives (ADI), Zan va Zamin, Grădina Moldovei

Location(s): Eastern Europe

Award: $140,000 over 17 months

The proposal aims to strengthen agroecology and peasant seed systems by building up cross-regional exchanges and networks in the Eastern European and Central Asian region with special focus on women’s leadership. The collaborative will strengthen an emerging food sovereignty and agroecology movement in Eastern Europe where the level of grassroots organization is lower than in other regions. This peasant-led collaborative is bringing together partners united in the struggle for food sovereignty at the grassroots and policy level. The added value of the collaborative lies in bringing together national and regional peasant-led organizations, grassroots movements and public institutions who are combining different experiences, roles, knowledge and capacities needed for food system transformation.

Lead Organization: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

Partner Organizations: 36 regional organizations

Location(s): Africa

Award: $120,000 over 18 months

The core purpose of AFSA is to influence policies and to promote African solutions for food sovereignty. AFSA serves as a continental platform for consolidation of issues pertaining to food sovereignty and together marshals a single and louder voice on issues that matter to Africa, tabling clear and workable solutions.

Current strategic priorities are: to galvanize the agroecology movement in Africa; to support and protect farmer-managed seed systems; to provide a strong voice on land rights, to promote agroecology as a solution to climate change, to energize citizens, to inform and influence policy outcomes on seed and food sovereignty, land, and the transition to agroecology.

Lead Organization: Groundswell International

Partner Organizations: Agrecol Afrique, Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD), Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development (CIKOD), Sahel Eco

Location(s): West Africa

Award: $140,000 over 12 months

The Groundswell West Africa collaborative is an existing network of five organizations and their in-country networks of grassroots community groups. The collaborative draws on decades of shared learning across programs and borders to catalyze the transition from conventional unsustainable agriculture and rural development models to farming and food systems that strengthen the capacity and wellbeing of local women, men and communities, and that are ecologically sustainable, resilient to climate change, socially just, nutrition-sensitive and restorative for local economies and cultures.

The Collaborative is a member of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and the Land and Agroecology Working Group (LAWG). Through policy analysis, case studies, formulation of policy briefs, support for strategy development, and communications to counter the dominant narrative on agriculture, Groundswell supports the representation of AFSA at key African and international policy spaces.

Lead Organization: African Biodiversity Network (ABN)

Partner Organizations: Biowatch South Africa, Jeunes Volontaires pour l’Environnement (JVE), Tanzania Alliance for Biodiversity is an Alliance (TABIO), Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation (GER)

Location(s): East, West, South Africa

Award: $100,000 over 12 months

This Collaborative spans East, West, and Southern Africa. Partners have a varying experience of agroecology, with some working at national and community levels, while others are networks. At the heart of ABN’s approach to agroecology are practitioners who really understand the connection between seeds, nature and culture, exploring how this relationship can heal the planet. Focusing on the revival of seeds helps farmers to connect with nature and culture in ways that lead to a holistic approach in all their farming practices. ABN’s methodologies provide the foundation on which agroecology can grow. The collaborative is working to strengthen agroecological practices and food sovereignty by connecting seeds with culture and nature.

Lead Organization: Slow Food International

Partner Organizations: Maendeleo Endelevu Action Program (MEAP), Slow Food Uganda (SF Uganda), Slow Food Convivia Association of Kenya (SF Kenya)

Location(s): Kenya, Uganda

Award: $140,000 over 17 months

By spreading agroecological practices and strengthening farmers’ knowledge of agroecological farming, the project aims to boost local economies and improve the livelihoods of local communities. This will be done also by enhancing market opportunities based on direct contact between producers and consumers, which will generate better income, employment and well-being (as a deep multiplier effect), and by contributing to a new narrative on agroecology, essential to raising awareness about agroecology as “the agriculture of the future” and advocating for long lasting change. Women, youth and indigenous communities’ entrepreneurial and productive roles will be supported, and their inclusion as custodians of invaluable food biodiversity and heritage will be promoted at all levels.

Lead Organization: Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)

Partner Organizations: Women Development for Science and Technology (WODSTA), Roots for Equity, The Karachi Farmers Market (KFM), Department of Agronomy, Nawaz Sharif University, Multan

Location(s): Pakistan

Award: $100,000 over 19 months

The collaboration will upscale and strengthen agroecology, build technical and social alliances between various actors such as farmers’ movements, trade unions, women’s groups, scientists and consumers to advocate for agroecology and food sovereignty. PKMT will establish 18 agroecology-based farms in six districts spread over three provinces of Pakistan. These farms will strengthen the people’s science approach, based on farmers and scientists’ interaction. The collaboration will also help in linking farmers with consumer markets. It’s important to mention that PKMT is a member of the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC); currently, PKMT holds the secretariat along with secretary general for APC. PKMT will reach out to the APC membership across Asia, through exchanges and by sharing audio-visual, print and social communications products.

Lead Organization: Arulagam

Partner Organizations: La Via Campesina South Asia, Zero Budget Natural Farming Movement

Location(s): South Asia

Award: $130,000 over 24 months

This collaborative will build upon the gains of their last strategy to get policy support for zero budget natural farming as well as conduct youth training. The collaborative plans to strengthen its focus on policy and youth, but add an element of rural enterprise in order to provide market links for trainees and especially youth. Policy work will involve engagement with implementation of the ZBNF program in Karnataka. A new angle to the policy work is that LVC South Asia members in Nepal are linked to the party which has formed the national government and many allies are members of parliament. The collaborative will initiate a policy dialogue on agroecology in Nepal.

Lead Organization: Peace Building Center

Partner Organizations: Baikal Buryat Center for Indigenous Cultures (Non-Governmental Organization), Federation of Organic Movements Bio-KG (Public Association), FOM, Rural Development Fund (Public Foundation)

Location(s): Central Asia

Award: $140,000 over 12 months

The mission of the collaborative is to restore traditional agriculture and natural landscapes of nomadic peoples of Pamir, Tien-Shan and Sayan-Altai in Central Asia. The motto of the collaborative is “Dignity and Prosperity for Local Indigenous Communities”. The collaborative will revive aboriginal animal breeds and contribute to the conservation of biocultural diversity on Earth. At this stage, the proposed collaborative project has two interrelated goals: (1) to restore the gene pool of two aboriginal animals, the Kyr-gyz horse and Buryat cow, as a basis for the restoration of nomadic pastoralism and pasture ecosystems in Kyrgyzstan and Buryatia, and (2) to regain the spiritual-cultural identity and interconnection of nomadic indigenous peoples in the field of aboriginal livestock breeding and pastoralism. In the long-term, the collaborative will expand the project further by launching work on revival of aboriginal animal breeds of other indigenous peoples of the region and including new Indigenous Peoples’ organizations. The collaborative firmly believes that modern global issues (including environmental degradation and poverty) can be solved through spiritual and moral life principles, the regaining of multidimensional and harmonious relationships between human beings and natural landscapes, and the revival of biocultural diversity.