BES Facebook pageBES Annual Meeting 2011
12 - 14 September
University of Sheffield
The BES Lecture
We are delighted to welcome Jules Pretty, OBE, FRSA, FSB to present the BES Lecture.
The Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture: Some Lessons from Africa
Tuesday 13 September 15.00 - 16.00
Over the past half century, agricultural production gains have provided a platform for rural and urban economic growth worldwide. In African countries, however, agriculture has been widely assumed to have performed badly. The UK Foresight Global Food and Farming Project commissioned and published analyses of 30 projects and programmes across 20 countries where sustainable intensification has been developed and implemented during the 1990s-2000s. The cases included crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships. By early 2010, these projects had documented benefits for 10.39 million farmers and their families and improvements on approximately 12.75 m hectares. Food outputs by sustainable intensification have been multiplicative - by which yields per hectare increased by combinations of the use of new and improved varieties and new agronomic-agroecological management (crop yields rose on average by 2.13 fold), and additive - by which diversification resulted in the emergence of a range of new crops, livestock or fish that added to the existing staples or vegetables already being cultivated.
These projects had seven common lessons for scaling up and spreading sustainable intensification in both developing and industrialized countries: i) the combined science and farmer input into technologies and practices that combine crops-animals with agroecological and agronomic management; ii) the creation of novel social infrastructure that builds trust amongst individuals and agencies; iii) the improvement of farmer knowledge and capacity through the use of farmer field schools and modern ICTs; iv) the engagement with the private sector for supply of goods and services; v) a focus on women's educational, microfinance and agricultural technology needs; and finally vi) ensuring public policy support for agriculture as a key component of all economies.
Professor Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex; he is also Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability and Resources) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor responsible for the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
Amongst many publications, his books include the This Luminous Coast, Nature and Culture, The Earth Only Endures and Environment.
He is a Fellow of the Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts, former Deputy-Chair of the Government's Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), and has served on advisory committees for a number of government departments.
He is currently member of the Lead Expert Group for the UK Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures Project, member of the Expert Panel for UK National Ecosystem Assessment and member of BBSRC's Strategy Advisory Board. He was recently Chairman of the Essex Rural Commission, member of the Royal Society working group on Biological Approaches to Improving Crop Production (2008 to 2009), and member of the 2008 RAE Sub-Panel 16.
He is a regular contributor to the media, presenting the BBC Radio 4 series Ploughing Eden in 1999, a contributing and writing for the BBC TV Correspondent programme The Magic Bean in 2001, and a panellist in 2007 for Radio 4's The Moral Maze.
In 1997, he received an international award from the Indian Ecological Society, was appointed A. D. White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University in 2001 and is Chief Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture.
