WORKING TOWARDS COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP IN THE AGROECOLOGY MOVEMENT

 

PLD-Agroecology Team of JPIC  Kalimantan

This essay is a reflection on the journey of community assistance to create leaders in an integrative and sustainable economic and environmental movement in dealing with threats to natural resource degradation in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The title above implies efforts that have been and are still ongoing from time to time. This is a long process that will continue to repeat itself until finally we can stand proud, when no one is neglected, no one left behind as mandated by the SDGs.

1. Regional context

The province of Central Kalimantan is a region that economically relies on natural resources, from the forest, water, mountains and from the ground. This area was originally inhabited by various sub-tribes of Dayak Kalimantan with a livelihood culture of hunting on land and in water in addition to farming and collecting herbs and traditional medicines.

As the timber industry, large-scale plantations and coal mining took off in the region, local and inter-island migration began. Many people from outside Kalimantan came to live in this region either because of the government transmigration program or individual migrants. As a result, many settlements were built and extractive industry areas expanded. The consequences are increasingly worrisome as the indigenous population feels threatened both its territory and sources of livelihood. Meanwhile, there is no certainty of legal protection of the individual rights and communal rights of indigenous peoples. This has been a major challenge from the beginning until now.

The inevitable aftermath is human rights violations and environmental destruction. This is characterized by conflicts between private companies and indigenous peoples who inhabit forests and lands. These conflicts occur due to the dispute over land and forests, pollution of water sources and rivers, natural disasters (floods and forest fires), and diseases arising from environmental pollution. And, even more concerning, indigenous and tribal communities face the threat of hunger and poverty due to the loss of land for food production.

2. JPIC Kalimantan intervention

As an advocacy organization, JPIC Kalimantan, which was officially established in October 2010, tried to take part in efforts to restore the right to life. There are 10 communities in three districts that JPIC Kalimantan has assisted over the past five years. These villages are Didi Village, Bentot Village, Tangkan Village, Piango Village, Bamban Village, Tewah Pupuh and Janajari Village in East Barito Regency. In addition, Penyang village and Tanah Putih village in East Kotawaringin district and Bangkal village in Seruyan district, Central Kalimantan.

At first, JPIC Kalimantan took part in handling cases of land grabbing and criminalization of community members by assessing cases, collecting data, drafting lawsuits in litigation and non-litigation efforts through mediation and campaigns. Furthermore, JPIC Kalimantan conducted education and empowerment, especially education about law and human rights. The aim is for the community to understand the problems faced from the perspective of Law and Human Rights, then which steps should be taken in the framework of advocacy for the restoration and protection of the right to life.

We realize that advocacy for the protection and restoration of rights is an endless work. It means that advocacy is a long-term endeavor in the midst of legal uncertainty and the limited capacity of the victim community to fight for their rights. Meanwhile, economic demands are becoming more pressing by the day amidst increasing threats to livelihoods. Therefore, JPIC Kalimantan conducts continuous reflection within the ARA framework - action - reflection on action - as an effort to find the substance of the problem and appropriate and effective solutions to the problems faced. This reflection is very useful for organizations and communities in determining assistance steps that are in accordance with what is needed by the community.

3. Agroecology movement[1]

In reflecting with the community, JPIC Kalimantan found that the thing most needed by the community in maintaining the sustainability of the lives of families in the village is the fulfillment of economic needs, especially food. This is a vital need that must be safeguarded and nurtured as we continue to fight to reclaim land rights that are in danger of being taken away. Efforts to fulfill food needs also face the challenge of limited local seeds that are threatened by the reduction of local food agricultural land. Food sources are slowly shifting from farms to markets. This means that the farm is no longer the source of the family's food supply, but the market mechanism is. The question is, do communities always have the money to buy food for their families? This is another challenge due to the uncertainty of a steady economic source for them.

We invited the community to evaluate the above phenomenon and found that they still have a little yard and land. It is the remaining capital that means a lot to them in their efforts to maintain food availability for the family with minimal expenditure. The application of agroecological principles and practices in this situation is one of the powerful ways and models. In fact, this is a farming practice that has existed in indigenous or local communities for generations.

In this collective reflection, organization and community discovered and agreed on agroecology as a joint movement. The understanding of agroecology itself is also growing. Agroecology is understood as an integrated - holistic approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles in the design and management of food and agricultural systems.

Within a framework of justice and human rights, this approach seeks to minimize external influences and optimize sustainable interactions between living beings and the wider environment.

In the context of indigenous food systems, agroecology emerged from indigenous/local food systems themselves and has been in the scientific literature since the mid-twentieth century. This is reflected in the practices of family farmers and cultivators in grassroots social movements for equality and sustainability, as well as in public policies in various countries. Agroecology is now embraced by many governments, international development agencies, and UN agencies.

In various discussions with the community whether in FGDs or various trainings, we found two characteristics of Agroecology:

1. Bottom-up process

Agroecology is fundamentally different from other sustainable development approaches. It is based on bottom-up and territorial processes, which help provide contextualized solutions to local problems. Agroecological innovation is based on knowledge co-creation, combining science with traditional, practical and local knowledge of food producers. By prioritizing food sovereignty and adaptive capacity, agroecology empowers food producers and communities as key agents of change.

2. The approach is a system-wide transformative approach, addressing complex issues such as climate change, malnutrition and private domination. Agroecology places a strong focus on the rights of women, children, youth and Indigenous Peoples. Agroecology is the solution in building sustainable livelihoods and food systems.

In addition, we also learned that agroecology has fundamental principles that have also been adopted and acknowledged by the United Nations through FAO and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). There are 13 important principles in the agroecology movement as a roadmap for integrative and comprehensive food system transformation that will be developed continuously by the community:

1. Knowledge Co-creation

Co-creation of knowledge should be done to horizontally increase community knowledge, such as local and scientific innovations, through sharing - learning between farmers - knowledge exchange and knowledge transfer between generations.

2. Social patterns and values

This is the guiding principle of the agroecology movement, which is to build food systems based on the culture, identity, traditions, social and gender equality of indigenous/local communities that provide healthy, diverse, seasonally and culturally appropriate diets. Values are seen as social capital from local community wisdom that must receive attention in every community building movement.

3. Equity

Support dignified and robust livelihoods for all actors involved in the food system, especially small-scale food producers, based on fair trade, fair labore and fair treatment of intellectual property rights and avoiding monopolistic market practices. Balance and proportionality are important in efforts to build and develop communities according to their rights, which must not be neglected. Indeed, the community is keenly aware of this principle as practiced in the ‘uma betang’ tradition, where everyone gets their due fairly and equally

4. Connectivity

It is a principle that ensures closeness and trust between producers and consumers through the promotion of fair and efficient distribution networks by reintegrating the food system into the local economy. This means that any food system must still respect the existing institutions owned by local communities. This connectivity is also important in preventing monopolistic practices by irresponsible parties on local community products.

5. Land and Natural Resources Governance

This point is raised as a principle considering the governance of land and natural resources has always been problematic due to land-grabbing and uncontrolled deforestation practices that disrupt and damage the environment. This principle aims to strengthen institutional arrangements for improvement, including the recognition and support of family farmers, especially smallholders and food producers who are the actual sustainable managers of natural and genetic resources. Acknowledging rights to production resources - land, forests and water - is essential for food sustainability and climate balance. Therefore, the strengthening and mechanism of legal recognition of rights must be carried out to obtain certainty and guarantee of sustainable protection rights. Education and practical advocacy efforts, both at the litigation and non-litigation levels, must be carried out simultaneously. Land security also ensures food security in the future.

6. Participation

In this principle, agroecology promotes social organisation and greater participation in decision-making. Decision-making should be undertaken by both food producers and consumers with a view to supporting decentralised governance and adaptive management of local food and farming systems.

7. Recycling

This principle mandates using local renewable resources and utilising nutrient and biomass resource cycles wherever possible, i.e. organic waste management - e.g. Eco Enzymes - is one way of empowering local and contextual resources for the health of soil, water, forest and air ecosystems. Therefore, it is time for farming and sub-urban communities to utilise this renewable resource from their kitchens to their yards and gardens. In essence, even waste fuels the universe.

8. Limiting External Inputs

Reduce or eliminate dependence on purchased inputs and increase self-sufficiency. This relates to both nutrients in food and food coming from outside the country. Prioritizing local capacity to meet needs for sustainability, especially for farming families, is paramount and urgent. Therefore, cultivating our own land and local seeds is the safest and most profitable option because in terms of quality it is also very promising.

9. Soil Health

Securing and improving soil health and function to enhance plant growth, in particular by managing organic matter and increasing soil biological activity. It can be done in the traditional way or by learning new and free ways to nourish the soil, for example, clearing and loosening the soil is a way of providing oxygen to the soil and everything in it.

10. Animal Health

This principle ensures the health and welfare of surrounding animals. The presence of healthy animals makes an important contribution to humans and plants as a package of the agroecological movement. There is a symbiotic mutualism between animals, plants and humans as their keepers.

11. Biodiversity

This principle emphasises the importance of biodiversity. Maintaining and enhancing the diversity of species, functions and genetic resources maintains overall agroecosystem biodiversity in space and time at field, farm and landscape scales. One of the things that can be implemented is to collect various local seeds to be cultivated in communities while learning more about how to regenerate them in the future so that they develop better adaptation to the climate.

12. Sinergy

Enhancing positive ecological interactions, synergies, integration and complementarity between agroecosystem elements (animals, plants, trees, soil and water). It also means maintaining and caring for interdependent relationships - inseparability - due to mutual need and support between elements in the environment as a unified ecosystem.

13. Economic Diversification

Diversify income in the agricultural sector by ensuring that small-scale farmers have greater financial independence and value-added opportunities while enabling them to respond to consumer demand. Farmers are the landowners, managers and owners of their produce. Therefore, farmers should have more food stocks to distribute with packaging that is acceptable to the market. In this case, it is also the farmers who must determine the dynamics of a fair and sustainable food market.

From a series of discussions in communities, it can be concluded that agroecology has very superior benefits, in addition to being in accordance with the life practices of indigenous and local communities, it also has great potential to create prosperity for families and is friendly to nature where the community lives and carries out activities. However, in order to nurture and develop vibrant and improved initiatives and participation, communities need the right approach to organize themselves.

4. PLD as a community leadership initiative [2]

In order to strengthen the agroecology movement, the People Lead Development (PLD) approach becomes very relevant to the community. From the results of joint learning with the PLD movement in Flores, NTT and participating in various APEX activities as well as several joint learning efforts with the Initiative Joint Learning (IJL) forum, JPIC Kalimantan introduced PLD to its assisted communities, both young people and adults (men and women) in ten communities located in 3 districts (Seruyan, East Kotawaringin and East Barito), in Central Kalimantan province.

This introduction was carried out directly in the community and then organized the community leaders in 2 workshop sessions. JPIC Kalimantan together with PLD facilitators introduced the steps and process of PLD so that the leaders could become co-facilitators in their communities. 1) An initial FGD was conducted to exchange opinions on various issues in the community, then 2) participants conducted participatory community mapping and transect-walks to get to know the various views, geographical conditions, natural and cultural contexts and threats that arise, while appreciating the good things that develop. 3) The community was also asked to recognize the historical timeline by exploring and remembering the history of the village's journey and the issues faced, and 4) Specifically the community was asked to show the seasonal calendar that they follow and what they do in each season, 5) the community was asked to identify and recognize the actors (internal - external) and what their roles are in and towards various aspects of community life, 6) Then the community was guided to find out exactly what the causes and effects of the various issues found were, from which the community could distinguish which causes were primary, and which were secondary. This is important if the community is to plan appropriate, clear, effective and efficient solutions.

From these six steps, the community was brought into the PAR stage of Plan, Act and Reflect, which can be repeated periodically. At this level, the guidance of the FPIC principle is also very helpful for the community in finding the right expectations and decisions together to do. Of course, this is not simple, but through repeated and continuous activities, the community will in time become accustomed and skilled in seeing the problems in their village and how appropriate solutions can be taken. Hopefully, the community will become more active, courageous and participate more in the development of their village, especially when facing threats to their rights to natural resources in their area and especially their sovereignty over sustainable local food.

5. Closing

Reflecting on the agroecology movement cannot stand alone without the approach used. Likewise, discussing PLD cannot be separated from its basis as a medium of intervention. Agroecology is the basis of the movement and PLD is the method of approach in the movement to create innovative and progressive leaders in communities. It is therefore important to discuss these two topics as an integral whole, even though the description above is incomplete.

Therefore, there are some evaluation notes in the form of recommendations that can be a guide for the future in building community leadership in encouraging a meaningful and impactful agroecology movement, especially for our organization and the communities we assist:

1. Agroecology is a multi-faceted and integrative economic and environmental movement in awareness and practice, while PLD is a holistic approach that goes hand in hand with it. This needs to be not only knowledge and skills but also a shared consciousness both on the part of the assisting organization, as well as the initiative community.
2. Therefore, firstly, the assisting organization must bring agroecology and PLD to life within the organization itself. In terms of agroecology, the organization should have demonstration plots and essential learning for the assisted community.
3. Both of the above are continuous movements within the framework of ARA - action - reflection - action to always find important innovations in integral and sustainable development.
4. And the movement should start from communities with the principles and spirit of FPIC in determining the right decision for them, while the assisting organization continues to move with community leaders to expand the movement.
5. An important target for the future is how the government and existing CSOs also become an important part of the agroecology movement process by involving and voluntarily adopting initiatives born from villages in the region

Apparently, community leadership in the agroecology movement makes each individual a creative leader, where there is truly ‘no one left behind’.