Session 4: International and Local Initiatives on Sustainable Agriculture

In the growing organic and sustainable agriculture movement, a range of incentives have emerged to encourage sustainable agricultural practices, such as:

1. Providing farmers with financial and technical assistance

​Example: The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides American farmers with financial and technical assistance to voluntarily integrate conservation into farming (NRCS, n.d.).

2. Improving farmers’ access over land and markets

Example: In the well-known sustainable agriculture movement of Cuba, the land tenure decentralisation policy has largely shifted farmland management power from large state farms to smaller cooperative and private farms; the highly centralised food distribution system has also been restructured to provide opportunities for farmers to sell food directly to hotels, restaurants and small vendors (Fernandez et al, 2018).

3. Promoting certification and labelling

Examples: The Rainforest Alliance certification as an example of a third-party certification and the Participatory Guarantee Systems as an alternative and complementary method to third-party certification will be introduced in this session.

4. Encouraging sustainable activities that generate new income for farmers

Example: The Italian Association for Organic Agriculture (AIAB) has started a national programme to encourage eco-organic tourism which benefits both farmers and the environment (Scialabba & Williamson, 2004).

5. Implementing Payment for Environmental Services (PES) initiatives

Example: In Kenya, deforestation and tea farming in Nyando and Yala basins increased the sediment load entering Lake Victoria, causing ecological degradation and eutrophication problems, therefore a PES scheme has been launched to engage farmers in planting trees on their farms (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2011).

Among these types of incentives, certification and labelling programmes have a far reaching impact on the product supply chain. They catalyse sustainable food production practices through setting robust environmental and social standards to verify impacts and have created market outlets for sustainable food. As the labelled products could be sold at a better price, farmers are encouraged to stay committed to sustainable agriculture. Here we will introduce the Rainforest Alliance certification and the Participatory Guarantee Systems. Towards the end of this session, some local policies related to sustainable agriculture in Hong Kong will be briefly introduced as well. 

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