By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Oct 29 2024 – The production of solar energy by means of panels installed on small farmers’ properties or on the roofs of community organisations is starting to directly benefit more and more farmers in Chile.

This energy enables technified irrigation systems, pumping water and lowering farmers’ bills by supporting their business. It also enables farmers’ cooperatives to share the fruits of their surpluses.

The huge solar and wind energy potential of this elongated country of 19.5 million people is the basis for a shift that is beginning to benefit not only large generators.

The potential capacity of solar and wind power generation is estimated at 2,400 gigawatts, which is 80 times more than the total capacity of the current Chilean energy matrix.

The mayor of Las Cabras, Juan Pablo Flores, first on the left, on the roof of the building of his Municipality along with employees who installed the photovoltaic panels that will allow energy savings of more than US$ 10,000 per year. Credit: Courtesy of Municipality of Las Cabras

Two farming families

Fanny Lastra, 55, was born in the municipality of Mulchén, 550 kilometres south of Santiago, located in the centre of the country in the Bío Bío region. She has lived in the rural sector of Mirador del Bío Bío in the town since she was 8.

“We won a grant of 12 million pesos (US$12,600) to install a photovoltaic system with sprinklers to make better use of the little water we have on our five-hectare farm and have good alfalfa crops to feed the animals,” she told IPS from her home town.“We used to irrigate all night, we didn’t sleep, and now we can optimise irrigation¨: Fanny Lastra.

She refers to the resources provided to applicants who are selected on the basis of their background and the situation of their farms by two government bodies, mostly through grants: the National Irrigation Commission (CNR) and the Institute for Agricultural Development (Indap).

“Before we had to irrigate all night, we didn’t sleep, and now we can optimise irrigation. The panel gives us the energy to expel the water through sprinklers. In the future we plan to apply for another photovoltaic panel to draw water and fill a storage pool,” Lastra said.

The area has received abundant rainfall this year, but a larger pond would allow to store water for dry periods, which are increasingly recurrent.

“We have water shares (rights), but there are so many of us small farmers that we have to schedule. In my case, every nine days I have 28 hours of water. That’s why we applied for another project,” she said.

Lastra works with her children on the plot, which is mainly dedicated to livestock.

The conversion of agricultural land like hers into plots for second homes, which is rampant in many regions of Chile, has also reached Bío Bío and caused Lastra problems. For example, dogs abandoned by their owners have killed 50 of her lambs in recent times.

That is why she will gradually switch to raising larger livestock to continue with Granny’s Tradition, as she christened her production of fresh, mature cheeses and dulce de leche.

Marisol Pérez, 53, produces vegetables in greenhouses and outdoors on her half-hectare plot in the town of San Ramón, within the municipality of Quillón, 448 kilometres south of Santiago, also in the Bío Bío region.

In February 2023 she was affected by a huge fire. “Two greenhouses, a warehouse with motor cultivators, fumigators and all the machinery burnt down. And a poultry house with 200 birds that cost 4500 pesos (US$ 4.7) each. Thank God we saved part of the house and the photovoltaic panel,” She told IPS from his home town.

Pérez has been working the land with her sister and their husbands for 11 years.

“We started with irrigation and a solar panel.  After the fire we reapplied to the CNR. As the panel didn’t burn, they helped us with the greenhouse. The government gives us a certain amount and we have to put in at least 10%,” she explained.

The first subsidy was the equivalent of US$1,053 and the second, after the fire, was US$842. With both she was able to reinstall the drip system and rebuild the greenhouse, now made of metal.

“Having a solar panel allows us to save a lot. Before, we were paying almost 200,000 pesos (US$210) a month. With what we saved with the panel, we now pay 6,000 pesos (US$6.3)”, she explained with satisfaction.

In her opinion, “the solar panel is a very good thing.  If I don’t use water for the greenhouses, I use it for my house. We live off what we harvest and plant. That’s our life. And I am happy like that,” she said.

Ignacio Mena, Coopeumo network administrator, in front of the warehouse where photovoltaic panels were installed. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

The cases of one cooperative and two municipalities

The proliferation of solar panels is also due to the drop in their price. Solarity, a Chilean solar power company, reported that prices are at historic lows.

In 2021 its value per kilowatt (kWp) was 292 dollars. It increased to 300 in 2022, then dropped to 202 and reached 128 dollars in 2024.

In 2021 the Cooperativa Intercomunal Peumo (Coopeumo) commissioned the first community photovoltaic plant in Chile. Today it has 54.2 kWp installed in two plants, with about 120 panels in total.

The energy generated is used in some of its own facilities and the surplus is injected into the Compañía General de Electricidad (CGE), a private distributor, which pays its contribution every month.

This amount contributes to improving support for its 350 members, all farmers in the area, including technical assistance, the sale of agricultural inputs, grain marketing and tax consultancy.

Coopeumo’s goals also include reducing carbon dioxide (C02) emissions into the atmosphere and benefiting its members.

It also benefits the municipalities of Pichidegua and Las Cabras, located 167 and 152 kilometres south of Santiago, as well as school, health and neighbourhood establishments.

“The energy savings in a typical month, like August 2024, was 492,266 pesos (US$518),” said Ignacio Mena, 37, and a computer engineer who works as a network administrator for Coopeumo, based in the municipality of Peumo, in the O’Higgins region, which borders the Santiago Metropolitan Region to the south.

Interviewed by IPS at his office in Pichidegua, he said the construction of the first plant cost the equivalent of US$42,105, contributed equally by Coopeumo and the private foundation  Agencia de Sostenibilidad Energética.

Constanza López, 35, a risk prevention engineer and head of the environmental unit of the Las Cabras municipality, appreciates the contribution of the panels installed on the roof of the municipal building. They have an output of 54 kilowatts and have been in operation since 2023.

“We awarded them through the Energy Sustainability Agency.  They funded 30 percent and we funded the rest,” she told IPS at the municipal offices. “This year is the first that the programme is fully operational and we should reach maximum production,” she said.

In the case of the municipality of Las Cabras, the estimated annual savings is about US$10,605.

An expert explains to a group of small farmers at Mirador de Bío Bío the benefits and operation of solar panels. Credit: Courtesy of Fresia Lastra

Panels and family farming, a virtuous cycle

There is a virtuous cycle between the use of panels and savings for small farmers. The Ministry of Energy estimates this saving at around 15% for small farms.

“The use of solar technology for self-consumption is a viable alternative for users in the agricultural sector. More and more systems are being installed, which make it possible to lower customers‘ electricity bills,” the ministry said in a written response.

Since 2015, successive governments have promoted the use of renewable energy, particularly photovoltaic systems for self-consumption, within the agricultural sector.

“There has been a steady growth in the number of projects using renewable energy for self-consumption. In total, 1,741 irrigation projects have been carried out with a capacity of 13,852 kW and a total investment of 59,951 million pesos (US$63.1 million),” the ministry said.

The CNR told IPS that so far in 2024 it has subsidised more than 1,000 projects, submitted by farmers across Chile.

“This is an investment close to 78 billion pesos (US$82.1 million), taking into account subsidies close to 62 billion pesos (US$65.2) plus the contribution of irrigators,” it said.

Of these projects, at least 270 incorporate non-conventional renewable energies, “such as photovoltaic systems associated with irrigation works”, it added.

According to the National Electricity Coordinator, the autonomous technical body that coordinates the entire Chilean electricity system, between September 2023 and August 2024, combined wind and solar generation in Chile amounted to 28,489 gigawatt hours.

In the first quarter of 2024, non-conventional renewable energies, such as solar and wind among others, accounted for 41% of electricity generation in Chile, according to figures from the same technical body.

By Susana Muhamad and Kaveh Zahedi
CALI, Colombia, Oct 29 2024 – As countries are meeting in Cali, Colombia, for the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 16), the fate of biodiversity hangs in the balance, and with it, the sustainability of our food systems.

Agriculture and food systems are often associated with biodiversity loss. Land-use change, climate change, pollution, overexploitation of wild species, and the spread of invasive species – the main drivers of biodiversity loss – can all be linked to unsustainable agricultural practices.

Sustainable agriculture can enhance biodiversity, improve soil fertility and water availability, support pollination and pest control, while also promoting climate change adaptation and mitigation and healthy diets for all

But there is another side to the coin. Agriculture is central to the sustainable use of biodiversity, an important goal and, possibly, the biggest breakthrough of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), in its roadmap to a world living in harmony with nature.

Sustainable agriculture can enhance biodiversity, improve soil fertility and water availability, support pollination and pest control, while also promoting climate change adaptation and mitigation and healthy diets for all.

Evidence shows that the adoption of agroforestry, for example, cultivating trees, shrubs, and crops together on the same plots, can achieve up to 80% of the biodiversity levels of natural forests, reduce 50% of soil erosion, and boost healthy diets for 1.3 billion people living on degraded land.

Using an ecosystem approach to fisheries could help restore marine fish populations, increasing fisheries production by a staggering 16.5 million tonnes.

In Colombia, the Pacífico Biocultural project, financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), harnesses several agrifood systems solutions across the Pacific region of the country, helping biodiversity and communities, including Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendents and small-scale producers, to flourish.

Sustainable forest management plans are strengthening production systems and lucrative value chains, such as cacao and açaí.

The project is working to restore mangroves, which defend the region against coastal erosion and extreme weather events. This also improves the harvest of piangua, a native mollusk valuable for both nutrition and livelihoods.

The project has provided new and existing protected areas with upgraded equipment and management plans. Ecotourism and bird watching corridors in these areas are creating new green jobs.

Among the main achievements of the Pacífico Biocultural project, the following stand out:

• Five ethnic territory planning instruments formulated or updated, covering 195,107.35 hectares;
• Increased management effectiveness for 586.035 hectares in eight protected areas;
• 27 green business initiatives, seven added value units (UVAs), and six community-based nature tourism initiatives supported; and
• Structured and implemented Participatory Ecological Restoration Plans in mangrove and tropical rainforest areas on 1,000 hectares.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) also leads the implementation of two other projects in the country, in coordination with the Ministry of Environment of Colombia.

The ‘Paisajes Sostenibles – Herencia Colombia (HeCo)’ project, financed by the EU, uses an integrated landscape approach, to achieve sustainability in agrifood systems in Colombia´s two strategic biodiversity regions – the Caribbean and Andes.

In the ecological corridor between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Ramsar site Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta of the Caribbean region, the project works on the sustainability of coffee plantations, beekeeping, and tourism production chains in coastal areas.

In Ciénaga, it works on the artisanal fishing chain, mangrove restoration, tourism, and circular economy initiatives to address plastic pollution. In the Cordillera Central moorland ecosystem, the project aims to improve the sustainability of livestock management in the high mountains, hand in hand with the traditional inhabitants.

With an emphasis on the Amazon Biome, the Green Climate Fund (GCF)-funded ‘GCF-Visión Amazonía’ project, in collaboration with Colombia’s Ministry of Environment and the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM), helps implement the REDD+ National Strategy, ‘Bosques Territorios de Vida,’ and the Deforestation Containment Plan. It specifically aims to shift from deforestation towards sustainable forestry development.

Colombia is clearly at the forefront of promoting the sustainability of agrifood systems. But while agrifood systems are receiving more attention in biodiversity policies, especially in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), most countries find it difficult to carry out these pledges.

The ability to incorporate biodiversity into policies and practices is frequently lacking in the agrifood sector. The amount of money that is available is insufficient to bring about change.

Today, we must consider how to scale up actions and investment to transform agrifood systems. Countries are updating their NBSAPs, to begin implementing the GBF.

Including biodiversity-friendly agrifood solutions and taking farmers, fisherfolk, and livestock herders and producers into account is an essential first step. Having a framework of policies which enable sustainable agrifood systems will smooth the path to creating peace with nature.

To help countries with this effort, FAO, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat, governments, and partners are launching the Agri-NBSAPs Support Initiative during the high-level segment of COP 16.

It proposes a work plan that includes tasks to help create an environment that is conducive to biodiversity, collect the best data for implementing and measuring biodiversity-friendly policies, obtain funding, and increase understanding.

The transition to sustainable, resilient, and inclusive agrifood systems will be accelerated by helping nations create and implement their NBSAPs and harmonize them with agrifood policies and interventions.

The GBF is an ambitious plan, a challenging plan. But in the long term, it will pay off for us and future generations. Biodiversity is the foundation of food security and nutrition, and an irreplaceable asset in our battle against climate change and its effects. Yet it continues to decline faster than at any time in human history.

Nature has enormous recuperative powers. Let’s give her all the help and opportunities we can to get back on her feet by restoring and sustainably using biodiversity, especially in the pursuit of agriculture. In the future, they will say this was the decade of transformation. We are the generation with the foresight to take steps to ensure the future.

Excerpt:

Susana Muhamad is Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia and President of the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference, and Kaveh Zahedi is Director of FAO Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment

By Dawn Clancy
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29 2024 – It was two weeks before October 7—when Hamas attacked Israel—that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood behind the rostrum in the United Nations General Assembly hall clutching a crude map of what he called the “new Middle East,” a visual that erased the land of Palestine.

A year later, Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has accelerated, including the destruction of Palestine’s agricultural lands, tipping Netanyahu’s vision of a Middle East without Palestine closer to reality.

According to a recent report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “as of September 1st, 2024, 67.6 percent of Gaza’s cropland has been damaged,” and much of its agricultural infrastructure, including “greenhouses, agricultural wells and solar panels,” has been destroyed.

“There is no agricultural sector anymore,” said Hani Al Ramlawi, director of operations for the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC). Ramlawi is from Gaza City but relocated to Egypt six months after the conflict began.

Ramwali told IPS that over the past year, no agricultural supplies have made it into the Strip. Ongoing water and electricity shortages have made fuel, used to power generators and solar panels, too expensive and caused the cost of produce in local markets to soar. In the north of Gaza, Ramlawi said one kilo of potatoes, roughly two pounds, costs $80, a kilo of tomatoes around $90 and one kilo of garlic is $200, and the prices fluctuate daily. Less than 10 percent of farmers have access to their land, and the soil is “diseased” due to ongoing military activities.

Everyone in Gaza is “food insecure,” Ramlawi said. Additionally, the International Labor Organization (ILO), a UN agency, estimates that after a year of war, Gaza’s unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 80 percent.

Seedlings waiting to be distributed to home gardens in displacement camps in north Gaza. Credit: Bisan Okasha

A new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report has found that between Sept. and Oct. 2024, 1.84 million or 90 percent of people across the Gaza Strip are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity. “The risk of famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip,” the report added. “Given the recent surge in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario may materialize.”

Starvation in Gaza, in the context of conflict, is not unique—a group of UN experts published a statement on Oct. 17 warning that “97 percent of Sudan’s IDPs” are facing severe levels of hunger due to “starvation tactics” implemented by the warring parties—but what is different about Gaza, said Michael Fakhri, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, is the “speed” and the “intensity” at which starvation has spread across the Strip.

“This is the fastest instance of starvation we’ve ever seen in modern history,” said Fakhri. “How is Israel able to starve 2.3 million people so quickly and so completely? It’s almost like they pushed a button or flipped a switch.”

What is happening in Gaza, according to Fakhri, is not entirely a humanitarian crisis brought on by prolonged armed conflict but rather a byproduct of decades of illegal land grabs, forced displacement, punitive economic policies and the physical destruction of Palestinian croplands—whether by bulldozers or ever-widening military buffer zones—by the Israeli government. Practices that began in the late nineteenth century, when the first wave of European Jews emigrated to Palestine, long before the State of Israel was established in 1948.

“There’s a consistent through line” that predates the horrors of October 7, said Fakhri. “What is happening today is not new,” he added, or limited to the Gaza Strip.

Relatedly, in response to Fakhri’s latest report examining food and starvation in Palestine, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon sent a letter of complaint to Secretary-General António Guterres on October 17, calling on him to retract Fakhri’s “disgraceful” and antisemitic report.

Meanwhile in the West Bank, according to Ubai Al-Aboudi, executive director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development—a Palestinian think tank based in Ramallah—the destruction of crop lands and the targeting of farmers, primarily by Israeli settlers, is “systematic.”

“Now is olive season,” Al-Aboudi told IPS. “And we have this tradition; almost all Palestinian families in the West Bank have their olive trees that they go to in the olive picking season.” But with increased settler attacks, villagers now coordinate, Al-Aboudi said, and harvest collectively to protect their lands, their farmers and one another.

According to estimates from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of Oct. 7, 2023, over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, close to 100,000 injured and 1.9 million have been displaced. (OCHA relies on Gaza’s Ministry of Health for casualty figures.) However, a recent report from The Lancet, a weekly medical journal, suggests that the number of dead in Gaza is likely much higher.

While an official tally of the number of farmers killed in the Strip is not available, members of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a Palestinian NGO in Gaza, estimate that since Oct. 7, no fewer than 500 farmers out of roughly 30,000 have been killed.

“You know, the farmers and their families are experiencing the same as what we are witnessing for all the population,” said Mahmoud Alsaqqa in a phone interview with IPS. Alsaqqa is Oxfam’s food security and livelihood lead. He is based in Deir Al-Balah.

But, for the remaining farmers, accessing their lands, most of which are located on the eastern edge of the Strip next to the Israeli border, means risking death or sustaining life-altering injuries. “They become an easy target for the military,” said Alsaqqa. And when farmers are killed, their decade’s worth of agricultural knowledge and know-how dies with them.

“There is significant concern about the challenge of rebuilding the knowledge base in Gaza,” UAWC told IPS. “Many universities have been destroyed, and this creates a major fear regarding the re-establishment of academic and agricultural expertise in the region.”

Still, despite ongoing hostilities and sharp decreases in the availability of humanitarian aid, since Oct. 7, Alsaqqa with Oxfam said that more Palestinians are relying on urban or home gardening to feed their families and others in need.

Before the war, Bisan Okasha’s home garden in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza was bursting with olive, palm and banana trees, citrus fruits, grapes and mint and basil seedlings. However, after Oct. 7, when her home and garden were destroyed and the threat of famine loomed large, Okasha’s father, determined to rebuild, cleared their land of debris and planted 70 eggplant seedlings on a mound of soil that covered the rubbled chunks of their home.

The effort was “successful,” said Okasha in a series of texts with IPS. The experience left her feeling inspired, and soon after, Okasha, despite being displaced three times, created Seeds of Resilience, a collaborative, community-driven initiative designed to revive and establish home gardens in the north by providing and planting seedlings and seeds for free. So far, Okasha and her team—all volunteers—have planted eggplant, cauliflower, chili, and peppers in multiple home gardens.

“My dad’s personal effort to change the reality we were living in is what gave me the belief that I can create change in my entire community and take a real, practical step to prepare the people in Northern Gaza for any future crisis that may threaten their lives,” said Okasha.

“Wars and disasters in this world show no mercy to souls,” she added.

According to the FAO report, out of the five governorates in Gaza, North Gaza, where the Jabalia camp is located, has the highest proportion of damaged cropland at 78 percent. Khan Younis has the largest amount of damaged agricultural infrastructure—animal shelters, home barns, agricultural houses, and cattle farms—while the Gaza governorate has the largest number of damaged wells, reducing access to water. Relatedly, OCHA estimates that over 70,000 housing units have been destroyed across Gaza.

The Israeli mission to the UN, based in New York, declined to comment on the FAO report, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not respond.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);