E-LEISA carries highlights from LEISA Magazine and keeps you in touch 
with the LEISA Network at www.leisa.info.


IN THIS ISSUE
• Out now: Farming diversity
• Photo contest
• LEISA's Farm
• Open Forum
• LEISA India translated into Hindi, Tamil and Kannada
• Upcoming issues


OUT NOW: LEISA MAGAZINE Vol. 25 No.1
Farming diversity
Diversity is at the very heart of small-scale farming. It is found in different kinds of landscapes, consists of different ways of life, and is reflected in the large variety of crops being grown and many different kinds of agriculture being practised. Then why is it that while we say we value diversity – as most of us do – this does not lead to a greater appreciation of small-scale farming? On the contrary, those who believe that the way forward is through specialisation and economies of scale, consider small farms as unproductive and hampering progress. The latest issue of LEISA Magazine shows how small-scale farming strategies not only help ensure food security and a stable income, but also help deal with environmental changes. All that, and preserving diversity at the same time! Read the articles.

PHOTO CONTEST
The future of family farming
What do you think the future looks like for small-scale family farmers? What changes do you expect to happen, or already see happening? Capture your thoughts on this topic in a photo and send it to jubilee@ileia.nl (the photo has to be at least 1 MB). You might be the one to win the netbook! See our latest issue for more information, also on other activities, like a poster we are making of readers reading LEISA Magazine, and our search for people who think they should feature in one of our sections.

 

LEISA's FARM
The EU’s farm subsidies turn out to have some rather unexpected beneficiaries, such as Queen Elizabeth and multinationals like Nestlé. You can read more about this on LEISA’s Farm, our blog on sustainable family farming. Other postings include information on farmers’ view of the G8 Agriculture Ministers meeting last April, and the story of farmer Burton Caliz from Belize, who suddenly found himself featuring on the cover of our latest issue.
LEISA's Farm is also present on Twitter! Here, we give you quick, short updates on all things related to sustainable agriculture. And on Flickr, where we also have an account, you can view our growing stock of photographs.

OPEN FORUM
How sustainable is organic agriculture?
Is organic food production beginning to resemble conventional food production more and more? How sustainable is it still? Read the debate on this topic in our latest issue, or contribute to the debate on the Open Forum on our website.

Livestock and climate change
To what extent does livestock rearing contribute to climate change, and to what extent should small-scale farmers also try to mitigate the effects? Below are some comments from people who responded to this question on our open forum. For a full overview, click here.

“The claim that livestock contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas net production is suspect. In the prairie region of the USA, for example, the bison population was much greater before the European colonization than the domesticated cattle population today. Yet little net excess greenhouse gas production occurred. Moreover, the bison population actually achieves net sequestration of carbon. If, instead of a narrow focus only on ruminant methane production, one looks at the whole carbon cycle of these livestock-integrated ecosystems, the soil carbon accumulation that these systems achieve becomes evident. Historically, these ecosystems were responsible for creating the deep top soils in the well-watered parts of the Midwestern American prairies.”

“Livestock, integrated and managed in appropriate numbers and in multifunctional roles, actually contributes to sustainability in farming systems and add to its human carrying capacity. Some of the most sustainable pre-industrial agro-ecosystems in many parts of the world used grass-fed livestock to build soil, transport farming inputs and products, and work the land, as well as provide food and fiber. And they still do today, in corners of the world where industrial forms of livestock production have not displaced them.”

“Considering the current and future benefits of global growth in livestock production, the most significant threat to climate change lies with the increase in per capita emissions of intensive mechanised systems, rather than the low input tropical production systems.”

NEWS FROM THE REGIONAL EDITIONS
The regional editions of the global LEISA Network on sustainable agriculture carry translated articles from the global edition, plus articles that focus on the particular region. They are available in six languages, for China, Latin America, India, Brazil and West Africa. For an overview of all editions, see www.leisa.info.

LEISA India available in three local languages
LEISA India magazine was recently translated into Hindi, Tamil and Kannada. Actually, these languages can hardly be called local, as Hindi is spoken by some 790 million people, Tamil by around 77 million people and Kannada, a language spoken in the south of India, by no less than 45 million people. With LEISA India now available in these languages, many more people can inform themselves about sustainable, small-scale agricultural practices. Want to know more about these issues? Contact Prasad at LEISA India, at leisaindia@yahoo.co.in  Or go to http://india.leisa.info.

New look for Latin American and Brazilian editions
AS-PTA, our partner in Brazil, has updated the layout of their magazine, Agriculturas. You can see it at http://agriculturas.leisa.info
In the same region of the globe, Asociacion ETC Andes, our partner in Peru, has also given their LEISA Revista de agroecología a new, fresh look. They have renewed their website at the same time; events, news and articles are now easier to find. Go and have a look at www.latinoamerica.leisa.info

New staff for West African edition
Our partner in Senegal, IED Afrique, has hired an information and communication assistant, Aissatou Tounkara. One of her activities will be expanding the readership of Agridape, the Francophone edition of the LEISA Network.

UPCOMING ISSUES
Rural entrepreneurship
It is not always possible to survive on farming alone. What other sources of income do farmers find, and does this contribute to improving the quality of rural life? Read all about it in our next issue, which appears on June 15.

Women and food sovereignty
Food sovereignty is about the right of producers to define their own food and agriculture systems. For small-scale farmers this means having the right to land and resources, and being able to participate in decision-making about resources in their countries. What does food sovereignty mean in the day-to-day lives of small-scale farm families? We are still accepting proposals for articles on this topic. You can send them to our editor Karen Hampson at k.hampson@ileia.nl, up to June 1. The issue on this theme will appear on September 21.

E-LEISA is sent to you by ILEIA, an independent organisation supporting small-scale farmers in their search for sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture. ILEIA is a member of the LEISA Network, a platform for the exchange of knowledge worldwide on small-scale sustainable farming. The network publishes seven magazines on sustainable small-scale farming: a global edition, LEISA Magazine, and six regional editions. Its readers – and contributors – are field workers, researchers, policy makers and farmers. All editions combined have close to 50,000 subscribers. For more information, visit www.leisa.info.

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