The Asian People’s Exchange for Food Sovereignty and Agroecology (APEX) working group on Asserting Climate Justice led the two-day workshop on documentation of agroecology as a climate solution. The APEX activity was held in Penang, Malaysia on June 18-19, 2024. It was attended by 23 organisations from nine countries across Asia. The output of the workshop aims to contribute to the cache of scientific evidence that will shore up advocacy efforts for agroecology.
Moreover, the workshop has the following specific objectives:
- To understand and assess current documentation practices and efforts of APEX partners on agroecology
- To train APEX partners on how to document agroecology’s benefits and impacts in terms of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience
- To start the process of building scientific evidence from the ground on agroecology as a climate solution that will be the basis for advocacy and campaigning at local, national, and global levels
These narratives become the tool for advocacy at the national and global platforms as they are aimed at capturing the experiences, best practices, lessons, challenges, and benefits of agroecology as a climate solution. A workshop in Penang, Malaysia in June started the process with Dr. Chito Medina of MASIPAG in which he presented a guide and discussed the concepts of farmers’ adaptation, mitigation, and resilience to climate change through agroecology.
Currently, the Asserting Climate Justice working group has received 12 abstracts fromthe following organisations – Odisha Partners, Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura / Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development (MASIPAG), Keystone Foundation, Lanka Organic Agriculture Movement (LOAM), Walhi Jambi, Caritas India, Social Work Institute and Caritas Nepal (joint), Caritas Dalat, and Rural Women Advocates (RUWA). The three lead organisations, BARCIK, SHISUK and SERUNI, have also written their own agroecology narratives.
These narratives are currently in the process of editing. On the other hand, the agroecology narratives of BARCIK, SHISUK, SERUNI, and MASIPAG were already presented at the COP29 side, “Agroecology for Climate Justice: Stories from the Global South.” in Baku, Azerbaijan.