Marta Rivera-Ferré

She is the Director of the Chair in Agroecology and Food Systems at the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), holds a doctorate in Veterinary Science specialising in Animal Production and Agricultural Economics, and is also a member of the Inclusive Societies, Policies and Communities (SoPCI) research group, within which she coordinates the research line on "Sustainable communities, social innovations and territories".

Marta Rivera-Ferré is a member of a group of 721 experts from 90 countries who between now and 2022 will be preparing the section on food safety in the sixth report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She has already worked with the group on the preparation of various reports on several occasions. This researcher is also working to highlight the key role women play in ending world hunger and on raising their profile in rural environments, as well as drawing attention to the work that still needs to be done to enhance their visibility.

The Chair in Agroecology is critical of the current situation in the rural world, and is calling for strategies to make it "alive" once again. How can this be achieved?

Many of the prevalent discourses and narratives today are a reflection of official models, which advocate an industrialised agricultural system in which farmers are entrepreneurs, and this means that they must be subject to a business model that generates the largest possible profits. We believe that another approach is not only possible, but that it is necessary, and we are working in that direction: towards agriculture seen in terms of a human right rather than as a commodity, and the farmer as someone who guarantees the right to a healthy diet at a reasonable price, rather than an entrepreneur. This is a model of agroecological production and food sovereignty which shuns pesticides and exports, and focuses on feeding the local population rather than people on the other side of the world. That is how the life of a rural world that is currently decaying will be restored: and the first step is to show that this approach exists, and to adopt a position, join forces and gain visibility to end up influencing political strategies.

What exactly do we mean by "food sovereignty"?

As we see it, it's a response to the historical oppression of a production sector, the agricultural sector, and its subordination to other sectors. When agriculture was liberalised in the 1990s, farmers all over the world watched as producers in other parts of the world received raw materials from other territories at below the cost price, leading to domestic markets being ruined without them having any decision-making capacity. We have been subjected to market laws which we have had no say in making, and this is a particularly serious issue for small farmers. So what we are calling for with this concept is to restore the capacity of each farmer and each region that wants to return to autonomous production, without infringing the sovereignty of other regions or letting others infringe theirs.

Are we a long way from achieving it?

A very long way. There is currently clearly a disconnect between the food we eat, where it comes from and its seasonality. It's what we call consumption of food from nowhere, or in other words, we eat food without knowing where it comes from. In this situation, agroecology means that producers can develop sustainable agricultural systems based on the traditional knowledge that has been lost with industrialisation. In the current context of overproduction, we want to move from the idea of producing for sale to production to guarantee a human right - food. Or in other words, it's not a problem if we produce less, if we're not always growing... And by doing so, if we slow down production, we protect over-degraded soil, promote biodiversity as a tool against climate change, and empower farmers, who will be working with a short-chain food system.

We hear you say that women have a very important role to play in this change that you argue is necessary...

Women have always played a central role in traditional farming. The problem is that the advent of the capitalist economic system in agriculture and livestock farming has made them invisible. For example, it was women who turned products into food, who were responsible for collecting and marketing the products... but it was only men, as heads of the family, who were on record legally as carrying out those activities. But more and more women are taking over farms, and we have found that they tend to apply more agroecological models than men do. That is why in the rural world, women could be a factor in social change towards a different agrifood production model.

How does this perspective tie in with the latest IPPC report you co-authored, which was published last summer?

My contributions argued for the vision of the food system, gender and traditional knowledge. In other words, we are seeing how the system has clearly declined since the industrialisation of agriculture, and its perception as a linear secondary sector rather than a primary sector. In this report, we clearly argue for a future that involves the circular economy, which is really not at all modern, but instead rather a return to more traditional production - a system where everything can be reused. Industrial agriculture has exceeded many boundaries, such as the separation of agriculture from livestock farming, which has led the latter (or its waste) to become a serious pollution problem. However, if you integrate the two areas and balance them, livestock farming recycles its nutrients in the same agrosystem. We've destroyed a model that has worked well for 10,000 years in just five or six decades. So, we're going to restore this model and use it as a starting point, applying the technological knowledge we have at our disposal, and adapting it to the current socio-economic situation.

When the report was published, you appeared in the media several times saying that we need to eat less meat. Is that the solution?

When you look at the agrifood system from that perspective, what you do is integrate production, transformation and preparation, and consumption, which is what has always happened. And that naturally meant eating less animal protein than we consume today. Over the past 40 years, we have made a transition in our nutrition, from traditional diets based on local produce to a high-protein, high-sugar, animal-based diet. The direct impact is that we have 1.9 billion people who are overweight, and childhood obesity has high growth rates in countries with a Mediterranean diet. But we also have an economy of scale that is leading to the disappearance of neighbourhood shops and markets, and local trade. That doesn't mean we shouldn't eat meat, because it plays a key role in providing micronutrients, iron, etc., but we have to reduce our consumption of it, and think about where it comes from and its quality.

We're at a turning point...

In terms of the discourse, totally. We are acknowledging that we can't carry on the way we were going, and we need to change the model, and accept that the system has failed, but it will nevertheless be difficult to overcome the prevailing discourse of recent years. We get upset if we're told that 2,000 jobs are lost at a car factory, but we don't even know the number of farms that have closed in Catalonia in recent years alone.

But do we have enough time to stop it, though?

I thought we had enough time until recently. But more and more scientists are calling for civil disobedience, because governments are not really taking enough steps against climate change. These days, we are rewarding things that run counter to the survival of humanity itself. We need to take action, and to take action now. And that's not the direction we're heading in. I used to be optimistic, but now I'm not so sure...

What can each of us do at home?

We can do a lot of things: change our consumption habits, buy seasonal and local produce, reduce our meat consumption, and stop using disposable plastics... You can contribute a little by doing any of those things, but they are not enough in themselves. Above all, we need the Government to make changes, because making consumers who are part of the system entirely responsible for mitigating climate change, even if they have not chosen the system, is neither fair nor right. It is also true that we have created a narrative around food, in which we assume that it has to be cheap so that we can consume other products that are not as basic necessities. And that undermines agriculture. We spend 14% of our household budget on food in this country, while other countries spend up to 30%.

We need to change our attitudes. Food sovereignty is also based on the cornerstone of civil society. In other words, sovereignty cannot be achieved if the public does not demand it. For me, changing individual behaviour involves consistent information and consumption. In the end, organised civil society will ultimately make the changes happen.