B6n SEA of agriculture, food policy and rural issues
Riki Thérivel, Levett-Thérivel Sustainability Consultants, UK
Key issues to be addressed
Position Paper:
The agricultural/food provision sector has significant impacts worldwide, including water pollution and over-abstraction, erosion, and food-related illnesses. Non-agricultural activities in rural areas also have impacts, e.g. landscape, transport. Agriculture/food/rural activities affect other sectors such as land use planning, tourism and health; and are affected by other sectors. However, despite these impacts and links, agriculture/food/rural activities are an “orphan” sector of SEA.
The impacts of agriculture, food provision and rural activities are mostly non-point and cumulative, and are correspondingly difficult to mitigate. Many mitigation measures require capacity-building amongst farmers; some (e.g., procurement of organic or fair trade foods) conflict with trade agreements; others have different effects on different agricultural sub-sectors so their equity implications need to be carefully considered.
Issues for discussion at the agriculture/food/rural workshop:
• “Tiering” of agricultural/food/rural policies, plans and programmes and their SEAs
• Links to other sectors, and barriers to good practice posed by these links
• Cumulative impacts of agricultural/food/rural activities and how they can be mitigated
• Equity issues—urban v. rural, different types of rural dwellers—and how they can be addressed in SEA
However, given the dearth of previous work on this topic, the discussions are expected to go much wider. Ideally the workshop will result in a framework for future discussion, collaboration and research about this topic.