“Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development proposed a new vision: an agriculture sector that would not only ensure food security through increased output, but help rural people satisfy their socio-economic and cultural aspirations, and protect and conserve the natural resource base to meet future needs” (“Renewing SARD”, Agriculture 21 Magazine, March 2001).

The SARD concept emerged in the early 1990s as a framework for focusing greater attention on sustainability issues within agricultural and rural development processes. This means that agriculture and rural development become sustainable when they are ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally appropriate, humane and based on a holistic scientific approach. SARD inherently addresses multiple sectors encompassing not just agriculture, but also water, energy, health and biodiversity.

Documents and Tools

Agenda 21: Chapter 14 : Promoting Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development

Chapter 14 of Agenda 21 specifically addresses the following programme areas : agricultural policy review, ensuring people's participation and promoting human resource development for sustainable agriculture, improving farm production and farming systems , land-resource planning information and education for agriculture; land conservation and rehabilitation, and many others.

The Place of Agriculture in Sustainable Development : the Way Forward on SARD

The paper seeks COAG's guidance on FAO's role as long-term Task Manager for SARD; encourages ministries of agriculture and rural development to expand their own roles in shaping national and international policies , and requests Member Nations to share their concerns.

Farming Systems and Poverty

The book Farming Systems and Poverty: improving farmers' livelihoods in a changing world presents the results of a joint FAO and World Bank study published in 2001. The book addresses questions that are crucial for the wider community of experts working on SARD: what are likely to be the most successful strategies for small farmers in farming systems that are judged to have the greatest potential for poverty and hunger reduction and economic growth, and what sort of initiatives can best help farmers to realize them.

Improving Access to Natural Resources for the Rural Poor: The experience of FAO and of other key organisations from a sustainable livelihoods perspective

This report identifies FAO’s activities concerning access to natural resources (ANR). It contains a brief overview of FAO’s ANR activities by department, with particular regard to those that are most relevant for sustainable livelihood approaches.

Joint FAO/ILO/IUF Report on Agricultural Workers and their Contribution to Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development

A joint report published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) has drawn attention to the plight of the world’s 450 million waged agricultural workers. The report calls for the development and promotion of an agenda for fair and decent work conditions in agriculture.

Evolution of Production Systems for Agriculture and Sustainable Rural Development

The overall objective of the Project “FAO sobre Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural Sostenibles – Evolución de los Sistemas de Producción”, supported by the Japanese and French governments, is to increase national capacities to formulate and implement policies related to SARD, as well as to increase the participation of interested groups in the decision-making process.

Compendium of LAND and SARD Cases

A Compendium of LAND and SARD Cases has been compiled as a supporting document to the 2002 Task Managers' Report to CSD+10 on the Land and Agriculture Cluster for Chapters 10, 12 and 14 of Agenda 21. The report draws together 63 cases from 39 countries illustrating the many features of land management and SARD implementation.

UN-CSD Success Stories

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division of Sustainable Development collected stories from multiple stakeholders from 1997-2001 related to topics on the CSD Agenda.

InfoAgrar Database of SARD Projects

InfoAgrar is the agricultural information and documentation service of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. It maintains a global database of SARD projects, which can be accessed by region, by topic, by title or by history.

Database of organizations, programmes and projects related to SARD in mountain regions

Implemented by the SARD-M Project, this database contains organizations, programmes and projects involved at the national, regional or international levels on policies pertaining to sustainable agriculture and rural development in mountain regions.

Proceedings of the regional workshop on the evolution of agricultural systems

Some 40 delegates representing governments, international oganizations and NGOs from Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela participated in a regional workshop on 13-15 July 2004 in Honduras, on the evolution of agricultural systems. Different agricultural systems were examined and proposals were made for innovative policies and strategies. The report is available in Spanish.

Global Initiatives

The SARD Initiative

The main purpose of the SARD Initiative is to reduce hunger and poverty and contribute to environmental, social, and economic well being by building the capacity of poor rural producers, disadvantaged groups, and the governments and civil society groups that support them, to become aware of and adopt good practices that facilitate the transition to SARD.

SARD Farming Systems Evolution Project

The purpose of this SARD effort is to gather governmental and non-governmental actors to make a diagnosis of different farming systems and to work together to identify policies and strategies.

The SARD-M Project in Mountain Regions

The project provides a bridge between Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development and Mountain issues. It aims to facilitate the design and implementation of new policy packages for sustainable agriculture and rural development in mountain regions, taking into consideration the essential linkages between mountain and lowland populations.

Conservation Agriculture (CA) for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) Project

The “Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (CA for SARD)” project aims at facilitating and accelerating the adoption of profitable conservation agriculture practices by small farmers in at least three districts of Tanzania and Kenya.

Good Agriculture Practice Project

Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) applies recommendations and available knowledge to addressing environmental, economic and social sustainability for on-farm production and post-production processes resulting in safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products.

Globally Important Ingenious Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Project

The GIAHS project aims to establish the basis for the global recognition, dynamic conservation and sustainable management of Globally Important Ingenious Agricultural Heritage systems in the face of economic and cultural globalisation, environmental variability and inappropriate policy, incentive and regulatory environments.

Roles of Agriculture (ROA) Project

The Roles of Agriculture (ROA) project findings call attention to a diverse set of indirect environmental, social and economic contributions of agriculture. A key motivation for this work is to provide information and tools to guide policy decisions for improved development strategies, especially for sustainable rural development.

International Farming Systems Association (IFSA)

IFSA was built on the challenge 'to give voice to small farmers'. Over the last three decades we have done much to bring small farmers into the research and development process; a large proportion of agricultural research now goes on in farmers' fields.

Good Agriculture Practice Project

Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) applies recommendations and available knowledge to addressing environmental, economic and social sustainability for on-farm production and post-production processes resulting in safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products.

International Federation of Agricultural producers (IFAP)

IFAP is the world farmers organisation representing over 600 million farm families grouped in 110 national organisations in 75 countries. It is a global network in which farmers from industrialised and developing countries exchange concerns and set common priorities. IFAP advocates farmers interests at the international level since 1946 and has General Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Related websites

SARD

The concept of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) was developed in response to the realisation that national and international agricultural policies and programmes should encompass a wide range of economic, environmental and socio-cultural issues in addition to the traditional areas of agricultural productivity, production and food security. The importance of the SARD concept was recognised and confirmed at the Rio Earth Summit (UNCED) in 1992, with Chapter 14 of Agenda 21 setting out the programmes and specific actions needed to promote sustainable agriculture and rural development.

SARD Initiative

The SARD Initiative is a multi-stakeholder umbrella framework designed to support the transition to people-centred sustainable agriculture and rural development and to strengthen participation in programme and policy development.

SARD-Mountain

The SARD-Mountain project liaises between Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) and Mountain issues. The project recalls the importance of these issues - both discussed at the Rio Conference in 1992 - and identifies the many challenges of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development in mountain regions, and calls for coherent policies, instruments and programmes.

World Summit on Sustainable Development

Johannesburg Summit 2002 brought together tens of thousands of participants, including heads of State and Government, national delegates and leaders from non-governmental organizations (NGOs and other major groups to focus the world's attention and direct action toward meeting difficult challenges, including improving people's lives and conserving our natural resources in a world that is growing in population, with ever-increasing demands for food, water, shelter, sanitation, energy, health services and economic security.

Agenda 21

Agenda 21 addresses the pressing problems of today and also aims at preparing the world for the challenges of the next century. It reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation.

UN Division for Sustainable Development

The Division for Sustainable Development promotes sustainable development as the substantive secretariat to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and through technical cooperation and capacity building at international, regional and national levels.

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)

The Commission is responsible for reviewing progress in the implementation of Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development; as well as providing policy guidance to follow up the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) at the local, national, regional and international levels.

UNDESA website on Major Groups

Since the creation of the CSD in 1992, major groups have been given important roles to play as partners in sustainable development. The CSD meetings have provided innovative spaces for the participation of non-governmental actors with the overall purpose of informing the Commission’s decision-making processes.