The examples from small communities who relied on subsistence agriculture and won the battle against poverty by adopting a green model and technological innovations inspired the ten speakers of the debate on “Sustainable Development for the Fight Against Poverty” on Saturday night. The topic marked the end of the first day of the Dialogues for Sustainable Development, a series of meetings with representatives from the civil society, the academic and scientific communities, and the private sector.

In his talk, the Indian economist Pavan Sukhdey noted that 60% of the planet’s land is used by small farms and that a third of the world’s population depends on agriculture as the means to live. Sukhdey said that technological innovations can raise the financial return of small farmers by up to 80%. “There are accessible ways to raise production and make farms eco-friendly”, he said. The Chinese speaker Tuan Yang, director of a center for studies in social policies, noted that sustainable production and the adoption of a food security green model by the rural cooperatives improved life conditions in small communities in her country.

The Argentinean agricultural producer Victor Trucco talked about technological advances in soil improvement and about the results in the agricultural production. “The non-hostile sowing changed the production’s paradigm and enabled farmers to have a good standard of living through their own efforts”, he explained. The equation, reminded Trucco, allowed small urban-rural communities to be created in Argentina’s countryside, with a population of around 10 to 15 thousand people, with a wide range of services without raising migration to the cities.

The Peruvian Rural Workers Federation’s president, Lourdes Atencio, also defended the search for quality of life in the countryside. “Migration from the countryside to the city  should not be a goal, just as our students and researchers should not leave university with the exclusive goal of making money, but also to help others”, she said while being widely applauded. The idea of dedicating a larger portion of research to searching for equality and not only competitiveness was also emphasized by the Uruguayan Professor Judith Sutz and by the former Brazilian Minister for Social Development and Hunger Alleviation, Márcia Lopes.

With a harsher speech, the Portuguese teacher Boaventura de Sousa Santos stressed that the market must not be the only way for mankind to deal with nature. Boaventura defended that more than eradicating poverty, society should fight against the concentration of capital and inequality and advocated for a reform of the political system.

The Indian Manish Bapna, World Resources International’s (WRI) president, on the other hand, cited the Arab Spring to reinforce the importance of giving a voice and participation to the disadvantaged.  A relationship of good governance, in his vision, is crucial to raising the participation of the poor and to taking a step towards sustainable development.

More than proposing a global solution, Severn Cullis-Suzuki stressed that it is important to respect the diversity found in communities all over the world. The Canadian activist reminded that some communities, non-integrated to the world’s economic system, teach us that it is possible to live well without large financial gain; such has been the experience lived by the indigenous leader Marcos Terena.

“We did not know the concept of poverty”, he said. “We did not have money, but we did not feel hungry, nor did we lack water or food. We have to produce dignity and honor”.

At the end of the meeting, there was a presentation of the three recommendations voted by the public and debaters out of an initial group of ten suggestions, previously voted online by 63 thousand public participants.

The chosen recommendations were the promotion of global education, the incentive to community innovations and the guarantee of universal health to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. The three ideas will be taken to the Heads of States and Governments to assess them during the Rio+20’s High Level Segment, which will take place on June 20-22.
 

About the Dialogues for Sustainable Development

 
The Dialogues for Sustainable Development started on Saturday, June 16 and will go on until June 19 at Pavilion 5 of Riocentro. There will be ten rounds of discussions, with ten participants in each. They will focus on topics that have priority on the international agenda of sustainability. At each round, three proposals will be chosen, one by the speakers, one by the audience and one by the internet users. 

Thirty suggestions with the most votes will be taken directly to the Heads of States and Governments attending the Conference.

The Dialogues have ten topics:

• (i) Unemployment, decent work and migration;
•  (ii) Sustainable Development as an answer to economic and financial crises; (iii) Sustainable Development to combat hunger;
  
• (iv) The Economics of Sustainable Development, including sustainable standards for production and consumption;
  
• (v) Forests;
  
• (vi) Food and nutritional security;
  
• (vii) Sustainable energy for all;
•  (viii) Water;
  
• (ix) Sustainable cities and innovation;
• (x) Oceans. All of the debates will be broadcast live on the UN’s website.