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An Overview Of Our Solution

What is the relationship between biodiversity and nutrition in various settings? Does this relationship change over time? How and why? In this context developed PC vs. Per Adult Human UNIT Method (Copyright©1989) was used and a step is taken to explore and compare other research methodologies (PC, Adult Equivalent-AE) that can help address above questions as well as to introduce how tools are used in ecology. PAHU method evaluations were used in comparing PC for EU28 and candidate countries demographic structure/nutritional statues for 1999; 2010; 2020 and published. Here the main aim is to extend the evaluations up to 2050 to emphasize hunger biodiversity relationship for developed and developing countries and its change over time by using developed new PAHUM to answer above questions comprehensively.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

À but non lucratif

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Forests

Grasslands

Population impacted

Project impacted minimum 10,000 residents indirect

Size of agricultural area

AGRICULTURE PRODUCTION AREAS: FIELD CROPS (19,480 HA); FEED CROPS (7,544 HA); INDUSTRIAL CROP (1,860 HA); FRUITS (361 HA); VEGETABLES (319 HA); GRAZING LAND (79,914 HA).

Production quantity

DAIRY FACILITIES OF TURKEY WITH 1100 HEAD DAIRY CATTLE CAPACITY AND 1500 HA FEED PRODUCTION AND GRAZING LAND AND 10,000 TON OF ORGANIC MILK PRODUCTION/YEAR WITH

People employed

From the total 25.6 millions working population 9.5% work in agriculture. Kelkit district population in 2014 was 42 415 and 51.3% live in the villages and rural areas.

Describe your solution

Solution is PAHUM = Redefining PC: PC, AE, Conjoint Measurement (CM) are currently a somewhat controversial set of units and evaluation methods used by different scientists in food production consumption also in economic and environmental evaluations. Failure to recognize and address the problems inherent to error bound PC, one-size-fits-all accept or reject approach in food and other goods consumption calculations and projections will result in erroneous production and consumption projections, misappropriations of resources and discontent among consumers. Eliminating Inconsistencies: When we were looking for a suitable yardstick to measuring the level of sustainability of a target group and evaluating the real consumer potential of a developed / developing country or pollution level, a suitable instrument could not be found. Shortcomings are: a. A limited definition of sustainability, b. Lack of transparency; c. High complexity; d. Absence of regular updates and e. Inconsistencies of the method and criteria used, (i.e. AE, PC). Finally: Developed the comprehensive model, which aimed to redefine PC for the evaluation of family, household, target groups of developed and developing nations on standardized UNIT basis (20-24-year old man/woman) and measuring their real food consumption potentials, environmental issues for future planning and eliminating the inconsistencies.

Describe your implementation

Environmental CO2 - other gasses emissions: Many analyses of the impacts of population on biodiversity and climate change made on error bound PC failed to take the real differences into account. Age structure, household size and spatial distribution that affect above analysis on defined PAHUM = (PCagc) emissions may open the door to be integrated into climate change modeling. The erroneous use of PC has hardly been challenged in the literature as if it is the only unit that should be used in every aspects of economic evaluation of food consumption, CO2 – greenhouse gases emission and using the detailed anthropometrics criteria (age and gender) are always neglected. While we are making the food policy and other economic decisions in a narrow margin of test significance levels, we do not consider the minimum 16-19.4 percentage unit unintended error coming from the use of PC evaluations in our econometrics and biodiversity-nutrition evaluations. (PAHUM = PCagc) is “innovative”: It improves the data validation process by providing an alternative to the current “One size fits-all”– PC, accept or reject approach. It standardizes EU nations or target populations that will make them comparable. The “relevance”: Recent stochastic global and EU population projections based on PC also yield wide error bounds. Our interest is in the particular dependence of the pattern of final demand on the size and structure of consuming populations and its “impact potential”: PAHU/PCagc method has proven to eliminate inconsistencies and can be used in minimum 10 applicable different economic, social, environmental, political demographic fields. Finally: It is recommended that “Put out the fire before fixing the sprinklers.” Obstacles were over come through step by step approach to the PAHUM development.

External connections

Author is constantly and continuously communicating with the other scientists and institutions - Thunen Organic Agriculture Research Institute, Germany; Aarhus University and ICROFS, Denmark; Louis Bolk Org. Agr. Res. Inst., Holland, different universities and research institutions in EU and Turkey. Five different scientists from above institutions actively involved in EU project and came to Kelkit to educate farmers and trainers on organic agriculture biodiversity on author’s invitation. All of the scientists above are aware of the methodology and approve its application in different areas. They are ready for future cooperation and establishing a consortium to work on PAHU evaluation concept. Related to concept, in 2001, the author has communicated with the Prof. Dr. Taylor-Environmental Toxicologist, Chairman of the Human Nutrition Department of U. of Nebraska who has supported the idea: “Your approach seems to be very much on target. Thank you for sharing your message. I had never really stopped to consider the issue but you are absolutely correct in your interpretation”. In 2004, author reached EU Commission Office through the EU Representation of Ankara, Turkey and concluded that error bound PC evaluations should not take precedence over the correct scientific evaluations. Author also closely worked with EFSA and was on its scientific data base.

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

Mitigating climate change means reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering or storing carbon in the short term, and of even greater importance making development choices that will reduce risk by curbing emissions over the long term. Many argue that the household and not the individual (PC) is the more appropriate unit for measuring emissions. In order to illustrate the effect of gender and age differences, two equal numbered households (six members) with different age and gender structure were picked from the real world of two developing countries Chad and Turkey and analysed for their CO2 emissions. Data indicated that PC and PAHU calculations can result in unintended deleterious assessments of CO2 emission. Findings indicate that PAHU Method household emission evaluations (20.9 and 24.9 T/Y) would be better and a more sensitive unit in reflecting the age and gender differences as compared to (PC 28.8; 28.8 T/Y) on PC for the Ahmed and Çelik families respectively.

Describe the context in which you are operating

Challenge: Will the world really need more food? Given the unequal distribution of food today around the planet, one might think that distributing food more equally could solve the food challenge. Even if all the food calories available in the world today were equally distributed across the projected population in 2050 and no food calories were lost between the farm and the fork. Those calories would still fall short of the UNFAO’s “average daily energy requirements” 2,300 kcal PC/d by more than 200 kcal PC/d. If the current rate of food loss and waste were to remain in 2050, the gap would grow to more than 900 kcal PC/d. In short, current global food availability is insufficient to feed 9 billion people in 2050 and reduce pressure on the environment. In order to answer the questions the world will face over the next three decades; author compared the meat and grain consumption values on PC and PAHU of equally populated developed Belgium/developing Chad. Meat and grain consumption differences between PC and PAHU were 48,641; 327,888 and 80,275; 540,574 ton/y for Belgium and Chad respectively. Results mainly due to the percentage of <20-year old in total population; 22 and 57.40 % and gender for Belgium and Chad respectively that PC evaluations do not consider.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

Besides working on PAHU concept, author is also helping to improve the biodiversity-friendly solutions for organic agriculture-livestock production capacity of Erzurum, Gümüşhane and Bayburt Provinces, focusing on Kelkit District on voluntary basis by coordinating the relations between farmers, educators, research institutions and the industry, plus, their communications and knowledge transfer from EU countries. In 2016 on behalf of Kelkit Organic Agriculture Association (KOAA), partner de Natuurweide-Holland submitted an EU project: "Introduction and Practice of Restructuring and Record Keeping of KOAA - in Kelkit." The project aimed to educate and train the leaders, decision makers and farmers in best farm management practices and the development of farmer-led biodiversity related marketing initiatives. We concluded that effectively conserving biodiversity in organic landscapes will require women education, research, coordination and strategic support to farming communities. To serve the purpose, author and his colleagues are establishing a Research and Application Centre under the umbrella of Gümüşhane Uni., Aydın Doǧan Vocational College.

Language(s)

Which language(s) are spoken in the area where your solution is implemented?

Water

Both trainers and KOAA members were trained in different subjects with an effective management of water, conserving organic crop mixtures, feedstuffs, soil-water management (including irrigation), maintenance of soils, vegetation barriers to slow movement of water and not to pollute Kelkit River and how to protect, maintain the biodiversity of natural vegetation in riparian areas.

Food Security/Nutrition

Organic agriculture livestock EU - KOAA project was an integral part of agricultural policy of Kelkit River Basin that aimed to involve more farmers in organic farming and livestock production and food security. Farmers, especially women were instructed how to raise their own vegetables and fruits safe with varied food through combining new organic farming techniques conform with family tradition. It helps conserving bio-diversity and natural resources on the farm and in the household.

Economic/Sustainable Development

Financial back up for the KOAA members were lined up through the contract farming with Kelkit Doǧan Organic, Inc. Through the project, the KOAA members would be inspected by a Certifying Company before they would be contracted. Under the contracted farming the company will be responsible for farmer’s certification process that would provide sustainability to KOAA members.

Climate

. The adaptation strategy to climate change is a foundation and a promising option for traditional rural communities. Providing environmental education involving women and training the trainers and farmers made positive contributions that they always consider the climate in their own daily lives, in their organic agriculture and livestock production.

Sustainability

PAHU concept does not rely on grant funding, government subsidies or market-base revenue. The author worked on the concept more than 28 years, made more than 28 publications. PC vs. PAHU evaluations: As the concept developed, work area has shifted to focus on demographic structure, economic development, social development, household economics, poverty and man made food crises including environmental issues of developed and developing countries, rural household evaluations and eliminating the inconsistencies among other methods (i.e. AE) used in evaluations.

Return on investment

The author financed his scientific activities on PAHU by himself and dedicated his time to his research work and publications. He also dedicated his time to write and submit the EU project that is financed by EU and Turkish Government with the amount was € 141,000. Emphasis was made on biodiversity-organic agriculture and livestock production of rural Kelkit and main activities were planned to bringing much needed assistance to in needy rural families. So far the number of the publications related to the project is more than 20. Findings indicate that the organic livestock farming is still evolving and both district and further government or internationally financed projects on household evaluations on PAHU research are needed.

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

Universities, National and international, Universities, research institutions and NGOs can play important role in helping the author to develop the capacity for entering scientific, practical discussions about contentious issues of PAHU/PCagc. As indicated above, author is working with scientific research institutions, universities in three different EU countries and international organizations FiBL and IFOAM along with 4 different universities in Turkey. The first step is to establish an international consortium to develop and to implement a project for demographic evaluation that will translate to an accurate world account of food availability for 2050 on PAHU basis, including to analyzing biodiversity-hunger relations. The rough initial budget estimation for this project and consortium scientists with PAHU users will be € 150,000-200,000.

Overview

Kelkit Organik Tarım Derneǧi (Kelkit Organic Agriculture Association)