To address these challenges, REAP-Canada works with local organizations and communities on rural development initiatives. Our main international development focus is to implement our Agro-Ecological Village (AEV) Model, which is a participatory approach to environmentally sustainable rural development that simultaneously addresses the social, ecological, and technological infrastructure development of communities.
Due to its ease of adoption and replication, the AEV is the basis for a model that meets the dual objectives of poverty alleviation and environmentally sound development, which can be easily adopted in developing communities around the world.
The Agro-ecological Village is described as a community that is largely self reliant through the creation of integrated and ecological food and energy production systems. Central to this approach is the conviction that ecological resource management and sound community organizing forms the basis for sustainable community development.
The adoption of this approach will improve a community's understanding of agro-ecological processes. Over time, this will:
The general characteristics of an Agro-Ecological Village are outlined and compared to conventional approaches in the following table:
| Activity |
Agro-Ecological system |
Conventional approach |
| Approach |
- Emphasizes self-reliance and empowerment through optimal use of on-farm resources
- Orientates market development towards local markets and import displacement
Minimizes human impact on local environment and biosphere
-
Low cost participatory development approaches such as farmer to farmer training emphasized. Focus on long term project sustainability and lasting effects. |
- Emphasizes development of export markets to pay for imported goods
-
Communities are vulnerable to external forces and loan-dependent
-
Degrades local natural resources and biosphere
-
Top down training and development approaches |
| Food |
Food security and improved nutrition achieved through diversified ecological farming of staple crops |
Much food imported, farm land dedicated to cash crops |
| Soil tillage |
Animal traction used, tillage reduced through use of perennial crops and ratooning of rice and sugar cane |
Tractors and fossil fuels, heavy reliance on annual crops |
| Soil Fertility |
Maintained through minimizing soil erosion, decomposition of crop residues, introduction of N fixing sugar cane and rice cultivars, crop rotation, nitrogen fixing legumes, azolla, mudpress (byproduct of sugar cane milling), carabao dung, rice hull ash. |
Urea, phosphorus and potassium fertilizer |
| Insect and disease control |
Biological control strategies, resistant cultivars, balancing soil fertility with the crop, planting rice in an east-west orientation and wider row spacing |
Insecticides and fungicides |
| Weed control |
Mechanical weeding devices, crop rotation, balanced soil fertility management, crop residue mulching |
Herbicides and tillage |
| Seeds |
Community seed banking of open pollinated seeds, new seeds assessed in trial farms, farmer driven participatory plant improvement |
No local adaptation trials, plant improvement or seed saving. Imported hybrid seeds dominate plantings |
| Irrigation |
Use of ram, treadle and bush pumps for irrigation |
Gasoline and diesel powered irrigation pumps |
| Household cooking |
Use of rice hull cookers, efficient wood stoves, biogas, all fuels farm-derived |
LPG fuel stove, open fire cooking, kerosene as fire starter |
| Marketing |
Emphasis of internal self-reliance and import displacement with value-added processing |
Monoculture production, products sold to distant markets |
| Finances |
Indebtedness minimized because food security is achieved, low input use from ecological farming Several cash crops are sold through various periods in the year |
Heavy debt load at usury rates for high input requirements of monoculture cropping |
| Training |
Participatory Approaches emphasizing Farmer to Farmer training on ecological farming systems |
Limited training of farmers using top down government trainers teaching high input farming methods. |
New strategies are required to create effective sustainable rural development models that respond to the many difficulties facing impoverished small farmers in developing nations. A holistic approach must be used to address the interrelated challenges facing impoverished households including inadequacies in food, health, nutrition and education, low income and living in an environment with degrading natural resources. To reverse the cycle of impoverishment, it is of paramount importance that sustainable methods of development are introduced. Individuals, organizations and support agencies must be sufficiently aware of local conditions and effectively organized to work together to create self reliant, resilient and empowered communities. 
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