external-input farming (Reijntjes et al., 1995),40 integrated pest management (Cisneros, 1992), good agricultural practices (EUREPGAP, 2003), minimum tillage (PROCAS, 2001), and other practical models that enhance productive efficiency and reduce production costs. It is also possible that some of these production systems could move toward stage 2, “agroecological management”, through a more profound change in system management and greater levels of product diversification in farming, livestock and forestry (Gomero, 2001; Willer and Yussef, 2004), as well as greater agrobiodiversity.

Shifting quality demands for food products in external markets and the certification mechanisms now in place may encourage these transitions. Incentive policies would be geared to progress in these stages of transition, assuming the conventional systems that do not follow these paths would then be made conditional upon other poverty reduction goals, such as employment creation, in order to receive subsidies.

It must also be recognized that some systems of cultivation, livestock rearing or plantations cannot be maintained without a package of agrochemical inputs, especially for combating insects and diseases in large-scale monocrop operations; in this case, they could be subject to the “polluter pays” principle. In turn, the revenues collected could be earmarked to promote further research in agroecology and in agrobiodiversity management.

40 According to the Technical Advisory Committee of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (TAC/ CGIAR, 1998), “sustainable agriculture is the successful management of resources for agriculture to satisfy changing human needs while conserving natural resources”.

2. Traditional systems
With respect to the peasant/indigenous systems that are already at stage 1 and that use little or nothing in the way of agrochemical inputs, they have two possibilities for evolution in their management.

1. Adopt the conventional production system by increasing farm size (economies of scale), standardizing plots, purchasing commercial seeds, and making greater use of external inputs (See Chapter 2).
2. Adopt sustainable agroecological systems, improving their integral management of available resources, their productive competitiveness and the quality of their output, which could be certified using a certificate of origin, or perhaps an “organic”, “green” or “fair trade” certification (See Chapter 1).

In this second case, suitable incentives would be used to encourage the transition toward stage 2, rescuing local knowledge of agrobiodiversity management.

3. Sustainable system
The third and final stage of transition is the desired shift in production systems. These sustainable systems would rely on optimizing the natural processes of the productive system (such as photosynthesis, atmospheric nitrogen fixation, biological soil activity) and intensive labor input to reconcile environmental, economic and social objectives. This desired system also implies changes in the food system, together with other energy adaptations, particularly in the fuel used in the case of mechanization, reduced inequality of incomes and new social relations.

Figure 5-2 shows the different options for ecological transition, but it does not incorporate their economic impacts. For example, it does not show what incentives could be expected from the market so that conventional systems will begin the transition to stage 1: subsidizing the price of