A/HRC/16/49 from 114 to 11,935, and a total of 121,000 workshops on agroecological practices were organized.60 34. State support can build on those efforts. In Brazil, for example, the 2010 Act on extension and technical assistance for family farming and agrarian reform (Lei 12.188/2010)61 prioritizes support to rural extension activities in ecological agriculture. This Act will accentuate the qualitative shift in the Brazilian extension services which is parallel to quantitative changes in the last decade. Indeed, extension activities organized under the Brazilian National Rural Extension Policy (2003) have increased from an average of 2,000 activities/year in 2004-2005 to an average of close to 30,000/year in 2007-2009.62 Such efforts enable a rapid dissemination of best practices, including agroecological practices, especially when farmers participate in the system and are not mere receivers of trainings. IV. Public policies for the scaling up of agroecology 35. Scaling up agroecology in order to maximize its positive impacts on farmers’ incomes, productivity and the environment means both (horizontally) increasing the areas cultivated by agroecological techniques and (vertically) creating an enabling framework for the farmers. Innovative ways of ensuring horizontal expansion include the “pilot scaling up” strategy such as the one successfully implemented in the Chinyanja Triangle (Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia) and West and Central Africa by the World Agroforestry Centre for tree domestication. The strategy relies on the identification of Pilot Scaling Up Areas (PSUAs) and the establishment of “scaling up platforms,” the formation of “change teams” and the identification of partners: from grassroots organization to private companies.63 The targeting of the zones where the adoption of agroecology has the greatest potential, based on biophysical criteria, may be facilitated by Geographic Information Systems (GIS), such as those that have been used both in Europe and in Southern Africa in order to identify the suitability areas for the scaling up of agroforestry systems.64 As mentioned earlier, the dissemination of the push-pull strategy in East Africa by the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) was based both on demonstration fields managed by model farmers, which attracts visits by other farmers during field days, and on partnerships with national research systems in neighbouring countries that facilitated take-up of this approach. Localized innovations can spread rapidly through such approaches (see Figure 2 below). 60 61 62 63 64 P. Rosset, et al., “The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty,” Journal of Peasant Studies, 38:1, forthcoming in 2011, pp. 29-30. Brazil, Lei 12.188/2010, Assistência Técnica e Extensão Rural para a Agricultura Familiar e Reforma Agrária. Personal communication from Fransisco Roberto Caporal, General Coordinator, Department of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension, Ministry of Agrarian Development, Brazil, 20 July 2010. K. Linyunga et al., “Accelerating agroforestry adoption: A case of Mozambique,” ICRAF Agroforestry Project, Paper presented at the IUFRO Congress, Rome, 12-15 July 2004. E.A. Ellis et al., “Computer-based tools for decision support in agroforestry: Current state and future needs,” Agroforestry Systems, 61-62, 2004, pp. 401-421. 15