TWN Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture
7 February 2023
Third World Network
www.twn.my
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Agroecology can help African farmers survive the climate emergency
Africa is facing poverty, rising hunger and malnutrition. Over one-fifth of the population faced hunger in 2021. Estimates suggest that climate change will reduce Africa’s overall food production capacity by ten to twenty percent. Around 70 percent of Africans rely on rain-fed farming. Rising temperatures, floods, storms, droughts and depleted resources are impacting small-scale food producers across Africa first and worst.
A publication from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa highlights how African farmers are beginning to implement long-term, sustainable solutions to Africa’s climate crisis, models that all farmers could learn from. There is an urgent need for a radical and just transition globally away from high-emitting industrial agriculture, corporate monopolies of food systems, and false solutions – towards food sovereignty and agroecology.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
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THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY – How Africa can Survive and Thrive
The AFSA Barefoot Guide Writer’s Collective of the Agroecology and Climate Crisis Working Group
Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa
https://afsafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/bfg-the-climate-emergency-lr.pdf
9 Nov 2022
[EXCERPTS ONLY]
Welcome, Dear Readers
By Bridget Mugambe, AFSA Program Coordinator
The climate emergency affects us all deeply, in so many ways. But for farmers it has more drastic implications. It undermines all aspects of the food systems that they depend on. Extreme weather devastates their crops and livestock, and destabilises the very water cycle that they are intimately a part of.
They are not the only ones affected. The impacts of the climate crisis on agricultural production, supply chains, and labour productivity in climate-sensitive sectors plays havoc with both food prices and incomes. And it strongly affect people’s ability to purchase food. The COVID-19 pandemic, the worst drought in forty years, persistent conflict, and the violence of wars all contribute to food scarcity and insecurity, particularly in Africa. Something different has to be done!
Scientists project that things will only get worse for Africa if current trends continue. Vital questions arise that must be faced: Will our soils be able to meet our demands for food and fodder? Will we be able to produce the food that we desire to eat? Will the forests survive so they can protect us from the weather? Will the water resources be able to meet our needs for people, animals, and plants? Beyond the measurement of degrees, indicators, and ambitions, these are some real questions we should pose and address. Because it is our people who are at the centre of the storm. But the bigger question is whether they are seen to be at the centre of the problem or the solution.
Today, the majority of the solutions put forth and funded by governments and donors to address these problems are, in the long term, making things worse. Industrial agricultural methods, posing as “Climate Smart Agriculture”, encourage excessive use of chemical inputs on plants and in the soil. The development of carbon credit programs serves to legitimize pollution and uproot communities from their land. These are just a couple of examples of the false solutions brought by the rich and powerful. But there is a different narrative at work in Africa. The stories in this AFSA Barefoot Guide show that African farmers, long seen as victims, are beginning to implement lasting, sustainable solutions to the climate crisis in Africa. Indeed, they are examples that could well be followed by all farmers. Through agroecology practices, not only can they naturally adapt to the inevitable and growing harm of the climate crisis, but they can also make significant contributions to its mitigation.
AFSA stands fully behind farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and all who support them in learning and working together, so that not only can they survive the climate emergency, but thrive.
[….]
Africa’s Climate Emergency – A Call for Adaptation, Resilience and Mitigation through Agroecology to CoP27 and beyond
We are civil society organizations, youth, women, academics, environmentalists, scientists from over 30 African Countries – part of the largest civil society movement in Africa – representing Africa’s over 300 million small-scale farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and indigenous peoples. Having met in Addis Ababa on 19th to 21st September 2022 to dialogue on Africa’s roadmap to adaptation, resilience and mitigation through agroecology, we hereby issue this call to action to COP27 and beyond.
We acknowledge with concern the IPCC WG2 findings, which show that extreme weather events will increase risks of food insecurity, food price rises, reduced food diversity, and reduced income for agricultural and fishers’ livelihoods, preventing Africa from achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 by 2030.
Africa is facing poverty, rising hunger and malnutrition. Over one-fifth of the population faced hunger in 2021, 46 million more than in 2019 – spurred by conflict, climate change and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Agriculture plays a fundamental part in Africa’s economies, contributing to the livelihoods of 70% of the population and over 20% of GDP.
Africa is feeling the effects of the climate emergency on a daily basis. Rising temperatures, floods, storms, droughts and depleted resources are impacting small-scale food producers across Africa first and worst. In order to sustain livelihoods, feed families and communities, and regenerate landscapes and ecosystems, they are forced to adapt – yet are met with negligible support and access to climate finance.
The African continent has great potential for change and prosperity due to its rich natural resources and its creative young people. Yet African agriculture is plagued by underinvestment, unresponsive policies, and bottlenecks preventing women’s and young people’s access to productive capital and land.
There is an urgent need for a radical and just transition globally away from high-emitting industrial agriculture, corporate monopolies of food systems, and false solutions – towards food sovereignty and agroecology. Africa can lead the rest of the world on sustainable food systems.
The transition to agroecology – drawing on indigenous knowledge, innovating with science, providing diverse culturally appropriate diets, and embedded in communities – empowers Africa to solve hunger, ensure human and soil health, social justice, and resilient livelihoods. Most importantly, by embedding diversity and resilience, agroecology provides the ability to absorb carbon, and adapt to the existential threat of climate change – as the IPCC acknowledges.
We therefore call on the COP27 to:
#1: RECOGNIZE AGROECOLOGY FOR MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION
Prioritize Agroecology as a means to transform the agri-food system, absorb carbon, cool Africa, build resilience, and enable small scale farmers, pastoralists and fishers to adapt to climate change. Include agroecology in nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and national adaptation plans.
#2: CLIMATE FINANCING TO SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS
Put agriculture and food systems at the centre of adaptation plans for Africa and direct climate finance to agroecology. The time is now for an appropriate and deliberate increase in financing for small-scale farmers, fishers, pastoralists, and indigenous communities to deliver sustainable food systems.
#3: SMALL SCALE FARMERS AT THE CENTRE OF ADAPTATION
Meaningfully engage small-scale food producers and indigenous communities in the COP27 negotiations and beyond – they manage landscapes across Africa.
#4: SAY NO TO FALSE SOLUTIONS FOR AFRICA’S FOOD SYSTEMS
Reject false solutions that threaten our access to land and farmers’ seeds, increase vulnerability, and which rely on multinational agri-tech corporations or on synthetic inputs and monocropping.
#5: WOMEN IN CLIMATE ACTION
Operationalize the UNFCCC’s Gender Action Plan – including planning, monitoring and budgeting to enable women and girls to make the best economic decisions to sustainably steward their lands, produce and market diverse foods, and support and feed their own families.
#6: YOUTH IN CLIMATE ACTION
Pay urgent attention to the role of children and youth in climate action, climate adaptation, and food systems transformation. This can create a future for African youth, with a livable climate, opportunities for profitable agroecological enterprises, and thriving local economies.