By Abebe Haile – Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), in partnership with Consortium for Climate Change Ethiopia (CCC-E) recently organized a climate convening in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Over 150 climate actors including small-scale food producers, youth, women, academics, environmentalists, scientists and government representatives from 32 African countries brought together to discuss on and create a clear African perspective for the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conferences (Conference of the Parties, COP27) in Egypt.
With the aim of drawing a roadmap to transform Africa’s food system, they conferred on various issues to consider best practices and policy alternatives to counter climate crises; restore biodiversity, revitalize cultural diversity, and strengthen resilience and reform food systems in the continent. Hence, they came up with a call to action for the inclusion of agroecology in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.
“We demand that COP27 put agroecology at the centre of Africa’s climate adaptation, creating resilience for Africa’s small-scale farmers, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous communities and their food systems.”
Why Agroecology
It has been more than three decades since the globe’s changing climate grabbed the critical attention, the early 1980s sharp increase in global temperature being the turning point. True, a lot has been done to provide a scientific view of climate change and its impacts, and realistic mitigation and adaptation solutions. Yet, the problem of climate change has only evolved to be a global crisis, which is now, as many agree, in a state of emergency requiring urgent practical measures that should have been taken long ago.
Africa has long suffered the devastating impacts of climate change, despite being the largest continent with little contribution to the increasing global warming. Though such statements become a cliché being stated repeatedly on countless reports, the fact remains so as most East African countries have been affected for several years in a row by the worst flood in decades and the worst desert locust outbreak in 70 years.
Millions of people in the Sahel, South, and Sub-Saharan African regions were on the brink of starvation as a result of an unprecedented drought, as well. Updated reports indicate that due to a lack of seasonal rainfall, the number of people currently impacted by drought in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya could rise to 56 million by next month, and to 80 million by the end of the year.
Scientific researchers noted that the food and agriculture sector, in addition to being the primary cause of biodiversity loss, is responsible for more than a third of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
To this effect and much more, AFSA, being the continent’s largest civil society movement representing 200 million small-scale farmers, fisher folk, pastoralists, consumers, religious groups and indigenous peoples, has been advocating for a radical and just transition away from industrial agriculture, corporate monopolies, and false climate solutions for more than a decade.
And, according to Million Belay (PhD), AFSA’s General Coordinator, agroecology is the best way forward for the continent to be resilient and achieve its food sovereignty.
“Africa could feed itself many times over. But agroecology cannot and must not be overlooked by decision-makers as the most effective means to build resilience and enable small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fishers to adapt to climate change,” he said adding that it was very necessary to discuss this issue of agroecology, especially when “we know that we are preparing for the COP27, a framework to negotiate in the name of the agroecological transition so that this model of agriculture becomes part of adaptation and mitigation measures.”
At the conference, a panel of experts discussing the “false alternatives” stated COP, so far, has mainly been a platform to sell carbon, and called it a “neo-colonial trap.”
“A plantation is not forest…even if FAO says it is. REDD project offers no addition. It grabs peasants’ and local communities’ lands not to reduce emission rather to differ or relocate deforestation. Also promote monoculture tree plantations and the use of GMO.”
Among the panelist, Joshua Aijuke, from PELUM-Uganda, said alternatives solutions like Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies are being promoted as problem solving techniques, “but they are intensifying agro-chemicals usage like herbicides which will have an effect on the surrounding biodiversity.”
In addition to the growing green house gas emissions, the global food systems are broken due to biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, social inequalities, food security and malnutrition, also said Susan Chomba (PhD), Director of Vital Landscapes for Africa at the World Resources Institute (WRI).
“64% of agriculture land is at risk of pesticide pollution. As a late comer advantage (to industrial agriculture), Africa have the ability to transform its food systems without damage to nature (without excessive use of synthetic nitrogen and pesticides),” she noted, amplifying the importance of agroecology as a more resilient solution.
Simply put, while ecology is the study of relationships plants, animals and people have with their environment and the balance between these relationships, agroecology is the application of ecological concepts and principles in farming.
Scientific studies have shown that the industrial form of agriculture is disrupting the balanced relationships between living things and the environment. Intensive farming systems that target short-term productivity are contributing to food system challenges across Africa exhausting natural resources while inducing flooding, soil degradation, biodiversity loss and malnutrition.
On the contrary, as a set of agricultural practices, agroecology seeks ways to improve agricultural systems by harnessing natural processes, creating beneficial biological interactions and synergies among the components of agro ecosystems, minimizing synthetic and toxic external inputs and using ecological processes and ecosystem services for the development and implementation of agricultural practices.
It is the appropriate approach to follow in managing the impact of farming on wildlife and harnessing nature to do the hard work for us, such as pollinating crops and controlling pests. Further, it promotes farming practices that mitigate climate change – reducing emissions, recycling resources and prioritizing local supply chains.
In this context, agroforestry, crop rotation, polyculture (planting two complementing crops together), crop cover and crop/livestock mixtures are examples of agroecological practices that restore agricultural diversity. As a practice of combining trees and farming, for instance, agroforestry demonstrates how food production and nature can co-exist.
Grazing farm animals under trees gives them shelter and fodder, while their manure enriches the soil. And, planting fruit, nuts or timber trees on land normally used to grow cereal crops can provide another income stream for farmers and also protects soils from erosion, as the trees’ deep roots help create a healthy soil structure. Yet, as the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges, by embedding diversity and resilience, agroecology provides the ability to absorb carbon and adapt to the existential threat of climate change.
To this effect, after a three days deliberation, the African climate actors draw a roadmap to reflect on the continent’s position for agroecological approaches as a sustainable alternative food systems uniting indigenous knowledge, farmer-driven and science-based innovation, and an ecosystem’s natural processes to cope with the climate crisis, to be recognized and prioritized in major strategic and policy interventions.
Hence, they call on COP27 to:
1: Recognize agroecology for adaptation
Prioritize agroecology to transform the agri-food system, build resilience, and enable small-scale farmers, pastoralists and fishers to adapt to climate change. Include agroecology in the UNFCCC climate negotiations.
2: Put small-scale farmers at the center of adaptation
Meaningfully engage small-scale food producers and indigenous communities, including women and youth, in the COP27 negotiations and beyond – they manage landscapes across Africa. Reject false solutions that threaten land, seeds and breeds and increase reliance on global agrochemical corporations.
3: Focus climate financing on sustainable food systems
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 through agroecology.
In its media advisory, AFSA warns Africa’s small-scale farmers risk being disregarded and shut out at international climate negotiations. Agroecology, as an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable approach to food and farming, is a crucial solution for Africa’s farmers to adapt to climate changes and create resilience.
But it is anticipated to be sidelined by governments at COP27 in Egypt this November, and Africa’s small-scale farmers are destined to be deprived of climate funding.
Bridget Mugambe, AFSA’s Program Coordinator and focal person for the climate and agroecology working group, said, “to sustain our livelihoods and feed communities we are forced to adapt – yet we are receiving negligible funds from the international community. We call on COP27 to put food systems at the center of adaptation plans for Africa and direct climate finance to agroecology. Africa can be fed by Africans.”
The roadmap now developed, Million Belay further called on each country’s stakeholders, African civil society and climate actors, to combine their efforts to defend agroecology and make Africa’s position heard at the Cop27 in Egypt.
In his closing remarks to the AFSA Climate Convening, Getahun Garedew (PhD), Director General, Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority, also assured the country’s commitment for a just climate solution through agroecology and promised to push the agenda in the international conferences.
EDITOR”S NOTE: By Abebe Haile is and Ethiopian Environment and and Climate Change journalist based in Addis Ababa.