Olusegun Obasanjo, Former Nigerian President and Board Member of Africa’s Progress Panel

I am the son of a proud, hard-working smallholder farmer. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve following papa to the fields where we grew cassava, maize, plantain, oil palm and other crops and helping him out around the farm. My father was considered the most successful farmer in our Yoruba village near Abeokuta in southwest Nigeria.

Unfortunately, a combination of population growth, land scarcity, soil degradation and political turmoil put paid to his farming business. I have seen many other farmers whose livelihoods fell victim to these same forces.

Like many youths in Africa, I moved to the city for greener pastures. When I was elected Nigeria’s president, the plight – and the importance – of our smallholder farmers was always close to my heart. Now that I have returned to my agricultural roots, the need for a new approach to help them deal with increasingly complex challenges has become even more apparent to me.

Smallholder farmers’ ability to grow nutritious food is threatened by a host of factors that are not of their own making, from economic downturns to armed conflicts. They are also poorly equipped to confront the extreme weather patterns that are already hitting agriculture hard, even though they have contributed the least to the climate crisis. Small-scale farmers, their families and communities are being pushed deeper into poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

Make no mistake – their struggle is our struggle. These farmers, who work on land no larger than two hectares, play a crucial role in ensuring food and nutrition security. Most of the world’s smallholder farmers are in Africa and Asia and they produce up to 80 percent of the food that is consumed locally.

Any disruption in their ability to deliver on the goals of food and nutrition security will directly and increasingly affect us, whereas helping them to become more productive and resilient will help build equitable, sustainable and nutritious food systems, that provide for everyone in Africa and Asia, and the whole world.

Despite their key contribution, these farmers lack access to crucial tools that would support sustainable production. They are also often overlooked in global and national policy discussions, which tend to be dominated by the interests of industrialised farming systems.

Faced with poor public sector support or resources, smallholder farmers have been forced to encroach into reserved land to grow their crops and graze their animals, leading, in some cases, to deforestation and environmental degradation.

With nearly 430 million Africans living in extreme poverty, one in five having gone to bed hungry in 2020, it is time to build a new consensus with and for smallholder farmers to help them adapt to climate change and manage shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s invest in their resilience and capacity, and support them to scale up sustainable agricultural practices and enhance their productivity and incomes by 2030 as set out in Sustainable Development Goal target 2.3.

Here are my five suggestions to world leaders, but particularly those in Africa, on how we can achieve this.

First, we must invest in and develop policies that are favorable to smallholder farmers, build resilience, promote sustainable production, and uphold the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Commitments: allocating 10% of national budgets to agriculture, improving access to finance, markets, extension services and usable technologies, especially for women and youth, modernising land tenure systems, and supporting other policies that allow small- and medium-sized enterprises to grow and thrive.

We should engage all stakeholders, especially smallholder farmers, to develop a long-term vision for food systems aligned with National Development Plans (NDPs) and budgets. Good leaders learn from their predecessors, continue building on good policies and use lessons to improve national policies and programs.

We should coordinate public and private actors within and across sectors to better align interventions and resource allocation to reach smallholder farmers.

Fourth, we must implement stronger accountability mechanisms linked to national and sub-national data systems, to enhance the design, monitoring, tracking and progress reporting of public and private sector actions.

Lastly, we must pledge to ‘leave no one behind’. Supporting marginalised and vulnerable groups will go a long way towards combating poverty, hunger and climate change. Women make up 45-60% of the agricultural labour force in parts of Africa and Asia. According to the World Bank, helping them access assets and inputs could increase yields on women-run farms by 20-30 percent. Youths under the age of 25 are nearly 40% of Africa’s working age population but more than 60% are unemployed. Agriculture is the economic sector that can employ millions of young people and enhance food security. Indigenous peoples have a long, rich history of sustainable, resilient, productive, and nature-positive food and farming systems. We can and should learn from them and help them protect their practices from the impacts of climate change.

There is an urgent need to make sure that smallholder farmers have a voice in the policy choices that governments will be making in the coming weeks, months and years.

There is no better time to develop a new consensus with them, because our very existence in this world depends on their ability to withstand the multiple pressures and shocks they now face.

H.E. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 and now the CEO and founder of Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited. He is the Chair of the Africa Food Prize among many global positions he is holding. 

Originally posted on www.cnbcafrica.com

The Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has supported Ghana’s participation in the United Nations Food Systems Summit through the Member State Dialogue.

The UNFSS offered a platform for stakeholders to discuss how to transform food systems and deliver on the SDGs in participating countries.

With support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ghana, Malawi and Rwanda were selected to participate in this project to support the government-led 2021 UN Food Systems Summit Dialogues; and to identify priority, concrete, integrated actions and policies required for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The project tested a process of future Food Systems Dialogue in participating countries and was complemented by the work of other collaborators in the Food Systems Transformative Integrated Policy Initiative (FS-TIP) that generated food systems analysis and diagnostics to inform the member-states’ dialogues and cross-sectoral policy decisions.

Chief Director of the Food and Agriculture Ministry, Patrick Robert Ankobiah, speaking at a forum to validate the Ghana FSS report said the dialogue’s outcome has been raising of awareness, elevation of public discussions on the country’s food systems and, more importantly, the development of principles that will guide government and other stakeholders on how to reform food systems to achieve the SDGs.

He said the world food systems, including that of Ghana, are at a crossroads – as existing systems are struggling to provide adequate food to feed millions of people, which has resulted in widespread hunger in many countries.

Mr. Ankobiah added that the food and nutrition security situation in sub-Saharan Africa is dire, with potentially serious consequences for public health and sustainable development.

“It is in this vein that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is grateful to AGRA – whose mission is to catalyse an agricultural transformation in Africa – for supporting this initiative in Ghana,” he said.

Prof. Amos Laar, Convener for the Food Systems Summit in Ghana, lamented what he said is the failing food systems in the country.

Raising concern over malnutrition and describing Ghana’s Food Systems as unhealthy, unsustainable and not equitable, he said it is time action is taken to address the challenges.

AGRA Policy Analyst, Abdoulaye Djido, stressed the importance of food systems while noting that it is crucial for issues that pop-up to be addressed.

“Food Systems are the basis of policies and there must be general orientation to make them the responsibility of everyone in a Ghana…I am inclined to recognise that some issues which arose today must be included and addressed, as a way forward by the consultants for finalisation of the report on the Ghana Food Systems Country Dialogue.”

Originally posted on thebftonline.com

To connect people to climate action and deliver real-world, sustainable benefits, the UN’s key climate conference should be reoriented to focus on local projects and innovations, a leading Kenyan communications specialist argues in a comment piece published by Forbes Sustainability.

Despite the media attention given to November’s COP26, the summit failed to secure binding commitments on emissions reductions from the most polluting nations. Additionally, wealthy nations again postponed establishing a $100 billion-per-year fund to support climate action in the developing world. Campaigners such as Greta Thunberg argued that the COP was nothing more than a “Global North greenwash festival”—simply a public relations exercise to make rich nations feel good about themselves, while doing little to solve the climate crisis.

Many have been left asking the question: how can the COP meetings be made to achieve actual change?

In the comment piece that follows, Ng’Endo Machua writes that, instead of giving center stage to abstract talks between diplomats and politicians, the COP climate summit should promote on-the-ground sustainability projects connected to people’s daily lives. This, she says, would be a more effective way to make climate action relevant and immediate to wider audiences, and pay dividends in the form of community investment and verifiable emissions reductions.

Realign COP Messaging To Focus On Local Projects And Innovations

This year, around November, the world will be gathering in Cairo, Egypt, for the 27^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27). The COP, which brings together leaders from across the globe for deliberation on issues around climate change, has for over two-and-a-half decades helped foster dialogue and debate on areas of priority for climate adaptation and mitigation.

Yet even today, the vast majority of people the world are unaware of what the COP entails, beyond the glamour that accompanies the two-week summit. This is because the communication activities around its year-long implementation are mainly focused on high-profile meetings between planning teams, governments and other leading organizations. Very limited attention is given to success stories that come about as responses to previous COP resolutions, or to the objectives of upcoming COPs.

But there is now an opportunity for change, with discussions at COP26 having emphasized the need to enhance the reporting of climate change initiatives with respect to their contributions to greenhouse gas reduction.

Already, there are numerous brilliant projects and innovations out there that can serve as evidence of steps towards carbon neutrality. These should be celebrated within the COPs’ messaging programs, for reasons that will be outlined below.

In Kenya, for example, organizations such as AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) and the IKEA Foundation have implemented several agro-ecology projects [PDF] that have led to the dramatic restoration of deforested lands. In the country’s western region, about 6,000 hectares of degraded tropical rainforest land have been reclaimed, contributing immensely to the restoration of their carbon sequestration capacity.

Similar success stories have been reported in the country’s central region, where the promotion of regenerative agriculture has resulted in the uptake of farming strategies that cause less damage to the environment. Such innovative investments, unfortunately, seldom make it to the COP showcase as scalable pilots, because the global convention has for a long time been arranged so as to disproportionately promote high-profile dialogue.

Having the COP’s messaging celebrate ongoing activities around climate change mitigation and adaptation would be a good way of creating and validating a database of programs that can be properly financed for scaling. Indeed, at COP26, wealthier countries committed to continue financing their poorer counterparts in adaptation. This is part of the yet-to-be-met goal of channeling $100 billion a year to developing nations by 2020, helping them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature.

The pledge could, however, be more quickly achieved if the financiers had specific projects to fund—an arrangement that would also help to improve accounting processes for climate financing, a challenge that was recently highlighted by the same people who negotiated the pledge 12 years ago in Copenhagen.

Meanwhile, the onus is now on governments, the private sector, youth, observers and civil society in developing countries to step up and promote activities in their regions as a way of garnering the attention of COP decision makers.

The messaging from these interest groups should be that impactful projects, which offer the best chance to slow the pace of climate change, are already taking off locally, and with proper support could fast track the 2015 Paris agreement goal of restricting global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, if not 1.5 degrees.

Ng’Endo Machua is a communications specialist from Kenya, specializing in food systems and climate change. She can be found on Twitter @ngendo87.

Originally posted on forbes.com

Most of the maize yield improvements seen in the US corn belt state of Nebraska can be attributed to a more favorable climate, rather than improved crop genetics, a new scientific study has found.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS by researchers based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, concluded that 48 percent of the yield gain seen over the 2005-2018 period came from better climate conditions, 39 percent from agronomic improvements and only 13 percent from improved genetic yield potential.

In reporting the findings, media have implied something of a failure of genetic engineering approaches. National Geographic magazine, for instance, wrote that “scientists have been counting on genetic engineering as a prime tool to help keep yields increasing in the future” but that the new PNAS study suggests “that tool hasn’t been as useful as they thought.”

The authors themselves hint that biotechnology has been a disappointment, concluding that their study shows “that previous predictions of sharp increases in maize yield potential (2 to 3.6 percent p.a.) with the advent of biotechnology and molecular techniques have fallen short of reality.”

However, what the study actually shows is a little more complicated.

The research was conducted using data only from Nebraska, which has been growing genetically modified (GM) corn for two decades and has already realized some of the highest maize yields anywhere in the world. North America achieves on average 11.8 tonnes per hectare of corn yield, while Malawi achieves just 1.6 tonnes and Tanzania 1.5 tonnes, according to Our World in Data.

Neither African country currently has access to GM corn, whereas 90 percent of the corn crop in the US and 80 percent of the corn grown in Canada is GM. By comparison, 70 to 80 percent of the corn crop in South Africa is GM and yields average 5.09 metric tons per hectare. Biotechnology may already be having a positive effect on yield where it is permitted, although other factors doubtless play a large role.

Feeding the world’s growing population without increasing agricultural land area — seen as essential by experts in order to protect the climate and remaining natural ecosystems — will therefore depend far more on closing these massive “yield gaps” between America and Africa than on achieving ever-more marginal increases in already high-yield places like the US corn belt.

This is the rationale behind efforts such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, which aim to put the benefits of modern science into the hands of smallholder farmers across Africa to help them improve productivity.

Moreover, genetic approaches, while not a silver bullet, can help. As the Alliance for Science has reported, drought-tolerant maize can help safeguard yields in low-rainfall areas, while insect-resistance traits can combat infestations of pests like the corn borer and the highly invasive fall armyworm that can devastate crops.

These traits have already been used for years by corn farmers in Nebraska, alongside consistent use of pesticide applications and nitrogen fertilizer. These agronomic changes — rather than improvements in the genetic potential of the corn crop per se — accounted for most of the technology-driven improvements in yield, the PNAS study found.

Perhaps the most surprising takeaway from the study is not the relatively small impact of improved genetics, but that climate change has so far proven a net positive, at least for corn production in Nebraska to date. The data show that with longer growing seasons and warmer temperatures the yield potential for corn production in the state increased by 89 kg per hectare per year.

This benefit from climate warming may only be a temporary anomaly, however. Virtually all scientific analyses expect major food production challenges ahead as punishingly high temperatures and extreme weather events affect the world’s major breadbaskets. Moreover, the US corn belt may only have escaped the full impact of searing summer temperatures because of the widespread use of irrigation, which keeps daytime highs cooler and even helps generate rain.

Nebraska’s irrigation resource will not last forever, as aquifers are already becoming depleted across the US corn belt. And while droughts in America may have only limited impact in irrigation-fed areas, this is certainly not the case in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to irrigation is a rarity.

This brings us back to crop genetics. While building irrigation facilities in Africa is a long-term challenge, as is sustainable water management, getting drought-resistant seeds to farmers should be an easier win. Farmers in countries like Tanzania and Malawi are not just a long way from theoretical yield potential, they are a long way behind what should be easily achievable today.

And as climate change impacts continue to worsen across the vulnerable African sub-tropics, the urgency of the challenge of improving crop yields will become ever clearer as an alternative to hunger and malnutrition.

Originally Posted on: geneticliteracyproject.org

The agri-food sector, which employs nearly two-thirds of Africa’s population and accounts for 30–40 per cent of its GDP, is projected to be worth more than $1 trillion by 2030, growing in line with the population of African cities and their demand for food and other agri-processed goods like textiles. The transformation of this sector – which comprises the agriculture, agri-processing and food industries – is critical for the achievement of the continent’s development agenda.

However, the transformative power of this sector for gainful socioeconomic development can only be unlocked through committed leadership by African governments. While it is the prerogative of farmers and private-sector actors – including input providers and agri-processors — to develop the market systems that create jobs, raise incomes and deliver food security, governments must create enabling environments such that these stakeholders are incentivised to sufficiently invest relative to the industry’s need and potential.

For a sustained transformation, a coordinated approach is required within governments. Ministries of agriculture lead the transformation process, backed by sector ministries and agencies including the agencies for energy, roads, investment, finance, industry, trade, education and revenue collection, and regulatory agencies. Collectively these ministries and agencies set up the enabling environment. Such coordination can, however, only materialise under the stewardship of the offices of the head of state, and ministries of finance and economic development.

Many African centres of government are increasingly leading such an agenda, together with their ministries of agriculture and ministries of industry and trade. Yet these governments still require increased support to strengthen their state capability: that is, their capacity to prioritise, coordinate, problem-solve, align resources and track progress.

AGRA and TBI are working in a partnership that explores strategies for increasing the support given to governments that have the ambition to drive a transformation in their agriculture, agri-processing and food-systems agenda. This partnership is currently being piloted in Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique, and centres on providing long-term delivery and investment advisory in key parts of government.

As part of this partnership, AGRA and TBI have developed a package of three toolkits. The first toolkit assesses government readiness for transformation; its objective is to assess the capability of governments to drive an agricultural transformation agenda, and to identify areas that require immediate support. This tool is intended for development partners and government leaders, and will be used by TBI and AGRA to strengthen their support to governments.

The second toolkit focuses on the implementation of delivery mechanisms for agriculture and food transformation, and guides governments on the principles and factors to consider when setting up delivery mechanisms. This toolkit brings out the insights and learnings from different mechanisms used in Africa and beyond to strengthen implementation and delivery activities.

The final toolkit is structured around the capacity of ministries of agriculture and ministries of finance to strengthen their resource mobilisation efforts, for more robust resource-planning that is strongly tied to the needs of the agricultural-transformation agenda and other government priorities.

These toolkits are not static. They will continuously be refined and improved as TBI and AGRA use them to strengthen their support for state capability in the pursuit of agricultural transformation in Africa.

Toolkit Links

Assessing Government Readiness for Transformation (GRT) of the Agri-food Sector

Engaging Ministries of Finance in the Country’s Agricultural Transformation

Implementing Delivery Mechanisms for Agri-Food Transformation – for Head of States, Ministers, and their teams

Originally posted on: institute.global

ACCRA – As the sun slid toward noon, Adam Fuseina’s daughter jumped off a bicycle at their home in Nafaring village, northern Ghana, and called out to her mother that she was back from shopping.

Fuseina looked at the basket full of cooking oil, flour, greens and other items on the bike’s front rack and smiled at the agriculture officials who were visiting her farm.

“This will keep us going for a week,” said the 43-year-old mother of five, standing amid the village’s mud-walled shelters with fraying thatched roofs.

Things were very different a year ago, when Fuseina’s family could sometimes only manage one meal a day.

Ghana’s worsening floods and droughts have made growing fruit and vegetables harder, and when the staple maize and rice crops are hit as well, families like hers are left with meager yields of grains that lack essential nutrients and vitamins.

But in March 2021, Fuseina joined a free crop insurance project that tries to ensure farmers aren’t thrown into poverty by the extreme weather, pest infestations and crop disease outbreaks becoming increasingly destructive as global temperatures rise.

Now when long dry spells destroy a share of the crops on Fuseina’s 6.5-acre (2.6-hectare) farm, her family can still eat healthily, she said.

Since joining the pilot project run by social enterprise Roots of Change, she has received two payouts of up to 200 Ghanaian cedis ($33), covering 80 per cent of the value of her crop losses to drought.

Those may be tiny payouts, but combined with low-interest loans of nearly 600 cedis that come as part of the insurance package they have helped supplement the income she makes and carry the family through to the next planting season, she said.

“I cannot wait to plant new crops on my farm because I know I will get returns whether there is bad weather or they are attacked by pests and diseases, thanks to crop insurance. Before the programme I never felt excited,” Fuseina said.

Part of a larger initiative by Roots of Change, under the Britain-based charity Opportunity International, the insurance programme uses farmland and crop data collected by the agriculture ministry to help provide cover for about 1,360 farmers in northern Ghana.

The Ghana Agricultural Insurance Pool (GAIP), a group of 15 insurance providers, compare data on historical farm yields to actual harvests to verify insurance claims enrolled farmers make.

Since it was launched in 2021, the project has paid out 7,000 cedis ($1,120) to more than 300 farmers, according to Ebenezer Laryea, the Ghana head of agricultural businesses at Opportunity International, which pays the farmers’ insurance premiums.

Some farmers invest the money they get through the programme into community savings schemes, where people pool their funds to be used by individual members when they need it.

“Crop insurance is a game changer,” Laryea said, particularly in a country where about half of people make their living from farming.

More stable farming

As temperatures rise in Ghana as a result of climate change, the country’s northern region no longer gets two rainy seasons of a few months each but one five-month-long wet season, which can flood fields and drown crops, Laryea said.

The rest of the year is dry, leaving crops parched.

Food and agriculture minister Owusu Afriyie Akoto has said crop insurance could make farming a more stable livelihood and attract more young people to an occupation now dominated by the aging.

“It is not just about building resilience against erratic weather but also making agriculture attractive to youth and women by making it a financial asset,” he said at the 2021 African Green Revolution Forum in Nairobi.

Ghana’s Food and Agriculture Ministry did not respond to the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s requests for comment.

Building trust

GAIP first introduced crop insurance to Ghanaian farmers in 2011, but studies show it has been a tough sell.

Uptake has been slow in rural areas, mostly due to a lack of understanding of how insurance works, said a study published in June 2021 in the BioMed Central (BMC) journal.

It shows 90 per cent of small-scale farmers see crop insurance as a useful tool, but less than a fifth said they had signed up for it.

Over half of farmers responded that they lacked adequate knowledge about insurance, and about 5 percent said it is too expensive.

Another issue was the farmers’ lack of trust in how companies calculate insurance payouts.

Early crop insurance programmes-based payouts on a weather index, with insurance triggered when a preset number of days passed without rain, for instance.

But in Ghana and some other parts of Africa weather data is known to be imprecise, said Hedwig Siewertsen, head of inclusive finance at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an agricultural nonprofit. xNewer models make the process of calculating crop loss more accurate.

In the Roots of Change program, the agriculture ministry uses satellite data to project how much each farmer could produce per acre, then compares that to the actual harvest during a visit to any farm making a claim, said Ibrahim Sulley, an agriculture relationship officer with the social enterprise.

The programme’s officers expect to visit about 335 farms a year to follow up on insurance claims, noted Lydia Baffour Awuah, the Roots of Change senior programme manager for Ghana.

Sending people to visit farms is more expensive than a weather-index-based insurance model, but the interaction with farmers brings other benefits, backers say.

Siewertsen at AGRA said that a face-to-face relationship is vital if insurance is going to gain traction.

“The main issue in agricultural insurance is gaining the trust of farmers,” he said in an email interview.

“This can be done through field presence, first to explain how insurance works and second to show that the actual damage is seen and measured,” he added.

Originally posted on: urduwire.com

Among the participants in the dialogue were Zulfikar Mustapha, Minister of Agriculture of Guyana; Agnes Kalibata, former Minister of Agriculture of Rwanda, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit and President of AGRA; Manuel Otero, Director General of IICA; Hailemariam Desalegn, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Ethiopia and President of AGRA’s Board of Directors; Tereza Cristina, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply of Brazil; Modibo Keita, Minister of Rural Development of Mali; Julián Domínguez, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Argentina; Eric Gatera, Chief Technical Advisor of the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Rwanda; Luis Muñoz, Deputy Minister of Rural Development of Ecuador; Renato Alvarado, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica; Renato Gumbs, Director of Agriculture of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Fadel Ndiame, Deputy President of AGRA; Beverly Best, Director of External and Institutional Relations of IICA; and Ariel Martínez, Undersecretary for Policy Coordination of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Argentina.

San Jose, Costa Rica, 19 January 2022 (IICA). Ministers of Agriculture of Africa and the Americas committed to working together to develop a cooperation agenda, and agreed that the two continents face common challenges and opportunities with respect to transforming their agrifood systems to make them more sustainable and inclusive.
 
The agreement was reached during the First High-Level Roundtable between Africa and the Americas, convened and organized by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), entitled “Building Bridges for Future Cooperation in Agrifood Systems”.
 
The high-ranking officials who participated in the virtual event agreed that, beyond the cultural and historical similarities and differences between the Americas and Africa, the continents face a unique and common challenge: that of building knowledge-intensive agriculture, with a human face, while caring for the environment and considering the areas of nutrition and health, which, they agreed, is necessary in order to produce more and higher quality food.
 
To this end, they agreed to develop agendas throughout the year to link technical assistance institutions for agriculture – such as Brazil’s Embrapa, Argentina’s INTA and all national research organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, which play a key role – and their scientists and professionals, in order to deepen exchanges. They also proposed holding a ministerial summit on agriculture in Africa and the Americas in the second half of 2022.

Among the participants were Agnes Kalibata, former Minister of Agriculture of Rwanda, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit and President of AGRA; Hailemariam Desalegn, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Ethiopia and President of AGRA’s Board of Directors; Tereza Cristina, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply of Brazil; Julián Domínguez, Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of Argentina; Zulfikar Mustapha, Minister of Agriculture of Guyana; Renato Alvarado, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica; Modibo Keita, Minister of Rural Development of Mali; and Manuel Otero, Director General of IICA. Fadel Ndiame and Beverly Best served as moderators, representing AGRA and IICA, respectively.
 
The meeting participants agreed to hold a broader ministerial summit between the two continents later this year, focusing on innovation issues – repeatedly mentioned at the roundtable – that are considered essential to increase the productivity and sustainability of agrifood systems, such as digital agriculture and biotechnology research.
 
Other topics of common interest that emerged from the debate were the recovery of degraded soils, efficient water management and the promotion of more open, fairer and more transparent international food trade.
 
The initiative to bring the Americas and Africa closer together arose during the extensive preparatory process for the Food Systems Summit held last September, explained Agnes Kalibata, who was the main facilitator of the global event held in New York.
 
“I wish to thank Manuel Otero for building bridges between the two continents, given the fact that, from the perspective of South-South Cooperation, we face common challenges. I have visited Brazil and other Latin American countries and I am certain that we must learn from them. I am impressed by the progress Latin America has achieved in scientific research and trade”, stated Kalibata.
 
“The Summit”, she added, “provided us with the opportunity to bring these continents together to take advantage of the best they have to offer. This is the perfect time to engage in South-South Cooperation and to learn from each other. We are going to demonstrate that international cooperation can help us feed more people and take better care of our planet by being responsible producers. This meeting serves as a launch pad for a series of commitments”.
 
Minister Tereza Cristina agreed that there is room to engage in valuable cooperation between the two continents. “It is crucial to simultaneously address agriculture and food security, as well as to reflect on free and fair agricultural trade and sustainability”, she said.
 
The Brazilian Minister of Agriculture associated the sustainability of agrifood systems with the need for international agricultural trade to be transparent and fair. She was also critical of the “protectionism of developed countries, which has hindered the capacity of developing countries to consolidate more modern and dynamic food production”.
 
Tereza Cristina also warned that developed countries must acknowledge the fact that there is no single path towards sustainability and must respect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities with respect to climate change mitigation policies.
 
Former Ethiopian Premier Desalegn noted that, with support from Brazil, his country has achieved positive results in the fight against hunger, and revealed that African countries are eager to exchange experiences with Latin American and Caribbean nations.
 
“African economies have grown in recent decades, as have their agrifood systems, despite catastrophes such as droughts and floods and, most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. As a region, Africa lacks access to modern technologies and mechanized tools that allow for increasing productive variety and quality as well as expanding the percentage of arable land. Many of our farmers are still subsistence farmers; therefore, cooperating with Latin America and the Caribbean will enable us to improve the lives of our populations”, he said.
 
Speaking on behalf of the countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Zulfikar Mustapha pointed out that one of the common challenges facing that subregion and African nations is their vulnerability to natural disasters due to climate change. “We can achieve positive results by working together on issues of common interest, one of the first of which is resilience”.
 
Argentina is one of the Latin American countries that has been working closely with different African nations on issues such as biotechnology transfer – an area in which Argentina is recognized worldwide –, bioeconomy and development of dairy products and different crops, informed Minister Julián Domínguez.
 
“This partnership between IICA and AGRA provides us with the opportunity to deepen our joint work. We are very interested in learning from the region and in sharing the technologies we have been developing”, he added.
 
Minister Alvarado considered that Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa must work together to drive transformations that would enable farmers to receive a fair price for their efforts, describing this as a priority issue.
 
“We cannot continue to set prices that are below the cost of production. It is imperative that we adjust the prices of agricultural production, in light of the global increase in the prices of raw materials and transportation. Family farmers cannot be subsistence farmers; they have the right to well-being”.
 
Along the same lines, the Minister of Rural Development of Mali, Modibo Keita, called for establishing “better linkages between producers and the market”, which would generate greater profitability for farmers.
 
Keita revealed that the primary concern in his country is scarce rainfall due to climate change and the challenges that this scenario presents for the sustainability of agricultural production.
 
The Director of Agriculture of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Renato Gumbs, considered that trade is the issue that unites the two continents. “We must expand our network of partners”, he said.
 
Speaking from Rwanda, Eric Gatera described the efforts the African country is undertaking to attract youth to agriculture. “To succeed in this regard, we must offer benefits and an improvement in terms of social status, because the agriculture sector is generally not appealing to young people”.
 
From Ecuador, Yomira Paz reported that her country is implementing cross-cutting climate change adaptation measures with a gender focus.
 
The Director General of IICA underscored the need for more and better international cooperation given the complexities of the current global scenario. “No country will emerge from this crisis on its own. We must stand together to address issues of a cross-cutting nature. Everything makes more sense if we build bridges. And that is exactly what IICA is doing: building bridges between stakeholders, countries, subregions and also with other continents”, noted Otero.
 
“The Summit”, he added, “pushed agriculture to the top of the global agenda, and it is our responsibility to ensure that it remains a priority. We must transform our consensus into actions that can transform the quality of life in rural areas, improve farmers’ profitability and drive sustainable practices. To this end, we need more South-South cooperation. I am hopeful that we can advance towards a shared vision and a common agenda”.

More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int

Originally posted on www.iica.int

The year 2021 was one of critical conversations about global agrifood systems – the processes and methods through which farming produces food. Following on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and a rise in global poverty, 2021 was a year for recovery and an urgent call to transform food systems if the world is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals targets by 2030.

The United Nations Food System Summit in September was a call to action and a challenge to nations to build “transformed” food systems. It was followed by the development of the African Common Position. This outlines how countries on the continent plan to heed that call and challenge. Then came COP26: sustainable, resilient agrifood solutions are, after all, key to mitigating the effects of climate change.

If commitments are met, these high level dialogues have the potential to shape the trajectory of Africa’s agrifood system over this next decade. But how can global conversations be internalised into systems? How does the continent build sustainable, resilient food markets? What roles do private sector actors and public policy-makers play?

As specialists in food systems keen to tackle these big questions, we’ve drawn on key findings from the African Agriculture Status Report and identified three salient features about Africa’s agrifood system. These are that food demand is expected to increase; that African-based agribusinesses are investing; and, finally, that transforming the food industry will take time in light of persistent informality.

The commitments made on the global stage must now be followed through with policy and regulatory reform at national, regional and continental levels. Strategic investments are also needed, particularly to target choke points in the agrifood value chains.

We predict that the journey to transformation of the food industry will be long. It comes with many risks – and, for those who move first and well, high returns.

Rising demand, rising investment

Over the coming decade, sub-Saharan Africa’s food demand is projected to rise. This will make it one of world’s largest sources of additional demand, rising from 10% to 11% of total global calorie consumption by 2030. The continent’s food market is projected to reach a value of a staggering one trillion dollars by 2030.

Asia is another important food market which will be driven by the growing population. Studies show a potential rise in population and food demand. The difference with Africa’s projected demand, however, is that Asia will likely demand high value products because of relative improvement in incomes.

In Africa, people’s incomes will not rise at the same rate. So while people will demand more and better food, they will not necessarily be able to afford a more diversified, protein-rich diet. This raises questions around the pace of the dietary transformation on the continent going forward. The “dietary transformation” trend is likely not very sustainable if gainful wage employment can’t be ensured.

Despite this concern, it’s clear that agribusiness in Africa presents vast opportunities for private sector firms. African-owned business are already investing: between 2015 and 2020, the top three leading retail outlets in South Africa expanded their African footprint by increasing the number of outlets across the continent. One, Pick n Pay, has increased the total number of stores by 55% in the past five years, from 1,242 to 1,925.

Examining leading retailers’ annual reports, we can see that despite the uncertainty and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were able to adapt by using digital platforms and new logistical models; this allowed them to expand their sales despite the disruption.

But this expansion of investment is not just occurring at the retail level. African-owned enterprises operating at all levels of the agrifood system are expanding their own footprint through increased investments in the sector. Many of the firms listed as the Food Business Africa Top 100 companies in 2020 are African-owned and have either entered into the food industry or expanded and diversified their operations over the past two decades.

Informality

However, despite this evidence of emerging and growing small and medium enterprises, the journey to transforming the food industry will be long, particularly in the face of persisting informality. Across all of the continent’s regions, except southern Africa, informal employment as a percentage of total employment in the agricultural and non-agricultural sector is above the global average of 64% for emerging and developing markets economies.

More than 80% of the continent’s population relies on open-air, largely informal markets for their food. Poor sanitary conditions in many of these markets raise concerns around food safety for households that depend on them.

If African countries are to ensure resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, they must upgrade food value chains by shifting production and employment from informal micro-enterprises to formal firms offering wage employment with income security and health benefits for employees. This will also ensure improvements in food safety within the system.

One example of this is an investment by the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with the East African Grain Council, in Kenya’s Naivasha Smart Fish Market project. The aim is to provide an informal market with good quality infrastructure as a way of improving livelihoods and sanitary conditions.

Government responsibilities

There are three things that African governments can do to ensure the reality of the next decade lives up to the global commitments made in 2021.

First, governments must provide adequate public goods. That means hard infrastructure, like roads, public works and electricity, and soft infrastructure like capacity development, finance, data and information.

Second, they must effectively enforce national competition policy and anti-trust laws to level the playing field for all types of agri-food enterprises and minimise abuse of market power.

Finally, they must get out of the way. African governments should not over regulate the sector: this increases the costs of doing business especially for small, medium and micro-enterprises. Policies must also be predictable and based on solid technical research.

Originally published on theconversation.com

Climate change, which is expressed in terms of drought, floods, and changing rainfall patterns and increased variability, is expected to hit sub-Saharan Africa most.

Africa experienced a 30 per cent increase in the frequency and duration of drought events since the year 2000. In 2019, the climate crisis affected more than 33 million people across east and southern African countries in food insecurity as a result of floods, landslides, drought, and cyclones.

Africa is vulnerable because the economies of its states are largely based on weather-sensitive crop-livestock systems, and also due to the low adaptation capacity of communities to threats of climate change. The adaptation is strongly linked to access and use of improved technologies and practices to develop resilient systems.

The experience of AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), which has been spearheading agricultural transformation in Africa, shows that improving productivity, profitability, and adaptation to climate change could be concomitantly achieved by investments in a number of areas.

About 70 per cent of the land in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) falls within arid or semi-arid farming systems, but only about 5 per cent has access to irrigation using water from rivers, streams, ground water, or rainwater harvesting. Only about 7 per cent of the arable land is irrigated in SSA against 40 per cent in Asia. Rainwater management could be practised anywhere in the continent by capturing, storing, and efficiently utilising rainwater from roofs and runoff.

Small-scale irrigation

Besides, small-scale irrigation from surface and groundwater can reduce farmers’ vulnerability to annual rainfall variability and associated climate risks.

The private sector needs to support expansion of small-scale irrigation in SSA by improving market opportunities, energy for water lifting, and access to irrigation water, including from shallow wells and groundwater.

Despite high demand for drought-resistant cultivars, farmers have limited access to high-yielding crop varieties. Availing the right crop to the right agroecology will ensure good crop yields and reduce the risk of crop failure due to drought and other climate-related calamities. High-yielding traditional African crops like sorghum and millet rarely reach farmers’ fields due to weak last-mile delivery systems.

Improved extension, including using village-based advisers, would help farmers get access to the appropriate varieties along with good agronomic advice.

About 65 per cent of agricultural crop land and 31 per cent of permanent grazing land in Africa is degraded. Only 17 kilogrammes of fertiliser is applied per hectare of arable land in Africa against 250 kilogrammes per hectare in Europe, hence aggravating soil fertility decline through nutrient mining.

Research shows that farming without fertiliser can cause up to 30 per cent and 60 per cent loss of soil organic matter after 12 years and 46 years, with crop yield declining from one tonne/ha to 300 kg/ha. While applying critical nutrients like phosphorus is important, adopting regenerative practices like composting and returning of crop residues to the soil will reduce fertiliser needs.

Our farmers need to adopt a combination of organic and blended mineral fertilisers, not only to improve productivity but also to improve the grain quality of crops through micronutrient enrichment. Since most soils in high-rainfall areas are acidic, it is also important to note that soils affected by soil acidity will not give good crop response to fertiliser application unless the soils are corrected by liming.

Mono-cropping is prone to climatic and market risks. Diverse types of fruit trees, vegetables, cash crops like coffee and cacao are grown in home gardens and produce forage for fattening small ruminants. These gardens are enriched by household refuse, manure, night soils, and other nutrient sources and produce up to 40 per cent of household food on about 15 per cent of the farmland.

They provide a wide range and steady supply of fresh produce throughout the year, potentially with considerable income and should be promoted throughout SSA. Research shows that home gardens in a small-scale setting could produce crops, trees, fodder, medicinal herbs, planting materials, and other products, with an income of about $3 per square metre per season.

In the era of climate change, lack of mechanisation exposes farmers to drought and invasion of pests and diseases. For instance, in drought-prone locations of Africa, a delay in planting of maize by a day could extend the maturity period of the crop by a month, exposing it to an end-of-season drought. The hoe-based plough cannot break the hard pan of the soil, preventing rainwater from infiltrating deeper to the root zone. Lack of mechanisation delays harvesting and proper storage, causing huge post-harvest losses, sometimes up to 30 to 50 per cent.

Lack of mechanisation

Most importantly, access to mechanisation is exacerbated by an underdeveloped ecosystem (equipment vendors, after sales services, loan and lease products, mechanics workshops, mechanisation as a service model) and the investment in the ecosystem is beyond the reach of individual farmers.

Farmers’ livelihoods largely depend on integrated crop and livestock systems. This is not only a risk management strategy (livestock serving as a savings account) but also critical for improved crop productivity due to the need for draught power, manure, efficient recycling of water and nutrients for improved soil fertility, economic risk mitigation and livelihood diversification.

Dairy, fattening, and poultry are becoming attractive investments around urban settings and would play an important role in the agricultural transformation of Africa. Moreover, most African drylands are livestock-based, and hence climate change adaptation and livelihood improvement cannot be achieved without improved management of the pastoral and agropastoral systems.

Aquaculture plays an important role in food security and profitability for Asian farmers, and should be integrated into the increasing rice fields of SSA. Unfortunately, integration of aquaculture has had a poor success rate.

Agricultural productivity

Diverse land uses interact across landscapes to impact on the natural resource base that sustains agriculture and ecosystems. One of the major factors affecting agricultural productivity in SSA has been land degradation due to poor management and soil erosion. Land restoration by adopting soil and water conservation practices accompanied by innovations that bring short-term benefits in terms of fodder, fuelwood, water, and other resources would increase the tree cover, minimise erosion and improve watershed functions.

In the context of climate change, there is need for integrated watershed management that may include technological, social, policy and institutional interventions for land restoration while increasing productivity of water, nutrients, and labour for food security and environmental services. This also demands wider collaboration among key stakeholders at local and higher levels.

The author is Dr Tilahum Amede, the Head of Resilience, Climate and Soil Fertility at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

As 2021 comes to a close, we are pausing to reflect on a year that has enriched our understanding of how we can support the communities we serve to be more resilient and thrive – even under difficult circumstances.  

This year began with an ongoing pandemic, requiring us to rethink our approach to our investments in Africa’s food systems. Amidst border closures and limitation of movement directives, we had to think deeply about the impact of our work on farmers, the private sector, agricultural systems, country-led development, gender inclusivity and strategic partnerships.

Our emerging results report, which covered progress in our current strategy, provided insight for our next steps by emphasizing the need to increase investment in systemic change as well as sustainability. Taking into account this information alongside the ongoing climate emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic, we adapted our approach to sustain our support to smallholder farmers across our areas of operation:  in systems development, state capability and partnerships.

In the section below, you will see examples of the results of our work throughout 2021. These all contribute to our objectives of participating in the global goals of ending poverty and hunger, improving nutrition, and supporting climate adaptation and resilience.

Systems development – AGRA continues to build, with its partners, the systems that farmers need to prosper.   Improved varieties of seed are key to Africa’s food system transformation. This area has been an area of focus for AGRA’s current strategy. During our early years and in our current strategy, we have invested in training the scientists needed to transform Africa’s seed production industry. Having provided support for over 800 African scientists to obtain post-graduate degrees in the last decade, building hundreds of indigenous seed companies, in 2021 we went a step further to launch the first Center of Excellence for Seed Systems in Africa (CESSA) to champion the development of quality seed of improved varieties on the continent. CESSA will convene seed actors to help fill gaps and build the capacities of scientists, developing varieties that respond to the needs of farmers in Sub Saharan Africa. The Center will begin operations in 2022, supporting governments, the private sector and development partners to deliver modern, effective and resilient seed systems that serve African farmers better.

• Women and youth– Recognizing the important role that women and youth play in Africa’s food systems, in 2021 we created more opportunities to support women and youth smallholder farmers and agripreneurs.
  • Our continental initiative aimed at strengthening women’s agribusiness enterprises, VALUE4HER grew nearly 100%. At year end, over 2,000 women-owned agribusinesses from 39 African countries have registered on the platform. These businesses have annual turnover of between US$20,000 and US$100,000. Engagement on the platform grew by nearly 400% in 2021. This growth in engagement is crucial, as VALUE4HER is a platform not only where women benefit from training to hone their business skills, but   the platform connects women agripreneurs to leverage their success and learn from each other.
  • At AGRA we celebrate innovation! AGRA’s youth-focused partnership Generation Africa continued its engagements through the GoGettazz Agripreneur prize and Pitch Agrihack, which saw 12 youth-led agripreneurs win US165,000 to advance their businesses.  In 2021, winning businesses included a community-focused, socially conscious avocado processing and manufacturing company, and a business that uses solar powered cold rooms to  reduce post-slaughter loss throughout East Africa’s livestock value chain.
• Leadership training for agriculture ministries – We launched the Centre for African Leaders in Agriculture (CALA), which is supporting countries and agriculture sector leaders to deliver on national priorities in African agriculture and nutrition security. CALA is targeting training 160 officials in African agriculture ministries over the next three years.
• Access to finance –The AGRF Agribusiness Dealroom, an investment mobilization and match-making platform, continued its role of bridging the US$23 billion financing gap in Africa’s agricultural sector, by linking 4,000 government officials, investors and entrepreneurs from 89 countries to an investment pipeline worth USD 5.1b.  Outside the Dealroom, the AGRF Summit, which was attended by 8,300 participants, reported over US$12.5 billion in planned funding within the next nine years to support programs that will transform value chains in dairy and rice as well as new initiatives to support entrepreneurship, renewable energy, and innovation.
• Building resilient food systems – With climate change and other shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic posing great risks to Africa’s food security, we engaged extensively with leaders and partners at the global level, at the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and COP26, seeking solutions that will make Africa’s food systems resilient.
  • Notably, we actively participated in the preparation of the Africa Common Position, which outlined the continent’s priorities at the UNFSS in New York. Africa’s position on climate change requires, among other things, the mobilization of additional financial resources to Africa for climate friendly technologies to address both the urgent adaptation and mitigation needs of the continent.
  • And in November, we contributed greatly to discussions at and around COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, where we shared Africa’s concerns and priorities in the quest for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Looking ahead

We have come to the end of our five-year strategy and what a journey it has been! Next year, 2022, will be a transition period during which we will review and showcase the outcomes of our investments since 2017, as we prepare for another five-year strategy period of driving inclusive agricultural transformation plans. AGRA will target more tightly its work for impact, and build stronger partnerships and alliances to drive the development of agriculture  and food systems across the continent.

During this period, we will also strengthen our institutional and technical capacities to strengthen AGRA’s position as the go-to institution supporting the development and scaling of Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (IAT) tools, technologies and models. We are anchoring our ambition on accelerating momentum towards the achievement of the Malabo targets by leveraging the partnerships that magnify our impact.

Food systems is an opportunity for transformation in food and agriculture!   We will build off our collaboration in 2021 to secure new commitments to the CAADP processes, targeting hunger and poverty, boosting intra-African trade, enhancing resilience to climate variability, securing investments in agriculture and promoting mutual accountability to actions and results within our various partnerships.  

Happy Holidays!

During this challenging year, I have reflected often on an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. It is in this spirit of transforming agriculture and ending hunger – together! – that I wish to thank all of you for your active engagement in the journey towards our IAT goals amidst the complexities of 2021. We could not have done it without you!

On this note, we at AGRA wish you a very joyful holiday season, and as we move into 2022, our hope is that we continue to come together and continue to support each other to end hunger on the continent  – for people,  for planet for prosperity!

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Agnes Kalibata