A report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published last month, entitled “Identifying opportunities for climate-smart agriculture investments in Africa” looks at how CSA is being applied to Africa. Africa’s population has just passed 1 billion and is due to double by 2050. As a consequence, the FAO has estimated that Africa will need to provide adequate food supplies for over 20 million additional people each year and improve the nutritional status of  more than 239 million people. Increasing food production in Africa is essential, but are current farming processes in Africa climate smart?

The governments of 14 African countries (Benin, Ethopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda) have put into place “National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans” (NAFSIPs) in order to adapt to slow-onset climatic change and extreme events, and mitigate climate change. The report has assessed these plans to identify investment needs and options for climate-smart agriculture financing in Africa.

Key findings of the report:

Of the National Agriculture and Food Security Investment Plans in African countries examined…

• 60 percent are expected to generate climate benefits in terms of slow-onset climate change

• 18 percent are expected to generate climate benefits in terms of adaptation to extreme events

• 19 percent are expected to generate climate benefits in terms of climate change mitigation

Gambia and Malawi lead the African countries in terms of number of projects that address slow onset climate change as well as climate change mitigation, whereas Liberia and Niger ranked higher in terms of number of projects that address adaptation to extreme events.

In an assessment of the potential for quick deployment of climate-smart agricultural practices, Ghana and Kenya were both ranked as having a high potential, whereas Senegal, and Benin were ranked as low.

The results of the analysis highlight that NAFSIPs already include many climate-smart activities, however there is the need to consolidate and integrate these findings by providing country-specific inputs such as:

• analyzing the most promising CSA agricultural investment options and estimating their cost-effectiveness also considering the expected climate benefits
• outlining investments needed to transform ongoing and planned programmes, activities and  projects into proper climate-smart interventions, also identifying the corresponding (public and private) financing sources
• analyzing the profitability of the investments in order to determine the type of finance required
• leveraging existing financing instruments in agriculture with innovative climate financing mechanisms
• designing result-based monitoring and accounting procedures and national registries related to identified financing option

To read the full report click here

Find out more about Farming First’s principles on climate change

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The agreed focus is to be on “Growth with Resilience”, and central to this agenda will be the publication of a report, due in late February 2012, which aims to inform discussions related to key policy events. It will look broadly at agriculture’s role in supporting green growth, food and nutrition security, ecosystem services and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Sir Gordon Conway, Chair of the Montpellier Panel, said:

“Agriculture is back high on the political agenda, as more leaders are recognizing the key role which it can play in addressing many of the world’s most pressing challenges. Policies and funding now need to better reflect African national and regional priorities, and build resilient agricultural programmes that fulfill the strong growth potential of the sector. The Montpellier Panel work will also suggest more and better ways for translating these discussions into meaningful interventions on the ground.”

The Montpellier Panel consists of a group of ten experts from the fields of agriculture, sustainable development, trade, policy, and global development. It first convened at the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) in Montpellier in March 2010.

Montpellier Panel members include:

• Sir Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development, Imperial College London (Chair)
• Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Chief Executive, Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN)
• Ramadjita Tabo, Deputy Executive Director, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA)
• David Radcliffe, Senior Policy Advisor, Directorate-General, Development and Cooperation, European Commission
• Prabhu Pingali, Deputy Director, Agricultural Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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The report argues that although irrigation in Africa has the potential to boost agricultural productivities by at least 50 per cent, food production is almost entirely sustained through rainwater, with only six per cent of the total cultivated area equipped for irrigation.

Over 70 per cent of Africa’s poor live in rural areas, and most of these people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Therefore, the report says, agriculture has a key role to play in tackling poverty on the continent.

To help increase agricultural production and decrease poverty, many development agencies have recently proposed to substantially increase investments in irrigation in Africa. But, as the report claims, the potential for irrigation investments in the region is highly dependent on geographic, hydrologic, agronomic and economic factors that must be taken into account when the viability of projects is assessed.

The report analyses irrigation investment potential in Africa, and concludes that there is “significant profitable irrigation potential for both small-scale and large-scale systems”.

Farming First think that water use efficiency is important as water is a precious resource. By 2050, the proportion of the population facing stressed water supplies is expected to increase by 500% and the number facing full water scarcity is expected to increase by 800%.

We believe that research, innovation, and access to improved technologies, seeds, and improved irrigation techniques are essential to increasing the efficiency of water use, and that agriculture needs to be part of watershed management.

Click here to go to our water page, where you can download our position paper and read about our six-point action plan.

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Malnutrition is defined as the insufficient, excessive or imbalanced consumption of nutrients. Poor nutrition and calorie deficiencies cause nearly one in three people to die prematurely or have disabilities, according to the World Health Organisation.  Malnutrition constitutes a global ‘silent emergency’, killing millions every year and sapping the long-term economic vitality of nations.

Food fortification is the practice of adding micronutrients to foods to ensure that minimum dietary requirements are met. The use of biotechnological methods involves inserting a gene with codes for the nutrients into the seed.  This seed is then bred with a high yield quality crop, resulting in the production of crops rich in micronutrients. Agricultural biotechnology methods, and in specific genetic modification, represent therefore a very valuable, complementary strategy for the development of more nutritious crops.

The ABS project has the potential to improve the health of 300 million people by increasing sorghum’s nutritional quality. Sorghum is the fifth most important cereal crop and the main dietary staple for more than 500 million people across the entire developing world. It is the only viable food grain for many of the world’s most food insecure people, and what’s more sorghum is uniquely adapted to Africa’s climate, being both drought resistant and able to withstand periods of water-logging. The potential for sorghum to be the driver of economic development in Africa is enormous.

So far, six successful sets of field trials of nutritionally enhanced sorghum have been conducted in the United States where the sorghum has proven stable and effective over several generations. Greenhouse trials of nutritionally sorghum have been undertaken in South Africa and Kenya. Applications for field trials are in the process of approval in Kenya and Nigeria.

Additionally to the potential health benefits, the ABS project also serves as a model of creative partnerships, bringing together public and private, South / South and North / South organisations. Each partner brings to the table their own particular strengths and helps to create an enabling environment for the use of ABS in Africa, that can be altered and fixed according to the local conditions, cultures and issues encountered in different areas. From Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business that provided the initial technologies for the project, to the national research institutes, technology organisations, policy institutions and universities involved, the project is a successful consortium whose size and diversity mirrors the complexities and extent of the challenges that Africa faces.

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We are quite happy with the outcome although more could have been achieved, though what is particularly pleasing is the fact that the leaders have been able to commit to an accountability framework.

This framework, the Muskoka Accountability Report, is the first of its sort and is a clear sign that leaders are opening up their negotiations to the outside world so that no longer are commitments made behind closed doors.

Whilst it was revealed at Muskoka that only US$6.5 billion of the US$22 billion pledged at L’Aquila last year has actually been dispersed to date, Dr. Sibanda said that it was encouraging that leaders had promised to ensure the full amount would be dispersed by 2012.

Dr. Sibanda noted that the majority of the US$6.5 billion that has been delivered has gone towards financing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP).

Globally we now accept that Africa has a plan, Africa is committed to a plan it wants to implement and there is now coherence, slowly, in financing initiatives that are Africa-led.

The broadcast also addressed the growing crisis in the Sahel, in particularly in Chad and Niger.  To tackle this challenge, Dr Sibanda proposed starting with agricultural policy.

How do we get Africa to have and realise its own green revolution? How do we get Africa to improve productivity? Unless we realise the potential productivity by having good quality seed, by having the right fertilizer to improve productivity, by looking after our natural resources, making sure our soils are fertile enough to boost productivity, we will always be chasing the food that we cannot produce and grow on our own.

Listen to the interview here:

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The conference also established the first-ever African Technology Development and Transfer Network, which aims “to generate economic and social value from research and development outputs, by facilitating technology adaptation and the commercialization of outputs”.

At the conference, delegates focused on how African countries should prioritise science and innovation as a means for accelerating their development agendas.  The ASTIF fund was one of the major outcomes of the conference.  Acknowledging the lack of adequate financial resources as one of the biggest hindrances to research and development in Africa, participants created the fund, calling on African business communities to get involved. Through supporting individuals as well as research and development centres, the ASTIF fund aims to “bridge the existing gap between researchers and the private sector”, helping bring research outputs to market more efficiently.

The recommendations also prioritised investing in educating women and young people in science and technology, and highlighted the need for reducing the costs involved in registering and commercializing innovation outputs.

The conference has made a request to the Network of African Science Academies to prepare a report on Science and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Africa by mid-July 2010.

The conference was organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) the African Union Commission (AUC), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Nearly five hundred scientists, engineers, technologists, inventors, entrepreneurs and policy makers attended the conference to help contribute towards the recommendations.

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Marco Ferroni – Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture

The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) in 2009 developed a two-year public-private partnership between Syngenta and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) to rapidly identify and map genetic markers for use in wheat resistance breeding against Ug99 stem rust, a fungal disease which can cause devastating crop losses.

The project, funded by the Foundation, will combine Syngenta’s plant genetic profiling expertise with the strengths of CIMMYT’s extensive field research to develop a genetic map of wheat stem rust resistance. This will culminate in the development of wheat varieties that can better resist the disease. The results from this project will contribute directly to the global efforts to combat stem rust, which are coordinated by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative coordinated by Cornell University. The marker data arising from the research will be published.

This important collaboration brings together complementary skills and addresses a pressing need of farmers in many developing countries.  Ug99 stem rust, which first emerged in Uganda in 1999, is caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis.  It is currently spreading across Africa, Asia and the Middle East with potential to spread further, posing a serious risk to wheat, the world’s third most important food crop.

Along with rice, wheat is a major food crop and is crucial for global food security – it provides 500 kilocalories of food energy per capita per day in China and India, and can provide up to 50 percent of daily calorie uptake in Central and West Asia or North African countries. Wheat yields need to rise 1.6 percent each year to reach required global production levels by 2020, yet investments in wheat technology have lagged far behind those for other cereals.

The scientific objectives of this project are:

1) To identify, characterize and map Durable Plant Resistance Quantitative Trait Loci conferring tolerance to stem rust resistance in wheat.

2) To identify molecular markers flanking the chromosomal regions containing these durable genes to be subsequently used in marker assisted trait selection.

3) To characterise the Sr2 gene complex and understand how this complex of gene(s) interacts with other important genes in wheat.

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Gavin Onley

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) is a US$50-100 million fund that supports private sector investment benefitting the rural poor in Africa. AECF is hosted by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and is funded by some of the biggest names in development finance.

A Challenge Fund is a mechanism for allocating and disbursing public funds efficiently and fairly. Organizations are invited to bid for scarce resources, not unlike a tender, but what counts is the quality of the response, not price.  The intention is to get funds to the organisations that truly need them and can use them effectively to realise the broader aims of public policy; and to do this transparently. In the case of AECF the overall policy aim is to promote new ideas that will lead to growth in the rural economies of Africa and creating new opportunities for systemic change in the markets that serve them. The challenge is to identify business ideas with a positive impact on the rural poor through increased incomes, employment, productivity and/or reduced costs. 

The Research Into Business (RIB) window is a special fund of the AECF that is open to business ideas based on the products of agricultural research.  The RIB Funding Window page of the AECF site provides an on-line application form, and guides to completing it. Applicants must also show how the concept will impact on the livelihoods of people in rural Africa. Proposals that are considered to have the greatest positive impact on the rural poor in Africa are invited to present a detailed business plan. Applicants’ Co-investment companies must invest an amount equal to, or greater than, the total funds requested from the AECF.

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The SOW11 report, to be released next January, seeks to highlight innovations that can address the challenges faced around the world: reducing hunger and malnutrition, enhancing environmental and agricultural sustainability, improving the lives of women and girls and be both economically feasible and scalable for farmers and the investment community.  The project will also consider the institutional infrastructures and partnerships necessary to achieve success from these innovations.

The Issues Paper, released prior to the report, provides an overview of the issues and approaches facing the world, to provide a larger international discourse to the authors’ contributions. The report recognises two perspectives on food security :

• ‘Global Food Security’ which seeks to strengthen food supply chains to secure movement of products at low prices to vast populations of consumers.
• ‘Food Security for the Poor’ which focuses on strengthening the capacities of smallholder farmers to supply adequate and quality food supplies at a local level.

The paper focuses on three challenges to highlight when exploring possible innovations:

1. Innovations may be driven by or dependent on the policy discourse on food security within that area.        
2. The food security agenda needs to be integrated with the agendas for climate action and ecosystem restoration.
3. Innovations must empower farmers and communities to achieve bottom-up change.

The Worldwatch Institute intends to use the report to uncover the innovations that entrepreneurial farmers use, to promote their value to the global community and help advise foundations and international donors interested in supporting agricultural development. Additionally, by considering innovations and examples from many different perspectives, the SOW11 might help to improve understanding and communication among the different communities of discourse to help achieve food security together.

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A case study by IFAP shows how strategies have been put into place to safeguard the manioc crops from the higher temperatures and heavy rains brought on by climate change.

In order to preserve the most beneficial varieties, both economically and ecologically, agricultural researchers identified the local varieties that were best adapted to climate changes, and then helped to promote the most effective farming techniques amongst the farmers to increase productivity.

On a national level, policies are being put in place to establish agroforestry projects in rural areas to increase soil fertility as well as to invest and improve their weather stations to observe changes in the climate. Agricultural organisations are also training farmers in the techniques needed to restore soils.

Through an integrated approach to improving agricultural practices and resources, farmers in Gabon are becoming increasingly able to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and safeguard an important source of nutrients for the Gabonese people.

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