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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At his keynote presentation on Saturday 3rd December at the third Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARDD), President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Kanayo F. Nwanze urged that “negotiators must recognize the critical importance of enabling smallholder farmers to become more resilient to climate change and to grow more food in environmentally sustainable, climate-smart ways.”

Later in the day, Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda opened up a side event on behalf of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) which focused on how we can build the resilience of African smallholder farmers in a changing climate. The event highlighted the work of smallholder farmers in Swaziland and how they are coping with the impacts of climate change.

Back in 2002, Swaziland was hit hard by drought. Many smallholder farmers in the region saw their crops destroyed and their livelihoods threatened due to changing weather conditions. Happy Shongwe, a mother of two from Maphumulo in the Lubombo district of Swaziland, was on-site at the event to discuss her experiences as a smallholder farmer who watched her food reserves run dry due to the drought and was left impoverished. Shongwe and others in her community were helped with food vouchers and knowledge on how they could best respond to the drought.

Shongwe realised that planting maize and raising broiler chickens were not viable ways of coping with a changing climate and instead she began planting legumes which proved to be drought resistant. Starting with just one hectare of land, she quickly increased yields and was able to plant three hectares the following season.

Since then, her fate has changed. Shongwe has since registered Hlelile Investments (Pty) Ltd, a company that produces and markets seeds and is now a certified seed producer through the Seed Quality Division of the Ministry of Agriculture. “I now have my own business and have been able to afford to buy a tractor – I have come along way over the past ten years”, said Shongwe at the event.

Sibanda highlighted the importance of labelling and certification from the government:

For a region to be food secure, it needs to be seed secure. We believe in our own farmers; if given the necessary knowledge, they can grow more food. However, there is still a great need for research, technology and to mobilise funding for smallholder farmers in Swaziland, and other regions across Africa.

Measuring the vulnerability of rural households to external shocks

Today, few tools exist that can effectively measure the impact of shocks and stressess on the lives of the poor. By intermittently measuring the livelihood assets owned by a household over a period of time, researchers can determine household vulnerability and provide evidence to inform investment decisions around the design of policy responses and programme interventions aimed at strengthening household resilience.

Along with World Vision, FANRPAN has developed the Household Vulnerability Index (HVI) to measure the vulnerability of rural households to external shocks such as disease outbreaks, extreme weather and other stresses such as food insecurity. Through this approach, households are categorized into three levels of vulnerability, namely low, moderate and high vulnerability. Based on this more targeted classification system, development response packages are formulated to assist the most vulnerable households at the root causes of their vulnerability.

Following the successful piloting of the HVI tool in three countries in Southern Africa (Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe), FANRPAN and World Vision have shared their perspectives on the importance on developing and updating livelihood databases to benchmark livelihoods and provide data for modelling projected changes in livelihoods as a result of climate change.

Speaking at the learning event, Dalton Nxumalo, a Knowledge Management Officer with World Vision Swaziland (who provide funding for the project) noted,

This tool is meant to be a community based tool. The HVI assesses a household’s access to five livelihood assets; natural; physical; financial; human; and social assets and a total of 15 variables are then assessed together and a statistical core is calculated for each household.

Read more about the other learning events at Agriculture and Rural Development Day on its blog.

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The call to action was announced at this year’s annual Agriculture and Rural Development Day, which took place on Saturday 3^rd December in Durban in parallel with the COP17 climate change negotiations. The all-day event brought together more than 500 agricultural experts, including policymakers and negotiators, journalists, farmers and scientists to discuss priorities to boost agricultural production while supporting adaptation and mitigation to climate change.

Dr. Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) said:

It is astonishing that agriculture remains excluded from a global agreement on climate change.  This year’s conference offers a unique opportunity for this omission to be addressed.

Professor Sir John Beddington, Chair of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, outlined a seven-point plan for urgent action for achieving food security in the face of climate change in his keynote presentation. These included integrating food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies, raising the level of investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems over the next decade and sustainably intensifying agricultural production whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A number of key learning events took place during the day, which looked at the successes in agricultural adaptation and mitigation. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) led a learning event that looked at the tools and policies required to bring food security, adaptation, and mitigation together and shared best practice. At the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) learning event on building the resilience of African smallholder farmers in a changing climate, Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Chief Executive of FANRPAN highlighted the importance of research, technology and mobilisation of funding for smallholder farmers in Swaziland, and other regions across Africa. Many other side events on the day provided agricultural organisations with the opportunity to share knowledge on examples of best practice in early action on agricultural adaptation and mitigation that deliver economic and livelihood benefits  – the triple wins we need for climate smart agriculture.

Other high-level speakers at the event included, Rachel Kyte, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank and Chair of the CGIAR Fund Council, Dr. Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Dr. Mary Robinson, Chair of the The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ) and Former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner and Tina Joemat-Pettersson, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Republic of South Africa

In the afternoon, there was a high level panel discussion, facilitated by Laurie Goering, Editor of Reuters Alertnet Climate, and included prominent participants such as Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). As the panel discussed taking agricultural productivity and food security into a new era, Spelman put forward the UK’s position on climate-smart agriculture saying:

Coping with climate change is a matter of extreme urgency. There are no simple, one-size-fits-all solutions but rather a rich diversity of approaches used around the world. Climate-smart solutions require smart finance.

Agriculture possesses huge uptapped potential to reduce poverty, bolster food security, adapt to climate change, reduce pressure on natural resources, and in many places lower greenhouse gas emissions. To realise this potential, farmers, fishers, and pastoralists must urgently become “climate-smart”, especially in the developed world, which is being hit hardest by climate change impacts. As the open letter endorsed by the 19 agricultural organisations reads:

Whilst agriculture is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it has significant potential to be part of the solution to climate change. Preserving and enhancing food security requires increasing agricultural productivity whilst at the time adapting to and mitigating climate change. It also requires a shift towards building farmers’ and vulnerable communities’ resilience to climate shocks, and related food price volatility.

You can read more about the open letter in our previous blog: “Agriculture: A call to action for COP17 climate negotiators”.

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The summary includes seven key recommendations to policy makers that, if actioned, the authors believe would bring us closer to a global sustainable food system in the face of climate change.

The key message from the summary is that the global food system faces pressure. This is due to a range of factors, including the shift in diets towards higher consumption of calories, fats and animal products and the growing, increasingly urban, population.

Further pressure is added to the food system through inefficiency – an estimated 12 million hectares of agricultural land are lost to land degradation each year, and around a third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted across the global food system.

Moreover, although sustainable agriculture can be a powerful mitigating factor in tackling the effects of climate change, many current farming practices – including land clearing and inefficient use of fertilizers and organic residues – mean that agriculture is a significant contributor to greenhouse gasses (accounting for up to 30 percent of global emissions).

This is problematic as the authors argue that ever-higher temperatures are exacerbating the above issues, and that global climate change will have an adverse effect on agricultural production, bringing us toward critical thresholds in many regions.

The authors argue that:

“Business as usual in our globally interconnected food system will not bring us food security and environmental stability.”

In order to make the vital transition to a global sustainable food system, CCAFS have proposed seven evidence-based actions to achieve food security in the face of climate change. These are:

1. Integrate food security and sustainable agriculture into global and national policies.
2. Significantly raise the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade.
3. Sustainably intensify agricultural production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other negative environmental impacts of agriculture.
4. Develop specific programmes and policies to assist populations and sectors that are most vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity.
5. Reshape food access and consumption patterns to ensure basic nutritional needs are met and to foster healthy and sustainable eating patterns worldwide.
6. Reduce loss and waste in food systems, targeting infrastructure, farming practices, processing, distribution and household habits.
7. Create comprehensive, shared, integrated information systems that encompass human and ecological dimensions.

Farming First has written a policy paper on climate change, and has a range of resources on the role of agriculture in creating a global green economy.

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The report states that water used for production, otherwise known as ‘virtual water’, constitutes 95 per cent of human water use. As pressure on global water supplies grows, recognising the amount of water used in each step of production could play a vital role in managing water use.

The report claims that 86 per cent of ‘virtual water’ is used in the production of food, but despite its importance, businesses are only just starting to seriously consider the risks of interruptions of water to their supply chains.

The report’s authors go on to state that the demand for water is forecast to outstrip supply by 40 per cent over the next twenty years, and this may worsen as a result of changes in hydrological cycles and precipitation patterns due to climate change.

According to the authors, the UK government’s pledge to invest in a green economy emphasises the importance of maintaining responsible production processes. Given the global dimension of water consumption, with countries exporting and importing water, it is important that countries recognise their interdependencies when drawing up national water strategies.

The report concludes that tighter management of water use in agriculture could be done through a number of measures, including greater cooperation between farmers that share the same water catchment.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank have also discussed implementing water metering and pricing as a regulatory mechanism; water pricing in the Guadalquivir basin in Spain has resulted in a 30 per cent reduction in water consumption.

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“The increase of the world’s population to 9 billion people by 2050, the rise in global calorie intake by 60 percent between 2000 and 2050 due to greater affluence, as well the rising demands on land for the generation of food and fuels, will require significant increases in agricultural productivity in the context of more constrained availability of resources.”

Addressing Climate Change and Agriculture: A Scoping Report, 2011

With agriculture contributing almost a third of developing countries’ GDP and providing employment to 65 per cent of developing countries’ populations, the impact of climate change on agriculture has repercussions on lives and economies across the globe.

The agriculture sector holds significant potential in mitigating climate change through reductions of emissions, and effective policies could increase the capacity of farming and food systems to increase food production whilst minimising its impact on the climate.

The Meridian Institute report Addressing Climate Change and Agriculture suggests that:

• Early action on tackling the effects of climate change within the agricultural sector will allow countries to prepare for near- and longer-term agricultural adaptation, closely linked to food security and development efforts.
• Data collection and policy development measures may result in useful country-specific data and experience, which could inform vital long-term national strategies in mitigating the impact of climate change on global populations.
• Technology will have an important role to play in developing agricultural practices that are able to withstand changes in climate. Technology deployment and related capacity building in agriculture comes with significant costs for which developing countries in particular need financial support.

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The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases will look to find ways of increasing food production without increasing greenhouse gas emissions by coordinating the world’s top scientists in agricultural emissions research and technology.

Currently there is little research focused on reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, in comparison to other sectors such as energy and transport. Through increased international cooperation, collaboration and investment in research activities, the Alliance looks set to change this.

Current member countries include Argentina, China, Pakistan, the United States and the United Kingdom – many of whom will announce new funding commitments on Friday to be allocated to the Alliance’s joint research efforts.

The Alliance, which is spearheaded by the New Zealand government, is increasingly gaining international recognition and commitment, with China among the latest countries to join, and President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron recently announcing their countries’ commitment to working together through the Alliance.

Earlier this month, a research partnership in Latin America and the Caribbean was launched as part of the Alliance.

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Part 1 – How can we feed future generations?

Part 2 – How can we reduce poverty around the world?

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Samson’s study shows that those must vulnerable to climate change live-in ‘low latitude, hot regions of the world’, in places like Central and South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. These regions are heavily reliant on farming for livelihoods, and are home to some of the world’s poorest people. This contrasted with the research team’s predictions that it would be those in the high-latitude regions that would be most vulnerable, where the temperature change is expected to be greater.

Samson’s findings also highlight the disparity between the countries that are the biggest contributors to climate change, and those that are most affected by it. While Africa and the Arabian Peninsula are typically home to countries that contribute the least to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, they are likely to be the most severely impacted by changes in temperature brought on by climate change. In contrast, the large industrial countries that are typically the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, are far less likely to be impacted by climate change impacts.

The study has important implications for policymakers, namely a) global indices of human vulnerability to climate change by region can indicate where to direct most attention and b) for the first time we have quantitative evidence that climate change will have greatest impact on the populations least responsible for causing the problem.

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Some of the profiled innovations include:

• In 2007, some 6,000 women in The Gambia organized into the TRY Women’s Oyster Harvesting producer association, creating a sustainable co-management plan for the local oyster fishery to prevent overharvesting and exploitation. Oysters and fish are an important, low-cost source of protein for the population, but current production levels have led to environmental degradation and to changes in land use over the last 30 years. The government is working with groups like TRY to promote less-destructive methods and to expand credit facilities to low-income producers to stimulate investment in more-sustainable production.

• In Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women farmers are growing “vertical” gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with holes, feeding their families and communities. These sacks have the potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers. With more than 60 percent of Africa’s population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14 million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800 million people engage in urban agriculture, producing 15–20 percent of all food.

• Pastoralists in South Africa and Kenya are preserving indigenous varieties of livestock that are adapted to the heat and drought of local conditions—traits that will be crucial as climate extremes on the continent worsen. Africa has the world’s largest area of permanent pasture and the largest number of pastoralists, with 15–25 million people dependent on livestock.

• The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) is using interactive community plays to engage women farmers, community leaders, and policymakers in an open dialogue about gender equity, food security, land tenure, and access to resources.  Women in sub-Saharan Africa make up at least 75 percent of agricultural workers and provide 60–80 percent of the labor to produce food for household consumption and sale, so it is crucial that they have opportunities to express their needs in local governance and decision-making. This entertaining and amicable forum makes it easier for them to speak openly.

• Uganda’s Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC) program is integrating indigenous vegetable gardens, nutrition information, and food preparation into school curriculums to teach children how to grow local crop varieties that will help combat food shortages and revitalize the country’s culinary traditions. An estimated 33 percent of African children currently face hunger and malnutrition, which could affect some 42 million children by 2025. School nutrition programs that don’t simply feed children, but also inspire and teach them to become the farmers of the future, are a huge step toward improving food security.

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