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.

Share this content:

FANRPAN CEO and Farming First spokesperson Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda took part in one of the panel sessions, which included with Calestous Juma, of Harvard University, David Beckman from Bread for the World, World Bank Vice-President Inger Andersen.

Focusing on the solutions to the problem of rising and volatile food prices, the panel discussed the possible paths to relieving poverty and food insecurity.

Dr Sibanda spoke of the role of the private sector in helping to develop local agribusiness. She cited a case where treadle pumps were distributed to farmers, but that there were no local artisans to repair the equipment and make them affordable. The private sector, she said, have the opportunity to get involved to help communities be able to produce tools locally, and offer the services to repair and renew the tools.

On empowering farmers, Calestous Juma said that farmers need two things. Firstly, they need to be encouraged to organise themselves into enterprises, and be supported in this endeavour, and secondly, an expansion in technical training is needed to ensure farmers are up to speed with modern farming techniques.

David Beckmann emphasised that while these types of panel sessions can talk about the technological solutions, we need to make a commitment to get this done. In the US, he said, there are proposals for cuts that would harm the poor all around the world. This is not just technical problem, he said, it is a matter of mobilising commitment.

Much of the online debate accompanying the panel discussion revealed that people’s greatest concerns were with support for smallholder farmers. Dr Sibanda addressed the issues of access and affordability of inputs for smallholders. Malawi, she said, is one example where we saw uptake of hybrid seeds when subsidies were introduced. The subsidies were for 2kg of seed per farmer. Farmers who were producing yields of 500kg per hectare were later seeing yields of 3 tonnes per hectare. Through the introduction of the new seeds, an improved network of suppliers was built up, and on top of their subsidy, farmers then sought to buy additional supplies of seed of their own.

Dr Sibanda’s final plea was to put farmers first in efforts to deal with food crisis. She said that today in Africa, farmers do not have the food to feed themselves let alone their communities. The first port of call is to enable farmers to come out of poverty. Assisting farmers to feed themselves is the first step to the farmers being able to feed others.

Share this content:

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:

Share this content:

“As a result of diminished resources and lack of funds for agriculture, we saw declines in productivity, we saw people moving out of farming to rely more on commodities like minerals, and rely more on imports of food rather than produce their own.”

Ajay Vashee also warned that the scale of the need is tremendous, and agricultural investments need to be sustained and expanded further in order to reap the anticipated outcomes.

The broadcast also addressed the structure of the Obama administration’s intended agriculture plan, which includes $3.5 billion over the next three years to help developing-world farmers produce more food and get their products to market.

Critical to heading off the food crisis in Africa is the prioritisation of research imperatives (per Farming First’s Principle 6). Joachim von Braun, Director-General of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, discussed the scale of the challenge facing global agriculture:

[I]f agricultural research and development were to increase from $5 billion a year to $15 billion, “10 years later we will have…300 million [fewer] people among the hungry poor. This is the largest benefit one can achieve with this type of investment.”

At a U.N meeting in September, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined the U.S. agriculture policy:

The strategy Clinton sketched out includes many of the elements experts say developing- world farmers need most: investments in research and development, access to improved seed and fertilizer, insurance programs for small farmers, as well as improved infrastructure such as roads and storage facilities to help farmers get their products to market.

The article highlights the fact that agriculture is a “good investment” for policymakers to make and that their efforts need to be farmer-focused and knowledge-based, aimed at diversifying the range of tools which they have at their disposal over the long-term.

Listen to the complete audio broadcast here:

Share this content:

The programme has been funded by a $900,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and will be presented at the annual FANRPAN Regional Policy Dialogue and Annual General Meeting held in Maputo, Mozambique in September 2009.

The pilot projects will be based in Malawi and Mozambique and will help to amplify the voices of women farmers in policy decisions at the national and regional levels.  These projects will also then help women access the tools and technologies — such as better seeds, adequate fertilizer, extension services, and access to credit — that these realigned markets will provide.

FANRPAN’s involvement across 13 Southern African countries will help it to partner with other Gates Foundation grantees to create deeper linkages within the communities where their pilot projects will take place.  The lessons learned from these pilots will then be incorporated and extended into programmes for other Southern and East African countries.

Share this content:

Dr. Sibanda discussed the key principle of the Farming First plan as well as highlighting recent work of her own organisation FANRPAN on identifying the most vulnerable households in villages for targeted support.  She discusses how African countries are spending $19 billion each year on the import of key staple foods despite the fact that 70% of the population is smallholder farmers with the potential to grow their own food.

Dr. Sibanda argues for the need to improve productivity in a sustainable way.  Knowledge transfer and investment in infrastructure and resource management skills are key in achieving this.  For instance, many farmers use recycled seeds which yield only 10% of the harvest that new seeds would bring.

Under these principles, agricultural policy should aim to help farmers eventually ’self-help’ and become self-sufficient.

Listen to the full broadcast of Dr Sibanda here:

Share this content:

Farming First’s Dr. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda spoke the growing importance which agriculture is seen to have in global policymaking recently:

The signs are encouraging but we need to make sure the money is invested in long term sustainable projects based on our framework principles.

The article discusses recent funding increases from the World Bank and the US administration under President Obama.  These measures are aimed to secure a food supply, build infrastructure, and avert the civil strife which emerged during the 20o7 food price increases.

Share this content:

Share this content:

The chairperson of the event will be Leonard Mizzi, Head of Unit of the Agriculture Directorate General of the European Commission. Other speakers at the event include:

• Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO, FANRPAN
• Dr. James Hansen, International Research Institute for Climate and Society
• Serge Benstrong, President, Farmers’ Association of Seychelles
• Sarala Gopalan, Women’s Representative, National Institute of Agriculture of India
• Julie Howard, Executive Director, Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa
• Antonio Galindez, Vice President Crop Platform, Dow AgroSciences
• Thomas Rosswall, Chair, CGIAR-ESSP Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Challenge Programme

The event occurs at the start of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development final session, where UN policymakers will be finalising policy directions on the topics of: rural development, agriculture, land, drought, desertification, and Africa.

The event also includes a Q&A and a roundtable discussion with experts from various fields.

All UN delegates and UN-accredited journalists are invited to attend.

Download the invitation here:

Download the invitation (pdf)

Share this content:

In the wake of the recent G8 Agricultural Ministers meeting, Dr. Sibanda asked the fundamental question, “So what can Africans do to put food on the table and money in their pockets?”  Her answer is to invest further in agriculture.

The article highlights the need for those in power to seek consensus, both in terms of how policy is drafted and programmes are implemented. Regional and pan-African programmes, such as the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural ADevelopment Programme (CAADP) — show promise for how coordinated efforts to share knowledge, enable markets, and build local access are already under way.  Dr. Sibanda wrote:

It is time we realised that there can be no sustainable development without sustainable agriculture. For Africa to develop sustainable food polices, partnerships are key.

Share this content: