Indigenous knowledge matters in promoting climate smart agriculture

South African farmer, Mama Kena Kgoroeadira, talks passionately about the need to focus attention on harnessing indigenous knowledge in best farming practices to overcome the challenge of climate change in Africa.

For her, going back to explore techniques and resources within the local environment is a sustainable means for African smallholder farmers, especially rural women who lack funding, to be climate smart in production.

“The whole technologies and fertilizers will not help them because they do not have that support, that is why we must look within; look at how we used to do our water management, how we used to harvest water from rain and the types of manures that we used to have around our compounds as Africans and look at harvesting our seeds and using them again,” she observed.

Mama Kena, who’s Thojane organic Farming project in Phokeng has won her the national prize for Best Subsistence Producer, says if there is to be any funding opportunity for local farmers, it should first go into support to tap into existing knowledge.

The integration of local knowledge into new concepts of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been a vocal subject at the 1^st Africa CSA Alliance Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The Forum was convened by the African Union’s NEPAD Agency to further the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in the next ten years.

NEPAD Programmes Director, Mrs Estherine Fotabong, describes the issue of local indigenous knowledge as critical in advancing climate smart agriculture, hence the need to listen to farmers observations and cultural practices.

“They might not be using academic terminologies and words but they tell you what they observe on the ground, whether in change of seasonal patterns or whether in change of their planting seasons and they have some solutions,” she noted.

The agriculture-climate change interaction has been identified as key factor to achieve increased agriculture productivity.

Under the proposed NEPAD Geospatial Platform for Sustainable Development (NGP4SD), there is a harmonization of high quality geographical information, including climate data sets, for accessibility by governments and citizens of Africa.

The Platform has applications that support farmers to mitigate and adapt to climate change using modern technologies.

Mrs. Fotabong has acknowledged the need to ensure some of the existing traditional practices are enhanced with modern knowledge and technology, taking into consideration the family, social and communal relationships.

This concern is shared by Mama Kena who says “we must be funded in our own terms”.

“How can knowledge that has passed from centuries to centuries still be there if it was not scientific? We need to get the knowledge from our grandfathers and grandmothers, document it, patent it… we need to also leave a legacy for our children,” she expressed.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh/ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Alliance to reach 25million farmers with Climate-Smart Agriculture

The Africa Climate-Smart Agriculture Alliance (CSA) has been launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with a goal of reaching 25million farm households by 2025.

The Alliance is Africa’s leading platform to catalyze result-oriented and on-the-ground implementation support in response to both the challenges and opportunities that climate change brings.

This is towards the attainment of the Africa Union Vision on CSA, within the context of Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) and the overarching AU-NEPAD Framework on Agriculture-Climate Change.

The 2014 Malabo Declaration by African Heads of State and Government prioritized the agriculture-climate change nexus as critical factor in the next ten years (2015-2025) of the CAADP implementation.

“For many years now we’ve heard voices and witnessed the effects of climate change on agriculture in our continent; crop failures and death of livestock have become more frequent, leading to economic losses, undermining food security and contributing to higher food prices,” observed Mrs Estherine Fotabong,NEPAD Programmes Director.

 

She therefore believes the Africa CSA Alliance will help address the concerns of countries and communities in the implementation of programmes that impact on livelihoods and development.

“In order to make rural transformation attainable, climate change needs to be also mainstreamed in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), Africa’s instrument for agricultural growth and economic development,” Mrs Fotabong said.

Climate change is projected to have severe impact on agricultural productivity on the continent, according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Climate Smart Agriculture is defined as agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience and adaptation, as well as contributes towards reducing the emission of greenhouse gases – leading to overall food security and nutrition in the face of climate change.

Ethiopia’s State Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ato Sileshi Getahun, says the Alliance provides an opportunity to take concrete action in climate change for the benefit of African agriculture.

He noted that Ethiopia has moved beyond the rhetoric of defining and understanding what climate change and its effects is all about, to implementing concrete projects to address the challenges.

“With Agriculture as the mainstay of Africa’s economy, it is important that we invest in and practice climate smart agriculture,” stated Mr. Gatahun. “We need to show the rest of the world our adaptive capacity and remain positive that more development partners will come on board to help Africa upscale all the various CSA investments on the continent”.

Meanwhile, the maiden forum of the Africa Climate-Smart Agriculture Alliance has opened on the theme: Fostering Alignment and Harmonization in the CSA Efforts in Africa”.

Participants drawn from farmer organizations, civil society, technical institutions, private sector, regional economic communities and development partners, are contributing to building shared understanding of CSA and broaden accessible information on CSA initiatives across the continent.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh/ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia