Growing food the sustainable smart way to beat climate change

World Food Day 2016 has the global message: “Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too.” This echoes weather-related disasters hitting vulnerable farmers, fishers and pastoralists in Africa.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, growing food in a sustainable way means adopting practices that produce more with less in the same area of land whilst using natural resources wisely.

It also means reducing food losses before the final product or retail stage through a number of initiatives including better harvesting, storage, packing, transport, infrastructure, market mechanisms, as well as institutional and legal frameworks.

Most agricultural systems south of the Sahara are climate dependent, with more than 95 percent of farmed land growing crops from rain-fed agriculture. The African countries are already suffering from food insecurity due to low productivity because of degraded soils, droughts, floods and a lack of effective water management, among other factors.

But efforts are underway on the continent to encourage and upscale climate smart agriculture. 

Participants from the recently-ended 2^nd Africa Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Alliance Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, visited two farms that are using climate smart agricultural techniques and are yielding positive results.

Albert Waweru, a retiree from the police force, is an urban farmer from Kasalani sub-county in Nairobi, whose farm employs climate smart measures and sees him rewarded with a sustainable income from the proceeds of his 1.75 acre plot.

Waweru practices zero-tillage mixed farming on his modest land upon which he has vegetable greenhouses and livestock. 

He has invested in a rain water harvesting system and has a number of storage tanks that have been installed underground in order to save on space. 

“For me to keep good animals I needed water 24hours so that my animals do not starve… I needed to think smarter. I decided to do water harvesting; any drop of rain that comes, I harvest,” he said.

Waweru’s 50 cows produce an impressive 290 litres of milk per day which he sells to schools and hospitals. The milk sales have been very successful to the extent that he is now unable to meet all the demands.

At the back of his plot, Waweru makes manure from his animals’ dung and bio-waste that is covered while being processed in order to reduce gas emissions. This too is a lucrative business as he is never short of customers for the manure.

The other animals on his farm are goats and chickens which also add to his income. Waweru informed the visitors that he would like to embark on biogas generation that he also wishes to sell to his neighbours for their daily power needs.

“The income sustains me and my family; nothing goes waste, whatever come I turn it into money,” said the retired police officer.

Participants from the Africa CSA Alliance Forum also visited a State farm on the outskirts of Nairobi that hatches fingerlings for sale to fish farmers. 

The Samaki Tu farm, whose Swahili name means ‘Fish Only’ produces catfish and tilapia fingerlings – the catfish hatcheries use artificial propagation in greenhouses that are not climate dependent. Moreover, when temperatures rise, the fish breed even faster.

Samaki Tu farm is one of the Kenyan government initiatives set up to meet the high demand for fish, most of which used to come from Lake Victoria which has been overfished.  With fish stocks around the world having gone down in the last decade, aquaculture is the smart route to take.

In Ghana, the Crops Research Institute (CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is implementing the Aquaponics-based Food System (AFS), which combines crop production with fish, poultry and small ruminant rearing.

The researchers explain the emerging venture of producing worms for composting, known as vermiculture, is a sound economic and environmental activity essential to produce organic crops that help to mitigate the changing climate.

The Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance is spearheading implementation of the African Union Vision to reach 25 million farm households practicing CSA by 2025 (Vision 25x25).

The ability of farmers to apply new technologies and innovations is an important determinant of CSA adoption, acknowledged Mrs Estherine Fotabong, the NEPAD Agency’s Director of Programme.

“New technologies and innovations are costly and sometimes complicated to apply; so farmers must either have the resources, receive subsidies or are given incentives to adopt them. Availability of markets, especially for value added products can spur investment in new CSA technologies and innovations and therefore promote adoption,” she said.

The 2^nd Africa CSA Alliance Forum commended the AU’s NEPAD Agency and partners for commitment to the vision but emphasised the need for a consolidated knowledge base on CSA technologies, practices, and initiatives, whilst special attention is given to smallholder youth and women farmers.

As the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change is set to enter into force, just in time for the next climate change conference (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco, the FAO is calling on countries to address food and agriculture in their climate action plans and invest more in rural development.

The global goal for achieving Zero Hunger is 2030 – an ambitious goal and one that cannot be reached without addressing climate change.

 

It is therefore critical to expose many more farmers and others in the agricultural value chain to walk the path of Albert Waweru in climate-smart agricultural ventures.

“By strengthening the resilience of smallholder farmers, we can guarantee food security for the planet’s increasingly hungry global population and also reduce emissions,” said the Organization is a statement to commemorate World Food Day 2016.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

Youth in rural Africa to benefit from $4 million agric project

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have launched a 4-year project that aims to create decent employment opportunities for young women and men in rural areas.

This is through the development of rural enterprises in sustainable agriculture and agribusiness along strategic value chains. 

The USD$ 4 million project is funded by the African Solidarity Trust Fund.

NEPAD's chief executive officer, Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, has lauded this partnership. 

“The collaboration between NEPAD and FAO will go a long way in ensuring that the youth, Africa’s future, are not forgotten,” he said. “It is by creating an economic environment that stimulates initiatives - particularly by conducting transparent and foreseeable policies - and at the same time by regulating the market in order to deal with market failures that we will attain results and impact through the new thrust given to our farmers, entrepreneurs and youth.”

The project – which will see over 100 000 young men and women in rural Benin, Cameroon, Malawi and Niger benefit – is anchored in the Rural Futures Program of NEPAD. Rural transformation is at the heart of this Programe where equity and inclusiveness where rural men and women can develop their potential and thrive.

Agriculture and agribusiness transformation required

FAO Assistant Director General for Africa Mr Bukar Tijani said, “Today marks an important milestone in moving forward and upward in terms of empowering youth in these four countries - especially women, as 2015 is the African Union’s year of women empowerment. This is actually also one of the concrete ways that we can see the declarations made in Malabo in mid 2014, coming to fruition by opening new paths for African youth within the agricultural arena”.

Over half of the continent’s population is below 25 years and approximately 11 million young Africans will join the labour market every year for the next decade. Despite strong economic growth in many African countries, wage employment is limited and agriculture and agribusiness continue to provide income and employment for over 60 percent of Sub Saharan Africa’s population.

However, the laborious, subsistence-oriented small-scale agriculture is often not the preferred choice of work for many young people. If Africa is to reap from this demographic dividend, it will need to attract young people in to the agri-food sector. This will require transforming the agriculture and agribusiness sector to be more modern, profitable and efficient capable of providing decent employment opportunities for this young labour force.

Africa leaders need to set policies that encourage skills development in the agriculture sector to train the youth in different aspects of agribusiness and ‘Agripreneurship’ along agriculture value chains for them to take agriculture as a business. The emphasis of this project is on acquisition of skills along specific value chains and the transition of the trainees into business in the sector.

Ending Hunger by 2025

In 2012 the African Union Commission, NEPAD Agency, the Lula Institute and FAO formed a partnership aimed at ending hunger in the continent. A year later, the four partners organised a high-level meeting of ministers - in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - leading to a declaration to end hunger and a road map for implementation.

This Declaration was subsequently endorsed at the 2014 African Union summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and incorporated as the “Commitment to Ending Hunger in Africa by 2025” in the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods.

In providing a model for advancing the Commitment to Ending Hunger by 2025, it contributes to the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which aims to boost agricultural productivity and food security on the continent.

Forum strengthens capacity to tackle post-harvest losses in Africa

Post-harvest losses constituent the most critical constraint for food security in sub-Saharan Africa.

It has been a perennial problem facing the Ghanaian food and agriculture economy – inadequate storage facilities, poor road infrastructure and lack of ready market for most agricultural produce are among contributing factors.

Ghana is implementing a national post-harvest strategy under the 2011-2015 Medium-Term Agriculture Sector Investment Plan (METASIP), which intends to reduce post-harvest losses through improved harvesting and post harvest handling practices.

The country however loses 20–50 percent of all vegetables, fruits, cereals, roots and tubers produced each year. This demonstrates the low capacity of African governments and other stakeholders to address and meet the challenge of reducing post harvest losses. 

To strengthen the capacity of stakeholders in the agricultural sector to tackle Post-Harvest Losses (PHL), a forum is taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa, hosted by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Komla Prosper Bissi of the AU Commission explains that the conference is taking stock of the implementation roadmap and strategy to achieve targets set in the Malabo Declaration to reduce post-harvest losses.

“This meeting will be able to come out with actions that will contribute to the development of the implementation strategy and roadmap which has been requested by our Heads of States,” he said.

It will also formulate interventions that would need to be undertaken in the short, medium and long term.

Reducing Post-harvest losses is one of seven intervention areas stipulated by African Heads of States in the recent Malabo Declaration to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) implementation.

In the Malabo Declaration, the Heads of States resolved to reduce the current level of post harvest losses by half within the next ten years. The commitment is to end hunger on the continent by 2025.

Mr. Bissi, a Senior Advisor on the CAADP, observed that one of the achievements of CAADP is to bring agriculture back to the discussion table as a priority sector as governments make efforts to support the process.

Countries are currently at different levels of implementation but from the African Union perspective there is a high level of commitment amongst governments on the continent.

“We have seen an increase in public sector budget allocation to agriculture. Ghana currently is working closely to achieving the 10percent allocation as well as other countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda,” noted Mr. Bissi.

But there is the need to integrate PHL reduction into national agricultural investment plans in the context of the CAADP, which guides member states of the AU on investments in agriculture. This is already the case in Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania.

The ongoing PHL Conference is designed to fill some of the existing knowledge and policy gaps and promote increased investment in PHL reduction programmes.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh 

Listen to audio report...

https://soundcloud.com/kofi-adu-domfeh/reducing-post-harvest-losses-in-ghana-to-re-vitalize-agric-productivity

Family farming is farming God’s way to feed people

Advancing family farming is the solution to combating hunger and poverty in developing economies, says the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa (FECCIWA).

Chief Executive, Dr. Tolbert Thomas Jallah, describes family farming as “God’s way of farming” that benefits the development of local economies.

He has therefore recommended that governments in the sub-region commit a decade in supporting family farms and local private sector to build resilient livelihoods of vulnerable communities.

“Let’s give them all of the support; let’s ensure that their children will have access to education; let’s ensure that the food will come from the farm to the market and let’s ensure that the roads are good for the food to come to the market,” said Dr. Jallah. “We do not support the large scale agricultural engagement on our continent; we frown at land grab; we are totally against undermining our own security.”

This year’s World Food Day is being commemorated on the theme: “Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth.” This is in line with the United Nations’ declaration of 2014 as the “International Year of Family Farming” to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming to provide food security and nutrition.

A new report by the FAO ‘State of Food and Agriculture 2014’, says nine out of ten of the world’s 570 million farms are managed by families, making the family farm the predominant of agriculture, and consequently a potentially crucial agent of change in achieving sustainable food security.

Family farms produce about 80 percent of the world’s food. Their prevalence and output mean they “are vital to the solution of the hunger problem” afflicting more than 800 million people, noted FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

Family farms are also the custodians of about 75 percent of all agricultural resources in the world, and are therefore key to improved ecological and resource sustainability. They are also among the most vulnerable to the effects of resource depletion and climate change.

While evidence shows impressive yields on land managed by family farmers, many smaller farms are unable to produce enough to provide decent livelihoods for the families.

Family farming is thus faced with a triple challenge: yield growth to meet the world’s need for food security and better nutrition; environmental sustainability to protect the planet and to secure their own productive capacity; and productivity growth and livelihood diversification to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger.

According to the SOFA report, all these challenges mean that family farmers must innovate.

“In all cases, family farmers need to be protagonists of innovation as only this way can they take ownership of the process and ensure that the solutions offered respond to their needs,” Graziano da Silva said. “Family farming is a key component of the healthy food systems we need to lead healthier lives.”

At a recent ‘Government for the People Forum’ in Kumasi, local Ghanaian farmers identified poor road networks and lack of markets as challenges impeding food production as a business.

Dr. Jallah observed that “food insecurity is a security issue and this must be clear to all of us, whether people in the mosque – the Islamic community; whether people in the churches – the Christian community; this is a major concern.”

The African Union has also declared 2014 as the year of Agriculture and Food Security in Africa to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP).

The intent is to “consolidate active commitments towards new priorities, strategies and targets for achieving results and impacts, with special focus on sustained, all Africa agriculture-led growth, propelled by stronger, private sector investment and public-private partnerships”.

Dr. Jallah wants African governments to fulfill their commitments of investing at least ten percent of their annual budget to agriculture.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

FAO report says food waste harms climate, water, land and biodiversity

The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

‘Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources’ is the first study to analyze the impacts of global food wastage from an environmental perspective, looking specifically at its consequences for the climate, water and land use, and biodiversity.

Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a large volume of water and is responsible for adding 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the planet’s atmosphere.

In addition to its environmental impacts, the direct economic consequences to producers of food wastage – excluding fish and seafood – run to the tune of $750 billion annually, FAO’s report estimates.

“We all – farmers and fishers; food processers and supermarkets; local and national governments; individual consumers -- must make changes at every link of the human food chain to prevent food wastage from happening in the first place, and re-use or recycle it when we can’t,” said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

“In addition to the environmental imperative, there is a moral one: We simply cannot allow one-third of all the food we produce to go to waste, when 870 million people go hungry every day,” he added.

As a companion to its new study, FAO has also published “tool-kit” that contains recommendations on how food loss and waste can be reduced at every stage of the food chain.

The tool-kit profiles a number of projects around the world that show how national and local governments, farmers, businesses, and individual consumers can take steps to tackle the problem.

Achim Steiner, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, said "UNEP and FAO have identified food waste and loss--food wastage--as a major opportunity for economies everywhere to assist in a transition towards a low carbon, resource efficient and inclusive Green Economy”.

According to him, the report by the FAO underlines the multiple benefits that can be realized – in many cases through simple and thoughtful measures by households, retailers, restaurants, schools and businesses – that can contribute to environmental sustainability, economic improvements, food security and the realization of the UN Secretary General's Zero Hunger Challenge.

 

Food loss is the unintended reduction in food available for human consumption that results from inefficiencies in supply chains: poor infrastructure and logistics, lack of technology, insufficient skills, knowledge and management capacity.

It mainly occurs at production- postharvest and processing stages, for example when food goes unharvested or is damaged during processing, storage and transport and disposed of.

Food waste refers to intentional discards of edible items, mainly by retailers and consumers, and is due to the behavior of businesses and individuals.

UNEP and FAO are founding partners of the Think Eat Save--Reduce Your Foodprint campaign that was launched earlier in the year and whose aim is to assist in coordinating world-wide efforts to manage down wastage.

Ghana launches $85 million Aquaculture Development Plan

The Ghana National Aquaculture Development Plan (GNADP) has been launched, as the country’s first blueprint to guide the sustainable development of the aquaculture value chain.

Implementation of the plan will cover a five year period at a cost of US$85 million. With financial and technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Plan is aimed at enhancing and improving the practice, management and development of aquaculture as a viable business.

Aquaculture is fast gaining pace as an alternative source of animal protein as Ghana’s marine and freshwater fishery production decline.

The country’s fish demand for 2012 was estimated at 968,000 metric tons while the country’s fish production for that year was 486,000 metric tons, representing about 50.2 per cent of requirement.

Dr. Emmanuel Anokye Frimpong, who is involved in the training of Ghanaian fish farmers under the USAID Aquaculture and Fisheries Collaborative Research Support Program, notes that the practicality of aquaculture must be understood if it is benefit people as a business.

“Aquaculture is a hands-on activity; it is also a business that involves doing”, he explained, adding that some people struggle in the business “primarily because it is difficult for them to just get their feet wet and their hands dirty”.

With the new intervention, aquaculture production is expected to increase by 360 percent from the current 27,750 metric tons to 130,000 metric tons while generating an estimated 220, 000 jobs across the value chain.

The capacity of aquaculture associations to improve the knowledge, skills and management capabilities of indigenous fish farmers will be prioritized, according to Nayon Bilijo, Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development.

To achieve this, Dr. Anokye Frimpong believes access to information on new developments in fish farming via radio, television and mobile phones would empower fish farmers to maximize opportunities in the sector.

In 2012, Ghana’s Water Research Institute (WTI), in partnership with WorldFish, came out with the ‘Akosombo’ strain of Nile Tilapia, which grows three times faster than non-improved tilapia.

The improved variety is to increase aquaculture productivity and food security in West Africa.

For local consumption, an increase in productivity can result in greater availability of fish in the market, reducing the price of the product and making it more accessible to poor consumers. 

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

World anti-food waste campaign activated

The 2013 World Environment Day is being commemorated today, June 5, under the theme “Think-Eat-Save: Reduce Your Foodprint”, to draw the attention of the global public to food security, supply and conservation.

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN are using the day to both raise awareness and to take practical actions whether in homes, farms, supermarkets, canteens, hotels or anywhere else where food is prepared and consumed.

“It is an ethical, economic and environmental issue given the enormous waste of energy, water, fertilizers and other inputs as a result of food that is produced but never eaten”, said the UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner.

 

Think.Eat.Save is an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages you to reduce your foodprint.

According to the FAO, a third of global food production is wasted or lost. This is equivalent to the 1.3 billion tonnes of food produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa every year. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.  

Making informed decision therefore means, for example, that you purposefully select foods that have less of an environmental impact, such as organic foods that do not use chemicals in the production process. Choosing to buy locally can also mean that foods are not flown halfway across the world and therefore limit emissions, said the UNEP Executive Director.

According to United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, pests, inadequate storage facilities and inefficient supply chains are major contributors to food loss in developing countries. 

“In developed nations, food thrown away by households and the retail and catering industries rots in landfills, releasing significant quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas”, he stated. 

He noted that developing country governments can work to improve essential infrastructure and maximize trade opportunities with neighbours, whilst developed nations can support fair trade and rationalize sell-by dates and other labelling systems.

Businesses can also revise their criteria for rejecting produce; and consumers can minimize waste by buying only what they need and re-using left-over food.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

World Food Day 2012 focuses on agricultural cooperatives

This year’s World Food Day celebration is highlighting the concrete ways in which agricultural cooperatives and producer organizations help to provide food security, generate employment, and reduce poverty.

The theme for the October 16 event is “Agricultural cooperatives: key to feeding the world”.

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is paying special tribute to cooperatives for working against hunger and overcoming market and policy constraints by providing their members access to a range of assets and services.

In Ghana, producer groups, cooperatives, farmer organizations as well as agricultural partners are commemorating the day in the Central region.

FAO-Ghana Country Representative, Musa Saihou Mbenga, in a statement observed that the structure of the Ghanaian agricultural system is changing rapidly, hence the need for independent producers to vertically coordinate their production through the agricultural system to maximise returns.

“Cooperatives comprise an important and growing part of this changing agricultural industry. Due to the singularity of member owned-member managed, cooperatives have the ability to solve various market problems facing the agricultural producers”, he said.

The World Food Day has the objectives of encouraging attention to agricultural food production and to stimulate national, bilateral, multilateral and non-governmental efforts to this end; encourage economic and technical cooperation among developing countries; and encourage the participation of rural people, particularly women and the least privileged categories, in decisions and activities influencing their living conditions.

 

It is also a day to heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in the world; promote the transfer of technologies to the developing world; and strengthen international and national solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty and draw attention to achievements in food and agricultural development.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh