Building resilience through agroecology in Africa

More than 84 million people are now displaced in the world, fleeing climate change impact, according to the Mid-Year Trends report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

It is the highest number the UN has announced in its 77 years of existence. Along with food shortages are the peasant tragedies - the suffering of small-scale farmers, forest dwellers, pastoralists and artisanal fisherfolks who produce most of the world’s food through localized food systems.

Giant multinational corporations are increasingly dominating world farming. People who know most about poison and death and next to nothing about the culture of agriculture now pretend to know how best to feed the world. Access to the resources and means of production are presently not in the hands of peasants, but unfortunately with these giant corporations.

The threat to our collective future from a breakdown in global cooperation cannot be overstated in a world where small-scale farmers are largely ignored, neglected or actively undermined by governments and corporations. Where war in Europe creates hunger in Africa. Where a pandemic can envelop the globe in days and reverberate for years. Where emissions anywhere mean rising sea levels everywhere.

Small farmers neglected in discussions

Some 80% of the food in sub-Saharan Africa is produced by small-scale farmers. They depend on natural resources such as forest and shrublands for their livelihoods as farmers and pastoralists. The tragedy is that governments seldom think of the small-scale farmer when they think of agriculture. They think more of industrial agriculture, which utilizes chemical inputs with heavy dependence on fossil fuels to power the production of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, agricultural machinery, irrigation, transportation, processing, refrigeration, and retailing. Industrial agriculture contributes significantly to global warming, representing a large majority of total agriculture-related GHG emissions.

Industrial agriculture significantly contributes to harmful and disruptive consequences including increased risk for certain cancers, birth defects, respiratory illnesses, and neurological disorders, as compared to agroecology, which deals with the challenges and effects of climate change.

While the urgency of dealing with climate change has been acknowledged by governments, many of the proposed solutions increase pressure on small scale food producers to take up new initiatives, such as industrialized agricultural practices which include REDD+, geo-engineering, carbon trading/offsets, Climate Smart Agriculture, using hybrid and GMO seed with increased use of chemical inputs. Solutions such as REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) transfer the burden of action to curb global warming to vulnerable forest communities, for example, in ways that further deepen their vulnerability.

Carbon credits pass to pollute

At meetings of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), big companies especially from developed countries are given a pass to pollute by offsetting their contribution to climate change through dangerous carbon credits earned from Net Zero and REDD+ projects. This signifies more harm to the planet.

Rather than actually reducing emissions to zero, the idea of Net Zero and REDD+ projects depend on the massive use of offsets, which in turn means that fossil fuels will keep being burnt, while corporations promote themselves as carbon-neutral, green, sustainable or any other attractive term that sounds environmentally friendly but do more than greenwash destruction.

Agroecology follows ecological principles in the production of food, fuel and fiber and encompass a broad range of management approaches to achieve this goal. In maintaining the ecological principles of natural systems, agroecological systems try to maintain the diversity within the system to sustain the many ecological processes that provide ecosystem services useful to production, including pest control, pollination and restoration of soil nutrients. Besides, agroecological methods for production, primarily used on small-scale farms, are potentially far less energy-consumptive than industrial agricultural production methods.

Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) is an ecological think tank for climate justice and food sovereignty in Nigeria. They are well aware of the fact that REDD+, geo-engineering, carbon trading/offsets, Climate Smart Agriculture are false solutions, which act largely to the detriment of food sovereignty, environmental conservation and livelihoods. They are ultimately likely to worsen the impact of climate change by further degrading the soil, and destroying biodiversity among others.

As preparations for the 27th session of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Egypt gather steam, environmentalists continue to drum up support for agroecological and traditional knowledge of agricultural practices to be adopted, valued, and supported. Given the unpropitious conditions of industrial farming today, the impact on global warming can only intensify.

This does not bode well for the future of our climate. With invasions such as the African continent with genetically modified crops, which thrive in colonial plantation agriculture, it is evident that our world is simply becoming more vulnerable to climate change. Hence following the ‘industrial model of agriculture,’ instead of taking immediate measures to adopt agroecological farming system that reduce impact on the climate makes no sense.

These are my thoughts after Africa’s Road Map to Adaptation through Agroecology: Defining Africa’s position for #COP27 theme: Agroecology for building climate-resilient food systems, hosted by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

By Magdalene Idiang, a climate justice activist working with the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).