ecogical agriculture - providing food security, mitigating climate change,

8/7/2019 Ecogical Agriculture - Providing Food Security, Mitigating Climate Change,

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ecogical-agriculture-providing-food-security-mitigating-climate-change 1/16

ConferenCe on

eCologiCal agriCulture:Mitigating CliMate Change,

Providing food SeCurityand Self-relianCe for

rurallivelihoodSin afriCa

ConCluSionS andreCoMMendationS

Afian Union Heaquate

Ai Ababa, Ethioia

26-28 Noembe 2008

C

l

i

M

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

S

i

l

i

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

a

f

r

i

C

a

TWNThird World Network institute

for

sustainable development



the green revolutionin aSia:leSSonS for afriCa

Hia Jhamtani, TWN Inoneia

Associate TWN researcher

based in Bali, Indonesia

[email protected]

Month 2009

Afian Union Heaquate

Ai Ababa, Ethoia

26-28 Noembe 2008

ConferenCe on eCologiCal agriCulture:

Mitigating CliMate Change,

Providing food SeCurity and Self-relianCe for

rurallivelihoodSin afriCa

ConCluSionS and reCoMMendationS

F o o d a n d A g r i c u l t u r e O r g a n i z a t i o n o t h e U n i t e d N a t i o n s | 2 0 1 0



C

liM

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

Si

li

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

af

ri

C

a

The designations employed and the presentation o material in this inormation product do not imply the

expression o any opinion whatsoever on the part o the Food and Agriculture Organization o the United

Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status o any country, territory, city or area or o its

authorities, or concerning the delimitation o its rontiers or boundaries. The mention o specifc companies

or products o manuacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been

endorsed or recommended by FAO in preerence to others o a similar nature that are not mentioned.

ISBN

All rights reserved. FAO encourages reproduction and dissemination o material in this inormation product.Non-commercial uses will be authorized ree o charge. Reproduction or resale or other commercial

purposes, including educational purposes, may incur ees.

Applications or permission to reproduce or disseminate FAO copyright materials and all other queries on

rights and licences, should be addressed

by e-mail to

[email protected]

or to

the Chie, Publishing Policy and Support Branch

Ofce o Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension, FAO

Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy

© FAO 2010

pHOTO crEdITscover & background image: courtesy o Marzio Marzot

previous page: ©FAO/J. Isaac



— i i i —

ContentS

INTrOdUcTION ..................................................................................................................1

GENErAl vIEWs ...............................................................................................................2

MAIN cONclUsIONs .........................................................................................................3

rEcOMMENdATIONs .........................................................................................................5

Policy and planning .............................................................................................................................5

Research and development ..................................................................................................................6

Demonstration projects and technical assistance ............................................................................. 7

Implementation ..................................................................................................................................... 7

annex

Annex A: Standing committee on ecological agriculture ........................................................ 9



— 1 —

ConferenCe on eCologiCal agriCulture: Mitigating CliMate Change, Providing food SeCurity

and Self-relianCe for rural livelihoodS in afriCa-ConCluSionS and reCoMMendationS

introduCtion

The Conerence on Ecological Agriculture: Mitigating Climate Change, Providing

Food Security and Sel-Reliance or Rural Livelihoods in Arica was held in Addis

Ababa, Ethiopia on 26-28 November 2008. It was organised by the Arican Union

(AU), Food and Agriculture Organization o the United Nations (FAO) and the

Ministry o Agriculture and Rural Development o Ethiopia, in collaboration with

the Institute or Sustainable Development (ISD), Ethiopia and the Third World

Network (TWN).

Over 80 participants rom 15 Arican countries - Benin, Burundi, Djibouti,

Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania,

Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe - attended the Conerence. The participants

included policy makers, agriculture experts representing governments, NGOs,

armers’ organizations, universities, and international and regional bodies such

as the AU, FAO, United Nations Conerence on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),

the UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity Building Task Force on Trade, Environment and

Development (CBTF), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI),

International Assessment on Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology

or Development (IAASTD) and World Food Programme (WFP).

The Conerence was preceded by a eld visit to the Axum area in Tigray Regionin northern Ethiopia on 23-25 November 2008, to visit some o the communities

o smallholder armers that the Tigray Regional Bureau o Agriculture and Rural

Development o Ethiopia and ISD have been working with on ecological agriculture

since 1996. This was an appropriate experience to help ocus attention on the

aspects o the ecosystem that can easily respond to appropriate management, so

as to stimulate discussion on experiences relevant or raising agricultural production,

mitigating and adapting to climate change, and achieving the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) in Arica.

The ollowing are among the signicant views, conclusions and recommendations

expressed by participants during the Conerence.



— 2 —

Afian Union Heaquate, Ai Ababa, Ethioia, 26-28 Noembe 2008

C

liM

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

Si

li

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

af

ri

C

a general viewS

The Conerence heard several presentations and discussed the challenges acing

Arican agriculture, not least among them the global ood crisis, climate change

and the conficts with inappropriate biouels development. Moreover, land degradation

and the consequential loss o soil ertility, which are exacerbated by pests and

erratic rainall associated with climate change, are major constraints to improving

agricultural production in Arica. Consequently, many local communities in Arican

countries are ood insecure. Trade policies also have implications or Arican ood

security and rural development, which need to be addressed, to stop the worrying

trend o ood import dependency and increasing vulnerability to external shocks.

The steep rise in petroleum prices and the consequent increase in the cost o

chemical ertilizers and pesticides are making it essential to improve soil ertility

and agricultural productivity in Arica through eective management o the local

resources that are ound in the agricultural and surrounding ecosystems. Many

diverse and creative ecological agriculture (including organic agriculture) practices

based on rich traditional knowledge and agrobiodiversity are ound in Arica.

Where supported by appropriate research and policy, it has been shown that these

have been eective in tackling poverty and improving livelihoods.

In addition, this opens up the opportunity or Arica’s smallholder armers tobecome recognized as organic armers producing or the growing global market

etching air prices or their products. The global organic market growth has been

about 15 percent per year over the past decade. Internal markets or organic

products are also developing rapidly, particularly where consumers are made aware

o the improvements to health rom eating organic ood.

The Conerence heard presentations on the potential o ecological agriculture,

including organic agriculture, to meet ood security needs in Arica. Concrete

examples and lessons learnt were presented rom several Arican countries on

practices that have successully increased productivity and yields o crops, provided

ecologically sound pest, weed and disease control, resulted in better water availability,



— 3 —



met household and local ood security needs, increased household income and

improved livelihood opportunities, especially or women who are the majority o

Arica’s armers. Other presentations ocused on the potential o ecological

agriculture to mitigate climate change, and to provide armers with the means to

adapt to climate change.

Participants discussed the need or appropriate national policies to support and

build the capacity o armers and agricultural proessionals to implement and

mainstream ecological/organic agriculture in Arica. Some o the major barriers

and challenges to a transition to ecological agriculture were identifed, and

recommendations or charting the way orward in terms o policies, action plans

and regional and international cooperation were made.

Main ConCluSionS

1. Ecological agriculture holds signiicant promise or increasing the productivity

o Arica’s smallholder armers, with consequent positive impacts on ood security

and ood sel-reliance. This is demonstrated by eorts such as the Tigray Project,

now working with over 20 000 arming amilies in Ethiopia, where crop yields

o major cereals and pulses have almost doubled using ecological agricultural

practices such as composting, water and soil conservation activities, agroorestryand crop diversiication. Although Tigray was previously known as one o the

most degraded Regions o Ethiopia, yet over the 12 years o the introduction

and expansion o ecological agriculture, the use o chemical ertilizers has

steadily decreased while total grain production has steadily increased.

2. As most poor armers, particularly in degraded lands and in market-marginalised

areas, are not able to aord external inputs, the principles and approach o the

Tigray Project, based on ecological agriculture, oer armers and their amilies

a real and aordable means to break out o poverty and achieve ood security,

provided that relevant government commitment, support and capacity-building

is provided to them.



— 4 —


C

liM

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

Si

li

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

af

ri

C

a 3. Ecological agriculture also provides many other beneits, including to the

environment, such as addressing land degradation and reducing the use o

polluting chemical inputs, with consequent beneicial health impacts. Ecological

agriculture helps oster agrobiodiversity and other essential environmental

services, which improve agroecosystem resilience, helping armers to better

ace risks and uncertainties. The productivity and diversity o crops also increase

incomes and improve rural livelihoods.

4. Ecological agriculture has high climate change mitigation potential; or example

avoiding the use o synthetic ertilizers results in reduced greenhouse gas

emissions, particularly nitrous oxide. Ecological agriculture practices such as

using leguminous crops, crop residues, cover crops and agroorestry enhance

soil ertility and lead to the stabilization o soil organic matter and in many

cases to a heightened sequestration o carbon in the soils.

5. Ecological agriculture assists armers in adapting to climate change by establishing

conditions that increase agroecosystem resilience to stress. Increasing an

agroecosystem’s adaptive capacity allows it to better withstand climate variability,

including erratic rainall and temperature variations and other unexpected

events. Drawing on strong local community and armers’ knowledge and

agrobiodiversity, ecological agriculture improves soil quality by enhancing soil

structure and its organic matter content, which in turn promotes eicient water use and retains soil moisture. Such conditions simultaneously enhance soil

conservation and soil ertility, leading to increased crop yields.

6. The development and growing o biouels should not compete with ood

and other crops, and thus require comprehensive impact assessments.

Locally-controlled bioenergy production that makes use o agricultural

waste and biomass, such as through biogas digesters, could provide sustainable

energy generation.

7. Food and energy demand and climate change are inducing land use changes

and land access issues, which threaten the viability o arming and rural

livelihoods. The resilience o agroecosystems can only be built by empowering



— 6 —


C

liM

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

Si

li

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

af

ri

C

a 4. Trade policies should be crated so that they are supportive o ecological/organic

agriculture. Governments are urged to ensure that commitments made at the

multilateral and bilateral levels provide enough policy space to enable support

or the agriculture sector, expansion o local ood production, and eective

instruments to provide local and household ood security, armers’ livelihoods

and meet rural development needs.

5. Governments are urged to provide support in linking armers to markets, in

the development o domestic and regional markets or organic agricultural

products, and in assisting armers to access regional and international markets.

Building awareness on the environmental and health beneits o organic

products, and creating linkages between producers and consumers through

short supply chains or ecological produce, are needed in order to stimulate

local demand and local markets.

reeah an eeoment

6. Institutions involved in ecological agriculture are requested to pool their

expertise and identiy ways to establish an Arican Centre o Excellence on

Ecological Agricultural Research. Research priorities along the value chain,

including key ood crops and animals, best practices, economic aspects, mainproblems and solutions to these problems, should be identiied in a participatory

manner. Farmers’ knowledge is a basic and important component o the research/

development continuum and research rom the scientiic community can

complement and build on this.

7. The Conerence participants agreed to establish a resource centre on ecological

agriculture (e.g. an electronic library) to document best practices (including

local knowledge and skills) and enable better communications, sharing o

inormation and experiences on ecological agriculture.

8. Governments are urged to develop awareness, training and educational materials

and curricula on ecological agriculture, including or students in schools, tertiary



— 7 —



educational institutions, graduate schools, extension oicers and armers. There

is a need to include the mass media in awareness-raising eorts and to encourage

consumers to appreciate the values o local organic products. Guidelines must

be developed or training o trainers (e.g. extension oicers) on watershed

environmental management strategies and climate change adaptation practices

through ecological agriculture. Improving soil ertility in dry and poorly

vegetated areas must be given speciic consideration.

demontation ojet an tehnia aitane

9. Pilot projects on ecological agriculture should be established in each country to

demonstrate the beneits o ecological agriculture to ood security and rural

livelihoods. In locations where Green Revolution projects are being launched or

implemented, ecological agriculture pilot projects should be given the same inancial

and other kinds o support in order to allow comparative assessment o the two

management systems’ perormance, including periodic documentation, monitoring

and evaluation o impacts over the short-, medium- and long-terms. Where

ecological agriculture projects already exist, they should be scaled up so as to

encourage a wider impact on the environment and uptake by rural communities.

10. The training and technical assistance needs in relation to ecological agricultureshould be identiied and a list o experts compiled and targeted or continued

capacity-building and training.

Imementation

11. The international community and Arican regional and national organisations,

including the co-organisers o the Conerence, are urged and encouraged to

undertake ollow-up activities, including providing policy and technical

assistance to Arican governments, particularly the Ministries o Agriculture,

Environment and Trade, in order to vigorously support ecological/organic



— 8 —


C

liM

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

Si

li

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

af

ri

C

a agriculture plans and programmes. Eorts should also include assisting

Governments to tap climate-related unds in order to support capacity-building

work in ecological agriculture.

12. The donor community is called upon to provide the resources required or

ecological agriculture interventions to meaningully support ood security and

rural livelihoods. This entails ensuring that adequate and balanced inancial

allocations are made or ecological agriculture projects. This is especially needed

as heavy investments in industrial and chemically-oriented agriculture create

disincentives to other agricultural management alternatives.

13. The Conerence participants established a Standing Committee on Ecological

Agriculture (see Annex A), which includes representatives rom each participating

country, in order to continue sharing experiences, enhance networking, undertake

ollow-up activities such as national workshops, and urther the implementation

o ecological/organic agriculture in their respective countries and at regional

and international levels.



— 9 —



AFrIcAN UNION (AU)Dr Sarah OlemboSenior Advisor Department o Rural Economy and AgricultureAddis Ababa

INTErNATIONAl FEdErATIONOF OrGANIc AGrIcUlTUrEMOvEMENTs (IFOAM)

Hervé BouagnimbeckArica Ofce Coordinator IFOAM Head OfceBonn, Germany

BENINValery LawsonSecretary GeneralNGO JINUKUN / COPAGEN CotonouMikpon ToussaintResearcher National Agricultural ResearchInstitute o BeninCotonou

BUrUNdIAnnick Seziber Legal RepresentativeCAPADBujumburaPascal BaridomoDirector Inades-Formation BurundiBujumbura

dJIBOUTIHoussein RaylehDirector o Djibouti Nature/ Coordinator o the Horn o AricaRegional Environment NetworkDjiboutiChamake Mohamed Youssou Djibouti Government employee

ETHIOpIASue EdwardsDirector Institute or Sustainable Development Addis AbabaGebremedhin BiregaManager Eco Consumers’ Associationo EthiopiaAddis Ababa

KENyAMonica MueniAssistant Director o AgricultureNairobiZacharia MakanyaPELUM-KenyaCountry Coordinator Thika

MAlAWIEsther KamlongeraCounsellor Malawi Embassy Addis Ababa

MAlINiaba TemePlant Breeder Researcher Mali Institute o Rural Economy BamakoSalikou SanogoCoordinator o Institute or Research & the Promotion o Alternatives in Development Ministry o AgriculturePlanning and Statistics Department Bamako

annex a

Standing CoMMittee on eCologiCal agriCulture



— 1 0 —

C

liM

a

t

e

C

h

a

n

g

e

a

n

d

f

o

o

d

S

y

S

t

e

M

S

r

e

Si

li

e

n

C

e

i

n

S

u

B

-

S

a

h

a

r

a

n

af

ri

C

a


NIGErIAOlugbenga AdeOluwaDepartment o Agronomy,

Faculty o Agriculture and Forestry University o Ibadan/ National Secretary Network o Organic Agriculturein Nigeria (NOAN)IFOAM Contact Point Coordinator or NigeriaIbadan

rWANdAAloys SemakuzaCoordinator o BAIRGisenyi

sOMAlIlANdKhadra Omer ChairpersonBawaaqo Voluntary Organization(BVO)Hargeisa

sUdANSumaia ElsayedAhad University or WomenUmdurnamanHayat Ahmed ElmahiSudanese Women General Union(SWGU)Khartoum

TANzANIABashiru Abdul HasaniSenior Program Ofcer AGENDA(Action or Environment & Development)Dar es SalaamOmbaeli LemweliPrincipal Economist National Food Security DivisionMinistry o Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives

Dar es Salaam

UGANdACharles SsekyewaDirector o Research

Ugandan Martyrs University KampalaDoleera JacksonExecutive Director DERC (Development o the Rural Economy)Masindi

zAMBIAKusiyo Mbikusita LewanikaExecutive Director Lyambai Institute o Development Mongu

Bernadette LubozhyaSmallholder armer andBoard member o OPPAZ (Organic Producers & ProcessorsAssociation o Zambia)Lusaka

zIMBABWEMedicine MasiiwaDirector, AIPAD Trust, HarareMukura TamukaEconomist, Ministry o Agriculture,Harare

ecogical agriculture - providing food security, mitigating climate change,

Documents