Over the weekend, a number of commitments aimed at promoting sustainable agriculture and land use practices were announced during the Nature and Land-Use day at COP 26.
These commitments included a Global Action Agenda on Innovation in Agriculture — supported by more than 150 countries — aimed at providing the innovations needed to enhance measures that are geared toward adapting to and minimizing the impacts of climate change and a global initiative aimed at reaching 100 million farmers with net-zero and nature-positive innovations.
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But food advocates criticized the conference's overall approach to food systems and questioned whether these figures will result in real transformation adding that the figures need to be accompanied by a concrete agenda and clear channels to access the financing.
“The very approach to this issue was flawed: talking about sustainable agriculture without considering the food system as a whole is wrong,” said Slow Food — a global food advocacy organization — in a statement. “The proposed solutions that emerged seemed to go in two different and separate directions, presented as complementary: reforestation on the one hand and technological innovation in agriculture on the other.”
Olumide Idowu, co-founder of the International Climate Change Development Initiative also questioned the absence of implementation strategies, citing the African continent as an example.
COP 26 agenda comes up short on food systems, advocates say
The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference doesn't have a single day dedicated to food systems.
“We've never really seen any full implementation strategy for the promises and for the NDCs [nationally determined contributions] of African countries regarding food security in the context of climate change,” he said. “You see figures. You see numbers. But those are not turning into any concrete agenda for the African continent.”
Idowu said funds should be swiftly channeled through international organizations and governments to ensure that qualifying projects can access them.
“It boils down to an individual country's capacity to access climate finance,” he said. “If you don't have the capacity to access the finance, you won’t be able to get the funds.”
But delegates at the conference agreed that there is a need to align agricultural practices with climate change goals.
“We cannot combat hunger and poverty unless farmers, particularly smallholder farmers, adapt to climate change.”
— Beth Dunford, vice president for agriculture, human, and social development, African Development Bank.George Eustice, the United Kingdom’s environment secretary, said that to keep the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal alive, there is the need for action from every part of society, including urgent transformation in the production and consumption of food on a global scale.
“We need to put people, nature, and climate at the core of our food systems,” he said. “There needs to be a fair and just transition that protects the livelihoods and food security of millions of people worldwide — with farmers, Indigenous people, and local communities playing a central role in these plans.”
The U.K. government committed £65 million ($88 million) in funding to help low- and middle-income countries move toward more sustainable methods of agriculture through the Just Rural Transition support program. It also committed £38.5 million in funding for CGIAR — formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research — for the creation and scaling of new crops and technologies.
Beth Dunford, vice president for agriculture, human, and social development at the African Development Bank, said that it is critical to improve agriculture and ensure food security by also tackling climate change — which can all be accelerated by implementing ambitious plans.
“We cannot combat hunger and poverty unless farmers, particularly smallholder farmers, adapt to climate change. We know that the shocks that they are experiencing are more and more frequent, more severe, and more unpredictable,” she said. “We know that the tools to help farmers adapt to climate change exist … We need financing to get these solutions out to farmers at scale.”
Idowu also stressed the need to prioritize climate awareness initiatives. “Farmers will tell you they have no business with climate change. They know when to plant. They know when to harvest. They know when rain is coming,” he said. “But we are the ones that know about climate change and will have to start educating them gradually,” he added.