Opinion: 5 demands for more climate-resilient food systems in 2023

In 2022, unpredictability and overlapping crises became the new normal — from the never-ending pandemic, to the war in Ukraine, to increasing floods and droughts across Africa driven by the climate catastrophe. It was also a year of what the World Food Programme called “unprecedented hunger.” At the same time, we saw increased attention on food systems, which gave many of us hope that it would be the year for a real shift toward more resilient and sustainable approaches to how we grow, produce, and distribute food. Specifically, we hoped for the widespread adoption of agroecology models — that work in sync with nature — over industrial agriculture. If we want any chance of surviving in a world of increasing crises we need to shift our approach to invest in food systems that are more resilient to the emergencies around us. --— Yet, as world leaders gathered to discuss solutions to the climate crisis at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, the voices of Africa’s small-scale farmers were again sidelined in favor of corporate interests, techno fixes, and false solutions deceptively labeled “climate-smart” agriculture. This isn’t new. For nearly a century, big business, billionaire philanthropists, and multinational corporations backed by influential leaders have pushed high-polluting industrial farming methods across Africa, calling it the best way to fight hunger, when in reality it is merely the best way to grow their bottom lines. Despite billions of dollars of investment, the industrial agriculture model has failed to feed Africa and the world. It is responsible for biodiversity loss and fuels the climate crisis. There’s a growing understanding that as the climate crisis worsens, the real cause of hunger is industrial and colonial food systems that leave communities more vulnerable to shocks. Small and family farms produce over 70% of the world’s food with less than one-third of the agricultural land and resources. By this measure, they embody an efficient, environmentally sound, and socially just approach to diverting resources away from failed industrial agriculture and their chemical-intensive monoculture farming system. The lack of urgency at COP 27 and other global meetings around rethinking our approach to food systems is alarming. If we want any chance of surviving in a world of increasing crises we need to shift our approach to invest in food systems that are more resilient to the emergencies around us. At the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, which represents more than 200 million farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, Indigenous peoples, and women’s and youth movements across the continent, we know agroecology is the best and most efficient way to build a food system that increases community resilience to climate change, provides healthy and sustainable diets, and protects the environment. To make sustained change in Africa and fight the climate crisis in 2023 and beyond, we are calling for the following: 1. African governments must shift their policies and programs toward a transition to agroecology that prioritizes healthy, culturally appropriate foods grown and distributed by local small-scale farmers. 2. African governments must channel funding into agroecology to build resilience in food systems. African governments have committed to allocate 10% of their national budget to the agriculture sector — we want to see that funding go to: • Government support for the production of locally available biological inputs like composting and manure to avoid reliance on foreign, imported fertilizers and damaging chemicals. • Investment in infrastructure for local manufacturing. • Developing and expanding African territorial markets to promote the growth and strengthening of local food producers, traders, and thriving young African agroecological entrepreneurs. • Seed banks and support to farmer seed systems. • African-led participatory research into food systems. 3. For the African Union to endorse the initiative to develop an “Africa food policy” that guarantees the urgent and pressing need for the continent to feed itself within the current context of global volatility, multilayered crises, and chaotic climate change with its disastrous consequences. 4. The international donor community to directly fund programs that encourage a diversity of crops and shift funding away from the Green Revolution model which pushes only a few commodities. We cannot afford to rely solely on a few food crops that lower the nutritional value of our diets, leave our food system vulnerable to climate crises, and weaken our ability to adapt. 5. The international donor community to listen and learn from locally led farmers movements. Across the continent, our members have been developing robust plans and recommendations. It’s time for funders to support solutions driven by the communities who are most impacted. Together we can create food systems that not only ensure African communities retain sovereignty over their own economies, nutrition, and ability to feed and protect their families, but also offer the global community a path forward to fight the climate crisis.