Kufour urges new approach to agric

Former President John Agyekum Kufour has observed that if humankind is to seriously address climate change, then there is a need to change the way agriculture is done so as to drastically reduce its contribution to the phenomenon.

Agriculture is said to contribute about 14 percent of greeenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, while deforestation and land degradation that are associated with uninformed agricultural and other practices also cause an additional 17 percent of the increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

John Kufour, who is the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, delivered a speech during the launch of the 2014 African Agriculture Status Report as part of activities to mark the 2014 Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa Forum (AGRF 2014) currently underway in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Within the past two decades, Kufour noted, scientific evidence on the effects of climate change as declared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been irrefutable and this has been compounded by several climate-related ravages on the planet and on all countries.

“The past years have experienced droughts from California to Australia; flooding from Europe to Southeast Asia; severe winters in Europe and the Americas; devastating heat waves around the world; rising sea levels that threaten island nations, coastal lands and communities; and changes in rainfall patterns in Africa, affecting agriculture,” he said.

He said the IPCC has long made it known that climate change, if unchecked, will have very devastating effects on ecosystems, health, agriculture, food production and, ultimately, the overall sustainability of life as we know it on earth.

Ghana’s former President noted that when the African Union, in 2012, declared 2014 as the “Year of Agriculture and Food Security”, the continent recognised that giving its teeming rural population enhanced agricultural performance was the key to growth and poverty reduction – through its direct impact, firstly on job creation and increased opportunities, especially for women and youth; secondly, on food security and improved nutrition; and thirdly, building resilience in people and communities.

‘“Therefore the declaration of 2014 as the ‘Year of Agriculture and Food Security in Africa’ couldn’t have been better made. However, the present world is facing the consequences of an ever-increasing climate change menace which poses major challenges for agriculture,” Mr. Kufour said.

“In our part of the world, where the majority of farmers practise rain-fed subsistence agriculture, unpredictable rainfall patterns will wreak havoc on food production and incomes through rains washing away top soils and planted seeds. Food security, as well as everyday livelihoods, will thus be negatively impacted.”

Scientific prediction, he noted, is that unless the temperature increases are arrested below 2°C by mid-century, all efforts might be overwhelmed.

“Climate-smart agriculture is thus being advocated for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is to ensure that agricultural production and productivity are enhanced for food security and income sustainability and secondly, it is to boost resilience of livelihoods and ecosystems. Thirdly, it is to mitigate agriculture’s contribution to global warming.”

The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach involves innovative practices such as drip irrigation; zero or minimum tillage; soil carbon preservation; capture and storage of atmospheric carbon and nitrogen in soils; agro-forestry; improved livestock and water management;and ecosystem approaches to fisheries and aquaculture.

Climate-smart agriculture both combines change adaptation and mitigation into agricultural development planning and investment strategies, thereby taking advantage of critical synergies between them.

In essence, Mr. Kufour said, CSA is conservation agriculture. The smallholder farmer, he observed, needs all the tools and know-how necessary to adapt his/her agricultural practices so as to ensure resilience in the face of changing climatic conditions, and to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes even under the threats of climate change.

“This is why public-private partnerships should be espoused so that the state adopts policies and regulatory measures to support multi-stakeholder parties and to provide inclusiveness; facilitate credit accessibility; extension services; up-to-date meteorological information and market data by way of ICTs such as mobile phones; and essential know-how to benefit all levels of the agricultural value chain and, more so, to uplift the small-scale farmer.”

As Africa seeks to feed 2.4 billion people by 2050, climate change will continue to present further complications to millions of people for whom achieving food security is already problematic. Climate change is already worsening already tight resource constraints through more extreme and variable and decreasing average yields.

Smallholder farmers are vulnerable to climatic and economic shocks and major weather and food price shocks have devastating effects on crop yields and livestock production, affecting food prices and increasing the vulnerability of the poor.

In his opening remarks to launch the Agricultural Status Report 2014: Climate Change and Smallholder Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, one of its authors, Dr. David Ameyaw, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the AGRA headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, said the report prioritises and synthesises the most recent findings on the climate change, agriculture and food security nexus in Africa.

It documents the effects of climate change on smallholders in Africa, ongoing adaptation by farmers and livestock keepers, and constraints to adoption of climate-smart technologies.

The report is divided into two sections: the first section focuses on agricultural growth, competitiveness, factors of production such as land, soil fertility, seed production, agricultural financing, output markets, capacity building, agriculture policy, women in agriculture and extension advisory services.

The second section is a combination of both macro and micro data from selected countries. The micro data was provided by the Ministries of Agriculture and Bureaus of Statistics in the respective countries. The macro data was from institutions that track key indicators on a regular basis such as the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Dr. Ameyaw said the expectation going forward is to track the micro data on a regular basis and avail these data to actual or potential consumers of the information. In a post-event interview, he told journalists that AGRA plans to release a series of reports each year at their forums to take up the challenging issues that farmers in Africa face.

The foreword of the report was written by ex-President Kufuor, who also doubled as a distinguished participant at AGRF 2014. This is the second volume of the Agricultural Status Report released by AGRA annually.

By Konrad Kodjo Djaisi | B&FT Online | Ghana