The solution to food insecurity is food sovereignty

Human society faces a moment of reckoning. The coronavirus pandemic has brought humanity to its knees and bared its many faultlines. No country has been spared.

As scientists scramble to find a vaccine that could rein in the pandemic, many countries have imposed lockdowns requiring people to stay at home. But for many of the poor, this is a challenge.

Slum-dwellers, living in crammed shacks, cannot abide by social-distancing measures demanded by governments, nor can they follow strict hygiene, as access to running clean water is scarce. The lockdowns have deprived millions of daily wage workers in cities from their income, pushing many families to the verge of starvation.

People living in rural areas are also struggling. While many peasants continue to work our fields, people are finding it increasingly difficult to sell their produce. Governments have shut down local markets which has left many of farmers' crops rotting in the fields.

Small-scale fisher-folk have also suffered. Even if they are able to get to their fishing grounds in the sea, lakes or rivers, they too are finding it difficult to distribute their fish. The same is true for pastoralists and family-owned dairy farms.

Small-scale livestock farmers and peasant families with domestic animals are also worried about finding enough feed for them.

While disruption of local small-scale food production has indeed been significant, the large-scale food industry which relies on international supply chains to function has been hit even harder because of travel bans affecting labour supply and international distribution.

Indeed, the pandemic has highlighted yet another ill of countries becoming too dependent on large international food industries. For decades, governments did little to protect small farms and food producers which were pushed out of business by these growing dysfunctional corporate giants.

They stood idle as their countries grew increasingly dependent on a few major suppliers of food who forced local producers to sell their produce at unfairly low prices so corporate executives can keep growing their profit margins. They remained silent as evidence piled up of large agribusiness contributing disproportionately more than traditional small-scale farming to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Local peasant markets gave way to supermarkets, and big businesses and their commodity trading partners took control of the global food system, disregarding all principles of agroecology and food sovereignty.

The aggressive expansion of industrial food production has also increasingly put human health in harm's way. Apart from the overuse of chemicals and over-processing of foods, which makes them less nutritious and more harmful, it has also resulted in a major increase in zoonotic diseases - those caused by pathogens which jump from animals to humans (just like COVID-19).

Today, food security in countries around the world is increasingly tied to big industrial food production. Singapore, for example, imports some 90 percent of its food; Iraq, which used to be the breadbasket of the Middle East, also gets more than 80 percent of its food from abroad.

The dangers of this dependency on international food supply chains are now coming to the fore, as communities around the world are facing the prospect of hunger. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have already warned of the risk of worldwide "food shortages".

The COVID-19 pandemic is pushing many to recognise the importance and urgency of food sovereignty - the right of people to determine their own food and agricultural systems and their right to produce and consume healthy and culturally appropriate food.

Countries like Nepal, Mali, Venezuela and several others have already recognised food sovereignty as a constitutional right of their people. Other states should follow suit. Food sovereignty of the people is the best defence against any economic shock.

It addresses the most urgent and pressing need of the people, which is to have healthy, nutritious and climatically appropriate food, grown in a locality or a neighbourhood, where they most likely know the people who produce it. Agroecological and localised peasant production of food respects and co-exists with our natural surroundings. It keeps away from harmful pesticides and chemical fertilisers.

The hard-wired competitive logic of a free market economy should stop defining international trade. Human principles of solidarity and camaraderie should determine global trade policies and networks. For countries where local production is impossible or gravely challenging due to climatic or other conditions, trade should rely on cooperation and not competition.

That is why, for years, peasant movements, such as La Via Campesina, around the world have campaigned and demanded to keep agriculture out of all free trade negotiations.

Any order that promotes life over profits must become the bedrock of human civilisation. We are not living in such a world now, but we surely can.

As the world reels under the fallout of a pandemic, now is the time to start building an equal, just and liberal society that embraces food sovereignty and solidarity.

Written by Jeongyeol Kim & Pramesh Pokharel

Sourced from AlJazeera.com

The food we produce is killing us and decimating biodiversity – Juan Lucas Restrepo and Elizabeth Maruma Mrema

Unless you don’t know where your next meal is coming from – which is the case for some 800 million people, a number that could increase during the Covid-19 fallout – you’ve probably not thought this much about food before. Going to the supermarket is an ordeal. Your favourite restaurant is closed. Produce is rotting in the fields while unprecedented lines form at food banks.

But once your local fast food joint reliably has meat for burgers again and you no longer fear contracting a lethal virus when going for groceries, food has every reason to stay on your mind. The pandemic has shown that our food systems are stressed to a breaking point. Fixing them will take long-term and global commitments that require us to completely rethink the way we feed ourselves and the planet.

Food production has skyrocketed in recent decades, at a tremendous cost to Earth’s natural environment and health. Agriculture is responsible for about 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, and sucks up 80% of the fresh water we use. Synthetic fertilizers and agrochemicals pollute the air we breathe, water we drink and soils we farm, threatening both biodiversity and human health.

And for what? The food we produce is killing us. The flip side of the 800 million hungry is the roughly two billion people who are overweight or suffer from diet-related, non-communicable diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure – potentially life-threatening conditions. Today, about 11 million premature deaths per year are related to unhealthy diets.

Rice, wheat and maize provide more than 50% of the world’s plant-derived calories. Simply put, people are not consuming enough nutrient-rich foods such as fruits, nuts and seeds, vegetables and whole grains.

Furthermore, our global population is hurtling towards 10 billion people and if current trends continue, the day will come that our soils will be so unproductive, and our ecosystems so disrupted, that food and water will not be able to sustain a healthy population. Every business-as-usual day brings us closer to these critical tipping points. And once we get there, no one will be spared, be it poor or rich people.

This must change. Returning to diets based on agricultural biodiversity is a critical component to fixing our food systems.The good news is we know what do to about this.

A first step is improving efforts to safeguard, conserve and use again what is left of the world’s genetic diversity, including different varieties and wild relatives of crops and livestock.

Citizen science, driven by local knowledge, can help communities rediscover the potential of neglected and underutilized crops. These crops, once grown more widely, are falling into disuse for economic, institutional and cultural reasons – including the drive for more “westernised” diets. Some of these crops are stigmatized as food for the poor. But change is happening. Quinoa and fonio are growing in global popularity, and they both have better protein quality than most major cereals.

These are just two examples of underutilised crops. There are dozens, if not hundreds, more.

Diversified agricultural fields and landscapes must become the norm if we want to build more productive, resilient, and healthy food futures. This would contribute to reducing biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity and contamination, ecosystems pollution and land degradation.

Yet, many farmers have few incentives to adopt this approach as they are driven by market demand for more common high yielding crop varieties. This leads us to a second step: increasing the adoption of nature-based solutions, by mainstreaming biodiversity in agricultural policies, and by incorporating biodiversity and traditional knowledge into countries’ dietary guidelines.

Because most of our food biodiversity is conserved by smallholders, we need to better link them to public procurement programmes in order to create additional market opportunities and demand for their products. Increasing consumers’ awareness on the benefits of diverse diets and leveraging peoples’ attachment to food cultures and traditions will also be important to increase demand for more nutrient-rich and diverse food. Reducing food waste is also critically important – about a third is lost at some point between farm and table.

Finally, we need to recognise that we all have a role to play in halting biodiversity loss. The negotiations of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, an ambitious plan to implement broad-based action to bring about a transformation in society’s relationship with biodiversity, offer a unique opportunity for all of us to commit, mobilise, and join forces to transform agriculture and food systems to benefit people and the planet, through increased use and conservation of biodiversity.

Let’s commit to adopt a visionary post-2020 global biodiversity framework that recognises the links between agriculture, food systems and the environment. Let’s put aside individual interests and adopt a broader perspective that speaks to the needs of all humankind. Let’s fundamentally transform our relationship with nature and take the necessary actions needed for a sustainable future through sustainable agriculture and food systems that will benefit us all.

Culled from Independent Premium 

Africa needs $110billion to import food by 2025-IITA boss

Except Africa takes agriculture seriously, the continent may need about $110bn to import food by 2025, up from the current $35bn.
The Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, said this while addressing members of the Board of Trustees of IITA and researchers during the 2016 Partnership for Development Week in Ibadan.

Sanginga emphasised that the neglect of agriculture would cost $110bn in terms of food imports by 2025 to feed Africa, up from the current $35bn.
“Besides, a failure to invest in agriculture would deprive the continent of necessary jobs and further fuel the spiralling rate of unemployment among the youth,” he warned. He acknowledged that though some African governments have come to the realisation that agriculture was one of the ways to save the continent from poverty, most countries were not investing enough in the sector. “Take, for instance, the commitment to invest at least 10 percent of national budgets on agriculture. Not many countries are meeting this goal,” Dr. Sanginga lamented. He commended the African Development Bank for the new initiative — Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation — to transform agriculture on the continent.

He said the TAAT programme is a new initiative of the AfDB in collaboration with the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, under the Feed Africa Initiative, to drive agriculture development on the continent. “Through the TAAT programme, the Bank aims to invest more than $800m in the agriculture sector. The funds would be
channelled into upscaling of proven innovations that will improve the fortunes of farmers and address the twin problem of food insecurity and unemployment,” Sanginga said.

He assured that IITA will continue to respond to the needs of Africa by developing innovations that will provide answers to Africa’s food insecurity. “To this end, IITA will be demonstrating its scientific leadership not only in terms of qualitative research in the lab, but also
impact in farmers’ fields,” he said.

Chair of IITA Board of Trustees, Prof. Bruce Coulman, commended Sanginga for the efforts in repositioning IITA for the challenges ahead, stressing that the Board was convinced that IITA is in safe hands.

The P4D Week is an annual event that brings together more than 200 international researchers working for IITA across the
world to review, share experiences and plan for the way forward.

Deputy Director General, Partnership for Delivery, Dr. Kenton Dashiell, said the P4D week’s emphasis for the year was not just on research but also on delivery at scale.

Source: http://punchng.com/iita-boss-warns-paying-lip-service-agriculture/

Pause: Seize the moment! Get into agriculture. By Strive Masiyiwa

Yesterday Friday 9th September was a very special day for smallholder farmers across Africa. A huge meeting was held in Nairobi to discuss how agriculture could be improved and increase food production across the continent.

Every two years, the African Green Revolution Forum brings together government leaders (including presidents and ministers), agriculture policy experts, banks, donors, business leaders, farmers' organizations, farmers, NGOs, and entrepreneurs. Also in attendance were former presidents such as president Obasanjo of Nigeria, and president Kikwete of Tanzania.

In this year's special agenda called "Seize the moment" focus was on ways to get more investment and financing (including bank loans) into agriculture. To this end, key players were invited to come to the meeting with actual financial commitments.

The leaders of several African countries were part of this important process, including Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia. Other countries have been asked to step forward and join this campaign.

Mr Strive Masiyiwa wrote on his Facebook timeline, "as some of you know, I personally traveled to see several leaders in my capacity as the Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which organized the Forum. I was well received in each country.

# The President of Kenya, HE Kenyatta, kicked off the process by pledging to invest an additional $250m to help support young farmers.

# President Kenyatta was followed by President Obama who, through one of his top Africa advisors, Gayle Smith, confirmed that his program (recently announced when I was in the US) now has full Congressional approvals to invest more than $6bn in the years to come, to secure livelihoods through agricultural development. US companies are also stepping up investment into African agri-business, as part of the President's strategy.

# Bill Gates said in a video that he would commit another $5bn to African development over the next five years, with some of it being used for agriculture.

# The Rockefeller Foundation, represented by its President, Dr Judith Rodin, and the great grandson of its founder, David Rockefeller Jr, put in another $180m.

# The Commercial Bank of Kenya (the country's largest bank) challenged all banks in the country to follow its lead of $400m.

# The World Food Program said it would buy $110m of produce from African farmers, every year, going forward.

# OCP, a big fertilizer company from Morocco, announced it will build fertilizer factories across the African continent over the next five years at an estimated $1bn.
But the night was still young, brothers and sisters!

# The African Development Bank, led by our own Dr Akin Adesina, coolly stepped forward and pledged $24bn over 10 years -- an increase of 400% on its current support for agriculture!

Later in the evening, one of Africa's greatest sons, Dr Kanayo Nwanze of Nigeria was honoured, a man who has dedicated his entire life to promoting African agricultural development.
Dr Nwanze was announced the inaugural winner of the Africa Food Prize! This is a new annual award for courageous and visionary leadership in the field of agriculture.

After receiving his award, Dr Nwanze stepped forward to make his acceptance speech. Then he announced that the organization which he heads, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), would put an additional $3.6bn into African agriculture over the next six years!

Over $30bn was pledged.
Even if you’re not a farmer or in the agriculture industry, this type of investment will create millions of jobs and fuel economic growth. It's good for Africa! Even if you’re not in any of the participating countries right now, rejoice with those who would rejoice!

My colleagues and I on the board and management of AGRA, as well as our alliance partners, will continue our efforts to get more money into African agriculture.
I have now boldly called for the pledges to be driven to $100bn. I hope you’ll consider this business.
It's the future.
End.

Edited by Cornelius Eniola

FG to distribute 7,500 metric tons of maize to poultry farmers

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) on Tuesday said the Federal Government was ready to distribute 7,500 metric tons of maize to poultry farmers across the country.
The Minister of State, FMARD, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, disclosed this at the 2016 Poultry Summit held in Lagos.
Lokpobiri said that this was part of government’s effort to lessen the lack of raw materials in the sector.

According to Lokpobiri, other areas of collaborating with the association and farmers in general like access and affordability of credit would be addressed soon. "Part of the support we are giving not only to poultry sector but to every sector of agriculture is to make credit affordable and very accessible. The present commercial interest rate is very high and nobody can survive under such. Government is trying to set up N750 billion agriculture funds for farmers."
“We are giving them all the support they need, the biggest challenge we know is raw materials that is why Federal Government is distributing 7,500 metric tons as support to poultry farmers. We know that is not enough but we have to start from somewhere. We do not even have enough in the Strategic Grain Reserves,’’ he said.
The minister urged poultry farmers to access the various farmers’ funds by the Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria at a single digit interest rate of 9 per cent.
Lokpobiri said that the country is expected to be 450 million populations in the next 10 years and the cost of feeding would increase, so we needed to start investing in agriculture.
According to him, government is aware that smuggling is a major challenge and we are in talks with customs to create an enabling environment and curb smuggling.
“We know that this is one sector that can also create a huge number of jobs for our teeming youths,” the minister said.
The annual poultry summit holds every year to bring stakeholders in the sector to deliberate on the challenges faced in the sector and on the way forward.
Credited to NANS