A3:
In the short and medium term, macroeconomic crises and emergencies will continue to challenge both the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and global food security. For example, the Ukraine/Russia conflict’s impact on Eastern Africa eroded or wiped-out farmer profit margins and inflated the cost of foodstuffs due to its effects on food, fuel and fertiliser. The major long-term risk to farmer livelihoods and food security remains climate change. Eastern Africa has seen protracted drought for years, reducing production yields and preventing investment in improved farming approaches.
Technology provides major opportunities for smallholder farmers to improve productivity and incomes. The proliferation of mobile phones can allow farmers to access pricing information and weather forecasts, identify buyers and service providers, improve their farming practices, and even access credit. Access to both the devices and the internet data needed remains a challenge.
Enabling collaboration and cooperation continues to offer a major opportunity for smallholder farmers to achieve both modest and significant improvements to farmers’ livelihoods. From informal production and marketing groups to formalised cooperatives and SACCOs, farmers can access cheaper and better quality inputs through bulk purchasing, reach wider markets through aggregation and access knowledge and credit by pooling resources. However, barriers to participation and the equal sharing of benefits are inbuilt in many such structures often prevent more marginal groups from benefiting fully.
Yes! Businesses can invest in diversified production systems. Market creation and supporting processing and storage for diversified production is an area for great support. More data is needed on specialty crops to insure them more successfully. Businesses can focus on farmers’ articulated needs (per @nlystaunton ) and market connections as @ocamp and @sarah.roberts@julie.mccarthy among others have noted.
A1.
Besides, current positive developments in market regulation are moving from voluntary to mandatory, the requirements to meet Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence; meaning that for business delivering on positive outcomes re livelihoods and food security could also be a legal obligation
Reduced External Inputs: Agroecological approaches play a pivotal role in minimizing the dependency on costly external inputs like synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. This reduction in input costs leads to substantial cost savings for farmers. In the study conducted in 2022 by Agroecology and Agrobiodiversity Course Participants, in collaboration with ISFAA, BioVision, NutriProduce, and the University of Nairobi, a comparative analysis was made between conventional and sustainable farming systems. The findings revealed a significant advantage for farmers practicing sustainable agriculture, particularly organic methods. These farmers relied on their own farm-sourced resources, thereby minimizing the need for expensive synthetic fertilizers. This was attributed to the adoption of the circular economy principle within agroecology, where resources are recycled and reused within the farm system.
Additionally, the study highlighted a key distinction between the two approaches. Farmers practicing conventional agriculture tended to rely heavily on monoculture, while those employing agroecological principles followed a diversified production system. This diversification ensured multiple sources of income for the latter group. By embracing a range of crops and integrating livestock where applicable, farmers practicing agroecology created a resilient and economically viable farming model.
Through careful design and planning, permaculture systems maximize resource use efficiency. For example, water harvesting techniques and companion planting can reduce the need for irrigation and chemical inputs, contributing to economic gains for farmers.
The emphasis on soil health and the avoidance of synthetic chemicals in organic farming leads to improved water retention, reduced erosion, and increased nutrient cycling. These benefits translate to long-term economic savings for farmers. Climate Mitigation and Adaptation: Implementing climate-smart techniques, like rainwater harvesting and drought-resistant crop varieties, ensures production in the face of changing climate patterns. A good example in Kenya, the Laikipia region faces increasingly unpredictable rainfall patterns. To adapt, farmers have implemented rainwater harvesting systems. These systems, ranging from simple catchment tanks to more complex earth dams, capture and store rainwater during the rainy season. This stored water is then used for irrigation and livestock during dry spells, ensuring a more stable food supply and improved livelihoods.
The transitions required have been mapped out by a range of organisations along with the economic environmental and social benefits. The hidden costs of global food and land use systems have been estimated at $12 trillion, compared to a market value of the global food system of $10 trillion. In contrast, a transformed food and farming system could deliver economic gains of $5.7 trillion a year by 2030 and $10.5 trillion a year by 2050.[1]
[1] Growing Better: Ten Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use. Global Consultation report of the Food and Land Use Coalition 2019
I love this point. Diversification is so critical. And often we can combine multiple income streams: animals, crops and trees on the same land. Maybe a solar panel on there, too. Amazing for the environment and for farmer livelihoods - and likely to have positive nutrition outcomes, too.
I’m Faith Nyanjui, Climate Action and media officer at The Youth Cafe. I’m joining from Nairobi Kenya. Eager to learn from all of you as I share my insights too.
Yes. Though I’d really say that power lies where the money flows - and sadly the money is currently going towards products and practices that are negative for health and development outcomes.
A2: There are valuable lessons and best practices that we can learn from other organizations that have experience in creating adaptation, resilience, and rebuilding initiatives to enhance farmer livelihoods and food security. In Climate-Smart Agriculture we can learn and understand how these practices have been customized to local contexts and how farmers have been trained in their implementation. For Livelihood Diversification, we can explore successful income-generating activities, such as off-farm enterprises or value addition to agricultural products, which can help reduce vulnerability to shocks and improve food security. Agroforestry has been implemented successfully in some countries and regions to enhance soil health, reduce erosion, and provide additional sources of income and nutrition. This together with community-based adaptation programs, we can explore how different organizations engage local communities in decision-making, resilience-building, and sustainable natural resource management. From organizations that have successfully integrated gender-sensitive and inclusive approaches into their programs we need to understand how they have empowered women, engaged vulnerable groups, and promoted gender equality in agriculture and food security initiatives
I think there is a general positive push towards mandatory regulation around ESG concerns, but those mechanisms often only cover publicly listed companies, which in the case of big food traders (mostly private and some state-owned) will not have the reach we would hope, unless a new set of regulatory agencies get involved.
I’ll be keen to read about the solutions that this comes up with. We have just started a programme that is trying to unlock the benefits of digital in peri-urban settings in Kenya and we are already seeing that men are more likely own smartphones and use them in their businesses.
A1. The concept of “Farm to Fork” is a budding new concept which as defined which envisages that agriculture s that one critical element that needs to be relevant through the supply chain of the food product. This continuum is necessary to prevent various food borne illnesses. We need to be aligned for food and nutrition security. Covid 19 has shown us that we need an aligned supply chain to improve access and affordability.
Good to be on a session with people working with young people in agriculture and experts in regenerative agriculture and agro-ecology.
Our partnership with communities in the Lake Basin area of Kenya and the IKEA Foundation focused on developing inclusive rural economies through regenerative agriculture in Kenya, with a particular focus on improving opportunities for young people. It covered a range of markets and value chains including poultry, aquaculture and vegetables and supported 6000 young farmers, increasing their incomes and access to finance and markets.
Monthly incomes among the young farmers who have been involved in the project for at least last two years have increased on average by 180% beginning to move participants over poverty lines. They attribute this to increased access to markets, reduced cost of production, increased production, and increased knowledge of best practices.
Over 45% of young farmers are now able to access finance from both formal and informal institutions (including the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, Women Enterprise Development Fund and banks).
We are now scaling up this approach with the Mastercard Foundationa with the aim of revitalising rural economies with high youth employment and increasing the production of nutritious food. The partnership will create improved employment opportunities for 100,000 young women and men and develop a range of value chains and local markets.
Our peer mentorship model has been effective
A1: Smallholder farmers produce a third of the world’s food and are important protectors of biodiversity, yet they are experiencing tremendous challenges from climate change, loss of land, water stress and more. Women’s World Banking just published a Research Agenda for climate change, gender, and financial inclusion. It highlights the evidence needed so financial services providers can better support women farmers’ resilience.
A2.
In our experience commercial partners appear to be interested in financing projects with small producer organisations that they already buy from or intend to purchase from, as it reduces the vulnerability of farmers and their agricultural production to the impacts of climate change, while at the same time building their resilience to climate change and other external threats. For most companies. Investing in sustainability is also a way to mitigate present and future risks.
A2: We know that women often turn to other women for business and personal support. By supporting women’s enterprises and women’s participation as leaders in the financial industry, we build resilience among communities. See our work with Indian women rural banking agents, which led to a savings solution that’s reached 10.8 million women. Ensuring more women are at top leadership levels is also key, as women leaders often better serve women customers. See our research urging Indonesia’s and Nigeria’s finance industry to advance more women into senior roles.
Access to financial resources is imperative to assist farmers mitigate risks to their livelihoods as well as to adapt their livelihoods when current and former agricultural practices or no longer viable due to climate change. We also need to recognize the many critical roles women play in agricultural production and they additional difficulties they have accessing financial capital.
Access to insurance/micro-insurance for farmers. Access to agricultural extension workers and veterinarians. Inputs are often one-off – seeds e.g., and not pesticides or livestock but not feed for the livestock. Ensuring connectivity with early warning systems and information on shocks and trends over time. Insights from indigenous practices – how have earlier shocks and climate changes been addressed.
We cannot limit global warming to 1.5°C without transforming the global food system. The current system, dominated by industrial agriculture, is a major driver of climate change, responsible for around one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, and the root cause of 80% of tropical deforestation. Farming this way, depletes the soil, accounts for 70% of water use and is a major contributor to water pollution.
Our current system is accelerating the linked climate and biodiversity crises Agriculture by far the biggest driver of biodiversity loss worldwide. Deforestation for agriculture continues, primarily driven by expansion of cattle pastures, soybean production for animal feed and oil palm plantations. Overuse of fertilisers has more than doubled the flows of nitrogen and phosphorous, polluting water and contributing to global climate emissions and a range of other environmental problems.
Farming Must Deliver Regenerative Outcomes – reverse nature loss and support decarbonisation:
Conservation agriculture and sustainable agroforestry include techniques such as crop diversification, shade tree planting, use of cover crops, reduced tillage and organic fertiliser production. Together these methods are proven to improve crop yields, increase soil nutrient and carbon content, reduce erosion, improve water retention, and increase biodiversity.
Farming Must Reduce Inequalities – provide sustainable incomes and gender equity
Farmers economic risks and exposure to market shocks can be mitigated by improving farm resilience, remodelling markets that provide living incomes, ensuring that decision making forums are gender sensitive, and transforming policy to disincentivise intensive agriculture and incentivise regenerative agriculture.
Learning from others is crucial in creating effective adaptation and resilience strategies. Collaboration with agricultural research institutions, governments, and international organizations can help identify best practices for climate-smart agriculture, including the use of sustainable farming techniques, crop diversification, and improved water management. Additionally, knowledge sharing platforms and networks can provide valuable insights on successful initiatives, enabling more targeted interventions.