Food sovereignty as solution to climate change
Durban, South Africa, DurbanDecember 8th, 2011
Teresa Anderson
Teresa has always had an interest in food and agriculture as an entry point to environmental, economic, political, health and community issues. She joined Gaia in 2001, where she is international advocacy officer for the African Biodiversity Network. Happily, this enables her to stay linked to Kenya, where she lived as a child. Teresa also helped to pioneer the very first “Transition Town” in Totnes, Devon and set up the food group, working with the community to build resilience in local food production, and reduce dependency on oil. Over the years, she has studied organic husbandry, worked on organic farms in Canada and South Africa, and has settled down in Devon.
Recommended reading: http://www.gaiafoundation.org/
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New Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launches to African beats
It certainly wasn’t an event typically seen during the fortnight of UN climate negotiations here in Durban. An audience singing joyfully along with women farmers, Southern African youth grinning as they performed traditional dances, and the whooping and ululations ringing around the room, would have been enough to make you remember this day as something rather special and different.
But what really made the 4th of December launch of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) stand out, was the feeling of inspiration, optimism and empowerment, as 14 Pan-African networks joined together to demand and implement Food Sovereignty for Africa. After a week of increasingly depressing climate negotiations, with corporate false solutions, and a steady grinding down of expectations, AFSA’s launch and message reminded us all that we are together, we have the solutions, and there is nothing to stop us making them happen.
Of course, it is precisely because of the multiple threats to Africa’s food systems, farmers, communities and ecoystems, that this alliance has come together. “There are so many challenges facing our continent,” said Anne Maina of the African Biodiversity Network (ABN), one of AFSA’s member networks. “Together AFSA’s member networks represent a huge constituency and we are all in agreement that Food Sovereignty is the way forward to ensure resilient food systems and ecosystems in the face of climate change and destructive development.”
Million Belay of Melca Mahiber, an Ethiopian member of ABN, explained that “food Sovereignty is an approach to agriculture that is radical, but self-evident too. It holds the interests of small-scale food producers, their communities and ecosystems, as critical to strengthening resilient food systems. For too long, food policy has focused on yield at any cost – and undermined the very systems and people on which food production depends. Food Sovereignty is a powerful concept and framework that is clear about embracing solutions, and challenging the threats.”
Agnes Yawe of Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM), a network with members in 10 countries elaborated further: “The Alliance for Food Sovereignty is working to promote agroecology as a solution for climate change, feeding people, biodiversity, livelihoods and healing the soils. It is about using and conserving the resources that are freely available to communities. These are appropriate for our economies, and our small scale farmers, who don’t need the expensive chemical inputs that are being pushed on us.”
Food Sovereignty also recognises the enormous value of indigenous knowledge about agriculture and ecosystems. Mphatheleni Makaulule, an indigenous community leader from Venda in the North of South Africa, expresses the clarity with which her people see climate change and industrialised food systems: “We cannot have health in a sick climate. In our territories, the soil, water and indigenous forest is already in disorder, and that affects the ecosystem. The indigenous seeds from the indigenous knowledge are our hope to adapt with this climate change, and this is why we want food sovereignty.”
Amid the celebrations, the groups shared sobering information about the way that false solutions to climate change and hunger are actually a key cause of Africa’s problems. Simon Mwamba of the East African Farmers’ Federation (ESAFF) told the room “The COP17 negotiations should not be used to advance the push for the Green Revolution in Africa, which traps farmers into cycles of debt and poverty. The green revolution will just enhance the corporate grip over agriculture and farmers, thereby threatening food sovereignty. Such practices force smallholder farmers to be dependent on agrochemicals, while eroding the seed diversity that Africa needs for resilience to climate change and a food secure future. Genetically Modified (GM) crops will be even worse ”
Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth Africa added “Climate Change is killing our continent and peoples, but so are the so-called solutions proposed by profit-hungry corporations. This is why we are coming together as AFSA, to speak out for African solutions to the problems caused by the industrialised North.”
As the gathering sang their last round of the rousing South African soul song “that’s why I’m a farmer now,” we all knew that the challenges ahead are many. But the energy that swelled around the room has filled all with the optimism that Food Sovereignty can show us the way.
AFSA outline their vision and the need for Food Sovereignty in Africa, in their new report “Food Sovereignty Systems: Feeding the world, regenerating ecosystems, rebuilding local economies, and cooling the Planet – all at the same time”.
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