Can smallholder farmers take a leading role in addressing the twin challenges of food security and environmental sustainability?

A farmer in Himachal Pradesh, India. Smallholder farmers can contribute to the search for climate solutions (photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT).

Paul Kagame, the president of the Republic of Rwanda, says experience from that country shows that smallholder farmers can contribute to the search for climate-smart solutions and climate talks should bring smallholder agriculture into the discussion.

In an opinion piece published in Business Daily (Kenya), he says:

‘Until the world’s small farmers adopt a series of necessary changes, climate talks such as the United Nations Rio+20 Summit, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro this June, will never translate into action.’

‘The emergence of a global green economy requires governments, other policymakers, and businesses from developed and emerging economies to recognize the inextricable linkages between climate change, the environment, and food security. This means bringing the world’s smallholder agriculture into the discussion.’

‘Every day, smallholder farmers in developing countries confront the consequences of climate change. They are often the very first to fall prey to fickle global markets or extreme weather events.’

‘Yet smallholders cannot be ignored when it comes to climate-change solutions: the world’s half-billion small farms account for 60 per cent of global agriculture production and provide up to 80% of the food supply in developing countries. Together, they manage vast areas of our planet, including 80% of the farmland in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.’

The lesson is simple: identify the climate-smart farming practices and techniques that can boost agricultural production, convey the relevant know-how to smallholders, support them as they make the transition, and create a policy environment that enables them to take advantage of this knowledge.

Read whole article in Business Daily: Involve farmers in climate solutions, 15 Mar 2012.

 

Daily Nation calls on scientists to ‘come out boldly’ to help Kenya adapt to climate change

Kenya minister of livestock development Hon Mohammed Kuti and Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi at the launch of an ‘Index-based livestock insurance’ scheme in Marsabit, in January 2010; led by ILRI scientists, this project is making livestock insurance available to Kenya’s northern pastoralists for the first time (photo credit: ILRI/Mude).

An editorial in Kenya’s Daily Nation yesterday (7 Aug 2011) argues that the time has come for the country to start adapting itself to long-term climate change, citing research by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and calling on the scientific community to help lead the way.

‘While thousands of Kenyans are standing up to assist their fellow citizens afflicted by hunger, . . . [i]t may be time now to make momentous decisions on how best to sustain life in the arid areas that are most vulnerable to climate change. . . .

‘This process in which people may be required to change a whole or part of their traditions and culture, though a major challenge, must be fully encouraged. . . .

Already, the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute has indicated that even with the availability of water, some crops such as maize may not thrive well in a warming world.

To cope with these changes will require major transformations which must be knowledge- and technology-driven. This is where we urge our scientists to come out boldly and take charge.’

Read the whole editorial at the Daily Nation (Kenya): Adapting to climate change the only way, 7 Aug 2011.