Our environment and biodiversity at large are of paramount importance in our agri-food systems.
These agrifood systems in countless ways depend on plants, animals and micro-organisms that comprise and surround them.
Biodiversity underpins the capacity of farmers, forest dwellers, fisher folks to produce food and a range of other goods and services. These great life-giving and supporting resources face immense threats from climate change.
The effects are being felt in increased temperatures, raising sea levels, changing precipitation patterns and extreme weather patterns. Climate Change is a threat to human, animal and plant health resulting in emergence and re-emergence of pests and diseases.
This has resulted in food and nutrition insecurity and slowed down socio-economic development. Unfortunately, these adverse effects are having disproportionate pressure on developing countries most of them already weighed down by many other crises.
Urgent interventions are required to turn around this situation. We need to lessen these adverse impacts of climate change especially on women who account for 60% of the workforce in agrifood systems, not forgetting other vulnerable groups.
We need guard against any further biodiversity loss especially those linked to degradation and loss of functions of agricultural soils, because this is a great threat to food and nutritional security.
Adaptation through promotion of climate smart agriculture is an intervention that can build people’s resilience. Through Climate Smart Agriculture we can manage our cropland, rear our livestock, nurture forests and fisheries in ways that ensure we produce enough in a sustainable manner that safeguards our environment today and for generations to come.
This in a nutshell means transforming our agrifood systems to make them more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable in the face of the climate crisis, global environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss.
Such a transformation can only be achieved through integrated, multisectoral approaches that are gender-transformative, inclusive and pro-poor, and harness synergies such as those between climate change adaptation and mitigation.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been on the fore front in promoting Climate Smart Agriculture in all its forms. To actualize this; FAO in collaboration with the National and County Governments is implementing the BOOST project; funded by the European Union (EU).
The goal of this project is to promote crop diversification, conservation tillage, and use of organic fertilizers, growing of drought resistant crops as well as agroforestry. Through an integrated approach, the local communities have been trained on how to make their own organic fertilizers, importance of soil testing and how to access quality seeds.
For horizontal flow of information, the local communities have been put into the driving seat, and they are the trainers of trainers in the project; an approach that has seen an increase in the adoption of agroecological practices.
Early this year FAO and the Government of Kenya represented by the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning signed a Green Climate Fund project entitled – Transforming Livelihoods through Climate-Resilient, Low-Carbon Agricultural Value Chains. This project funded by Danish Government, FAO and the Government of Kenya is valued at USD 50 million.
This project will provide over 143,000 farmers with training and support to adopt climate-smart technologies and practices, strengthening their resilience to climate change and increasing their household incomes.
By working with cooperatives and the private sector including banks, the project will also improve access to markets and finance, promote sustainable land management practices across 30,000 hectares, and create up to 3,000 jobs. This holistic approach aims at triggering a paradigm shift towards climate-resilient, low-carbon, and sustainable agriculture in the region.
Since becoming partners in 2016, FAO and the Global Climate Fund have been scaling up climate investments in high-impact projects that make the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors more efficient, inclusive, sustainable and resilient to climate change. The success of this project will certainly be a harbinger for many more.
(Dr. Nyabenyi Tipo is the FAO Representative in Kenya ad interim)
