Earth Today | Climate resilience, food security make good bedfellows

THE BENEFITS of tackling climate-change resilience through attention to food security has been put on show by a new study published by the Adaptation Fund.

Titled Lessons Learned from the Adaptation Fund Experience in Strengthening Long-term Resilience Through Food Security, the study was published in December 2022.

It provides insight into responses to climate change, which presents a clear danger to Caribbean small island developing states and others, while also addressing food security, which has been given added urgency by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While climate threats, including extreme hurricane and drought events, persist, the pandemic forced the disruption of domestic food and agricultural supply chains, and many people lost or had their incomes reduced.

INCLUSION

Now, from Egypt to Ethiopia, Rwanda to Indonesia, Columbia, Nepal, and Peru comes lessons on how to marry the two in the best interest of people. Collaboration in the design and management of different interventions, for example, were found to ensure local ownership and long-term resilience of food security-related initiatives.

“Strong inclusion of local and/or indigenous communities in the management of their resources and livelihoods enables context-specific and localised, bottom-up approaches. As these approaches consider social and cultural dynamics, they are more likely to build long-term resilience to shocks related to food security and climate change,” it noted.

“Empowering farmers and fishers through participatory engagement to make informed decisions ensures interventions are relevant to local conditions,” the report added.

Peru, where fishers were trained and included in the monitoring and surveillance of local climate scenarios, is a case in point.

INNOVATION

Also beneficial are innovations that enable stakeholder participation.

“An innovative, participatory approach led to tapping into traditional knowledge of Afro and Awá communities for environmental conservation and adaptation planning in Ecuador and Colombia. This included the first binational early-warning system tailored to these indigenous community needs,” the study said.

“These participatory tools enhanced the integration between traditional knowledge and scientific information as the baseline for the design of adaptation measures to climate change in a food-insecure context,” it added.

In Nepal, “service centres for women, managed by women’s co-operatives” were also evidence of the power of participation and innovation.

“They offered capacity-building training, clean solar-heated water for washing and sanitation, cooking stoves, and facilities for childcare, as well as local employment. By providing a safe space tailored to women’s needs, service centres empowered women by enabling them to engage in income-generating activities and encouraging their involvement in project activities tackling food security issues,” the study revealed.

INTEGRATION

Further, integrated natural resource management was found to be a good tactic to build the resilience of food systems to external shocks.

“In Rwanda, unsustainable use of natural resources and increases in rainfall associated with climate change caused erosion and reduced soil fertility and crop yields. Erosion was particularly challenging in watersheds, where upstream erosion can send soil-laden water downstream, causing landslides and flooding,” the study referenced.

“Integrated natural resource management practices help restore degraded lands, prevent soil erosion and, ultimately, contribute to food security,” added the report of the Adaptation Fund, from which Jamaica has benefited, and which has approved US$118.2 million in grant funding for 15 food security-related projects and programmes in 22 countries over 15 years.

The cases, according to the report, took stock of practices, including crop rotation (the growing of different crops on the same land over a number of seasons); agroforestry (marrying trees and shrubs with livestock systems); and intercropping (two or more crops grown at the same time on the same field).

INVESTMENTS

Important, too, is stimulating investments.

“Sustainable agricultural practices can be expensive and represent a considerable investment for smallholder farmers and food-insecure communities. As such, governments and banks must enable farmers’ access to technical and financial services,” the report said.

In Rwanda, it identified efforts to build local institutional capacity and the creation of “rural development hubs” that offered “market development services, credit facilities, vocational training, capacity-building for self-help communities, and created market linkages” as useful examples.

Ultimately, the study said, the scale of climate threats, together with the complexity of food systems, warrant “a holistic approach” to finding out what works and marrying “climate drivers with social and economic drivers to address the inter-dependent challenges of building long-term resilience through food security”.

pwr.gleaner@gmail.com