By Nancy Rapando, WWF’s Africa’s Food Future Initiative Lead, and Durell Nzene Halleson, WWF Policy and Partnerships Manager, Africa
Africa’s food future is precarious. The amount of healthy, nutritious food needs to urgently increase, where possible through increased domestic production of culturally appropriate foods. But climate change is limiting the ability to do so, while intensifying production risks dangerously degrading Africa’s wonderful natural ecosystems. Investors and policymakers must focus on three key strategies that can produce a thriving and sustainable African food future; namely integrating land and water use planning and management, increasing adoption of agroecology, and developing inclusive and sustainable value chains.
It is clear that Africa needs more food — the population is growing but there is already a deficit in availability. Today 278 Million Africans go hungry every day while 20.2% are chronically undernourished. Even if population were to remain static, more healthy and nutritious food needs to be available to the continent. The challenge is complex.
Africa is a net food importer and her dependence on imports leaves the continent vulnerable to spikes in global food prices that could create economic crises. The African Development Bank says Africa’s net food imports are on track to triple between now and 2025, reaching over $110 billion. Food sovereignty for Africa is now urgent; and it is the pathway for Africa to feed her people, build local economies and preserve nature. Food sovereignty places emphasis on building local food systems for culturally appropriate food, while leaning on a low input agriculture that is heavily based on sustainable practices. Importantly to WWF, it must also ensure food and farming systems respect nature.
However, the increasing effects of climate change are making it harder to produce food domestically. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, produces less food per person than it did three decades ago, and across the continent yields are predicted to drop by as much as 20%. One solution is to expand the amount of agricultural land. Yet deforesting and converting forests, grasslands and savannahs is the largest cause of food-based greenhouse gas emissions. Already, smallholder-driven deforestation is a significant driver of land-use change in Africa and uncontrolled expansion to mitigate the drop in productivity on existing farmlands is only going to exacerbate current climate challenges.
What would it take to implement food sovereignty now and in the future in an economically, politically and ecologically diverse context? There are sustainable strategies that can be applied, which are good for people and nature. WWF’s Africa’s Food Future Initiative (AFFI), which supports communities within and around high biodiversity areas to scale up food production models that enhance food security while conserving nature, focuses on three of these: 1) advancing integrated land and water use planning and management; 2) catalysing increased adoption of agroecology; and 3) developing inclusive and sustainable value chains.
Advancing integrated land and water use planning and management
Land and water degradation that are common in areas surrounding high biodiversity hotspots correspond closely with rural poverty, malnutrition and food and environmental insecurity. Through AFFI, WWF works with National and sub-National governments, landscape level stakeholders and communities to adopt land and water use planning that allows land users to assess, update, monitor and manage food driven land use changes. The Initiative also aims to improve national and subnational capacities for effective and equitable management of land and water resources, while facilitating development of policies, institutional frameworks and technologies that enable appropriate governance, management and use of land and water resources. By doing so, AFFI aims to strengthen and create strong community institutions to manage land and water resources at the landscape level.
Catalysing increased adoption of agroecology
Agroecology is a way of farming that maximises ecological processes while ensuring the natural resource base is not degraded. Through AFFI, WWF works with communities around conservation areas to increase productivity and resilience while guaranteeing a sustainable future of food through practices such as farm diversification, and increased production of underutilized native crops that are adaptive and require less use of external inputs. AFFI works with agropastoral communities to develop production systems that integrate crop, livestock, and forest systems, with the aim of ensuring circular input use at the farm level, while restoring biodiverse landscapes.
Developing inclusive and sustainable value chains
WWF aims to enhance markets and private investment in sustainable value chains, by developing mechanisms to value sustainability and provide incentives for nature conservation. The work on sustainable value chains targets areas that will have made great progress in food security, and also targets large-scale investments around conservation areas, with the aim of reducing the footprint of large-scale food commodity systems.
AFFI addresses the inequalities caused by National food systems, by supporting marginalised communities living around conservation areas, while supporting national governments to integrate biodiversity outcomes in National policies, programmes and agricultural investments. It helps Africa on her journey to food sovereignty and, on top of that, can sustainably produce a surplus that helps meet some of the needs of a growing population in other parts of the world, and further enrich African livelihoods. Africa’s food future may be precarious, but with the correct actions, governments, investors and other stakeholders can choose a thriving and sovereign food future.
