This year the theme of the forum was “Delivering on Africa’s Promise”, with an expected annual economic growth of 5% in 2012-13,  Africa has the potential to transform its economic situation by improving internal and external trade markets to develop a platform to lift people out of poverty.

Attendees at the event included:

• Mo Ibrahim, Chairman, Mo Ibrahim Foundation
• Jane Karuku, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
• Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nigeria
• Arif M. Naqvi, Founder and Group Chief Executive, The Abraaj Group
• Frannie Leautier Executive Secretary, The African Capacity Building Foundation

One of the key sessions from the event focused on the role agriculture has to play in African development, Agriculture: Investing in Transformation explored the necessity of investing in African agriculture and addressed why partnerships must be at the forefront of accelerating investments in agriculture.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nigeria stated in the session that:

Agriculture is going to be the lifeline for Africa.”

Philip Kiriro, President and Chairman of the East Africa Farmers Federation, agreed by highlighting the current transformation in the perception of African agriculture, saying:

we are now seeing agriculture as a business, rather than a philanthropic or social sector.”

Treating agriculture as a business was a central theme throughout the World Economic Forum in Africa, as attendees discussed the need to build capacity for smallholder farmers to access global trading markets in order to retain a sustainable income.

This was further exemplified at the launch of The Africa Competitiveness Report from the World Bank, World Economic Forum and African Development Bank.

The report highlights the necessity of translating the current growth in the African economy to a growth in living standards, as “this is imperative if the continent is to take advantage of its historic opportunity to end poverty and embrace shared prosperity.”

The report goes on to say that Africa’s high economic growth rates and largely agriculture-based economy provide a “unique opportunity” for growth across the continent.

As the majority of sessions at the World Economic Forum in Africa and the African Competitiveness Report agree, growth in the continent is currently stunted by insufficient infrastructure, lack of access to markets and fragmented connections between traders, often preventing farmers from reaching healthy profits.

What is evident from the World Economic Forum is that agriculture is been accepted as an answer to alleviate poverty but more cooperation, investments and knowledge must be shared to enable those at the beginning of the supply chain to gain a sustainable living.

Topics scheduled for discussion include food security and nutrition, sustainable agriculture, desertification and land degradation. The outcomes from the OWG will help shape the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), offering a starting point for ensuring that sustainable agriculture is high on the agenda.

To join the dialogue on sustainable agriculture please follow @farmingfirst and check our blog pages out for up to date information from the event.

High profile attendees at the event included:

• President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins
• Frank Rijsberman, Chief Executive Officer of the CGIAR Consortium
• President of the Mary Robinson Foundation, Mary Robinson
• Former US Vice-President, Al Gore
• Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

Speaking at the conference, Al Gore praised the unique design of the conference:

It is particularly important that farmers, fisher folk and women who work in communities and villages that are impacted by climate change are here and have been given the opportunity to use their voices. It is all too rare in this world for those who are representing the communities most vulnerable to climate change to have the ear of policy makers and to serve as experts in ways that should be done more often.”

Frank Rijsberman, CEO of the CGIAR Consortium also commented:

We must focus on the needs of smallholder farmers – they have the least capacity to adapt and will be the most affected by climate change.”

Recognising the need to include the farmers who are affected by climate change on the ground in future policy making is a positive step forward for global development. Discussions around the beneficial role of agriculture in climate change adaptation are finally beginning to gain momentum and smallholder farmers across the world, who in many cases hold the key to climate change adaptation, are finally gaining the recognition they deserve.

One of the main outcomes from the conference was the donation of 21 million Euros from the Irish government to the UN World Food Programme, which will see at least seven million Euros a year donated to the world’s largest humanitarian agency.

It is hoped that the stories and views of grassroots attendees at the event will help to inform the global development agenda, particularly the Sustainable Development Goals, which will come into practice in 2015 when the Millenium Development Goals end.

The Montpellier report illustrates the many challenges facing the world, particularly in Africa, where over 200 million people (23%) of the population are classed as hungry. Agriculture is the industry most likely to alleviate hunger in Africa, yet due to land degradation and a lack of arable land it is extremely difficult for farmers in Africa to produce enough food to feed demand. Sustainable Intensification offers a solution to this lack of land by encouraging a targeted use of inputs; ensuring farmers are only using the right fertilizers and seeds to grow more on their land. The fundamental theory of Sustainable Intensification is: ‘more crop, same land, fewer inputs’ (see diagram below).

Using less land to grow more not only eases the global demand for land but can also help increase farmers incomes, as they are able to produce more without having to increase the size of their fields. Sustainable Intensification is also beneficial to the environment as inputs are targeted meaning less waste of vital resources such as water.

Speaking at the launch Camilla Toulim, Deputy Chair of the Montpellier Panel and Director for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), stressed the need for Sustainable Intensification in agriculture:

We desperately need to put into alignment an increase in yield and crop performance with fewer environmental impacts. We can’t afford globally to expand on land yet we need to increase yields so it is vitally important that people start to understand how crucial Sustainable Intensification can be.”

Farming First member One Acre Fund feature in the report, as an example of how Sustainable Intensification can be employed to improve the livelihoods of farmers. One Acre Fund empower local farmers by bringing them together in groups to increase their negotiating power, groups benefit from farm education provided by field officers as well as training on post-harvest handling and storage. As of autumn 2012 the One Acre Fund has facilitated a tripling of raw harvest material per planted acre and a doubling of farm income per acre after repayment. Demonstrating how educating farmers can increase both yields and incomes.

Sustainable Intensification will require many different elements to work, such as:

• research into innovations,
• targeted financial investments
• political leadership
• partnerships between scientists and smallholder farmers

This recommendation from a leading panel of experts is a positive step towards solving some of the biggest challenges we face in the world today. The important step now is that these recommendations are acted upon and reach the farmers who are central to food security.

The new International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) book “West African Agriculture and Climate Change” uses sophisticated modeling and available data to develop future scenarios exploring the range of climate change consequences for agriculture, food security, and resource management and offers recommendations to national governments and regional agencies. It offers, for the first time, country-by-country climate data and analysis for 11 of the countries that make up West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leon, and Togo.

“This book is greatly needed in the West Africa region. It fills a major gap in the availability of up-to-date scientific information on the vulnerability of the agriculture sector to climate change in countries and in the region,” said Robert Zougmoré, regional program leader, West Africa, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). “This monograph will help regional and national decision makers and other stakeholders make better-informed decisions.”

The book is collaboration between IFPRI, CCAFS, the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF/WECARD), a regional agricultural research and development organization, and scientists from each of the countries. It will be presented today in Niamey, Niger at the “Regional Workshop to Mainstream Climate Change in the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme,”organized by CORAF/WECARD.

“The book’s focus on both individual countries and the region provides a clear framework for developing informed and coherent national and regional policies to help the vulnerable farming community of West Africa become more resilient to the growing challenges of climate change,” said Abdulai Jalloh, manager, Natural Resources Management Programme, CORAF/WECARD.

In addition to country-level analysis and recommendations, the book offers region-wide policy suggestions:

• Current data collection efforts on weather, land use, and water resources in the region are inadequate to make policy decisions. In particular, improved data on weather are crucial to help farmers make decisions now, and to inform long-term policies.
• Policymakers should incorporate climate change considerations into food security policies—such as those related to crop research, infrastructure, and social services— to prepare for a changing climate while meeting the need for increased quantity and quality of food available to consumers.
• Agricultural research and extension agencies should combine efforts at improving yields with those to develop climate-resilient crop varieties. Training farmers about new techniques and technologies to both adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change is needed.
• Governments should enable farmers to access vital inputs required for improved productivity and production.

“Climate change considerations should be part of all aspects of national and regional planning and decisionmaking,” said Gerald Nelson, IFPRI senior research fellow. “For example, new roads are essential to raise agricultural productivity. When building them today, plan for higher temperatures and more variable rainfall tomorrow. In some places, expanding irrigation makes a lot of sense for productivity and resilience. When building the infrastructure, plan for more extreme rainfall events and longer droughts than are typical today. These are just a few examples of how improved planning today can increase productivity, enhance resilience in the face of climate change, and raise the incomes of poor farmers in West Africa.”

For more information visit: http://www.ifpri.org/pressroom/briefing/coping-climate-change-west-africa.

From March 4-15, the UN Commission on the Status of Women was held in New York, this is the 57th annual meeting where influential spokespeople from around the world discuss the issue of female empowerment. The main theme this year was the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls and after ten years a tangible outcome was finally achieved, as 130 states agreed to adopt the conclusions of the commission. The agreed conclusions include a declaration that states will recognize the links between violence against women and girls with wider issues such as education, poverty eradication and food security. This is a great result that proves that helps shrink the gender equality gap throughout the world.

The CWS57 was an important step in conceptualizing issues and goals relating to gender and women’s empowerment, so it is important that we continue to look at these issues on the road to establishing the post-2015 development agenda which will replace the Millenium Development Goals.

The MDGs have so far had limited success for women. Despite a 75 percent increase in women in parliament around the world from 1995-2012, many parts of the developing world, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, have seen little if any significant change. This is a concern for women, as more than 60 percent of employed women in Sub-Saharan Africa work in agriculture yet are not represented at policy level. Women continue to suffer due to the lack of representation.

For instance, poor infrastructure means that rural women must spend tremendous amounts of time providing fuel and water for households, meaning that in some African countries women spend around 40 billion hours a year collecting water. Women are also subject to poor land rights and evidence indicates that if women had the same access to resources as men, they could increase yields by up to 30 percent.

As world leaders look beyond the MDGs to define the role women will play in the Sustainable Development Goals it is extremely important that women are recognized at the heart of achieving food security. In a report from the FAO, IFAD and WFP entitled Rural Women and the Millennium Development Goals it is suggested that women are key for sustainable agriculture. Research suggests that women express more concern for the environment and also form the “backbone of agricultural labor”, proving that women will play a central role in mitigating the effects of climate change in agriculture.

This recognition is beginning to surface at all levels, the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on global sustainability noted that “any serious shift towards sustainable development requires gender equality”. The World Economic Forum supports this, reporting that across 135 countries, greater gender equality correlates positively with per capita gross national product.

As Farming First’s infographic the Female Face of Farming demonstrates, women on average comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labor forces in developing countries and their share of the labor has increased around the world over the last thirty years. Despite their massive contribution to food security, the yield gap between men and women is still 20-30 percent mostly due to the lack of resources available to female farmers who are often subject to lower wages and minimal (if any) training, and who are crucially left out of high-level policy-making. An inclusion for female farmers in the Sustainable Development Goals is vital if they are to grow enough food to feed the population post-2015.

This lack of recognition for women in society is far more detrimental than many people may realize, as theUNFPA state “women’s empowerment is vital to sustainable development and the realization of human rights for all.” Farming First recognizes the crucial role of women in global development, particularly food security, and will continue to advocate the female face of farming on the road to shaping the sustainable development agenda.

The acceptance of the agreed conclusions of the commission by all the member states has proven that gender equality is attainable. The UN will hopefully reinforce the central role of women next year in the 58th Commission, which will focus on the challenges, and achievements in implementing the Millennium Development Goals for women. The session is likely to analyze how the MDGs have affected women around the world and must help shape the role women will play in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.

This year, the major theme of World Water Day is collaboration, as a holistic approach is essential if we are to achieve water security. Water, energy and food security are all closely interconnected, for example if water supplies are scarce then yields will decrease, dramatically impacting food security. Similarly, producing food and moving the water needed to produce food requires energy, so it is central to global development that these issues are discussed in unison. For instance, in some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa women spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water, this impacts the amount of time women can dedicate to farming and therefore leads to a fall in yields.

Water is critical to food production, so attaining more ‘crop per drop’ is vital for food security. By 2050 the proportion of the population facing stressed water supplies is expected to increase by 500% to overcome this challenge farmers around the world are beginning to implement best practices to save vital water resources.

Simple tools are available to help farmers optimize their use of this precious resource; drip irrigation is an effective way of channeling water use directly to crops ensuring that farmer’s use and waste less water. Christian Rouxel, Director of the European Irrigation Association, explains the benefits of drip irrigation: “Used in the right way drip irrigation can save around 40-50% of water and in addition farmers yields can increase by up to five times.”

As we work to achieve global food security, everyone from scientists to farmers must work together if we are to feed the world sustainably.

Read Farming First’s policies on water security here

All Party Parliamentary Group

On Wednesday 6 March, Farming First attended the All Party Parliamentary Group on ‘Limits to Gender Empowerment? Gender Perspectives on Agriculture and Health’ with key speakers including Robert Vos, Director of Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division at the FAO.

Robert Vos highlighted one of the main inequalities and barriers for women in agriculture, stating: “women are producing our food but are still left out of decision making, they are not being represented at policy level and this must change.”

The panel also discussed the tools and seeds women use in agriculture and how these impact life for female farmers. Dr Deborah Bryceson, reader in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow said: “women are the main users of the hoe, a low level technology that is increasingly restrained and an enormous absorber of manual power. However, it is a misconception to think that this is backward, women choose to use the hoe as it is a reliable tool that is easy to access and I think female farmers are likely to keep a firm grip on this method.”

Professor Jane Guyer, director of undergraduate studies at John Hopkins University, also commented on the use of seeds: “women, like other people in agriculture today, are willing to experiment with new types of seed that can help tackle climate change or increase yields on a farm.”

Deborah Bryceson stated that equality begins when women stop being treated as victims in agriculture: ”women are central in food production and on International Women’s Day it is important not to think of them as weak or vulnerable as this neglects the past thirty years of history.”

Celebrate and Empower the Female Face of Farming

Farming First member Anette Friis addressed the gender gap in agriculture in a blog for the Huffington Post. Friis explored the many obstacles that prevent women from producing yields equal to men, and consequently effect the state of food security:

Addressing women’s rights, violence against women and moving towards greater equality is pertinent all over the world and spans across different areas of social, economic and political life. One area that is often overlooked and one where a great (if not one of the greatest) gender gaps persists — and where we are increasingly understanding the interlay and implications of violence against women — is in agriculture.”

Farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, care-givers, bread-winners, bread-makers, mothers, wives, daughters — women are at the heart of agriculture and will be at the heart of providing solutions to the world’s greatest challenges.”

To read the full blog click here

Commission on the Status of Women

This year is the 57th session of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, taking place from 4 – 15 March in New York. Key themes being discussed this year include:

• Eliminating and preventing violence towards women and girls
• The equal sharing in responsibility between women and men in the context of HIV
• Gender quality issues that will be reflected in the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals

I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart, all the world leaders need to realise our aspirations, your aspirations. We celebrate the steps being taken by women to ensure they are able to enjoy their fundamental human rights. Yet women are still often paid less than men, all too regularly their care giving work and work in the home goes unrecognised. Most troubling of all women are subjected to shocking attacks and abuse, often from those they should be able to trust.”

Ending violence against women and girls is a human rights issue, social issue and a development issue.”

Female farmers still face many barriers that prevent them from increasing yields and making a sustainable living from their farm. In many societies law and tradition bar women from owning and inheriting land, for instance in sub-saharan Africa women own under 20% of the land despite contributing to over 40% of the labour force.

Events:

This week Farming First will be providing updates on and attending a number of events, including:

Commission on the Status of Women 4 – 15 March 2013, New York

Farming First will be following the Commission on the Status of Women event closely, tweeting interesting quotes, videos and articles

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development: International Women’s Day: ‘Limits to Gender Empowerment? Gender perspectives on agriculture and health’ 6 March 2013, London

Farming First will be attending the event, live tweeting key quotes and writing a summary blog of the key outcomes from the event

Women, Violence and Food Security 8 March, Rome

Farming First will be tweeting live from the event and will again write a summary blog illustrating the key themes of the event

The Voice of Female Farming:

To listen to the voice of female farming visit the Farming First TV section dedicated to women in agriculture here 

Discover more about the Female Face of Farming: http://www.farmingfirst.org/women/

Follow @farmingfirst on Twitter for live updates from the events and the latest information from Farming First