Green Revolution Key to Food Security in Africa

The report, "The Environmental Food Crisis", was launched at the 17th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York today. It provides some new and sobering costs on how environmental degradation might impact food production, while highlighting new and promising paths.

Business as usual, with Africa's population set to rise from 770 million to 1.75 billion by 2050, is likely to dwarf the recent food crisis which plunged over 100 million into poverty and hunger in just two years.

Water scarcity is an increasing risk in Africa. Studies by UNEP and the World Agroforestry Centre estimated that there was enough rain falling on Africa to supply the water needs for 13 billion people - twice the current world population. However, little is collected or stored sustainably via methods such as small- and large-scale rainwater harvesting. Similarly, much of overseas development aid continues to promote the tools, fertilizers and seeds approach.

A recent report by UNEP and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) surveyed 114 small-scale farms in 24 African countries who had switched to organic or near organic production.

• Yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used, with the yield jumping 128 per cent in east Africa.

• The study found that organic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming and also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought.

Clean energy projects, such as wind, off-river hydro and solar power are beginning to take off in Africa from an albeit low base. There are now an estimated 100 projects in over 20 countries up and running or in the pipeline.

On 11 May, UNEP and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) announced they were now working with farmers around Lake Victoria to begin assessing the precise amounts of carbon stored by various climate-friendly land management systems. This may open up the prospect for farmers and agro-foresters to be paid for not only producing crops, but "farming" carbon back into vegetation and soils.

The urgent need to evolve Africa's agriculture and economy onto a more sustainable, diversified footing is underlined in the report presented in New York for the first time.

The report also shines a light on perhaps one of the least discussed areas - food waste, from the farm and the seas to the urban market and the kitchen. Over half of the global food produced today is either lost, wasted or discarded as a result of inefficiency in the human-managed food chain.

Weed infestations and diseases are also cutting yields in some of Africa's poorest and most food insecure regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

In many parts of Africa fertilizer use is only 1-2 kg/ha compared to up to100 kg/ha in other parts of the world, but due to lack of infrastructure and long land transport, fertilizer cost up to seven times more in Africa.

The only increase in investments in the agricultural sector in Africa is the leasing of land by countries like China, the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Malaysia and India, including in biofuels to support domestic markets in the home countries outside the African continent.

Intercropping has the potential to build resilience against climate change, pests and diseases - intercropping is a cultivation method where many different plants and even trees are grown inside the crops allowing farmers to access ground water, reduce evaporation losses and erosion and improve soils. This may indeed not only help to halt land degradation and help restore degraded lands; it can also provide a "smart" way of increasing food security and generate business opportunities, while reducing vulnerability to farmers to expensive input factors and international oil prices.

The report emphasises that not only are these more environmentally sustainable production methods essential for maintaining land productivity and food security, they also provide a smart opportunity for generating small business development, jobs and increase predictability in supply.

This is essential for generating the incentives for small-scale investments and supplying urban markets. But it will require targeted systems for micro-finance.