Together with professionals from science, government, business, NGOs and partners from the South we explored how family farming can contribute to solving global issues like climate change and food security. Across the world, recognition is gaining ground that properly managed small-scale farming is low carbon agriculture. It is more efficient, more people-friendly and less polluting than large-scale industrial agriculture. Camilla Toulmin, director of IIED and one of the speakers, challenged the audience: “The market place for ideas is wide open”.

Even though the outcome of the Copenhagen conference has not been encouraging, let us not forget that there are real opportunities to influence the way in which climate change policy is being shaped. But the mindsets of policymakers must change if possibility is to become a reality. ileia supports the campaign for an international year of family farming; we think this is a timely and important initiative to create a greater global awareness of the importance of family farming. This issue of Farming Matters is about livestock. Lucy Maarse, our guest editor for this issue, makes a convincing argument in the theme overview (page 7) that an integrated perspective is crucial to overcome simplistic assumptions about the opportunities and threats that livestock present to family farmers. Strengthening ecologically and economically sound and socially just livestock systems is possible; it starts with understanding the multiple functions of livestock in rural livelihoods.

Renew your subscription!

Those of you who have been receiving the magazine for more than two years, will find a renewal form enclosed with the magazine. Do send it back. Only if you return it, will you continue to receive the magazine. We want to make Farming Matters available to as many interested readers as possible and ensure that it reaches those who are actually reading it.

Keep sending us your comments and suggestions, and thank you for reading Farming Matters!

Edith van Walsum, director ILEIA

The post Editorial – People-friendly agriculture appeared first on Ileia.

Do you also have comments, ideas, suggestions? Send an e-mail to ileia@ileia.org or write to P.O. Box 2067, 3800 CB, Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

Two views: The future of family farming

One of the questions raised in the previous debate was whether family farming can compete with large-scale industrial agriculture. However, the choice is not either-or, but rather: how much of each, and how can the two function in complementary ways that compensate for each other’s limitations?
The industrial, largescale farming system advocated by Rudy Rabbinge meets the needs of the commercial sector more than the needs of the world’s poor. The seed and agricultural chemical producers and food processing industries operate in a close coalition with governments and with major research institutions.
Company profits take precedence over consumer and environmental issues. Against that background, the arguments supporting large-scale industrialised agriculture as the template for the future, should be considered with a degree of scepticism. The rhetoric on the issues of poverty alleviation, global food security, and environmental sustainability used by major institutions are attempts to satisfy a poorly-informed general public that these challenges can be met effectively through what is called “modern” agriculture. While it has served the world reasonably well for the past half century, “more of the same” is no longer justifiable. Some pluralisation, rather than homogenisation, of the agricultural sector is urgently needed.
Therefore the role of Farming Matters in voicing the many viable, environment-friendly, agro-ecological alternatives should be warmly applauded.

Willem Stoop, agronomist, the Netherlands.

Farmers’ facts vs “proven” statistics

The article on SRI in the previous issue of Farming Matters raises the question whether scientists should consider farmer results from the field or only their own data to assess the potential of new farming techniques.
In the article, Harro Maat commented that scientists discounted the high SRI yields reported by NGOs and others because there was no information on the measurement methods used. There are, however, many examples available of measurements according to scientific protocol. Half a dozen theses were done by Madagascar students for degrees from the Faculty of Agriculture (ESSA) at the University of Antananarivo in the early 1980s. Their measurements were done meticulously according to scientific protocols, with multiple replications, random block design, etc. That the theses were written in French is no excuse for IRRI and other scientists to not have followed up such reports, which were available upon request.
In Aceh, Indonesai, the NGO Caritas recently reported that farmers working with SRI methods introduced after the tsunami there, are averaging 8.5 tons per hectare compared to their previous average yield of 2 tons per hectare (Caritas News, Spring 2009). Also, SRI’s merits are being confirmed and reported on more and more, among others in peer-reviewed scientific literature, such as the journal Experimental Agriculture. It is incumbent on NGOs and others to report results as systematically and precisely as possible; but it should be similarly expected of scientists that they will take an open-minded interest in innovations that could be beneficial for farmers, especially resourcelimited ones, rather than find reasons to dismiss reports without field testing and persist in working along their preconceived tracks.

Norman Uphoff, emeritus professor, Cornell University, U.S.A.

Measuring success

I enjoyed reading your article “Building on success”. I agree with the premise of it, that we need to “support and manage the endless process of knowledge generation, facilitation and networking involved in what is essentially a spontaneous activity of sociotechnical change.” Recently our organisation has been striving to monitor and evaluate the success of our projects. We are still working to identify ways of measuring our impact in communities and on individuals. How to measure ones success in meeting ones goals when it comes to the generation and exchange of information? I would greatly appreciate any insight.

Jeff Follett (jeff@treesftf.org), South America Program Officer, Trees for the Future, Australia.

The post Our readers write appeared first on Ileia.

The post Opinion: Unsung heroes appeared first on Ileia.

The post Opinion: Dealing with animal disease appeared first on Ileia.

Pastoralism, the extensive production of livestock in rangelands, is carried out in climatically extreme environments, where other forms of food production are unviable. Providing a livelihood for between 100 and 200 million households, it is practiced from the Asian steppes to the Andes and from the mountainous regions of Western Europe to the African savannah. In total, its activities cover a quarter of the earth’s land surface. As well as generating food and incomes, these rangelands provide many vital, and valuable, ecosystem services such as water supply and carbon sequestration: services that are being degraded through misguided rangeland investments and policies.

Although some countries now officially recognise the value of pastoralism, negative perceptions still pervade. Pastoral policies are either non-existent or, where they do exist, are barely enforced. Establishing communal land tenure is crucial because it creates pastoral rights of access, provides opportunities for individuals to seek optimal ways of exploiting available resources, and facilitates changes in resource equity. However, the common property regime, which allows pastoralists to sustainably manage vast areas of land, is undermined by laws and policies that promote the individualisation of land tenure. As a result, dry-season grazing reserves have been lost, livestock mobility has been restricted, land tenure has been rendered insecure and land degradation has increased, undermining the sustainability of the pastoral livelihood system.

Securing land tenure in Garba Tula

Innovative solutions in Mongolia
Nomadic livestock producers form the backbone of Mongolia’s economy, where herding is a way of life. In recent years, grasslands in Mongolia have become overgrazed, affected by prolonged drought and poor management by the state. Mongolians recognised that innovative solutions were needed to tackle these issues and are trying out what is commonly known as the “comanagement approach”. This approach involves collaborative arrangements in which local resource users, such as herders, share responsibility and authority with governments for managing natural resources. The approach draws on the experience and expertise of all the players involved. Local users contribute their knowledge of the resource and past customary practices, while governments provide an enabling environment, including supportive policies and technical advice.
The co-management approach is being tested by a project team that has created two groups: community herder groups and district level comanagement teams that include community members, local government and civil society members. Together they have formulated agreements on how to manage grasslands and related resources. Local communities now have secure access to the resources they need and are developing institutions and methods to ensure they continue to have a voice. Co-management has resulted in productive pastureland, healthier herds, and increased incomes at the pilot sites. It is now being expanded into other areas and has led to legal and policy changes. Hopes are high for the future of Mongolia’s herders and grasslands. For more information, see www.idrc.ca.

This past decade, however, has seen a promising shift by several governments to recognise and regulate access and tenure rights over pastoral resources. Improvements have been made in Niger (1993), Mali (2001) and Burkina Faso (2002).
Mongolian government policy now supports communal land tenure through placing greater control of natural resources in the hands of customary institutions (see box). Benefits have impacted both pastoral livelihoods and the conservation of herders’ rangeland environments. Against this backdrop, it is important to identify and support processes that can help strengthen the governance of pastoral systems, as well as local land use and the environment. Pastoral societies also need to find more equitable ways of including pastoralists in the policy-making processes, as well as in the design of technologies and the makeup of the customary institutions that shape livestock production systems and environmental governance.

In Garba Tula, in northern Kenya, weak land tenure was identified as one of the key obstacles in the bid to improve the livelihoods of the region’s 40,000 predominantly Boran pastoralists. Garba Tula, an area extending over around 10,000 km2, has extraordinary biodiversity, but the full potential to conserve it was not being met, and people and their livelihoods were threatened by wildlife. In an initiative that emerged from meetings held by community elders in 2007 and 2008, a Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approach was set up to strengthen tenure.

Spearheaded by a Community Task Force and strengthened by expert-facilitated consultations, the community arrived at a common understanding of CBNRM as “a way to bring local people together to protect, conserve and manage their land, water, animals and plants so that they can use these natural resources to improve their lives, the lives of their children and that of their grand children”. The strategy should improve the quality of people’s lives “economically, culturally and spiritually”.

Land in Garba Tula is held in trust by the County Council, but county councils generally exercise strict control over the allocation of land and are poorly accountable to local communities, who in turn are poorly informed of their rights. Contrary to popular perception, trust land is not government land, and it can provide a strong form of tenure if the community understands both its rights and the legal mechanisms to assert them. Garba Tula residents now document their customary laws and are encouraging the County Council to adopt them as by-laws. This will also provide a foundation for developing a range of investments that are compatible with pastoralism, such as mapping wildlife dispersal routes; residents are also interested in ecotourism.

The Community Task Force is setting up a local trust to manage the process and the painstaking procedure of ensuring community and local government buy-in is supported by a number of development, conservation and wildlife agencies as well as government. Since the vast majority of Kenya’s drylands are legally trust land, the Garba Tula experience could set a precedent for securing land tenure in other areas.

Encouraging community engagement

Policies and institutions must empower pastoralists to take part in policymaking that affects their livelihoods. This will also promote equitable access to resources, facilities and services, and guarantee sustainable land use and environmental management.

In addition to addressing issues related to livestock production, health and marketing, pastoral policies should also tackle critical issues such as healthcare, education, land rights and women’s rights as well as governance, ethnicity and religion. An important lesson from Garba Tula is that the policy environment may be more supportive than imagined, and what is missing might not be the policies so much as the capacity for taking advantage of them.

Published research on African pastoral systems has steadily overturned many of the misconceptions about pastoral systems, highlighting the importance of appropriate strategies to manage the variability of the climate in dryland environments. Effective management strategies will allow for diverse herds of variable size and keep them mobile.

There are increasing opportunities for pastoralists to capitalise on environmental services such as the maintenance of pasture diversity, vegetation cover and biodiversity through ecotourism or through Payments for Environmental Services. The Kenyan example shows that even in Africa, where competition over public funds is tough and such schemes are poorly supported, the situation can be changed through community empowerment and government accountability.

Text: Jonathan Davies and Guyo M. Roba

Photos: Pastoralism is frequently the best way to manage vast areas of land in a sustainable way. By: Jonathan Davies, IUCN, and Sue Cavanna, IIED

Innovative solutions in Mongolia photo: H.Ykhanbai

The post Pastoralism: Shifts in policy-making appeared first on Ileia.

Exactly how many pastoralists there are is unknown. Estimates range between 100 to 200 million households around the world (see the article on page 32). Mobility is central to pastoralism, and children need to stay with their families to learn different production tasks. These demands make it difficult for them to use the education and other services that are designed for sedentary people.

Current models of formal education depend on getting teachers and materials to scattered populations in remote areas. This is logistically difficult to organise, expensive, and usually not very successful.

In meetings with pastoralists in South Asia and Africa, Caroline Dyer, researcher on mobile education, finds the same message everywhere: “Contrary to what people assume about nomads, they do want an education – they want to know what is going on in their countries and elsewhere. And it is their right – they should not be deprived of an education just because they are mobile.”

Radio broadcasts for learning

The new Open and Distance Learning strategy is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry for the Development of Northern Kenya, supported by IIED. It offers innovative combinations of flexible teaching methods – a combination of radio programmes, face-to-face teaching and printed materials. Dyer explains that “the fundamental thing is to find a way to deal with mobility. We need to be realistic about what is available and see what technology can serve the needs best.”

About the curriculum, Dyer says plainly: “They don’t want a second-best education”. In the past, educational programmes have not offered material relevant to nomadic people’s way of life. It is difficult for pastoralist students to relate to a topic such as animal husbandry, for example, when it is based on the viewpoint of sedentary farmers, rather than techniques of drylands pastoralism. The ODL strategy will localise subjects such as literacy, math and sciences to reflect pastoralists’ daily reality and knowledge. This curriculum must be nationally recognised to ensure high quality.

The ODL strategy reduces dependence on teachers, but some face-to-face teaching is necessary. Attracting good teachers to remote and isolated “mobile schools” is challenging, and they tend to be poorly paid, have low credentials and often do not speak the pastoralists’ language. Says Dyer: “We need to think differently about teachers and how to recruit them.” Having pastoralist learning facilitators in the populations is the long term aim. Until then, teachers from outside need training programmes to get an understanding of pastoralist livelihoods.

The post Learning about … Making education work for pastoralists appeared first on Ileia.

When I first travelled the winding road from Dushanbe to Kulyab, in southern Tajikistan, I was stunned by the beautiful scenery but shocked by the barren hills that lined the road. There used to be rich forests in this area, and arable land where farmers kept cattle, sheep and goats. Today, the only trees that grow are in and around the settlements, and overgrazing has razed the landscape.

Before the break up of the Soviet Union, farming practices were more sustainable – large farms practised crop rotation and grew fodder crops such as luzerne and esparcet. Farmers also collected manure, storing it and using it as organic fertilizer; now, with deforestation depleting firewood supplies, they are forced to use manure for fuel. As a consequence, soil fertility is decreasing and farmers are having to depend more and more on expensive, and often scarce, artificial fertilizers. According to the German Welthungerhilfe, as much as two to eight tons of manure each year is used by a single household for cooking purposes. In parts of the Khatlon region, this represents 90 percent of all available manure. Crop yields are falling and Tajikistan badly needs solutions to curb this growing trend.

From state-funded to private initiatives

Some of the agricultural measures that might offer a way out include crop rotation, cultivating leguminous plants and fodder crops for livestock, and more intensive livestock farming. Also, keeping manure under cover would improve its quality, thus reducing the number of applications needed, saving money and reducing the need for artificial fertilizer. NGOs were keen to start activities to promote and develop such technologies together with the farmers. While awareness about the advantages of using manure is evident, Tajikistan lacks the necessary knowledge to implement it.

Agricultural Tajikistan
Over 60 percent of Tajikistan’s population works in the agriculture sector and it accounts for 30 percent of the GDP. A typical farmer cultivates around 3 hectares and keeps livestock. Land reforms are still underway, so land ownership is complicated. Most large state farms and cooperative farms have been subdivided. Some smallholders have formed collectives, since these have easier access to credit, inputs and machines.
Farmers earn a meagre income, so a large proportion of the labour force, mainly young men, has migrated to Russia. Between 1991 and 1997, agricultural output dropped by 55 percent, but since 1997 it’s on the rise again. Cotton and wheat are the country’s two main cash crops, accounting for 70 percent of arable land. Until recently, farmers were forced by law to grow cotton, but now they enjoy the freedom to grow the crops they choose.

In 2005, the Agriculture Training and Advisory Centre (ATAC) was set up in Kulyab, in the Khatlon region, to promote such knowledge. As in many other transition countries, governmental extension services are becoming less prevalent. Private extension initiatives (around 25 NGOs) are emerging and taking over this function.

The ATAC coaches individual farmers and train farmer groups. They use the Farmer Field School approach, both for crops and livestock. More recently they also started to develop value chains by connecting farmers with producers. In 2009, ATAC started a process of developing new advisory products, working closely with farmers and extension staff. Several factors emerged as possible solutions to the farmers’ problems; as well as intensive livestock-keeping, these included minimum tillage and the growing of apples and early vegetables. Cultivating commercial crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers also proved a viable enterprise since commercial crop farmers are willing to pay a good price for manure. There are plans to establish experimental crop plots and to test livestock-keeping systems using the Participatory Technology Development extension method – activities that should yield materials for use by other private extension agents in Tajikistan, benefiting farmers outside the Khatlon area. ATAC also plans to develop commercial bull fattening, small-scale egg production and to provide a first-aid manual for farmers.

For more information please contact Willem van Weperen (willem.van.weperen@gmail.com), Agriculture Extension Advisor, Kulyab, Tajikistan.

The post Crops and animals in Tajikistan: Back on track appeared first on Ileia.

Albania: Feeding our cows: dairy farm development

Farmers wishing to earn money from livestock production in Albania face a number of difficulties. Those working with Heifer Netherlands in Lushnje, in the western part of the country, decided that the two main things in need of improvement were their stables and their livestock feeding regimes. First, they made sure their stables were ventilated, with proper lighting, pens, water and troughs. But the main change was in animal feeding. They decided to grow alfalfa, maize and ryegrass, as this would provide high quality hay, fresh grass, silage and concentrate.

Each farmer calculated the amount of feed they needed for the whole year, and some rented land. Water pumps were provided to guarantee water supply. As a group, they learned how to make hay and silage, and were able to considerably improve their animals’ diets.
The results of these changes were evident. Milk yield per cow increased, and so did profits. Farmers are healthier and their incomes are increasing; they now want more animals on their farms. One of farmers, Mariana Kristo, described how “seven years ago we had one cow, barely providing for our family of six. Today I have 12 Holstein cows, producing an average of 5,800 litres per cow. This is mainly due to the way we feed them.”

Want to know more?
Write to Neeltje Suikerbuijk of Heifer Netherlands: neeltje@heifer.nl

Colombia: Local option for land use planning

The uncertainties resulting from climate change have convinced many people about the importance of building water reservoirs.

The uncertainties resulting from climate change have convinced many people about the importance of building water reservoirs. Large scale dams can also provide electricity, making them even more appealing. But these projects may also lead to unwanted changes for the local communities, especially in terms of land use. The work of ASOGADI, the organisation of small scale livestock producers of Ituango, in the Colombian province of Antioquia, shows that drastic changes in existing land use patterns are not always necessary when trying to improve local livelihoods.

Building on local traditions, this group has been able to increase the number of animals each household can support (from an average of 1.3 to 6), and thus increase the overall yields and incomes. Local production of biogas has helped reduce firewood consumption by 80 percent. And at least 78 hectares of forest are now carefully protected. These are the main arguments they are presenting in protest against the government’s decision of building a large hydroelectric site in Ituango. ASOGADI favours infrastructure, energy and water availability, but as a complement to local production – not as a replacement.

Want to know more?
Write to Nubia Ciro: nubici@yahoo.com

Mexico: More benefits with trees

Livestock production is considered to be a serious contributor to climate change. At the same time, animal rearing in countries like Mexico is being seriously affected by it: irregular rainfall and temperatures are already having an effect on the availability of water and forage.
The establishment of silvopastoril systems (or systems that combine forests and animals) has proved to be beneficial, contributing to a farm’s resilience and even helping raise production levels.
These results are even better if the systems are designed by the farmers themselves, on the basis of their own resources, needs and interests. This is the main objective of a project known as Scolel-te’ (the Maya word for “growing trees”), implemented in the southern Mexican states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Tabasco. Ambio, a local organisation, has been supporting farmers in these states with a series of projects, all of them focusing on building local capacities and developing local plans.
Adding trees to pastures has helped improve the quality of the soil, and thus improve the quality and quantity of the forage produced. Trees have also become an additional source of income – farmers are able to use and sell wood, and even secure an income from the voluntary carbon markets.
Want to know more?
Write to Guillermo Jimenez Ferrer: gjimenez@ecosur.mx

Cameroon: Meeting the demand for protein

One of the many different advantages of rearing animals is that they are a supply of protein for local diets. Improving local nutrition levels, while at the same time improving local incomes, was the main objective of Link-Up Afric, an organisation made up of youngsters living near Buea, in the South- West region of Cameroon.
With two hundred birds and a locally-made incubator, they started a “quail development project”, where they have been breeding these small birds, producing eggs, and promoting the consumption of both the meat and eggs.
In less than ten months they have sold more than 1,700 eggs, meeting a demand that recognises their nutritional and medicinal properties. Meat demand is not as high, as many villagers are not willing to pay a relatively high price. But they are willing to rear the birds themselves, so they buy fertilized eggs. Both the Ministry of Livestock and Animal Industries, and local NGOs, are producing training manuals and organising courses, and thus supporting these initiatives. Link-Up Afric has shown that low production costs and high outputs make quail rearing a very interesting option.

Want to know more?

Write to INAPA, the Institute for Agro Pastoral Activities: awudungutte@yahoo.com

The post Ideas and initiatives form the field appeared first on Ileia.

Agriculture uses 70 percent of this, and much more water is required if we are to increase production. Population growth, deforestation, urbanisation, industrialisation, and certainly climate change, all point to a worsening situation. How are small-scale farmers, and the institutions that support them, getting ready to tackle this situation?

Can we be more efficient?

At least 60 percent of the world’s food is produced under rainfed conditions. For the millions of farmers who do not have access to irrigation, an uneven distribution of water means much lower yields, and therefore less production. Providing irrigation water is expensive, and irrigated areas also face difficulties. The overexploitation of groundwater has dramatically reduced its availability, while many canal-irrigated fields have become salinised – with the Aral Sea, in the old Soviet Union, as the best example of a manmade disaster.

If water is an increasingly scarce resource, how do we ensure its availability for agriculture, and also for sanitation and all our other needs? What steps are being taken in order to diminish uncertainty, or in order to make the best decisions? What rights, and what possibilities, do small-scale farmers have in order to increase yields, and improve their livelihoods? In this coming issue of Farming Matters we want to explore how groups of farmers, communities, or various stakeholders are working together, look at the co-ordinated steps which are needed at a watershed level, and at the possibilities for improving our overall efficiency.

Send us an e-mail!

The AgriCultures Network welcomes your contributions for our September issues. Featuring practical experiences from the field, our regional editions will look at micro-irrigation techniques, storing water, or at local level co-ordination approaches. Our global edition, Farming Matters, will complement the regional editions, addressing water management from a broader perspective. How can policies support small-scale farmers in improving their access to water? How can good governance ensure a more prudent, less wasteful use of water, and promote the production and consumption of water efficient crops? How can urban planners create space for urban agriculture that uses recycled wastewater? And finally, how can we, as a global movement for sustainable family farming, argue the case for low carbon agriculture as it implies better water management and greater resilience against drought and floods?

Send us your suggestions for articles, the articles themselves, photographs, names of people you feel we should talk to, ideas for topics you feel we must definitely address, your opinion, or just information about the issues mentioned above. As we are a global network, your contribution is bound to be useful to one of the editions.

You can send your ideas to Jorge Chavez-Tafur, editor, at j.chavez-tafur@ileia.org before May 15^th, 2010. For more information on the AgriCultures Network, see www.agriculturesnetwork.org.

The post Call for contributions: The water issue appeared first on Ileia.

Indonesia: Grassroots movements can make a big impact

“The mainstream media in Indonesia covered the Copenhagen conference quite well, but mostly from an environmental point of view, not so much from an agriculture point of view. For climate negotiations to make a real difference, it is better to support the growth of grassroots level initiatives rather than waiting for full support from government.
Grassroots movements, such as the Klimaforum 2009 – a group of social movements coming together from all over the world to discuss climate change solutions – have the potential to make a lot of impact. They are more likely to be sustainable in the long run (after funding has run out) and really answer the local people needs (instead of serving the interests of government or donors). Klimaforum emphasised the importance of family-based sustainable agriculture.

Furthermore, it is important to raise awareness among the youth about the devastating effects of climate change, because it is their future that will be affected. Grassroots movements, awareness raising and including the youth can form a new force to make the Indonesian government act more seriously to prevent the effects of climate change.”

Shintia D. Arwida, editor Majalah, Petani. Aliansi Organis Indonesia.
E-mail: majalahpetani@gmail.com

China: Difficult to see there is still disagreement

“Up till recently, many people in China believed climate change would not affect them. In recent years, however, unpredictable rains, prolonged droughts and crop failures have been some of the signs of global warming which have begun to affect the lives of Chinese people, especially farmers. People no longer consider that climate change is a distant threat. Therefore, China paid a lot of attention to the Copenhagen conference. Many people hoped for a final document that would reflect the common political will of the international community, and the efforts every country has made in coping with climate change. Such a document would inject new momentum for future international co-operation.

At the national and local levels, Chinese farmers have tried to be active in raising awareness about the root causes of the threats, and also in determining what actions are needed. For example, in Deqin county, one of CBIK’s project sites, villagers suffer from frequent strong winds. The traditional variety of maize could not bear the wind, so a new hybrid short-stalked variety was introduced. But the cows and yaks did not like this at all. Even if they did eat the hybrid maize, the animals did not grow as well as before and the quality of milk declined. Even if we ignore the disputes among different lobbies who attended the Copenhagen conference, climate change is never a simple issue. It is not about how humans react to the changes in nature, but about how we accompany nature during this tough ‘man-made’ period. No one can be sure what we could achieve by joint efforts, yet it is difficult to see how some people are still in disagreement.”

Ren Jian, editor LEISA China, CbIk, China.
E-mail: renjian172@126.com

Kenya: A dim beacon for the way forward

“Climate change is already devastating poor peoples’ lives. The recent prolonged drought in Eastern Africa had a big impact on vulnerable communities, with livestock deaths, famine and insufficient water for both humans and livestock. Having seen this first-hand, I attended the first week of the COP 15 conference in Copenhagen, last December. ALIN’s participation at this global conference was through a partnership with Practical Action, who had an exhibition stand. ALIN exhibited material aiming to raise awareness regarding climate change, including T-shirts with climate change messages, posters and newsletters. The conference had many exhibitions mostly focusing on what organisations and governments are doing on various climate change issues.

World leaders were supposed to negotiate the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions, but this objective was not achieved. The talks ended with little more than an agreement to keep talking; offering a dim beacon for the way forward. The leaders of the major powers negotiated with their national interests in mind, rather than safeguarding our shared destiny.

This was quite disappointing given that prior to the conference there was a lot of hope that a deal would be sealed, especially in supporting African countries to cope with the changing climate.
In my view, developing countries will continue to experience difficulties in trying to adapt to climate change. There is a need to review the negotiating process under the UNFCCC and call upon all parties to strengthen their work within the UN system to address climate change. It is my belief that all African institutions and all Africans have a role to play in addressing climate change, hence the need to solidify their efforts to ensure that the UNFCCC-COP16 in Mexico delivers fair, adequate and legally binding outcomes.”

Noah Lusaka, editor Kilimo, ALIN, Kenia
E-mail: nlusaka@alin.net

The post Globally Connected: News from the agricultures network appeared first on Ileia.