Dear All,
I would like to endorse Katy Lee complimenting Florence and also, with your permission, record our appreciation, of her finding the time and conducting a positive and transparent consultation, focusing on the needs of the rural poor producer communities, looking for solutions for the agrarian crissis and for their long term sustainability. My answer to the 3 thematic Qs given below, with supporting attachments.
Subhash
Food, Nutrition & Health Security through ‘Agro ecology’ also Mitigates Climate Change:
Climate change directly affects rural poor communities producing own requirements of nutritious food. Following conventional agriculture systems has pushed 100’s of million people into deep distress, increasing hunger, malnutrition and poverty, reducing net income and purchasing power, thus hitting them the hardest, especially women and youth, resulting in migration to urban slums. Producer communities, pastoralists, forest dwellers and fisher folk are facing hardships in producing and accessing nutritious food due to unseasonal hail storms, rain, floods, etc. In the long term, following conventional agriculture systems is the cause of the present agrarian crissis, climate change, soil degradation, etc., seriously affecting the environment and therefore nutrition, food and health security.
Climate change has mostly occurred in areas following high cost high risk green revolution conventional agriculture, reducing numbers of trees, hardening of soil, increasing use of agro chemicals and water, year after year with productivity plateauing, has been harmful to the environment and cause of the agrarian crissis. Conventional agriculture facilitates climate change and being high cost high risk, will exacerbate the crisis of hunger, malnutrition and poverty with increasing prices, with the producer communities not having the money to buy own requirements of safe, nutritious food.
’Agro ecological systems (interface between climate change, food, health and nutrition) of each area being low cost low risk is the obvious solution to ensure producers access to own requirements of safe nutritious food also mitigates the effects of climate change, FAO September 2014 conference. Urgent measures are urgently needed to be taken by countries for re converting to the low cost low risk safe and nutritious food production, following agro ecology of each area, putting the rural poor producer communities to work and gainfully, produce own requirements of nutritious food and cash, at little or no cost and to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, hunger, malnutrition, poverty and suicides, whilst increasing net incomes/ purchasing power to improve livelihoods of about 50% of the population dependent on agriculture thus calling for policies, programmes and projects being integrated, following Agro ecology systems of the area.
This is in keeping with Rome Declaration on Nutrition and Framework of Action adopted by the 2nd International Conference on Nutrition in November 2014 recognized:
“the need to address the impacts of climate change and other environmental factors on food security and nutrition, in particular on the quantity, quality and diversity of food produced, taking appropriate action to tackle negative effects” and recommended to “establish and strengthen institutions, policies, programmes and services to enhance the resilience of the food supply in crisis-prone areas, including areas affected by climate change”.
We need to create awareness of the richness of the knowledge document and as applied by successful producer communities, to their soil and agro climatic conditions and managed in their area around the world, learning from the AR4D being done by successful farmers, season after season, not the research being done in labs, most of which is not replicable in the field.
I have highlighted the impact of conventional agriculture on climate change, food, health and nutrition and provide possible solutions to improve livelihoods while reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions thus ensuring long-term nutrition, food, health and climate security, thus have endeavored to answer the following thematic Qs, focusing on meeting the needs of the rural poor smallholder producer communities in my above contribution:
1) What are the main issues for policy-makers to consider when linking climate change to food security and nutrition through agriculture, in particular when designing, formulating and implementing policies and programmes?
2) What are the key institutional and governance challenges to the delivery of cross-sect oral and comprehensive policies that promotes access to low cost nutritious food to the most vulnerable, and contribute to sustainable and resilient food systems in the long term?
3) What are key best-practices and lessons-learned in fostering cross-sect oral linkages to improve nutrition and food through agriculture, while preventing, adapting to climate change and reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions?
Sr. Subhash Mehta