Focus on agroecology to ensure food security in Africa

AS the Africa’s Food Systems Forum 2023 Summit (AGRF-2023) concludes today, the ActionAid Tanzania has underscored the need for African countries to deeply focus on agriculture ecology, in response to climate change that is currently threatening food systems.

This was said on Wednesday in Dar es Salaam by Programme Manager for ActionAid Mr Elias Mtinda, during the launch of ActionAid’ s new campaign called ‘Fund our future ‘.

He noted that the launched campaign intends mainly to push financial institutions to cut funding for climate harming industrial agriculture and all fossil fuel projects.

Mr Mtinda said it is high time for the African countries to focus on agroecology to ensure food security in the continent which is affected by the challenges of climate change.

“We (ActionAid) believe that agroecology is a powerful and innovative solution to stop the climate crisis and strengthen the resilience of food systems to climate change impacts,” Mr Mtinda said.

Adding: “There are various alternative methods that will be able to support these farmers to produce more food crops in the same challenging situation of climate change.”

Commenting on the launched campaign, the ActionAid Country Director Mr Bavon Christopher said the orgnisation will run the campaign for three years, while insisting that the campaign is based on raising the public awareness about the effects of climate change.

“Fund our future campaign is also based on influencing public and private institutions to invest in agriculture ecology and renewable energy instead of investing in agriculture that uses industrial inputs and chemicals that are not friendly for the environment,” he added.

The launch of the campaign was in line with launching of the organization’s report called ‘How Finance Flows: The Banks Fueling the Climate Crisis’, Mr Christopher saying that the report revealed the way financial institutions contribute to global climate change.

According to Mr Christopher, financial institutions have been able to finance the fossil fuel industries in the Global South (that affect the environment in developing countries) with an average of 3.2 trillion US dollars in seven years since the Paris Agreement on climate changes was adopted.

“ActionAid’s report recommends that the banks immediately stop financing the companies that initiate the projects that involve deforestation, agriculture activities that use the harmful inputs and other related activities,” he said.

In particular, Mr Christopher said based on the research done by organization, the governments have to supervise and provide the guidelines to the banks and urging them to stop financing the development of the projects that produce fossil fuel.