Sofia Tesfazion, Director, Resource Mobilization, AATF speaks in panel discussion during the 2023 Feed the Future Innovation Labs Regional Partners’ Meeting held in Nairobi in May 2023. Photo Credit: Feed

Bundling climate-smart solutions for Africa’s agriculture

Verenardo Meeme
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[rt_dropcap_style dropcap_letter=”A” dropcap_content=”FRICA should adopt climate-smart solutions that address multiple challenges smallholder farmers face across the agricultural value chain, an official of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) has said.”]

Sofia Tesfazion, the Director, Resource Mobilization at AATF, said bundling or aggregating solutions, as opposed to isolated interventions, would ensure projects achieve sustainable outcomes and greater impact with less financing. ‘‘Given the limited climate finance coming to Africa, Africa requires projects that address multiple facets,’’ Tesfazion said during a panel discussion on climate mitigation systems at the 2023 Feed the Future Innovation Labs Regional Partners’ Meeting held in Nairobi in May. “This strategic shift is a significant step forward in the battle against impacts of climate change, promising a brighter future for Africa’s vulnerable farming communities.”

Africa faces a disproportionate burden of the adverse effects of climate change despite being responsible for only 3.0 percent of global emissions. But the continent only receives 10 percent of what it requires for climate action. Tesfazion also called for the strengthening of the circular economy programming capacity, noting that the current investments are focused on either adaptation or mitigation, thereby losing the cobenefits.

AATF, a non-profit organisation, promotes the development and transfer of agricultural technologies to smallholder African farmers. For instance, AATF is participating in a consortium of partners that are implementing the Bio4Africa project that is funded by the European Commission’s European Research Executive Agency and led by CIRAD that develops bio-based solutions and circular value chains.

The project that is being piloted in four African countries – Ghana, Uganda, Ivory Coast and Senegal – aims to transfer simple, small-scale and robust bio-based technologies adapted to local biomass, needs and contexts to smallholder farmers and contribute to sustained food security. Technologies being piloted under the project include green bio refining, pyrolysis, hydrothermal carbonisation, briquetting, pelletising, bio-composites and bioplastic production.

“The Bio4Africa project also drives the cascading use of local resources, diversifies farmer incomes and contributes to the development of a bioeconomy in Africa,” Tesfazion said. The panelists included Evan Girvetz, Thematic Lead for Climate Smart Technologies and Practices at the Alliance of Biodiversity International and Edward Amoah Idun from the Current and Emerging Threats to Crops Innovation Lab.

The discussion was moderated by Jerry Glover, Deputy Director of the Center for Agriculture Led Growth and Lead for Research Budget and Strategy at the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, USAID. While highlighting Africa’s climate change investment, Tesfazion noted that the continent primarily focuses on adaptation measures rather than mitigation efforts.

A staggering 90% of African countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) revolve around adaptation, particularly in the agricultural sector.

Girvetz of Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT, also argued for organisations to consider local suitability, priorities and conditions in their project strategies to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes, build resilience to climate change from the farm to national levels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. ‘‘There is no such thing as an agricultural practice that is climatesmart per se.

Whether or not a particular practice or production system is climate-smart depends upon the particular local climatic, biophysical, socio-economic and development context, which determines how far a particular practice or system can deliver on productivity increase, resilience and mitigation benefits,’’ she said. Financing for climate-smart agriculture needs to be scaled up considerably to attain adaptation and mitigation benefits while enhancing food security, Girvetz said.

Technologies being piloted under the project include green bio refining, pyrolysis, hydrothermal carbonisation, briquetting, pelletising, bio-composites and bioplastic production.

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