Tag Archives: agriculture
Tanzania: Agro Forestry Greatly Improves Food Security
BY ORTON KIISHWEKO, 30 JUNE 2013 IN his publication, “Is agroforestry a suitable response to climate change”, the Regional Director of the Environment of Bas- Sassandra, notes that he exploitation of natural resources – land, water, biodiversity is reaching saturation point and this is compounded by expanding population growth. “The degradation of the natural forests is aggravating the impact of climate change,” he notes. But the most important point, he adds is “Agro forestry systems, can contribute to the mitigation of the effects of climate change, mainly by improving the microclimate and the biodiversity and the attainment of food security goals.” According to available scientific information, climate change is already affecting forest ecosystems and the services they provide including ecosystem sustainability and the maintenance of biodiversity. It is also expected to have increasing effects both positive and negative on the ecosystems and socio-economic development in the future. For example, while deforestation is responsible for about 18 per cent of greenhouse gases, forests currently still absorb more carbon than they emit and an increased tree growth is foreseen in some regions bringing new opportunities for forest industry and forest-dependent communities. To succeed in a better integration of trees and human activities on city outskirts is thus an issue for the future: improving the urban dweller’s quality of life, increasing revenues from cultivated plots in periurban areas, product diversification, etc. The tree then serves as a biodiversity reservoir in increasingly urbanising areas and could also be a factor in limiting pollution caused by leaching and runoff of chemical fertilizers used by farmers, a significant problem with peri-urban agriculture. As such, urgent efforts are required to make political decision makers understand that agro forestry is both a tool to be distributed widely as well as a different way of production. The move to strengthen this natural phenomenon was boosted this year when Vice- President Mohammed Gharib Bilal paved the way for further regional collaboration on agroforestry projects to address climate change and food security issues. He went to the World Agroforestry Centre’s Nairobi campus to learn more about our research and development activities. “We are truly honoured and humbled by the effort you have made to join us ,” said Director General Dr Dennis Garrity. In a short presentation about agroforestry and the Centre’s work, Dr Garrity highlighted partnerships with Tanzania over two decades and opportunities which exist for the future. He touched on the areas he knew were of particular interest to the Vice-President, namely climate change and food security. Dr Garrity spoke about the Centre’s work on climate change adaptation in Morogoro and about Shinyanga, Tanzania where 500,000 hectares of land are now under improved agroforestry systems. “Over 20 years, we have seen a transformation in the landscapes of Shinyanga,” he said, “this highly successful project is an example of community-based natural resource management in coland it has been hailed a global success story”. Dr Garrity went on to explain the concept of Evergreen Agriculture and his vision for the widespread integration of fertilizer trees species – Gliricidia, Tephrosia and Faidherbia albida – to provide farmers with a continual and permanent supply of fertilizer on their farms to improve crop yields. He proposed a range of opportunities for collaboration, including up-scaling Evergreen Agriculture and reigniting the Kilimo Kwanza Programme (Kiswahili for Agriculture First). Dr Garrity called for reinvigorating Tanzania’s National Agroforestry Committee to investigate applying agroforestry science across the country. The Centre’s Tanzania Country Representative, Aichi Kitalyi, added detail about some of the local issues and the need to learn from what has happened in order to develop actions for the future. Partnership Coordinator, Professor Temu, elaborated on climate change and how the integration of trees on farms can help the poor, especially those in rural villages in his native Tanzania. In his response, Vice- President Dr Bilal spoke of the goodwill that has been generated by the Centre in the country. “The environment is everything,” he said. “Your organisation is looking at the problems of food security and the environment. “The work of your institute is very important,” The Hon Bilal continued, posing the question “How can we use your knowledge and experience for strong and tangible activities that will help Tanzania and other countries in the region?” The Vice-President requested the Centre to advise his office, and keep them informed of developments in such work. He said this was of particular relevance now as they struggle to address climate change in the wake of the COP 15 meeting which failed to reach a binding agreement at the end of last year. As the discussions wrapped up, participants looked to future collaboration and maximising opportunities for agroforestry to directly benefit Tanzania. Dr Bilal toured the World Agroforestry Centre’s stateof- the-art soils and tree seed laboratories and planted a Faidherbia albida tree at the grounds. The Faidherbia tree – the tree is being advocated for Evergreen agriculture from Zimbabwe and Southern Tanzania in an attempt to improve soil fertility. Under such arrangements, villages have good crop harvest year-in year-out whether the rains were good or bad. The farmers enjoy a bumper harvest when there is a lot of rain as the crops also benefit from the fertility below the trees. “During drought,” he continued, “the tree canopy and mulch from leaf fall reduce the amount of water evaporating from the soil. This ensures that sufficient moisture remains in the soil below the trees to enable crop growth and ample harvests. The falling albida pods and leaves, it is said, were like earthworms. “They improve soil fertility,” he said. In such cases, farmers do not buy fertilizers for their field crops. This is because “applying fertilizers to crops under the F. albida trees spoils the crops as they become excessively vegetative and unproductive”. In addition to its fertility- enhancing qualities, F. albida has other uses that the villagers value highly. There is potential for enhancing crop productivity through agroforestry at the farm level. Some trees can enhance on-farm productivity and improve livelihoods of the smallholder farmers. Agroforestry is a profound investment vehicle to alleviate poverty and build environmental resilience, particularly in remote areas. It could realize the vision for creating an Evergreen Agriculture in Africa through fresh approaches to agroforestry, Farmers and policy makers have so far not taken advantage of the potential of agroforestry to contribute to poverty alleviation, to soil fertility to increased crop yields, to protection of watersheds, biodiversity, to climate mitigation through increased carbon sequestration. The role that agroforestry can play in restoration of degraded lands, in helping to reduce carbon emissions (by taking the pressure off indigenous forests) and contributing to climate mitigation through increased carbon sequestration. Such investment would build on the ongoing analyses of potential target areas for restoration being researched by WRI. In 1999, ICRAF began a project on “improved land management in the Lake Victoria basin” in collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (now the Ministry of Agriculture). The project has generated new insights into the state and causes of land degradation as well as the opportunities for farmers to improve both their incomes and the local environment through the use of new crop varieties, agroforestry and simple water harvesting techniques. Also, a major new study indicates that farms and forests may not be as incompatible as we often assume. Using detailed satellite imagery, scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre (WAC) found that on almost half of all farmed landscapes around the world, landowners are either sparing some existing trees or planting new ones, leading to what the study calls “significant” tree cover. Continue reading
Sector ‘Can Be Part Of Climate Change Solution’
BY NEELS BLOM, JULY 01 2013 Agriculture is a major contributor of greenhouse gases, with 15% emissions. Picture: THINKSTOCK THE South African social enterprise Food & Trees for Africa’s crop of choice for the mitigation of anthropogenic climate change is an unlikely member of the bamboo family, but there may be more to this grass species than meets the eye — and to the arguments made in favour of carbon sequestration with which alternative crops are credited. Climate change may not be the only constraint affecting sustainability in agriculture, but adaptation in farming may be highly effective in mitigating anthropogenic global warming now generally accepted to be the consequence of the emission of greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon-rich gases released by combustion. While agriculture is the sector most vulnerable to climate change, it is also a major contributor of greenhouse gases, accounting for about 15% of emissions, or as much as 30% when considering land-use change, including deforestation. However, agriculture can still be part of the solution, says a report on a concept known as climate-smart agriculture. One proposed adaptation is the cultivation of crops that act as carbon sinks by absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, while simultaneously addressing the social, economic and developmental constraints to sustainability. Food & Trees for Africa launched its Bamboo for Africa programme in 2010. The programme is now internationally accredited through the Verified Carbon Standard as a verified emission reduction programme. The organisation also calls the programme a greening, climate change response offering carbon offsets and which includes corporate social investment, enterprise development and black economic empowerment. The bamboo project — climate smart in that it encompasses what its proponents call a triple win — includes cultivation techniques such as mulching, intercropping, zero tillage, agro-forestry, improved grazing and improved water management. By increasing the soil’s organic content, the wins are greater water-holding capacity, crops that are resilient to climate change and carbon storage. According to the climate smart report, projects of this nature are under way in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Niger, as well as in Yemen, China, Brazil and Mexico. But the critics of carbon sequestration programmes in agriculture say the credits generated by farmers and sold to emitters in developed economies generate a false belief that they have offset their polluting activities. They say also that the idea of leveraging finance for African agriculture is misleading and that they are more likely to threaten farmers’ livelihoods. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy says in a report by Steve Suppan that there is no money for agriculture in Africa from carbon offsets. “The financial structure of climate smart agriculture is built on evaporating carbon markets. Carbon markets are in collapse, and projects will have inadequate finance.” The reports says it will take several years of project implementation before any carbon credits can be sold, and that offset projects will struggle to find investors. The responsibility for pre-financing these projects has so far fallen to governments, with the result that they have become a diversion of public funds that are needed to tackle climate change. Carbon prices have fallen to a low of less than €3 per ton, which is too low to persuade emitters to switch to greener energy. For African farmers the meagre profit thus generated cannot recoup the public finance investment, let alone leverage real funds, critics say. A much-vaunted World Bank pilot project in Kenya, for instance, is likely to generate between $5 and $1 per year per farmer. All that happens is that taxpayers will prop up failing carbon markets for the benefit of speculators. Continue reading
Fund Review: BGF World Agriculture fund
ivestock investment boosts short-term performance By Nyree Stewart | Published Jul 01, 2013 A recent short-term performance boost for the $294m (£187.1m) BGF World Agriculture fund is a result of a move towards more downstream areas of the agriculture sector, such as livestock, in the past six months. However, the fund’s performance has lagged its benchmark in the year to date. The Luxembourg-domiciled fund, co-managed by Desmond Cheung and Richard Davis, targets agriculture sector growth but specifically focuses on capturing what farmers are doing at any one point in the cycle. Mr Cheung explains: “Some of our competitors would expand quite a bit further away into the food sector, but while we have a little bit of food sector exposure in this fund, it is mainly due to the fact they have direct relationships or dealings with the farmers. So we don’t generally buy into companies such as Wal-Mart even though obviously it is in the food supply chain.” Process The fund’s investment process is primarily bottom-up, with Mr Cheung noting the key underlying driver is stock selection based on valuation, with a three- to five-year view on the company. But he adds: “Obviously, this is quite a cyclical sector, so we have to include a top-down overlay to determine which part of the cycle we are in. We try to incorporate the two and come to a conclusion on the recommendations on each of the names and the size of the position within the fund.” The fund is also not constrained by the market cap of companies available within the agriculture sector, and currently has roughly 10 per cent of the fund allocated to small caps, with a further 30 per cent weighting in medium-sized businesses. Performance Since launch in March 2010, the sterling-hedged share class of the fund has returned 15.81 per cent to June 10 2013, compared with a 24.92 per cent return from the benchmark FSE DAXglobal Agribusiness TR USD, according to Morningstar. However, on a discrete-year basis, the fund’s sterling share class significantly outperformed the index in 2012, with a return of 11.49 per cent compared with the benchmark return of 8.32 per cent. The manager points out the fund has not excluded any parts of the agriculture sector, so while some may have the perception the universe consists solely of seed or fertiliser or equipment companies – areas that are fairly consolidated – this is not the case. “The way we classify or define the agriculture sector is little bit wider. On one side you have arable farmers, which are those growing crops such as corn, wheat and soya beans and so those would be captured more under the seed, chemicals, equipment or fertiliser companies. But then other parts of the farming world that have been neglected in the past three years are the livestock sectors. When corn or soya bean prices rallied in the past couple of years, those are effectively the input costs that go into the production of meat, so they’ve been suffering from the high rises in crop prices.” Continue reading
