Act now to build resilient food systems

Last week, Kenya hosted the 11th Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) which brought together more than 8,000 participants from African governments, private sector and the development community, among others.

Discussions were centred on strategies to transform the continent’s food systems in the face of three critical challenges: Covid-19, climate change and conflict.

The paradox remains that Africa has 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet the continent is not able to feed itself and remains a net importer of food. The United Economic Commission for Africa recently put Africa’s annual food imports at $43 billion, and this is forecasted to increase to $110 billion by 2025.

Just recently, the Kenya Revenue Authority indicated that Kenya imported food worth Sh103.34 billion between January and June this year, which was a 13.5 percent increase over last year.

The summit identified policy as one of the key enablers of food systems transformation. Governments were called upon to develop policies that are pro-growth, sustainable, encourage innovation, and grounded on evidence. There is an urgent need for policy development that is both bottom-up and inclusive.

Governments were called upon to honour commitments made in the past, including the Malabo Declaration of 2014 where targets were made to have at least 10 percent of public expenditure allocated to agriculture. In Kenya, the government has only committed 3.2 percent of this year’s budget to agriculture.

The private sector was also challenged to step up investments in agriculture, particularly financial institutions to increase lending. There is a recognition that the sector needs innovative approaches to meet its financing needs. It was encouraging to hear from some private sector players who found opportunities to continue operating and even diversify their businesses in the Covid pandemic.

Food systems

Farmers are at the centre of any discussion on food systems and transformation cannot happen without investing in smallholder farmers. Speakers passionately appealed to stakeholders to support this group. These farmers need support around land tenure legislation, digital innovations, and access to finance, information and markets among others.

The role of women and youth was also brought to the fore. Africa’s food systems need to be inclusive enough that they provide customised support to these groups. Youth have a challenge getting decent jobs within the food systems yet they do not have the resources for primary production.

Gender is inextricably woven through all aspects of the food system. Speakers called for adequate female representation across institutions, at policy discussions and as equal recipients of funding and other interventions.

The importance of climate adaptation was also discussed as climate change not only has adverse effects on the environment and food system production, but also exacerbates humanitarian crises and conflict. Passionate pleas were made for all to adopt and support climate smart agriculture while adapting and mitigating the effects of the changing climate.

Collaborative leadership

A somewhat new addition to the forum discussions was the recognition that there is a need to invest in the food systems leaders of today and the future. There were interesting discussions around the importance of honing collaborative leadership skills to deliver on sector priorities and sharing of ideas on how to inspire new forms of leadership.

Two young initiatives, the Centre for African Leaders in Agriculture and the African Food Fellowship shared their approaches on how they are catalysing professional movements of food systems leaders on the continent.

The Forum sought to build a single African voice ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit later this month.  The UN summit identifies food systems as the driver that will enable recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and get the world back on track to achieving the SDGs.

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