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Food Security: Are Our Diets Sustainable?

REPORT FROM FOOD SECURITY AND ADAPTATION CONFERENCE 2013 AT UNITED NATIONS GIGIRI.
By Phena Nyamulu.



August 26th, 2013.

SPEAKERS

● Mr. Mounkalia Goumanadakoye, the Regional Director and 

Representative, UNEP Regional Office for Africa.

● Mr. Modibo Traore, FAO Representative to the AU and UNECA.

● Dr. Tony Simons, Director General World Agro forestry Centre 

(ICRAF).

INTRODUCTION

Africa’s vulnerability to climate change impacts have been underscored by the severe droughts experienced in Sahel in 2012 and the Horn of Africa in 2011. Its population is expected to constitute about 23% of the global population by 2050 hence placing a huge demand on the government and states to provide opportunities for enough food and new dietary demands. The challenge therefore is charting new pathways to eliminate food insecurity, adapt to the changing climate and build sustainable systems. There is need therefore for a paradigm shift towards Sustainable development goals to replace the millennium development goals after 2015, which will serve multiple purposes and provide cross cutting benefits to Africa and the rest of the world.

In 2008, 1.3 million people in rural areas and 3.5 to 4 million people in Urban Areas were food insecure in Africa. Therefore, Achieving food security is unmanageable without climate smart practices that not only support farmers produce enough food to meet people’s needs but also preserve ecosystems from degradation. Approaches with the potential for informing and guiding policy and practices are imperative. One of these approaches is the Ecosystem Based Approaches which provide flexible, cost effective and broadly applicable alternatives for building robust food systems on less inputs, and reduces the impacts of climate change.

The question therefore should be what is the meaning of food security? And how can the emerging Ecosystem Based approaches in addressing food shortages be consolidated and scaled up? What scale of production is appropriate to do this? Below are some conference highlights and possible solutions going forward.



HIGHLIGHTS AND THE WAY FORWARD

● States and Governments should allocate budgets for food security in their strategic plans.

● There is need for monitoring and evaluating the allocated funds from Governments and donors.

● There is need for transboundary cooperation between countries to upscale Agribusiness in promoting businesses of large scale and small scale farmers.

● Organization of farmer into groups at grass root level to enhance self funded projects instead of depending for funds from donors.

● Upscale training among young people to make them understand that farming is a business and not a punishment.

● The gap between science and research should be addressed to create an understanding on what has been researched on and what needs to be done.

● In terms of funding, BOT, BOS, BOL mechanisms should be used to be able to access funding for projects.

● Form a resource management board to manage finance in Africa (Regional and continental)

● Mainstream EBA into the school curriculum starting from the elementary level to the University level.

● Integrate robust early warning systems in order to utilize the benefits of EBA.

● Pursue Sustainable Development Goals Agenda to mainstream policies and financial mechanisms.

● Apply mitigation practices in initiating resource management and sustainable farming practices in order to curb GHG emissions into the atmosphere.

● Incorporate the post-harvest methods into the EBA to achieve a food secure nation.

● Set up institutions that mainstream sustainable practices in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

● Take conferences on food security to the rural areas to educate farmers to educate them on EBA to apply on their farms.

● Use regional blocks to ensure donor funds trickle down to communities.

To learn more about the conference and its proceedings go to http: //www.foodsec.aaknet.org/
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Climate Change: What Does That Really Mean?



According to the World Bank June 19, 2013


As the coastal cities of Africa and Asia expand, many of their poorest residents are being pushed to the edges of livable land and into the most dangerous zones for climate change. Their informal settlements cling to riverbanks and cluster in low-lying areas with poor drainage, few public services, and no protection from storm surges, sea-level rise, and flooding.
These communities – the poor in coastal cities and on low-lying islands – are among the world’s most vulnerable to climate change and the least able to marshal the resources to adapt, a new report finds. They face a world where climate change will increasingly threaten the food supplies of Sub-Saharan Africa and the farm fields and water resources of South Asia and South East Asia within the next three decades, while extreme weather puts their homes and lives at risk.
A new scientific report commissioned by the World Bank and released on June 19, explores the risks to lives and livelihoods in these three highly vulnerable regions.Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience (Read it in Issuu, Scribd, and Open Knowledge Repository) takes the climate discussion to the next level, building on a 2012 World Bank report that concluded from a global perspective that without a clear mitigation strategy and effort, the world is headed for average temperatures 4 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, by the end of this century.

Small number, big problem
Communities around the world are already feeling the impacts of climate change today, with the planet only 0.8 ºC warmer than in pre-industrial times. Many of us could experience the harsher impacts of a 2ºC warmer world within our lifetimes – 20 to 30 years from now – and  4ºC is likely by the end of the century without global action.
The report lays out what these temperature increases will look like, degree-by-degree, in each targeted region and the damage anticipated for agricultural production, coastal cities, and water resources.
“The scientists tell us that if the world warms by 2°C – warming which may be reached in 20 to 30 years – that will cause widespread food shortages, unprecedented heat-waves, and more intense cyclones," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. "In the near-term, climate change, which is already unfolding, could batter the slums even more and greatly harm the lives and the hopes of individuals and families who have had little hand in raising the Earth's temperature.”
The report, based on scientific analysis by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, uses advanced computer simulations to paint the clearest picture of each region’s vulnerabilities. It describes the risks to agriculture and livelihood security in Sub-Saharan Africa; the rise in sea-level, loss of coral reefs and devastation to coastal areas likely in South East Asia; and the fluctuating water resources in South Asia that can lead to flooding in some areas and water scarcity in others, as well as affecting power supply.
“The second phase of this report truly reiterates our need to bring global attention to the tasks necessary to hold warming to 2ºC,” said Rachel Kyte, the Bank’s vice president for sustainable development. “Our ideas at the World Bank have already been put into practice as we move forward to assist those whose lives are particularly affected by extreme weather events.”
Open Quotes
The scientists tell us that if the world warms by 2°C – warming which may be reached in 20 to 30 years – that will cause widespread food shortages, unprecedented heat-waves, and more intense cyclones. Close Quotes
Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group
Jim Yong KimPresident, World Bank Group
Sub-Saharan Africa
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers found food security will be the overarching challenge, with dangers from droughts, flooding, and shifts in rainfall.
Between 1.5°C-2°C warming, drought and aridity, will contribute to farmers losing  40-80 percent of cropland conducive to growing maize, millet, and sorghum by the 2030s-2040s, the researchers found.
In a 4°C warmer world, around the 2080s, annual precipitation may decrease by up to 30 percent in southern Africa, while East Africa will see more rainfall, according to multiple studies. Ecosystem changes to pastoral lands, such as a shift from grass to woodland savannas as levels of carbon dioxide increase, could reduce food for grazing cattle.
In South East Asia, coastal cities will be under intense stress due to climate change.
A sea-level rise of 30 cm, possible by 2040 if business as usual continues, would cause massive flooding in cities and inundate low-lying cropland with saltwater corrosive to crops. Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, a global rice producer, is particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise.  A 30 cm sea-level rise there could result in the loss of about 11 percent of crop production. At the same time, storm intensity is likely to increase.
The study also describes rising ocean acidity leading to the loss of coral reefs and the benefits they provide as fish habitats, protection against storms, and revenue-generators in the form of tourism.  Warmer water temperatures and habitat destruction could also lead to a 50 percent decrease in the ocean fish catch in the southern Philippines, the report says.
Water scarcity in some areas and overabundance of water in others are the hallmarks of climate change in South Asia, the researchers found.
Inconsistences in the monsoon season and unusual heat extremes will affect crops. Loss of snow melt from the Himalayas will reduce the flow of water into the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. Together, they threaten to leave hundreds of millions of people without enough water, food, or access to reliable energy. Bangladesh and the Indian cities of Kolkata and Mumbai will be confronted with increased flooding, intense cyclones, sea-level rise, and warming temperatures. 
World Bank’s response
In his first year as president of the World Bank, Jim Kim has raised the profile of climate change in speeches and in conversations with leaders around the world, as well as within the institution. The Bank is currently working with 130 countries on climate change; it doubled its lending for adaptation to $4.6 billion in 2012 and put $7.1 billion into mitigation, in addition to its work with carbon finance and the Climate Investment Funds; and it now includes climate change in all country assessments.
The Bank is also developing a Climate Management Action Plan, informed by theTurn Down the Heat reports, to direct its future work and finance through a climate lens. Among other things, the Bank will:
•             Help countries develop strategic plans and investment pipelines that integrate the risks and opportunities of climate change.
•             Provide the tools that countries and cities need to better assess and adapt to climate change, including greenhouse gas emissions tracking, energy use and efficiency assessments, and assessments of resilience.
•             Create best practices and norms through its projects for making infrastructure resilient, not just today but decades into the future.
•             Use its convening power, financial leverage and targeted climate funds to increase support for clean energy, low-carbon development, and climate resilience.
In order to help countries build resilience, the Bank will prioritize the most vulnerable areas, manage water availability and extremes, and increase its efforts to meet growing food demand. It will work with the world’s largest emitters to lower their impact through carbon emissions and short-lived climate pollutants. Its specialists are working on ways to help governments end fossil fuel subsidies while protecting the poor, connect global carbon markets, and make agriculture and cities climate-smart and resilient.
 “I do not believe the poor are condemned to the future scientists envision in this report,” Kim said. “We are determined to work with countries to find solutions.”
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Food Security: Full Planet, Changing Climate, Empty Plates…



The world population is estimated to be 7.017 billion, according to the United States Census Bureau in March 12 2012 Report. The UN Population Division estimated that by 2050, the global population is projected to be between 8.3 billion and 10.9 Billion.

What does this mean for Africa?

That out of the 7.017 billion, it is the second most populated continent following Asia with its 4.2 billion inhabitants accounting for over 60% of the world’s population and 15% of the world’s population which is close to one billion people is from Africa.

Map showing urban areas with at least one million inhabitants in 2006. Only 3% of the world's population lived in cities in 1800; this proportion had risen to 47% by 2000, and reached 50.5% by 2010.[47] By 2050, the proportion may reach 70%.[48]
20th August 2013 Marked the Earth Overshoot Day, The approximate date our resource
consumption for a given year exceeds the planets ability to replenish. The Earth Overshoot day arrives a few days earlier each year. This is but a minuscule indicator of how dire the food situation is globally.

Population growth will greatly increase the amount of food needed to adequately feed sub Saharan Africa’s people. Sub Sahara Population is projected to reach to 2 billion people in 2050. 

Why is Africa at risk?

Today, 30 million children (1 in 5) in sub-Saharan Africa are underweight – 5.5 million more than 20 years ago. In March 12 2012, statistics show that nearly 240 million people or one person in every four lack adequate food to a healthy and active life.


In 2009, Kenya's population was estimated at 38.6 million, up from 28.7 million in 1999, 21.4 million in 1989 and 15.3 million in 1979 (CBS, 1979, 1989, 1999, KNBS, 2010). Please note that a third (12.7 million) of Kenyans live in urban areas with 60-70% of those in informal settlements, where land is scarce and the environmental conditions tolerable at best, causing 35% of children under the age of five years to be stunted, 16% underweight and 7% to be wasted. [Kenya Demographic Health Survey 2009].

How Secure is our food supply considering the number of people that need to be fed?
What measures are being put forward to adapt to the changing climate? What measures are being put forward to prepare for the future? Watch the following trailer to the documentary: Future of Food.



Will we continue to waste food because we know we can afford it? What is the government doing to make sure their population's food supply is secure? 
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