Water management is crucial in the sustainable development of the food systems agenda. In Sub-Saharan Africa, evidence points to a future with decreasing precipitation (IPCC, 2019). Therefore, detailed characterization and understanding of the hydrological components of the water systems are of paramount importance to planning, designing, implementing, and fostering the adoption of water-conserving practices. As part of my thesis, I focused on conducting a regional assessment of crop water requirement and availability of effective precipitation (PrpE) between 2020-2035. The analysis showed about a 30% projected reduction in the availability of PrpE which means increased drought stress for Maize, cassava, soybeans, and groundnut production. The results revealed that crops are likely to suffer from water stress conditions during the mid-growth stages which can negatively affect yields. However, water-conserving farming practices such as mulching and cover cropping can help in alleviating the adverse impacts of water stress in smallholder farmer communities. Conclusively, a food systems approach that integrates water use efficiency in crop production is key in the sustainable development program.
Source: Irmak (2008)
Figure 1: Schematic representation of Maize Crop Water Requirements based on growth stages
*High Kc values are indicative of higher crop water requirement
IPCC (2019) ‘Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems ‘, Intergovernment Panel of Climate Change. [Editors: P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmotte, H.- O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, P. Zhai, R. Slade, S. Connors, R. van Diemen, M. Ferrat, E. Haughey, S. Luz, S. Neogi, M. Pathak, J. Petzold, J. Portugal Pereira, P. Vyas, E. Huntley, K. Kissick, M. Belkacemi, J. Malley].
Irmak, S. (2008) ‘Evapotranspiration’, in Jørgensen, S.E. and Fath, B.D. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Ecology. Oxford: Academic Press, pp. 1432-1438.
I’m happy that I have finally submitted my MScCCAFS dissertation which I have been working on for the past 3 months. My work focused on investigating water availability for crop production in the Chongwe watershed of Zambia. I used the Water Evaluation and Planning system to quantify both water demand and supply delivered. Furthermore, I calculated the crop water requirements of Maize, Cassava, soybeans, and groundnuts in the study region. The trend clearly points to a future with limited water availability for crop production, especially for maize and cassava. Although the projections point towards the unsuitability of the study region for maize and cassava production, climate adaptation strategies such as breeding for drought/heat stress tolerance and water use efficiency can be beneficial. Furthermore, water-conserving farming practices such as mulching and cover cropping can help in alleviating the adverse impacts of water stress on smallholder farmer communities.
Total Monthly distribution of precipitation in the area where blue= 1969-2019 and Orange=2020-2035. The units are M m3 = Million cubic meter
The United Nations Organisation will be convening a food systems summit 2021 to mark the decadal actions for attaining the sustainable development goals. The agenda of the summit will include the launch of the 5 bold action tracks vital for building sustainable and resilient food systems. The 5 action tracks are:
1. Ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all 2. Shift to sustainable consumption patterns 3. Boost nature-positive production 4. Advance equitable livelihoods 5. Build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks, and stress
I am particularly going to focus on action track 2 in this blog post because shifting consumption patterns present great potential for delivering both human and planetary health. Transforming the food tax system by introducing greenhouse gas emission-based tax has the potential to transform eating patterns. Furthermore, action track 2 offers economical yet important solutions that require deliberate behavioral change by producers, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers.
Action Track 2 – Shift to healthy and sustainable consumption patterns
The effects of food and nutrition insecurity pose serious threats to the health of people. The situation is further exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. This has resulted in a global loss of approximately 255 million disability-adjusted life-years (Afshin et al., 2019). Additionally, Willett et al. (2019) assert that more than 820 million people suffer from obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and other non-communicable diseases due to low-quality diets. Therefore, the increasing prominence of retailers in defining diets can be leveraged to influence a shift towards sustainable consumption patterns. Incorporating sustainable consumption strategies into the retailer’s food business model can have an overarching potential of attaining healthy lives globally.
Food stock Carbon Tax
Retailers have a prominent position to promote dietary shifts and create economic, environmental, and social value for food. The retailers’ triple-fold influence on agricultural systems on both the supply and demand side of food can have a significant role in dictating dietary shifts towards plant-based healthy diets. The collaboration among retailers, producers, processors, and consumers needs to be strengthened by policies that enable retailers to demand sustainable food products from producers. Shih-Tse Wang and Tsai (2014) assert that retail stores can influence consumer risk perception and impact behavioral change.
Therefore, actions that can underpin the shift towards healthy and sustainable diets would include the introduction of a wholesaler and retail food carbon tax. Tax can be charged based on the types of food stocks a shop contains-placing tax on food based on greenhouse gas emissions (Revoredo-Giha et al., 2018). This presents an effective way of monitoring available foods on the market and it is also an effective option for editing consumer food choices. Furthermore, wholesalers and retailers can promote the circularity of the food industry by entering into contractual agreements with manufacturing companies to establish an incentive-based system that encourages consumers to return recyclable food packages to the stores.
Conclusion
The shift to healthier diets will require producers to work hard to ensure that their farm enterprise activities do not transgress the planetary and healthy boundaries. Additionally, consumers need to be knowledgeable of the impacts of their dietary choices. Therefore, introducing food nutrition and climate change subjects at all in schools will be key to addressing dietary shifts. Conclusively, I believe that introducing a carbon tax based on the types of food items that wholesalers and retailers stock would be a viable mechanism to foster the transition to healthy and sustainable diets.
References
Afshin, A., Sur, P. J., Fay, K. A., Cornaby, L., Ferrara, G., Salama, J. S., Mullany, E. C., Abate, K. H., Abbafati, C. and Abebe, Z. (2019) ‘Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017’, The Lancet, 393(10184), pp. 1958-1972.
Revoredo-Giha, C., Chalmers, N. and Akaichi, F. (2018) ‘Simulating the Impact of Carbon Taxes on Greenhouse Gas Emission and Nutrition in the UK’, Sustainability, 10(1), pp. 134.
Shih-Tse Wang, E. and Tsai, B.-K. (2014) ‘Consumer response to retail performance of organic food retailers’, British Food Journal, 116(2), pp. 212-227.
Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., Garnett, T., Tilman, D., DeClerck, F. and Wood, A. (2019) ‘Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems’, The Lancet, 393(10170), pp. 447-492.
The Platform for Accelerating Circular Economy (PACE) launched the Circular Economy action agenda on the 4th of February 2021. I am thrilled to have attended the virtual conference and excited with the plans that the governments, civil society, and business leaders shared on operationalizing the action agenda. The agenda focuses on 5 dynamic sectors which include food, plastics, textiles, electronics, and capital equipment
The world economy has gone through huge transitions, and now is the time to shift towards a circular economy as it presents a strong pillar against climate change. Moreover, devoting resources to a circular economy is crucial for the realization of the agenda 2030, the Paris agreement, the 2050 net-zero commitments, and building sustainable economic recovery post the covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the action agenda on capital equipment points out that changing the way capital equipment is made and used could contribute to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 45%. Consequently, the report shows that the circular economic model presents a US$4.5 trillion economic gain while reducing the use of raw materials during the manufacture of capital equipment, which is currently at 7.2 billion tons of raw materials per annum.
The impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on the world economies have shown the vulnerability of the linear economic model to any disturbance in the flow of resources, with agriculture being one of the most affected sectors. Therefore, the application of the circular economy in the agriculture capital equipment sub-sector could have enormous gains. Firstly, circularity in the agri-machinery industry would mean the promotion of the use of renewable energy and reusable pieces of equipment. Secondly, shared ownership or use of equipment such as tractors, combine harvesters, drones, irrigation facilities, and trucks at the cooperative or community level would be essential in attaining circularity. The application of concepts such as “machine sharing platforms” which borrows the concept of uber on agri-capital equipment could be vital in ensuring service availability and reducing pressure on raw materials used in the manufacture of huge quantity of equipment, which sometimes lay idle in warehouses, shops or is underutilized by sole owners. Thirdly, accelerating the circular agenda would require that durability of agri-capital equipment is further improved. Fourthly, putting into place efficient frameworks that strengthen the reverse logistics to enable customers to return equipment or components of equipment to the manufacture at the end of use is important if circularity is to be achieved. Additionally, ensuring an enabling policy environment that fosters reverse logistics and promotes transparency would be cardinal. Fifthly and lastly, improving the reusability of parts or components of agriculture capital equipment would be essential in reducing the waste and carbon footprint of the capital equipment industry.
Transforming the key driver of the global economy through circularity is a necessity and now is the time to act. Consequently, leveraging the agro-capital equipment circular agenda would be key in building sustainable and resilient markets, foster linkages between manufacturers and customers, and improve the working and living conditions of people. Conclusively, working towards a circular economy of capital equipment plays a critical role in preventing waste and pollution, minimizing environmental impacts, and tackling capital raw resource overconsumption, thereby leading to more resilient and sustainable economic development.
The coming into effect of the AfCFTA on 1st January 2021 presents a sustainable and inclusive framework for agribusiness. The agreement is particularly important to the majority of female traders who were mostly involved in informal cross-border trading. The operationalization of continental free trade agreement provides opportunities such as high economies of scale, access to affordable inputs, and strengthens linkages and partnerships such as between researchers, producers, and consumers across Africa. However, there is still a need for advocacy especially to the grassroots farmers in order that they equally benefit from AfCFTA.
Science and policy integration present a great opportunity to transform and create resilience of food systems past the covid-19 pandemic. Achieving the objective increasingly demands for knowledge sharing and exchanges among a wide range of disciplines and actors.
