Tendani Gadisi

Smallholder farmers are among the most susceptible populations to the effects of climate change, but efforts to aid in farmer adaptation are hampered by a lack of knowledge on how they are coping with and adapting to the changes. In order to tailor adaptation programmes to the various contexts of smallholder farmers, more knowledge is required about how different types of smallholder farmers perceive and react to climate change differently.

Smallholder farmers are at great risk due to climate change, which also poses a danger to global advancements in eradicating poverty, ensuring food security, and fostering sustainable development (Vermeulen et al 2012). Around the world, there are 475 million smallholder farmers who work less than 2 hectares of land, many of them are destitute, endure food insecurity, and live in extremely risky circumstances (Lipper et al 2014). Due to their reliance on rain-fed agriculture, cultivation of marginal land, and lack of access to technical or financial assistance that may help them engage in more climate-resilient agriculture, smallholder farmers are particularly vulnerable to climate change (Cohn et al 2017).

Despite mounting evidence of smallholder farmers’ susceptibility to climate change and growing interest in ensuring food security in the face of it (Vermeulen et al. 2012), adaptation efforts are still hampered by a lack of knowledge about how smallholder farmers are coping with and adapting to the change. In order to develop policies, institutional responses, and strategies for smallholder farmer adaptation, policy makers, donors, and practitioners need precise, context-specific data on the effects of climate change that smallholder farmers are experiencing, as well as whether (and how) they are modifying their management strategies to deal with these impacts (Castellanos et al 2017).

Demographics of the family have an impact on farmers’ ability to make wise adaptation decisions. Farm size, income, market accessibility, access to climate information and extension, and animal output also have a favourable impact. In places like Zambia, where small-scale agriculture is essential to economic growth, food security, and local lives, understanding the effects of climate change on smallholder farmers and creating effective adaptation techniques are crucial challenges. Additionally, additional knowledge is required about the variations in smallholder farmer vulnerability and responses across various farming systems and socioeconomic contexts. By examining the factors of adaptive ability, the demands for resilience of smallholder farmers who have the potential to act may be broken down for targeted climate change and intervention.

Biblography

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This is part of a sequence related to my thesis writing for MscCCAFS completion. Check out their website at www.nuigalway.ie/ccafs for a brief overview of the course outline. In this post, I will highlight some key concepts discussed in the thesis paper

Climate Adaptation

Climate adaptation methods must be scaled up to improve livelihood sustainability and climate resilience in resource-constrained smallholder agricultural systems. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes adaptation as the process of responding to changing climate and its effects (IPCC, 2022). Adaptation is also known as an anthropocentric reaction that seeks to limit harm or capitalize on favorable possibilities for mankind. Maladaptation is defined as climate change adaptation that has unexpected negative consequences

Agriculture and the food industry are crucial to global food security and long-term growth. While there is a need to cut agricultural and food sector emissions, there is also a need to rapidly scale a diverse portfolio of practises, technologies, and systems to transition (or “transform”) to agriculture and food systems that are better suited and robust to future climates. The urgency of implementing adaptation in agricultural and food systems is heightened by the already visible strong trends in climate change, as well as the substantial potential of more extreme changes including greater frequency and severity of unfavourable climate-related occurrences.

Maladaptation

Maladaptation is a major emphasis of the 2022 IPCC report. Back in 2014, the IPCC defined maladaptation as “activities that may raise the probability of severe climate-related consequences, increased susceptibility to climate change, or lower wellbeing, now or in the future.” But, in order to really comprehend the technique, we must first comprehend adaptation—and why we so sorely require it.

Studies show that as climate change accelerates, people become more sensitive to dangers such as flooding and excessive heat. “When we adapt, what we strive to do is reduce the negative effect of these hazards by minimizing exposure and vulnerability, and thus, decreasing risk.” However, because climate change is unexpected and occurring in real-time, leaders are improvising answers, and some of their adaptation efforts are unsuccessful. One thing that is more evident is that there have quick solutions to climate dilemmas and in ways that lock us into particular types of growth trajectories, we risk these adaptation techniques backfiring and making us more vulnerable to climate change.

However, eliminating maladaptation will be difficult. It necessitates a rigorous examination of present programme flaws, such as the climate finance from affluent nations that continues to fall through. It’s also vital to realize that no one method will work everywhere—why that’s adaptability exists

How to do it better

To avoid maladaptation, planners and leaders must listen to all groups of people, whether they be illegal immigrants, women, or religious minority. This entails going outside of the NGOs and other groups that traditionally make climate-planning choices, getting on the ground, and gathering local feedback to establish the true source of the problem. This is also emphasised in the most recent IPCC report, which emphasises a comprehensive approach to strengthening ecological stewardship, education, and involvement in future mitigation and adaptation approaches.

Biblography

IPCC 2022. Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.Summary for policymakers. Cambridge University Press.

KNICKEL, K., REDMAN, M., DARNHOFER, I., ASHKENAZY, A., CHEBACH, T. C., ŠŪMANE, S., TISENKOPFS, T., ZEMECKIS, R., ATKOCIUNIENE, V. & RIVERA, M. 2018. Between aspirations and reality: Making farming, food systems and rural areas more resilient, sustainable and equitable. Journal of Rural Studies, 59, 197-210.

NGUYEN, D., VU, H., PHAM, T., TRINH, T., BARLIS, A., DAM, V., SIMELTON, E. & LE, T. 2020. Smart adaptation to climate through adoption of agro-climatic services. In: Training course on “Methods and skills for transferring technical advances to production organization” organized by Vietnam National Agricultural Extension Center (NAEC) held at Phu Tho Province on 23-28 November 2020. Training material on climate services module. 61p.

STONE, J. & RAHIMIFARD, S. 2018. Resilience in agri-food supply chains: a critical analysis of the literature and synthesis of a novel framework. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal.

WATKISS, P., HUNT, A., BLYTH, W. & DYSZYNSKI, J. 2015. The use of new economic decision support tools for adaptation assessment: A review of methods and applications, towards guidance on applicability. Climatic Change, 132, 401-416.

WEZEL, A., HERREN, B. G., KERR, R. B., BARRIOS, E., GONÇALVES, A. L. R. & SINCLAIR, F. 2020. Agroecological principles and elements and their implications for transitioning to sustainable food systems. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 40, 1-13.

I have recently done my thesis focused on Avoiding Smallholder Farmers’ Climate Maladaptation Breaking Down Farmers’ Potential to step up

Along with CGIAR CLIMBER, I completed this portion of the MScCCAFS course in NUI Galway. In the study, we used Zambia as a case study to examine the difficulty of utilizing Dorward’s typology to determine if farmers in Zambia had the capacity to move up, out, or hang in. This is a crucial stage in determining which farmers are most likely to step up and execute adaptation strategies. The second thing we looked at was whether or not the smallholder farmers who can take on adaption techniques run the risk of unfavorable outcomes.

To get access to the thesis paper send a request to T.Gadisi1@nuigalway.ie

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge global social and economic disruption. There has been an increasing debate about the impacts of the pandemic on global biodiversity and efforts to conserve it.  Many scientists have since identified identify short-term benefits for biodiversity, such as less pollution as a result of reduced human activity, wildlife reclaiming human-dominated habitats,  reduced impacts on Marine systems due to shipping declines, the decline in greenhouse gas emission. These may be short-term improvements, but they dramatically underline the pervasiveness and severity of anthropogenic impacts worldwide. Enforced shutdowns  has made people more aware of the species and ecosystems around them, perhaps awakening public concern for the state of nature (Corlett et al., 2020; Helm, 2020)

Satellite images have shown dramatic improvements in air quality in every country affected by the pandemic, as industry and transport shut down

The world is said to be facing it’s sixth mass extinction with over one million plants and animal species threatened with extinction due to changes in land and sea use, overexploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species (Diaz et al., 2019). Since 1970, populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish have declined on average by 68% and vast areas of ecosystems have been degraded (WWF, 2020). Many scientists have highlighted the linkages between biodiversity loss and infectious diseases and the importance of biodiversity for the economy

Green Recovery

Beyond the short-term impacts of the pandemic, there has been a  growing debate on the shape of international and national policies for the world after COVID-19. Roy (2020) emphasized that there are various potential pathways, each of which entails a very different relationship between human society and non-human life on Earth. Even as much of the conservation sector is embroiled in a battle for survival in the midst of the crisis, it is essential to look to the future and weigh the consequences of different post-COVID-19 economic scenarios for conservation.

Many governments have implemented stimulus measures and recovery plans to create jobs and drive economic recovery and many of these interventions are associated with heavy biodiversity footprints, such as agriculture, energy, and industry. A key challenge for governments is to ensure that the measures they introduce effectively address immediate social and economic needs while promoting longer-term resilience, human health, well-being, and sustainability. With this in mind, government and business leaders across the globe have called for a green and inclusive recovery to COVID-19. This is known as a classic ecomodernist vision,  which is a common debate about sustainable development since the 1970s  (Adams, 2020). It lay at the heart of the Rio + 20 Conference, under the name of a Green Economy.

This shift implies an economy that is still capitalist, but cleverer and greener, where growth, markets, and corporations are turned into conservation allies and where biodiversity conservation becomes an agent of green economic development, However, the focus of this rhetoric and the green stimulus measures introduced to date has largely been limited to climate change, with much less attention given to biodiversity. Biodiversity loss and climate change are challenges of a similar magnitude and urgency and are fundamentally interlinked. They must be addressed simultaneously as part of broader efforts to achieve a green and inclusive recovery.

Conclusion

To safeguard biodiversity and help drive improvements in environmental sustainability, it is imperative that governments keep longer-term policy goals in mind when designing and allocating loans, grants, tax relief, and other support for companies. To avoid future pandemics and other crises, maintaining or stepping-up regulations on land-use change, wildlife trade and polluting activities are critical. Furthermore, by shining a light on the links between human health and biodiversity, the COVID-19 pandemic may have provided a political window of opportunity to tighten regulation that it does not continue to erode biodiversity and ecological life-support systems.

Interesting readings to Learn more on the links between biodiversity conservation and Covid 19;

ADAMS, W.M. (2020) Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in a Developing World. 4th edition. Routledge, London, UK

Roe, D. et al. (2020), Beyond banning wildlife trade: COVID-19, conservation and development, Elsevier Ltd, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105121.

ROY, A. (2020) The pandemic is a portal. Financial Times,3 April 2020. ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca [accessed 22 June 2020].

CORLETT, R.T., PRIMACK, R.B., DEVICTOR, V., MAAS , B., GOSWAMI, V.R., BATES, A.E. et al. (2020) Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on biodiversity conservation. Biological Conservation, 246, 108571

HELM, D. (2020) The environmental impacts of the coronavirus. Environmental and Resource Economics, 76, 21–38

Diaz, S. et al. (2019), Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES, https://www.ipbes.net/system/tdf/ipbes_7_10_add-1- _advance_0.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=35245 (accessed on 6 September 2019).

WWF (2020), Living Planet Report 2020 – Bending the curve of biodiversity loss., WWF

While the science is clear on the devastating impacts of failing to keep warming below 1.5 degrees by 2030, countries current emissions reductions targets are inadequate to meet the promises of Paris Agreement nor are we close to the US$100 billion per year in climate finance promised from Copenhagen. At the same time, in 2020 and 2021 a record number of environmental human rights defenders working to protect the environment and marginalized people’s rights were murdered more especially women and children. The push for gender equality is bringing different perspectives, driving the integration of gender-related considerations into climate policy and ensuring broad representation.  However, it isn’t just gender equality that is important, the participation of all types of individuals will bring diverse views on climate change into the discussion which can open debate and only help fix this crisis. The UN has revealed that around the world women are those most at risk to the impacts of climate change alongside children, they comprise of 80% of those displaced by climate-related disaster. This is considered to be the case due to women making up the majority of the world’s poor, as well as their reliance on small-scale farming for survival. We are living in a broken world which has systematically marginalized women and young girls. Alok Sharma emphasised  that women and children mostly  bare the brunt of climate crisis across the world . and to tackle climate change it is most effective when women and girls are at the heart of those efforts.

COP26 and Gender Diversity

Women and girls have certainly played a part in COP26 , especially in pushing delegates and leaders to go further in the fight against climate change. Greta Thunberg, a  climate activist on the planet, was at the forefront of Friday’s Youth March, in which indigenous activists also played a leading role. Gender Day at COP26 saw gender-related commitments from many countries. The Conference President’s daily media statement boasted new measures from Sweden and Germany, a Canadian commitment of 80% of its $5.3 billion climate investments over the next five years to target gender equality outcomes, and more. Despite these positive proposals, some campaigners have been disappointed with the reality of exclusion at COP26. Some of the same old criticisms still seem to apply Gender is still not fully integrated into climate policy , Åsa Regnér, from UN mentioned  that only 3% of climate overseas development aid specifically targets women’s rights and gender equality. About 45% of the Cop26 unit are now women, but almost all of the most senior public-facing roles are taken by men.

A statement calling for the role of women and girls to be advanced in addressing climate change was launched at COP26, jointly sponsored by the Scottish Government and UN Women.  It recognises that women and girls are often disproportionately affected by climate change and face greater risks from its impacts, particularly in situations of poverty.  It follows a Gender Action Plan agreed at COP25 to advance the rights and interests of women and girls in the UNFCCC process and in supporting gender-responsive climate policy and programming. 

How can we fight climate change, when half of us are being excluded from the battle? That was the question put to delegates  at COP26’s Gender Day.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Secretary of State for International Trade, said: “It is women, girls and those who are already most marginalised, that will be most severely impacted by climate change. But they also have a critical role to play to address the climate crisis. The UK is committed to addressing this dual challenge head on, committing new funding to empower communities and women’s groups to take locally-led adaptation action, to build local, national and global resilience. The UK announced £165 million to tackle gender equality and climate change at the same time, of the £165 million announced, £45 million will be used to empower women’s groups across Asia and the Pacific to have their say in the climate conversation, with the remaining £120 million going towards climate protection measures and further access to finance and education skills for women in Bangladesh.

Post COP26

The gendered impacts of climate change mean we must ensure an equal balance between men and women at all levels, especially within the COP senior management team. It is difficult to see how the current predominantly male-led COP26 team will ensure that women’s voices and needs are heard.” This are the words echoed by Farhana Yamin, Founder Track 0, Climate Lawyer

Diaka Salena Koroma, ActionAid climate activist also said “If women and young people who are most affected by climate impacts are not represented at platforms like COP26, leaders will not feel the pressure to commit to climate targets.”

Voice and representation at all levels of decision-making is the only way the situation will change, said Pankhurst. Acknowledging that there is a gender perspective to climate policies is a final first step to ensuring issues affecting women aren’t ignored. Scientific evidence has always underpinned the international climate negotiations and whether it’s new forms of sustainable energy, new methods of transport, or affordable zero-carbon packaging solutions, innovative thinking will be required to solve the climate crisis.  But also inclusion of Gender should be at the centre of such research . Innovation doesn’t always have to involve big technological solutions and lessons need to be learned from the world’s response to COVID-19, that world leaders must heed the advice of their scientists and on a globally consistent standard. However, I believe that Gender diversity  is key.

Like seeds brought by Amal the puppet on Gender day, the inspirational lesson from seeds teach us that  the work must continue beyond COP, The  Action Plan and negotiations made at COP26  should be attended to.

Get to read more on Gender Diversity and COP26

Fixing a man’s world: Gender Day at COP26 and women’s importance in fighting climate change – Empoword Journalism

Gender equality in climate policy and fashion’s role in COP26 – Fashion Revolution : Fashion Revolution

Why we need to get loud about gender inequality in climate politics (newstatesman.com)

https://www.addleshawgoddard.com/en/insights/insights-briefings/2021/general/cop26-the-need-for-gender

Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity at COP26 in Glasgow – C3E International (c3e-international.org)

                                                              

The Irish Forum for International Agricultural Development hosted its annual conference on Wednesday 20th October 11am-2pm (online). This year’s conference came at the crossroads of two global events – the Food Systems Summit, and the COP26 on Climate Change. Given the inextricable links between food and climate, discussions focused on the outcomes of the Food Systems Summit, and how action areas for agriculture and food systems can be aligned with the upcoming COP26 on Climate Change

Key issues for Sustainable Food Systems and Climate Action raised at the IFIAD 2021 Annual Conference

“Primary producers have a leading role in food system’s transformation, but they will need support at the national and international level to achieve the changes needed to improve competitiveness and innovation to protect and restore biodiversity and to address the urgent need for climate action” this was a statement made by the Minister of state Pippa Hackett in her opening remarks as she addresses the importance of inclusion for sustainable food systems and climate action going forward. The panellist echoed this key issue in their discussions that it is very crucial to build on inclusive dialogues where all stakeholders across different sectors including Farmers participate in decision making and policy making processes. These are some of the commitments coming from the UN food summit, the commitment of leaving no one behind.  The Minister also echoed the statement made by the president in his address at the UN Food System Summit that “The need for action is now more urgent than ever as we face climate and biodiversity emergencies which threaten our very future on this planet, He also declared that ending world hunger and ensuring the right to food for all must be placed at the top of the political Agenda”. 

Another vital aspect that was emphasised during discussion is the factor of “Trust “that somewhat trust between all actors in the food system including civil society and consumers is crucial to achieving sustainable food systems and that at the moment in both National and international level the trust is not always there. The panellist Member Sinead Mowlds emphasised that if we don’t have strong collective action from every corner, we’re simply going to fall short of getting to where we need to be. She also argued that we can do more to build this trust. It was concluded that one solution to build this trust is to develop more transparent decision-making processes, in the process where representation should be happening from all stakeholders in the system. Practically we should see more transparency in the criteria for the decision-making bodies.

The system Approach was a big take way from the UN food Summit and that there is vital need for a functioning global trade system which will incorporate the interests of the poor countries which are mostly disadvantaged by unfair global trade.

Areas of polarization/lack of consensus

One major aspect of concern discussed was that countries tend to shy away from political issues, and most governments are likely to be at a risk of taking the easier options of technical solutions in their pathways and ignore some of the more political issues around trying to create more equitable food systems and realising the rights of the most marginalised. Private sectors were also reflected in the discussions that they are very crucial in driving the food systems, however a bit of a setback with private sectors is that they do not reflect interests of other private stakeholders, So the question is based on what criteria are these steering committee selected because the steering committee has a huge influence on the outcomes of the policies.  Sinead Mowlds suggested that it would be very useful to see the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the contributions received during those processes.

It is believed that a formal mediation process is needed in place to mitigate potential disagreements that arise and work towards garnering consensus to achieve sustainability collectively. Connell Folley then explained that a mediation process that can be put in place should be neutral and not coming with vested interest, so that there is a balance view holding governments to account for the commitments. It is also worrying in this era that we still have people and organisations that are not willing to engage in such conversations just because it is not in their terms.

Another crack within the food system is the issue of financing, although a big chunk of finance is put in place leading to cop 26, there is little funding from that chunk going to adaptation which is a big challenge to smallholder farmers, and it seems unclear how finance scales down to the most affected and vulnerable including small holder farmers and indigenous people who will hugely benefit from it. Connell Foley emphasized that we need to see them at the centre of decision-making processes rather than just passive beneficiaries.

Areas not discussed at the IFIAD conference

One of the important issues that was not discussed is the issue of coordination.  I would have loved to hear how they will coordinate the implementation of the commitments made by the countries at the UN Food System Summit. And perhaps also a responsible monitoring process for implementation. And looking at the Sanctions, countries have made commitments and signed agreements to minimize global heating below 2⁰C, but none of these are compulsory and there are no sanctions to any countries which decides not to honour its agreement. The conference also did not discuss other aspects of food systems and agriculture such as fisheries and marine ecosystems. These are major aspects of the food systems that are vulnerable to the global climate change increase and variability.

Important thoughts to take to COP26

“Where is the sense of Urgency?” this was a statement made by Professor Charles Spillane in his closing remarks emphasizing that we are facing a climate change crisis and there is a need to act fast and swiftly like we did when covid 19 hit.

Professor Mark Howden said that “People will make short term changes in face of risk and particularly near and present danger , so to make long term changes we need to base it on opportunities” COP 26 might be our advantage to  bring  structural changes that support and include the youth and the marginalized to boost nature positive production  and enhance the systems at scale to ultimately meet the fundamental human rights to healthy and nutritious  food while operating withing planetary boundaries.