We call for all Member Parties to take urgent, collective action to support the world’s food producers as they mitigate against climate change during this year’s United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties, taking place November 11 – 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Small-scale food producers in Africa and South Asia produce the majority of the food for household consumption in their regions, playing a critical role in global food security. Climate change and the droughts, floods and other extreme weather that follow in its wake hits such small-scale food producers hardest. They are particularly vulnerable and less resilient to such shocks due to poverty, lack of resources and systems of inequity that perpetuate this reality.
Through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), world leaders have set a commitment to create a world without hunger, and to achieve this vision, it is crucial that the Member Parties at COP29 come to an agreement that accelerates the financing and systems transformation needed to support a sustainable, healthy environment and mitigate the effects of climate change, particularly for small-scale food producers, many of whom are women.
Systems Transformation
Our global food systems account for about one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. There is growing global recognition that we need to transform these systems to lessen their impact on the environment, while still producing enough nutritious food to feed the world. We believe that this transformation must happen at every level in the system—from the small-scale food producer to the regional farmer co-ops to the multinational food conglomerates. Identifying food system solutions, innovations and technologies that allow for this transformation and then implementing enabling policies and financing schemes to bring them to small-scale farmers and producers is of the utmost importance.
The Hunger Project is committed to promoting environmental sustainability and climate adaptation and resilience in its work, and to mitigating and minimizing the environmental impact of our programs and operations. In our programs, we adopt environmentally sound and context-appropriate solutions such as crop diversification, landscape restoration, improved water and livestock management, climate modeling to inform planting and harvesting, and elevating local, traditional and Indigenous knowledge and practices.
In Africa, Hunger Project-trained leaders create community demonstration farms and centers of excellence to provide proof of model, promote adoption and facilitate knowledge sharing. Villagers learn composting, regenerative agriculture, intercropping and other methods, like drip irrigation, to improve crop yields, restore soil fertility and make the best use of scarce resources. We also launched farmer field schools to train the next generation of farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices while innovating as entrepreneurs, and demand access to agricultural extension services from their government. Through this work, in Uganda, for example, we’ve seen an increase in dietary diversity combined with increased biodiversity and increased yields and income – a win-win combination that protects our environment, feeds families, all while fostering resilience to future shocks.
Fostering Resilient Communities
The impacts of climate change are most acutely felt by vulnerable populations, particularly in rural and underserved areas. These communities face increasing threats from extreme weather events and shifting agricultural patterns and the COP negotiations should have these communities at the forefront of the conversation.
While we must identify technical solutions that support the resilience of infrastructure and livelihoods, we at The Hunger Project believe that fostering resilience within each individual community will be critical to creating a world without hunger, especially in the face of climate change. Our work focuses on promoting strong systems and capacity so communities grow more resilient in order to withstand and manage crises, such as food insecurity due to droughts or flooding.
Our signature workshop, the Vision, Commitment and Action workshop, fosters this individual and collective spirit of resilience. In several communities that have been hit with extreme weather, community partners have attributed their ability and desire to rebuild to this training. Such trainings underpin collective efforts like community seedbanks, community resource management committees and train-the-trainer approaches that focus on including marginalized groups like women and youth.
Scaling this type of workshop and collective action is a necessary complement to any technical solutions and innovations.
As world leaders gather to address one of the most pressing challenges of our time, we call for a focus on the world’s food producers and a deep commitment to collaboration so we can, together, forge a path towards a sustainable future with nutritious food available to all.
Image (top to bottom): Burkina Faso, 2023; Malawi, 2022, Bangaldesh 2022 © The Hunger Project