Droughts are a growing threat to global food production, particularly in Africa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 8 2023 (IPS)

Less than a decade ago, Africa was home to 60-65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land and 10% of renewable freshwater resources, as reported by the African Union in 2016, while concluding that African farmers could feed the world.

Is it still the case?

The above data had been provided in July 2016 by the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), the technical body of the African Union (AU).

Now that seven long years have elapsed, the second largest continent on Earth –after Asia– has been facing too many extraneous pressures and hazards.

A major consequence is that that very percentage (60-65%) of the world’s uncultivated and arable land is now affected by degradation, with nearly three million hectares of forest lost… every single year.

Great walls

The steadily advancing degradation and desertification of major African regions have led the continent to build great green walls.

One of them – the Great Green Wall, is the largest living structure on the Planet, one that stretches over 8.000 kilometres across Africa, aiming at restoring the continent’s degraded landscapes and transforming millions of lives in the Sahel, and ushering in a new era of sustainability and economic growth.

Launched in 2007 by the African Union, this African-led Great Green Wall Initiative. The project is being implemented across 22 African countries and is expected to revitalise thousands of communities across the continent.

It is about “helping people and nature cope with the growing impact of the climate emergency and the degradation of vital ecosystems, and to keep the Sahara desert from spreading deeper into one of the world’s poorest regions,” according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Vast tracts of land along the Great Green Wall have already been restored by local communities. And so far, 80% of the 19 billion US dollars have been pledged, as reported by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

But not enough…

The extraneous factors that have been pushing Africa towards the abyss of extremely severe droughts, unprecedented floods, the advancing degradation of its land and water resources, have led this continent on Earth to rush to build more and longer and larger walls.

For instance, the Southern Africa region is currently busy preparing a similar programme, with all 16 countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) committed to accelerating multi-sectoral transformation through a regional initiative inspired by the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, or SADC Great Green Wall Initiative (GGWI).

The SADC member countries are: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, DR Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

A wall for Southern Africa

Their Initiative aims to create productive landscapes in the Southern Africa region that contribute to regional socially inclusive economic prosperity and environmental sustainability.

Together with member countries and key partners the goal is to initiate multi sectoral partnerships and to acquire pledges of an indicative 27 billion US dollars by 2025.

10 Million square kilometres at risk of desertification

Covering a total land area of 10 million square kilometres, Southern Africa faces immediate effects of desertification, land degradation and drought, as well as challenges driven by climate change, biodiversity loss, and unsustainable development practices in agriculture, energy and infrastructure sectors, reports the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

“The Great Green Wall is part of a broader economic and development plan – if we restore land but are not able to reap the benefits of that healthy and restored land due to lack of access to renewable energy and infrastructure, hindering access to markets and livelihoods, then we are only halfway there with our vision,” on this said UNCCD’s Louise Baker.

And a great wall for the Middle East

In addition to the above two new natural wonders, there is another one: the Middle East Green Initiative, a regional effort led by Saudi Arabia to mitigate the impact of climate change on the region and to collaborate to meet global climate targets.

50 billion trees

It aims at planting 50 billion trees across the Middle East, equivalent to 5% of the global afforestation target, and to restore 200 million hectares of degraded land.

A fifth (10 billion) trees will be planted within Saudi Arabia’s borders, with the remaining 40 billion set to be planted across the region in the coming decades.

The trees will also provide numerous other benefits, including stabilising soils, protecting against floods and dust storms and helping reduce CO2 emissions by up to 2.5% of global levels.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, extreme weather events including droughts and heavy rains will become more common in the region if global temperatures continue to increase, according to the Saudi-led project.

A green corridor for East Africa… and elsewhere

In addition to developing an Eastern Africa corridor soon, other similar initiatives under the umbrella of the African Union’s NEPAD are ongoing, such as the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100).

In 2015, AFR100 was founded in Durban by a group of 10 African countries, each committing to restore a certain number of hectares of degraded landscapes within their borders.

Twenty-eight African countries have now committed to restoring 113 million hectares, which, if achieved, will exceed the initiative’s namesake goal of 100 million hectares across the continent under restoration by 2030.

Not only trees

Forest landscape restoration is more than just planting trees,” said Mamadou Diakhite, leader of the AFR100 Secretariat.

On a continent that is expected to account for half the global population growth by 2050, reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions is a welcome byproduct of returning those natural landscapes to health and profitability; but it’s not the first focus, reported Gabrielle Lipton, Landscape News Editor-in-Chief.

“Restoring landscapes that have been degraded by the effects of climate change and human development through planting trees and encouraging sustainable farming and herding must first and foremost provide food, jobs and homes for people, as well as preserve their cultures that are based on the products of their lands.”

Moreover, as more than 1 in 5 people in Africa are undernourished, and forced migration across country borders increases due to climate change and conflict, African economies continue to struggle hard to create jobs for young people.

Any chance that Africa recovers soon from the impacts of so much extraneous damage, which this continent of nearly 1.4 billion humans continues to struggle to reverse?

By External Source
Apr 25 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
New European Union regulations mean only “deforestation-free” products can be sold there. Forests cover 31% of the globe’s land surface, with most of the Earth’s biodiversity, and play an essential role in mitigating climate change.

By External Source
Apr 25 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
 
The UNDP has assisted cocoa farmers from the Peruvian Amazon to ensure the commodities meet European Parliament regulations. The regulation prohibits the placing of products on the market if their production has led to deforestation.

A staggering 40% of groundwater is used for global irrigation, this alone indicates the importance of this precious resource in navigating the population through impacts of climate change. Credit: SADC Groundwater Management Institute.

By Thokozani Dlamini
PRETORIA, South Africa, Mar 15 2023 (IPS)

In contrast to its strategic role as an essential resource to help achieve community development and poverty alleviation globally, groundwater has remained a poorly understood and managed resource.

This is according to a scoping study pertaining to the status of groundwater resources management in SADC. The study continues to say that over a staggering 40% of groundwater is used for global irrigation, this alone indicates the importance of this precious resource in navigating the population through impacts of climate change.

More food needs to be produced to meet future demands due to population growth, lifestyle change and dietary changes and this calls for robust agricultural water solutions to sustainably manage water resources

Dr Manuel Magombeyi, Regional Researcher at the International Water Management Institute
Groundwater has become indispensable particularly for agriculture production in many countries, and it is said that it accounts for half of South Asia’s irrigation and China where it supports two-thirds of grain crops produced.

Sustainable groundwater development for water and food security can never be over emphasized in mitigating against the worsening impacts of climate change. As surface water becomes more variable and uncertain, groundwater provides a crucial buffer for commercial and small holder farmers – who rely on groundwater to keep their crops green.

Therefore, it is imperative that sustainable and innovative strategies are developed to ensure sustainable supply of groundwater resource for improved livelihoods.

Groundwater responds to the water demands in a more flexible and reliable way, which allows farmers to increase their yields and mitigate effects of extreme water shortages. While water in general is a critical input for agricultural production and plays a significant role in food security, science reveals that Sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to reach the sustainable development goal on eradicating hunger.

The Synthesis Report on the State of Food and Nutrition Security and Vulnerability in Southern Africa 2022 says food and nutrition insecurity in the region continues to be unacceptably high and concerted efforts are required to build resilience to address the multiple and increasing shocks the region faces.

The report further asserts that the number of food insecure people is estimated to increase to 55.7million during the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 in the 12 Member States that provided data for the 2022 Regional Synthesis Report on Food Security, Nutrition and Vulnerability.

“More food needs to be produced to meet future demands due to population growth, lifestyle change and dietary changes and this calls for robust agricultural water solutions to sustainably manage water resources,” says Dr Manuel Magombeyi Regional Researcher at the International Water Management Institute.

Dr. Magombeyi further asserts that it is critical that people in general understand that as the food demand increases, so the water usage, and all these increases happen amidst climate change, therefore, thorough reconsideration of how water is managed in the agricultural sector, and how it can be repositioned in the broader context of overall water resources management and water security is critical.

Unfortunately, according to the United Nations Development Programme, at least 821 million people were estimated to be chronically under-nourished as of 2017, often as a direct consequence of environmental degradation, drought, and biodiversity loss.

Under-nourishment and severe food insecurity appear to be increasing in almost all regions of Africa. Several studies indicate that innovative Agricultural Water Solutions are urgently needed if we want to meet Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger for everyone by 2030 as promulgated by the United Nations.

In the SADC region alone, at least 11 million people are facing critical food shortages due to drought caused by climate change. This situation calls for groundwater practitioners to think deeper and look for innovative solutions to support agricultural sector to improve food security.

According to Agricultural Water Management in Southern Africa Report, investments by both public and private sectors in Ag-water solutions represent an untapped opportunity. It is important that both sectors invest in Ag-water solutions to achieve the overall objective of poverty alleviation and broad-based agricultural growth. Most of these ag-water solutions have been implemented at a smaller scale. It is now important that they get upscaled for the benefits of larger communities, especially if the solution is working well.

The SADC Groundwater Management Institute has in the past years managed to help rural communities in some SADC Member States to ensure that they get access to water resources by tapping into groundwater resources available in respective countries.

Through the Sustainable Groundwater Management in SADC Member States project supported by the World Bank Group between 2016 and 2021, SADC-GMI managed to reach communities in Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and assisted them to unlock groundwater resources for improved livelihoods.

Thokozani Dlamini is Communication and Knowledge Management Specialist for SADC Groundwater Management Institute

A photo of a field with parched grass in the province of Buenos Aires, an agricultural area par excellence in Argentina. The countryside is the source of more than half of the exports of this South American country, which is in dire need of foreign exchange to ease its economic crisis. CREDIT: Argentine Rural Confederations

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 30 2023 (IPS)

Martín Rapetti, a fourth generation farmer in the province of Corrientes in northeastern Argentina, has already lost more than 30 cows due to lack of food and water, as a result of the long drought that is plaguing a large part of the country. “There is no grass; the animals have to sink their teeth into the dry earth,” he says with resignation.

This extreme climatic phenomenon, which according to experts will become increasingly common, is much more than a threat of an uncertain future and already represents concrete damage: it will make Argentina, a global agricultural powerhouse, lose billions of dollars in exports this year, aggravating its economic crisis.

“The accumulation of three years with little rain makes the situation worse and worse. The streams and rivers are running dry and now the groundwater is also drying up,” Rapetti told IPS from the town of Curuzú Cuatía.“We also have to move forward with actions that go beyond the immediacy and that incorporate a climate perspective. In addition, we need political responses that strengthen our capacities, promote innovation and, ultimately, promote sustainable development.” -- Cecilia Nicolini

“The cows are in very poor body condition. And the production of grains, citrus fruits and vegetables is suffering…Of the 300 hectares that we have for growing rice, we were able to plant only 35 due to lack of water,” added Rapetti, who has a medium-sized farm.

The consequences go far beyond rural areas because this South American country, which faces a delicate economic situation with inflation soaring to almost 100 percent per year and 40 percent of the population living in poverty, depends heavily on the countryside to bring in foreign exchange and sustain the value of its devalued currency.

During the first half of 2022, according to the latest official data, 57.6 percent of national exports came from the production of soy and the main grains (corn, wheat, sunflower and barley) and from beef and by-products like leather and dairy products.

The drought will reduce exports in 2023 by nearly eight billion dollars and this will have a heavy direct impact on the state coffers, which will receive more than one billion dollars less in taxes on exports of soy, corn and wheat, the three crops that cover the largest agricultural area in the country.

These figures were released on Jan. 17 by the Rosario Stock Exchange, a reference point in Argentina’s agricultural economy.

This South American country of 46.2 million inhabitants depends to a great extent on the countryside to sustain its economy. Argentina is the third world producer of soy, behind the United States and Brazil, and the second producer of beef, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Soy alone, which is the current star of Argentine exports, generated sales of 12.1 billion dollars (27.3 percent of total exports), according to the official statistics agency. This includes soybeans, soybean oil and meal and soy flour.

A plant in a vineyard suffering from the lack of water, in the province of Mendoza in western Argentina. That area of ​​the country, where crops depend on irrigation, is suffering the consequences of low levels in the reservoirs. CREDIT: Coninagro

How to prepare for the future?

Due to climate change, extreme events such as droughts or floods will occur with increasing frequency and intensity, the national secretary for Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Innovation, Cecilia Nicolini, told IPS.

“But these problems are not scenarios that we have to get used to or resign ourselves to. We need to adapt to their effects and transform our productive sectors to make them more resilient, while reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” she added.

Argentina presented its National Plan for Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change in November.

The over 400-page document proposes managing agroforestry climate risks (from investments in infrastructure or promoting insurance for small farmers), bolstering water efficiency in industries and strengthening the meteorological monitoring network.

“We also have to move forward with actions that go beyond the immediacy and that incorporate a climate perspective. In addition, we need political responses that strengthen our capacities, promote innovation and, ultimately, promote sustainable development,” the official acknowledged.

Perhaps the most delicate aspect is that Nicolini herself estimated that the country needs 185 billion dollars in financing up to 2030 to implement the plan.

That is four times more than the record loan that the International Monetary Fund granted Argentina in 2018, a debt that since then has strangled economic growth. Nobody knows where this financing would come from, which Argentina demanded from developed countries at the last Conference of the Parties (COP27) on Climate Change, held in November in Egypt.

Cows and calves gather in search of food in the department of Curuzú Cuatiá, in the Argentine province of Corrientes. The drought has dragged on for three years now and in 2022 it was the main cause of forest fires, which affected more than 800,000 hectares in that northeastern province. CREDIT: CR

Financial assistance

On Jan. 20 Economy Minister Sergio Massa met with with the Liaison Board, which brings together the main agricultural business chambers, and promised to study a package of economic relief measures to be announced on Feb. 1.

In any case, he warned about the limits that the government faces in providing answers: “Perhaps there are solutions that are out of our hands. Argentina is not a country with a great capacity for State intervention, for reasons that we already know: indebtedness and difficulties in accessing markets.”

Beyond the difficult current situation, today agricultural producers themselves know that fundamental strategies will be needed to face extreme phenomena that are here to stay.

Mario Raiteri, a medium-sized producer of potatoes, beef, wheat, corn, soy and sunflowers in the town of Mechongué, 460 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, tells IPS that he grew up listening to his grandfather talk about the big floods in the 1940s and withering droughts in the 1950s, but that he had never experienced a phenomenon like the one seen in the last three years.

“My biggest worry is if this is just an occasional occurrence or if there really is starting to be a more frequent repetition of these events,” he said.

“In the second case, we need scientific organizations to give us new technologies designed to help us adapt. Knowledge is going to play a very important role, beyond other necessary issues, such as comprehensive agricultural insurance for family farms, because small producers will suffer the most,” he said.

In Argentina, 54.48 percent of the land area has been affected by water stress, according to the Drought Information System for Southern South America (SISSA), an institution created by governments and organizations to provide information and reduce vulnerability to this type of phenomena.

However, hydrologist Juan Borus, deputy manager of Information Systems of the National Water Institute (INA), said that in the last three years “there is not a single square centimeter of the territory that has not faced scarcity.”

Borus warns IPS that the country is currently plagued by dry rivers and lagoons that have shrunk and disappeared, and that the situation is not likely to improve for the remainder of the southern hemisphere summer and the fall.

The expert also warns about the impact on issues that have received less attention than agricultural production. One is the generation of electrical energy due to lack of water in the reservoirs, in a country that has committed to increasing hydropower generation as part of its climate change mitigation objectives.

Another issue is drinking water.

“Large cities on the banks of rivers should invest more money in pumping and purifying the water, because with lower levels of water in the rivers, the amount of pollutants and sediment is greater. And small towns that take water from drilling wells must deal with the decline of groundwater tables,” Borus said.

The crisis, he said, presents a great opportunity: “It is time for those who live in the humid part of the country to become aware of the need to take care of drinking water.”

A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.

But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.

Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

“After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.

Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.

Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.

In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides. According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, cosmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction. As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.

Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

“When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.

A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection. International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan. Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.

A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.

As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.

UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.

“More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.

Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term humanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.

There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” she said.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

IPS UN Bureau

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By 2050, droughts may affect an estimated three-quarters of the world’s population. Credit: Miriet Abrego / IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 1 2022 (IPS)

Drought is one of the ‘most destructive’ natural disasters in terms of the loss of life, arising from impacts, such as wide-scale crop failure, wildfires and water stress.

In other words, droughts are one of the “most feared natural phenomena in the world;” they devastate farmland, destroy livelihoods and cause untold suffering, as reported by the world’s top specialised bodies: the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

They occur when an area experiences a shortage of water supply due to a lack of rainfall or lack of surface or groundwater. And they can last for weeks, months or years.

Exacerbated by land degradation and climate change, droughts are increasing in frequency and severity, up 29% since 2000, with 55 million people affected every year.

The impacts of climate change are often felt through water – more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers – with cascading effects on economies, ecosystems and all aspects of our daily lives,

Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General

By 2050, droughts may affect an estimated three-quarters of the world’s population. This means that agricultural production will have to increase by 60% to meet the global food demand in 2050.

This means that about 71% of the world’s irrigated area and 47% of major cities are to experience at least periodic water shortages. If this trend continues, the scarcity and associated water quality problems will lead to competition and conflicts among water users, adds the Convention.

Most of the world already impacted

The alert is loud and strong and it comes from a number of the world’s most knowledgeable organisations.

To begin with, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 29 November 2022 reported that most of the globe was drier than normal in 2021, with “cascading effects on economies, ecosystems and our daily lives.”

Water

Between 2001 and 2018, UN-Water reported that a staggering 74% of all-natural disasters were water-related.

Currently, over 3.6 billion people have inadequate access to water at least one month per year and this is expected to increase to more than five billion by 2050.

Moreover, areas that were unusually dry included South America’s Rio de la Plata area, where a persistent drought has affected the region since 2019, according to WMO’s The State of Global Water Resources report.

Drying rivers, lakes

In Africa, major rivers such as the Niger, Volta, Nile and Congo had below-average water flow in 2021.

The same trend was observed in rivers in parts of Russia, West Siberia and in Central Asia.

On the other hand, there were above-normal river volumes in some North American basins, the North Amazon and South Africa, as well as in China’s Amur river basin, and northern India.

Cascading effects

The impacts of climate change are often felt through water – more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers – with cascading effects on economies, ecosystems and all aspects of our daily lives, said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

“Changes to Cryosphere water resources affect food security, human health, ecosystem integrity and maintenance, and lead to significant impacts on economic and social development”, said WMO, sometimes causing river flooding and flash floods due to glacier lake outbursts.

The cryosphere – namely glaciers, snow cover, ice caps and, where present, permafrost – is the world’s biggest natural reservoir of freshwater.

Soils

Being water –or rather the lack of it– a major cause-effect of the fast-growing deterioration of natural resources, and the consequent damage to the world’s food production, the theme of World Soil Day 2022, marked 5 December, is “Soils: Where food begins.”

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):

• 95% of our food comes from soils.
• 18 naturally occurring chemical elements are essential to plants. Soils supply 15.
• Agricultural production will have to increase by 60% to meet the global food demand in 2050.
• 33% of soils are degraded.

Dangerously poisoned

In addition to the life of humans, animals, and plants, one of the sectors that most depend on water–crops is now highly endangered.

Indeed, since the 1950s, reminds the United Nations, innovations like synthetic fertilisers, chemical pesticides and high-yield cereals have helped humanity dramatically increase the amount of food it grows.

“But those inventions would be moot without agriculture’s most precious commodity: fresh water. And it, say researchers, is now under threat.”

Moreover, pollution, climate change and over-abstraction are beginning to compromise the lakes, rivers, and aquifers that underpin farming globally, reports the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Salinised and plastified

Such is the case, among many others, of the growing salinisation and ‘plastification’ of the world’s soils.

In fact, currently, it is estimated that there are more than 833 million hectares of salt-affected soils around the globe (8.7% of the planet). This implies the loss of soil’s capacity to grow food and also increasing impacts on water and the ability to filter pollution.

Soil salinisation and sodification are major soil degradation processes threatening ecosystems and are recognised as being among the most important problems at a global level for agricultural production, food security and sustainability in arid and semi-arid regions, said the UN on occasion of the 2021 World Soil Day.

Wastewater

Among the major causes that this international body highlights is that in some arid areas, there has been an increase in the amount of wastewater used to grow crops.

“The problem can be exacerbated by flooding, which can inundate sewage systems or stores of fertiliser, polluting both surface water and groundwater.” Fertiliser run-off can cause algal blooms in lakes.

Meanwhile, the amount of freshwater per capita has fallen by 20% over the last two decades and nearly 60% of irrigated cropland is water-stressed.

The implications of those shortages are far-reaching: irrigated agriculture contributes 40% of total food produced worldwide.

Soils are highly living organisms

“Did you know that there are more living organisms in a tablespoon of soil than people on Earth?”

Soil is a world made up of organisms, minerals, and organic components that provide food for humans and animals through plant growth, explains this year’s World Soils Day.

Agricultural systems lose nutrients with each harvest, and if soils are not managed sustainably, fertility is progressively lost, and soils will produce nutrient-deficient plants.

Soil nutrient loss is a major soil degradation process threatening nutrition. It is recognised as being among the most critical problems at a global level for food security and sustainability all around the globe.

‘Hidden’ hunger

Over the last 70 years, the level of vitamins and nutrients in food has drastically decreased, and it is estimated that 2 billion people worldwide suffer from a lack of micronutrients, known as hidden hunger because it is difficult to detect.

“Soil degradation induces some soils to be nutrient depleted, losing their capacity to support crops, while others have such a high nutrient concentration that represents a toxic environment to plants and animals, pollutes the environment and causes climate change.”

CHINA - Constructing an irrigation network in Qinghai Province. Workers were paid part of their wages in food supplied by the World Food Programme. Credit WFP/Sarah Errington

By Trevor Page
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 8 2022 (IPS)

As our planet continues to heat up, extreme weather has affected many of us. From the west coast of North America across Europe, the Middle East and Asia to Pakistan and New Zealand, wildfires and flash floods have destroyed homes and property and disrupted the daily lives of millions.

Supply chains, already badly affected by COVID, have been further complicated by drying rivers and waterways. In the more developed countries, insurance covers much of the short-term losses.

But it’s in the developing world where the effects of climate change cause the most acute form of human suffering: starvation. Somalia, in the Horn of Africa is once again in the grip of a devastating drought. Livestock have perished and children are beginning to die.

Parts South Sudan’s farmland have now been under water for the 4th consecutive year because of abnormal floods. Hapless farmers, marooned on islands of higher ground, are living off handouts from the international donor community. No insurance to cover their losses; they’re lucky just to hang on to their lives.

And if we needed a shriller wake-up call about the unfolding global food crisis, Russia’s war on Ukraine has certainly provided that: Much of grain and fertilizer that the world relies on was held hostage by the combatant’s mines and warships in the Black Sea.

Paralyzed by the outdated make-up and role of the Security Council, the political side of the UN System was once again unable to prevent war from breaking out.

Wars and armed conflict rage on in Syria, Libya, Myanmar, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the DRC and, of course, in Ukraine itself. But thanks to UN and Turkish mediation, grain and fertilizer shipments from Ukrainian and Russian ports have resumed under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), set up in Istanbul at the end of July, is ensuring that trade and aid in these most basic of commodities can flow out of Black Sea ports again. Amir Abdulla, the World Food Programme’s former Deputy Executive Director is the UN’s coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative and heads up the UN Delegation to the JCC.

Abdulla told me earlier this week that operations are scaling up and grain exports from Ukraine went over 1 million tons in less than a month and to 2 million tons in just the last week. An average of 9 ships a day heading to or from Ukraine are being inspected jointly by UN, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian inspectors. “While the conflict in Ukraine continues, it has been possible with the help of Turkey and the agreement of Russia and Ukraine, for the UN to get this initiative underway so that the much-needed flow of food and fertilizer moves out of Black Sea ports to the rest of the world”, he said.

“More grain needs to move through to make space in silos for the new harvest. This is critical for the world’s grain supply for next year. Equally important is the urgent export of fertilizer, including ammonia, so that farmers across the world can continue food production at an affordable cost”, he added.

But what about the wider food crisis that is developing and will be with us in the years to come?

The World Food Programme (WFP) warns that 345 million people are already affected by acute food insecurity in 82 countries. And with the global population set to hit at least 10 billion by 2050, the effect of climate change on agriculture will compound the growing problem. There is a desperate need for the developing world to grow more food.

Up to now, WFP has helped ward off mass starvation among the world’s most vulnerable. But to prevent this happening in the years ahead, there’s never been a greater need for it to address the “development” part of its dual mandate by getting back in the business of helping governments and communities grow more food.

In the early-60s when WFP started out, and for it’s first 20 years of operation, around 70% of its budget was spent on development projects, many of them designed to grow more food.

Work on India’s Indira Gandhi Canal, which takes water from the Himalaya mountains to irrigate 2 million hectares of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, started in 1964 with WFP assistance. Workers building the canal were able to buy WFP food at specially set up shops on the banks of the canal network at low, fixed rates.

After WFP assistance ended the World Bank and the EU helped complete the irrigation network. For the last 50 years, millions of tons of additional food grain has been produced every year as a result of this project. Wheat is now reaped annually in the far-flung desert district of Jaisalmer.

As WFP’s Representative in India, Bishow Parajuli says with pride, “This project has changed the lives of millions of ordinary people”, giving real meaning to WFP’s development slogan: changing lives.

In China’s far-western province of Qinghai, it’s much the same story. Here, back in the 80s, WFP helped the local government’s Water Conversancy Bureau construct an irrigation network that today irrigates what was 8,000 hectares of low-yielding land in Haidong Prefecture.

CHINA – Completed irrigation canal in Qinghai Province, a WFP- assisted project. Credit: WFP/Trevor Page

As with India’s Indira Gandhi Canal, the network was built manually, by hand. WFP food was supplied to pay part of the worker’s wages. With assured irrigation, wheat yields doubled within 5 years. Today, this same area of Qinghai is the province’s main wheat producing area with mechanical combines harvesting the crop instead of reaping it by hand.

CHINA – With irrigation, wheat yields doubled in 5 years at this WFP-assisted project in Qinghai Province. Credit: WFP/Paul Mitchell

Why is WFP no longer helping developing countries build major irrigation networks designed to grow more food? Because its focus changed in the early 90s to emergencies or saving lives as WFP calls it today.

That was when WFP took over the responsibility from the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR to feed the world’s 25 million refugees on its books as well as the 50-odd million who sort refuge elsewhere in their own country as internally displaced people, or IDPs.

But the pressure of climate change and population growth is causing the pendulum to swing again. At WFP’s last Executive Board (EB) meeting in June, WFP’s Changing Lives Transformation Fund (CLTF) was introduced.

While there was general agreement that WFP’s dual mandate – emergencies and development – must be respected and that humanitarian aid alone is not enough, cash-strapped main donor EB members insisted that saving lives must always take priority over changing lives.

Not surprisingly, most EB members from the developing world wanted WFP to help more with changing lives through stepped-up development assistance. After much debate, which went to closed night sessions, the compromise was a $55 million fund over 5 years, or upto $1.2 million for around 10-15 countries as seed money for projects aimed at supporting national food security.

While this is a start, the amounts earmarked seem like half-hearted steps for the organization that the world set up to help governments prevent mass hunger and starvation. Volli Carucci, Director of WFP’s Resilience and Food Systems Service disagrees, pointing to the many reliance measure that WFP is supporting in the drought-stricken Sahel. “ But more long-term support from donors is needed”, he said. Many countries in Africa need to be growing drought-resistant sorghum and millet rather than maize he told me. Maize is the staple for much of the continent.

Acknowledging “the present and future danger” of the global food crisis, Carucci emphasised that greater awareness of WFP’s current resilience initiatives and its development successes of the past is needed.

BANGLADESH – Unskilled labour re-excavating a silted-up irrigation canal. WFP food was used as part-payment of wages to workers rehabilitating irrigation and drainage canals and embankments in this flood-prone country. Credit: WFP/Trevor Page

Bangladesh, China, Egypt and India have all benefited from WFP assistance in building major irrigation networks. Every year since, millions of tons of food grain has been produced that helps feed their people.

EGYPT – Irrigation canal under construction. Credit: WFP

Ethiopia reversed some of its major soil erosion problems by planting millions of trees to protect agricultural land. Always short of cash to pay labour costs, these governments used WFP assistance to help pay the workers on these projects with food.

ETHIOPIA – Watering seedlings for a WFP-assisted forestry project. Credit: WFP/Franco Mattioli

South/South Cooperation provides a channel to transfer the organizational management and technical expertise of these countries to less developed countries with agricultural potential. Projects like these would also provide employment for the growing hordes of unskilled labour looking for work.

As WFP nears its 60th anniversary it has a full agenda of programming and internal management issues to address. Hopefully, helping the governments and community organizations in developing countries grow more food will figure more prominently than in past decades.

Irrigating and developing more farmland could also help with the integration IDPs into new communities to make them productive citizens instead of living off handouts year after year. It could also help stem the flow of migration to the more-developed countries.

Involving cooperating partners such as UNDP, FAO, World Bank, NGOs and other multilaterals like the EU will be crucial right from the planning stage.

Of course, saving lives will always be the priority of the day. But unless governments act now to ensure that future generations have enough food to eat, parts of the planet run the risk of becoming overwhelmed by the hungry poor.

WFP can and must do more to help countries along the path towards food security, as its mandate dictates. Only then will the world move significantly towards achieving its Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.

Trevor Page is a former Country and HQ Director of the World Food Programme. He has also served with FAO, UNHCR and what is now the United Nations Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs.

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Over 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries, which is expected to be exacerbated in some regions as a result of climate change and population growth. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Aug 22 2022 (IPS)

This is how the Muslims’ Holy Book – the Quran refers to the most precious element of life.

Religions apart, also UNESCO underlines the fact that “water is a unique and non-substitutable resource.”

Now comes the question if water is finite or infinite? UNESCO says that it is “of limited quantity.” And the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that water use has been growing globally at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century.

Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. Microbial contamination of drinking-water as a result of contamination with faeces poses the greatest risk to drinking-water safety

Essentially, it says, demographic growth and economic development are putting unprecedented pressure on renewable, but “finite” water resources.

Anyway, the reality is that, over the last decades, Planet Earth has been facing an alarming problem of water scarcity.

Indeed, it is estimated that over 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries, which is expected to be exacerbated in some regions as a result of climate change and population growth.

Why is water scarce?

Before going further, it might be convenient to report that there are several dimensions of water scarcity that can be summarised as follows:

– Scarcity in availability of fresh water of acceptable quality with respect to aggregated demand, in the simple case of physical water shortage;

– Scarcity in access to water services, because of the failure of institutions in place to ensure reliable supply of water to users;

– Scarcity due to the lack of adequate infrastructure, irrespective of the level of water resources, due to financial constraints.

Dangerously polluted

These three explanations are aggravated by another fact: water is not only scarce – it is also highly contaminated. See these findings by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other UN bodies:

• Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. Microbial contamination of drinking-water as a result of contamination with faeces poses the greatest risk to drinking-water safety.
• While the most important chemical risks in drinking water arise from arsenic, fluoride or nitrate, emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and microplastics generate public concern.
• Safe and sufficient water facilitates the practice of hygiene, which is a key measure to prevent not only diarrhoeal diseases, but acute respiratory infections and numerous neglected tropical diseases.
• Microbiologically contaminated drinking water can transmit diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio and is estimated to cause 485.000 diarrhoeal deaths each year.

To the above data, UNESCO reports that 80% of all industrial and municipal wastewater is released into the environment. And that 50% of all malnutrition is due to the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene.

Food under threat

This already catastrophic situation is so grim that, in addition to the life of humans, animals, plants -–in short ‘Every Living Thing’–, one of the sectors that most depend on water–crops is now highly endangered.

Indeed, since the 1950s, reminds the United Nations, innovations like synthetic fertilisers, chemical pesticides and high-yield cereals have helped humanity dramatically increase the amount of food it grows.

“But those inventions would be moot without agriculture’s most precious commodity: fresh water. And it, say researchers, is now under threat.”

Moreover, pollution, climate change and over-abstraction are beginning to compromise the lakes, rivers, and aquifers that underpin farming globally, reports the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Wastewater

Among the major causes that this international body highlights is that in some arid areas, there has been an increase in the amount of wastewater used to grow crops.

“The problem can be exacerbated by flooding, which can inundate sewage systems or stores of fertiliser, polluting both surface water and groundwater.”

Mounting risks

• Fertiliser run-off can cause algal blooms in lakes, killing fish. Storm run-off and forest fires are further risks to farming and food security.
• In some places around the world, pollution is also seeping into groundwater, with potential long-term impacts on crops, though more research is needed to establish the precise effects on plants and human health.
• The amount of freshwater per capita has fallen by 20% over the last two decades and nearly 60% of irrigated cropland is water-stressed.
• The implications of those shortages are far-reaching: irrigated agriculture contributes 40% of total food produced worldwide.

Now take a closer look at what is behind the decline of the world’s per capita freshwater reserves and how this is affecting farmers, as explained by the world body specialised in environmental issues.

Drought and aridification

Research shows that global warming is sparking longer-lasting droughts, like the record-setting dry spells that have gripped East Africa and the Western United States. This, say experts, is a prime example of climate change in the flesh.

According to the Global Land Outlook, a report by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), over one-third of the world’s population currently lives in water-scarce regions.

Groundwater

Groundwater supplies 43% of the water used for irrigation. But improvements in drilling technology over the last few decades have led to its unsustainable extraction in parts of the world, such as India.

FAO estimates that 10% of the global grain harvest is being produced by depleting groundwater resources.

Saltwater intrusion

Intensive irrigation can lead to a rise in the water table, syphoning salt into the soil and the roots of plants, affecting their growth.

As well, the overuse of groundwater can combine with climate-change-induced sea-level rise to cause saltwater to penetrate coastal groundwater aquifers. This can damage crops and their yields and affect drinking water supplies.

UNEP estimates that around one-tenth of rivers around the world are affected by salinity pollution.

Land degradation

Humanity has altered more than 70% of the Earth’s land area, causing what the Global Land Outlook called “unparalleled environmental degradation”. In many places, the ability of soils to store and filter water is waning, making it harder to grow crops and raise livestock.

All the above also leads to the steady loss of biodiversity.

The markets and the short-term profits

The way nature is valued in political and economic decisions is both a key driver of the global biodiversity crisis and a vital opportunity to address it, according to a four-year methodological assessment by 82 top scientists and experts from every region of the world.

The Assessment Report on the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature, released on 11 July 2022 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), finds that:

• There is a “dominant global focus on short-term profits and economic growth, often excluding the consideration of multiple values of nature in policy decisions.”
• Economic and political decisions have predominantly prioritised certain values of nature, particularly market-based instrumental values of nature, such as those associated with food produced intensively.
• Although often privileged in policymaking, these market values do not adequately reflect how changes in nature affect people’s quality of life. Furthermore, policymaking overlooks the many non-market values associated with nature’s contributions to people, such as climate regulation and cultural identity.

Why is it now degraded faster than ever?

“Biodiversity is being lost and nature’s contributions to people are being degraded faster now than at any other point in human history,” said Ana María Hernández Salgar, Chair of IPBES.

“This is largely because our current approach to political and economic decisions does not sufficiently account for the diversity of nature’s values.”

By Benoit Thierry
DAKAR, Senegal, Jul 25 2022 (IPS)

The current Ukraine-Russia conflict is dominating the global media to the point of overshadowing longer protracted crisis that no longer make headlines, but are still rife. Such is the case with the on-going Sahel crisis, one of the world’s most neglected ones, where acute poverty, the dramatic effects of climate change and rising armed conflicts have become the norm for more than a decade. A situation further exacerbated by the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.

Benoit Thierry

However, as vital as it is, humanitarian aid cannot provide a long-term solution. More coordinated responses that address the underlying causes of the crisis are required. For this reason, the three UN agencies specialised in food and agriculture, namely the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), have joined forces with the G5 Sahel, the regional organisation established in 2014 by the five most affected Sahel countries. Together and with the participation of Senegal, they have launched a US$180 million programme to improve the livelihoods and economic means of rural producers in the region and scale up successful pilot activities. Through it, a common approach is implemented, capitalizing on rural development work of past decades, particularly in supporting farmers and herders’ associations.

At IFAD we have a long experience working with rural producers in the region, however, until now, we tended to implement programmes nationally, in agreement with national governments. Currently, IFAD is financing 20 programmes and projects in G5 Sahel countries plus Senegal for a total of US$1 billion.

With the existence of regional Sahel organisations, we can now focus our efforts at regional level, knowing that many of the issues cut across national borders, and work in partnership with all the governments and international agencies concerned. This is for the benefit of the poorest, which is the purpose of the joint Sahel programme, known as the Regional Joint Programme Sahel in Response to the Challenges of COVID-19, Conflict and Climate Change (SD3C). In addition to financing, IFAD is contributing its long experience in implementing agricultural projects at local level, FAO is bringing its in-depth knowledge and research in agriculture, and WFP its expertise working in conflict areas.

An estimated 25 million people in the Sahel are nomadic pastoralists who are increasingly more desperate to find grazing areas for their cattle herds because of the effect of climate change. As they expand grazing areas into farming land, conflicts with sedentary farmers are on the rise leading to a decline in food production, when at the same time the population is increasing. According to UN forecast, population in the Sahel should more than double to 330 million people by 2050. How will they eat if the issue of food production and productivity is not addressed today through agriculture investment and adequate planning?

The programme looks to increase food production and yields through climate-resilient agricultural practices, a key aspect in a region where 80 percent of agriculture is estimated to be affected by climate change. With climate experts forecasting temperatures in the region, currently averaging 35 degrees Celsius, to rise by at least 3 degrees by 2050, there is even more urgency to implement climate resilient measures today.

Beyond the key issue of agriculture, the programme is also focussing on promoting cross-border trade and transactions and peace building at community level. Women, who typically have limited access to land and finance, are making up to 50 per cent of the programme’s participants. About 40 per cent are young people, who face high rates of unemployment and receive help in launching productive activities to create jobs and generate decent incomes. Landless people and transhumant pastoralists also benefit. The overall strategy is designed to meet the challenges of emergency, development and peace following a rapid intervention approach based on the scaling up of existing and efficient responses and approaches. Under implementation since 2021, the program will continue up to 2027 and expand to other countries in the Sahel region.

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Excerpt:

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority says it will drill 35,000 boreholes by 2025 countrywide, focusing on parched rural areas where erratic rainfall has affected both people and livestock. However, there is concern about groundwater levels. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, Jul 22 2022 (IPS)

Faced with cyclical droughts and low water levels in supply dams, Zimbabwe is turning to boreholes for relief, raising concerns about already precarious groundwater levels across the country.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority says it will drill 35,000 boreholes by 2025 countrywide, focusing on parched rural areas where erratic rainfall has affected both people and livestock.

The climate change-induced water crisis has not spared the country’s national parks, forcing sector officials to turn to groundwater for relief.

A 2021 review by the Southern African Development Community’s Groundwater Management Institute said Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare had 28,000 registered boreholes, with 80 percent of the population “dependent on groundwater for potable supply.”

“With such dependency, it becomes imperative that the resource is well monitored for sustainable management, and to enhance well-informed decisions at policy formulation level,” the report said, adding, “groundwater is a finite source.”

President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently launched a nationwide Presidential Borehole Scheme targeting urban areas where some residents have gone for years without running water.

The drive to turn to underground water supplies comes despite earlier warnings by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) that the country needed to be cautious in tapping groundwater.

The post-Mugabe administration has upped the drilling despite what experts say is continued poor rainwater seepage to raise the groundwater table, highlighting the country’s struggles with climate change and its adaptation efforts.

This is happening despite concerns from experts regarding what they have called “limited knowledge on aquifer recharge areas and rates,” further exposing the long-term sustainability of groundwater resources.

“If you over-abstract groundwater, you will obviously deplete it,” said Professor Innocent Nhapi, a consultant and climate-resilient development scholar.

“We need to increase our knowledge on groundwater resources by establishing a dedicated institute for training and research on groundwater. We then need to use modern techniques for quantifying the groundwater resources we have. From this knowledge, we need to prepare groundwater management plans for different sub-catchments,” Nhapi told IPS.

The country’s major towns, including the second city Bulawayo, continue to face crippling water shortages, with residents questioning the water quality from the municipality boreholes.

It has become customary for residents to experience rolling water cuts by the local municipality. This has meant long queues at boreholes, with some wondering why the boreholes take so to fill the buckets.

“Water does not pump as quickly as it used to. We take too much time in the queue,” said Nomazulu Nxumalo, a local home keeper.

The situation is even dire in low rainfall rural areas in the country’s southwest, where villagers and civil servants, such as teachers, share one borehole.

“You need plenty of strength to pump water these days,” said Leonard Maphosa, a teacher based in Lupane, about 170km from Bulawayo.

“I think the water is now far, far below. We have a well that has since been filled with sand because it does not have any more water,” Maphosa told IPS.

Officials remain concerned about the ability of the country’s aquifers to store water, considering rainfall’s erratic spells.

“Short, intense rainfall whilst providing a lot of water doesn’t provide enough time for the water to infiltrate and percolate into aquifers. A greater percentage of the water flows away as quick runoff,” said Tirivanhu Muhwati, a climate scientist and project coordinator at the country’s climate and environment ministry.

“This, however, does not mean that the boreholes should not be sunk as an adaptation measure. It simply means that the boreholes have to be fitted with water-use efficiency mechanisms, and demand-side management measures have to be instituted,” Muhwati told IPS.

For years, experts and government officials have noted that a lasting solution to Zimbabwe’s water crisis despite seasonal floods is the construction of dams. Still, as in many other sectors, authorities have cited a lack of resources for constructing them.

Despite population expansion, big cities such as Bulawayo have not built any new dams since the country’s independence in 1980, forcing authorities to sink more boreholes for relief.

“As more surface runoff is expected, the country should intensify the building of dams to capture the surface water,” Muhwati told IPS.

“This should be supported by the associated water conveyance infrastructure to where the water is required for agricultural, commercial, and domestic use. Groundwater can then be used only as a last resort,” he said.

Zimbabwe is not the only country in the region turning to groundwater.

The World Bank says due to climate variability, which has altered the availability of surface water, southern African countries are seeking relief by sinking boreholes, but the resource is already compromised by “threats of depletion.”

According to the World Bank, “at least 70 percent of the people living in southern African countries rely on groundwater as their primary source of water.”

For Zimbabwe, where another estimated 70 percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas, groundwater is the only available resource highlighting the country’s challenges towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), which seeks to ensure the availability of water for all by 2030.

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Afghan women. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 17 2022 (IPS)

Gynophobia is defined as an intense and irrational fear of women or hatred of women, it may be characterized as a form of specific phobias, which involves a fear that is centered on a specific trigger or situation, which in the case of gynophobia is women.

After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, in August 2021, the Taliban completed their shockingly rapid and forced advance across Afghanistan by capturing Kabul on 15th August. What followed this takeover has since then been a series of human rights violations, humanitarian catastrophe, roll back on women’s rights and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort. The country has also been enduring a deadly humanitarian crisis, with malnutrition spiking across the country with 95 percent of households experiencing insufficient food consumption and food insecurity, according to this report. The number of malnourished children in Afghanistan has more than doubled since August with some dying before they can reach hospitals.

According to this report, 9 million people are close to being afflicted by famine in Afghanistan, millions have gone months without a steady income. Afghanistan’s economic crisis has loomed for years; the result of poverty, conflict and drought. This, combined with a sudden drop-off in international aid, has made it more tough for Afghans to survive, adding to this list is illicit opium trade and the worrying drug addiction, an ongoing challenge for the country.

However the priority for the Taliban was not saving the economy and the country from these disasters, instead under the cloak of religion, it didn’t take too long for the fundamentalist group to focus and display its misogynistic gynophobia towards the women and girls in the country, as it was expected. What Taliban fears, yet again, Afghan girls attending school beyond 6th grade, a decision directly affecting 1.1 million secondary school girls, depriving them of a future.

Taliban officials have also announced women and girls would be expected to stay home and if they were to venture out, they would have to cover in all-encompassing loose clothing that only reveals their eyes, making it one of the harshest controls on women’s lives in Afghanistan since it seized power in August last year. They fear women journalists so much, they ordered all female newscasters to cover their faces while on air.

International rights groups, Human Rights Watch says the list of Taliban violations of the rights of women and girls is long and growing. Amongst many that have been listed, include appointment of an all-male cabinet, abolition of the ministry of Women’s Affairs and replacing it with the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Banning secondary education for girls, banning women from all jobs, blocking women from traveling long distances or leaving the country alone. “They issued new rules for how women must dress and behave. They enforce these rules through violence,” it stated in this report.

Women in Afghanistan since last August have been fighting back, through protests demanding the right to work and to go to school.

Sara Wahedi

“We know what is happening is terrifying, it’s unjust, it’s inhumane, what is the international community going to do to facilitate accountability measures now,” says Wahedi.

In 2021, Wahedi was named one of the Next Generation leaders by TIME Magazine, her mobile app, Ehtesab, crowd-sources verified reports of bombings, shootings, roadblocks and city-service issues, helping residents of Kabul to stay safe. As a young tech entrepreneur, Wahedi says she is amongst the few who got her education and the freedom to do what she wanted, as the times were different

“I feel incredibly guilty, I think most Afghan women who are out of Afghanistan, who were able to pursue education to the highest level feel a crippling sense of anxiety and guilt. Education is ingrained in our psyche right from the time we are born from our parents, but for our country it was also different because we have seen war, we have seen instability, it is even more pertinent to get out of this life, all Afghan girls, they know this and to have it taken away from them so violently, it’s obviously affected their mental health, and I feel an inexplicable level of guilt to be in this position,” Wahedi says.

Women and girls have continued to bear the brunt of restrictions under the Taliban and their imposed doctrine, as seen in the past. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (UNHCR) in this report said, “What we are witnessing today in Afghanistan is the institutionalized, systematic oppression of women.”

In this interview given to CNN, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting Interior Minister and Taliban’s co-deputy leader since 2016 said, “We keep naughty women at home.” After being pressed to clarify his comments, he said: “By saying naughty women, it was a joke referring to those naughty women who are controlled by some other side to bring the current government into question.”

With the Taliban coming into power, there is no doubt that the women in Afghanistan will continue to face an uncertain future and in order to avert the irreversible damage being done to the female population, international communities and organizations must not just condemn the Taliban, but also hold them accountable and speak up on behalf of Afghan women, before they are all forced into invisibility. Whatever little progress was made by women in Afghanistan, the Taliban have through their rules and policies reversed them, pushing women towards invisibility and exacerbated inequalities against women. What they fear – women being educated, being seen, having an identity, agency, work, job, rights, freedom and their ability to hold them accountable. The realities of life under the Taliban control, whatever the timeline may be, remains the same.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

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Droughts represent 15% of natural disasters but took the largest human toll, approximately 650,000 deaths from 1970-2019, Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, May 24 2022 (IPS)

The message is clear: three-quarters of the world’s population will be affected by drought by 2050. Does it sound too far in time? Well, your kids might be among the billions of humans living on a desertified planet.

But it is not about only them. Also you are already affected. In fact, around 1.700 billion of drylands, home to two billion people, are already covering 41% of the planet’s land surface.

Moreover, an additional 1 billion dryland hectares are now under threat.

In the past century, 45 major drought events occurred in Europe, affecting millions of people and resulting in more than 27.8 billion US dollars in economic losses. And today, an annual average of 15% of the land area and 17% of the population within the European Union is affected by drought

To talk about that, some 7,000 participants, including heads of State, ministers and delegates as well as representatives of the private sector, civil society, women, youth leaders and media, met in the 15 Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

The participants in this two-week meeting (9-20 May 2022) on the future of land had before their eyes the following facts and figures, which were submitted by the UNCCD report Drought in Numbers, 2022:

• Since 2000, the number and duration of droughts has risen 29%,

• From 1970 to 2019, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50% of disasters and 45% of disaster-related deaths, mostly in developing countries,

• Droughts represent 15% of natural disasters but took the largest human toll, approximately 650,000 deaths from 1970-2019,

• From 1998 to 2017, droughts caused global economic losses of roughly 124 billion US dollars,

• In 2022, more than 2.3 billion people face water stress, and almost 160 million children are exposed to severe and prolonged droughts.

What will happen if the world does not act… urgently?

Unless action is stepped up, UNCCD projects the following risks:

• By 2030, an estimated 700 million people will be at risk of being displaced by drought,

• By 2040, an estimated one in four children will live in areas with extreme water shortages,

• By 2050, droughts may affect over three-quarters of the world’s population, and an estimated 4.8-5.7 billion people will live in areas that are water-scarce for at least one month each year, up from 3.6 billion today,

• And up to 216 million people could be forced to migrate by 2050, largely due to drought in combination with other factors including water scarcity, declining crop productivity, sea-level rise, and overpopulation.

Where?

No continent and no country can feel safe or escape the impacts of the growing droughts. See what another report Droughtland says:

• Severe drought affects Africa more than any other continent, with more than 300 events recorded in the past 100 years, accounting for 44% of the global total. More recently, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced the dramatic consequences of climate disasters becoming more frequent and intense,

• In the past century, 45 major drought events occurred in Europe, affecting millions of people and resulting in more than 27.8 billion US dollars in economic losses. And today, an annual average of 15% of the land area and 17% of the population within the European Union is affected by drought,

• In the U.S., crop failures and other economic losses due to drought have totaled several hundred billion USD over the last century – 249 billion US dollars alone since 1980,

• Over the past century, the highest total number of humans affected by drought were in Asia.

Losing food, water, oxygen, biodiversity…

But regardless of the economic costs –taxpayers’ money is anyway being wasted on human and the Planet non-priorities such as weapons, wars, polluting fossil fuels, etc– the advancing droughts imply many dangerous impacts.

For instance, the evident risk of losing food production thus more scarcity and higher prices; severe water shortages; less oxygen from dried forests; major advance of extinction of the Planet’s biodiversity as a key survival factor, among many other consequences.

What are the causes?

The reasons are evident: unsustainable use, such as overgrazing or deforestation for conversion to agriculture.

The world leading Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that, exacerbated by climate change, this leads to land degradation and desertification, reduces productivity, and threatens food security and livelihoods.

See also what The Global Environment Facility (GEF), which serves as the financial mechanism for several environmental conventions, says in this regard: unchecked desertification can lead to food shortages, volatility and increases in food prices caused by declines in the productivity of croplands.

As well, it heightens the impacts of climate change globally caused by the release of carbon and nitrous oxide from degrading land; and the threat of social instability from the forced migration that will result.

The vicious cycle

“Contrary to common misconception, desertification is not necessarily the natural expansion of existing deserts but rather the degradation of land overtime due to overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and poor irrigation practices.

And although desertification is ultimately man-made, it is exacerbated by the extreme weather, such as droughts and heavy rains, associated with climate change.

“That can start a vicious cycle where land degradation leads to loss of vegetation and forests that reduces the Earth’s capacity to sequester carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…”

Impacts on ecosystems

The UNCCD report also highlight the following scientific findings:

• The percentage of plants affected by drought has more than doubled in the last 40 years, with about 12 million hectares of land lost each year due to drought and desertification,

• Ecosystems progressively turn into carbon sources, especially during extreme drought events, detectable on five of six continents,

• One-third of global carbon dioxide emissions is offset by the carbon uptake of terrestrial ecosystems, yet their capacity to sequester carbon is highly sensitive to drought events,

• 14% of wetlands critical for migratory species are located in drought-prone regions,

• The megadrought in Australia contributed to ‘megafires’ in 2019-2020 resulting in the most dramatic loss of habitat for threatened species in post-colonial history. And about 3 billion animals were killed or displaced in the Australian wildfires,

• Photosynthesis in European ecosystems was reduced by 30% during the summer drought of 2003, which resulted in an estimated net carbon release of 0.5 gigatons,

• 84% of terrestrial ecosystems are threatened by changing and intensifying wildfires,

• During the first two decades of the 21st century, the Amazon experienced 3 widespread droughts, all of which triggered massive forest fires.

• Drought events are becoming increasingly common in the Amazon region due to land-use and climate change, which are interlinked,

• If Amazonian deforestation continues unabated, 16% of the region’s remaining forests will likely burn by 2050.

The 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), took  place in Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire, from 9 to 20 May 2022. The theme: “Land, Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity.”

What happened in Abidjan?

The COP15 adopted 38 decisions, dealing with land restoration and tenure, migration and gender, among several others, while highlighting the role of land in addressing multiple crises.

Among them, the promotion of robust monitoring and data to track progress against land restoration commitments, the adoption of a new political and financial impetus to help nations deal with the devastating impacts of drought and build resilience.

It was also agreed to accelerate the restoration of one billion hectares of degraded land by 2030; to boost drought resilience by identifying the expansion of drylands, and to establish an Intergovernmental Working Group on Drought for 2022-2024 to look into possible options, including global policy instruments and regional policy frameworks.

The need to address the drought-induced forced migration and displacement driven by desertification and land degradation, was also among the COP15 conclusions.

But also the need to improve women’s involvement in land management as important enablers for effective land restoration, by addressing commonly encountered land tenure challenges by people in vulnerable situations, and collecting gender-disaggregated data on the impacts of desertification, land degradation and drought.

The “commitments”

The COP15 participants announced 2.500 billion US dollars in contributions, which is more than the expected 1.500 US dollars.

Still, a tough question remains: experience and pragmatism proved over the last decades that politicians are as quick to promise as they are not to fulfill. Will it be the same case now?

The 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is taking place in Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire, from 9 to 20 May 2022. The theme: “Land, Life. Legacy: From scarcity to prosperity.” “We are faced with a crucial choice,” Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told participants: “We can either reap the benefits of land restoration now or continue on the disastrous path that has led us to the triple planetary crisis of climate, biodiversity and pollution”

By Alexander Müller and Jes Weigelt
BERLIN, May 16 2022 (IPS)

The landmark land tenure decision by parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2019 offers a blueprint for upcoming climate negotiations in Sharm El Sheikh in November.

The ongoing UNCCD COP15 conference in Abidjan (May 9-20) is taking necessary next steps to guide countries on how to embed land rights within national implementation processes.

As the first of the three Rio Conventions (addressing climate, biodiversity and desertification respectively) to explicitly refer to land tenure as a critical enabler for the transition to more sustainable pathways, this meeting could advance the landmark land tenure decision by proposing guidelines to safeguard legitimate land rights, argues Berlin-based think tank TMG Research.

According to the UNCCD’s recently published Global Land Outlook, roughly $44 trillion of economic output (more than half of global GDP) is moderately or highly reliant on natural capital.

Yet this natural resource base is under intense pressure from changing land use patterns and the accelerated impacts of climate change. This already has huge consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable communities, who depend on natural resources for their survival, and even more people will be affected as natural capital dwindles.

Current land restoration efforts, such as the global goal of restoring 1 billion hectares of degraded land or achieving ‘land degradation neutrality’ by 2030, are seen as offering new opportunities to tackle the impacts of climate change while addressing food security needs, creating livelihood opportunities, especially in rural areas, and countering growing land-based conflicts and migration.

But such initiatives need to account for all existing legitimate tenure rights for Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers and pastoralists, women and youth, and other vulnerable groups.

Otherwise, restoration efforts and especially large-scale investments will lead to new conflicts, violating the rights of people and risking the success of the planned measure.

The UNCCD is the first of the three ‘Rio Conventions’ to explicitly recognize the importance of safeguarding all forms of legitimate land tenure – especially for women, youth, Indigenous communities, and smallholder farmers and pastoralists – as a prerequisite for the sustainable management of land and other natural resources.

But with land governance enacted at the national and sub-national levels, how can this progressive decision at the global level translate into a governance environment that promotes good land stewardship by strengthening the land rights of vulnerable groups at the local level?

As noted by the Global Land Outlook, “land is the operative link between biodiversity loss and climate change,” but to deliver on global aspirations, restoration must take place “in the right places and at the right scales.”

We therefore welcome the decision to devote a ministerial roundtable at COP15 to the theme of “Rights, Rewards and Responsibilities – the future of land stewardship” and invite TMG to deliver the keynote address.

The relationship between a decision on principles of good governance at global level and action on the ground must acknowledge that “all land stewardship is local.” This means that “localizing” the global land tenure decision requires analyzing the concrete situation on the ground, respecting people’s rights and strengthening the ability of local communities to protect their rights and become actively involved in restoration processes.

This approach is particularly critical for the implementation of global efforts to achieve carbon neutrality and afforestation for carbon offsetting purposes.

Our work with national partners in four African countries points to how the link between legitimate tenure rights and restoration can be made. National governments must incorporate land rights as a starting point in developing restoration agendas, including their UNCCD targets to achieve land degradation neutrality.

We welcome the strong statements made by many countries at the session and the commitment of multilateral agencies to support countries in more explicitly linking land governance and policies to reverse land degradation, desertification and drought. At its heart, this calls for “changing mindsets towards land tenure,” as FAO’s Maria Helena Semedo noted.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) were designed to do exactly this. Adopted exactly 10 years ago by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the VGGT are “true connectors” of work across the three Rio Conventions, in the words of CFS Vice Chair Gabriel Ferrero de Loma-Osorio.

The UNCCD/FAO Technical Guide on implementing the land tenure decision in the context of the VGGT, which TMG helped develop, explains how to reinforce actions at the sub-national and local levels by building on efforts by communities and civil society organizations.

Our ongoing partnership with four African governments shows how responsible land governance can be meaningfully realized from the ground up.

Explore the Human Rights & Land Navigator, launched at UNCCD’s COP15, on May 12th in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. This tool was developed by TMG Research, the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Malawi Human Rights Commission, with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Alexander Müller is Founder & Managing Director, TMG Think Tank for Sustainability, based in Berlin, with a regional office in Nairobi; Jes Weigelt is Head of Programmes, TMG Think Tank for Sustainability

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Amidst a backdrop of rising food insecurity worldwide and a global food supply chain crisis, many countries are attempting to increase the level of food self-production. One improved input for farming which is receiving renewed attention is improved seed. The two most populous countries in the world, China and India, have recently made ground-breaking moves to improve their competitive position by developing new seeds which will improve their food production and increase resilience to climate change. So far, in 2022, new regulations on using biotechnology (genetic modification and gene editing) have been put in place by both countries to ultimately allow smallholder farmers to benefit from these new seeds.

Paul Teng

The importance of having reliable supplies of improved seeds for farmers has been particularly highlighted in the world’s most populous country, China, where seeds are high on the policy agenda.

In early April 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for working toward food self-sufficiency and developing the country’s seed industry during a visit to a seed laboratory in Hainan Province, southern China. He noted that China’s food security could only be safeguarded when seed resources are firmly held in its own hands. President Xi’s comments come at a time when many countries aim to increase their self-production of food in anticipation of disruptions in supply chains such as those caused by the Ukraine-Russia crisis and the COVID pandemic.

Genevieve Donnellon-May

All the above background factors have led China and India to make important moves to tap a proven tool for developing new crop varieties, namely biotechnology.

In April 2022, China’s agriculture ministry announced plans for the first time after many years of deliberations to approve two new genetically modified corn varieties developed by the Syngenta Group. Earlier, In January 2022, China published new guidelines for the approval of gene-edited plants, paving the way for faster improvements to important food security crops. And this came amid a raft of measures to overhaul China’s seed industry, seen as a weak link in efforts to ensure it can feed the world’s biggest population. China’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tang Renjian, had likened seeds to the “computer chips” of agriculture.

In an unrelated parallel development, India approved a key change in rules at the end of March 2022 to allow genome-edited plants or organisms without any “foreign” genes to be subjected to a different regulatory process than the one applied to genetically engineered products. As in China, this is anticipated to lead to faster development of new crop varieties that can meet the challenges of climate change and higher yields.

However, not all interested parties support the use of biotechnology to develop new seeds or patenting new crop varieties. Although the evidence is strong that multinational and domestic seed companies have played a major role in lifting crop production through their improved seeds, this has also led to concerns about the control that the private sector may have over this important input for food production. And related to this issue of control of seeds is the patenting of new seeds.

There has been a rise in ‘seed activism‘ and interest in seed sovereignty as part of the pushback against the modern agricultural system that is supported by patented seeds such as hybrids. This pushback has been helmed by groups which exploit the fear (often speculative) that by having control over seeds, a handful of multinational companies, rather than farmers or countries, have control over the global food supply. This omits the reality that farmers have the right to choose whatever seeds to plant and even keep their own seeds if desired. These groups have also failed to recognize that investments to innovate and produce new seeds would not have been possible without adequate protection of seeds as intellectual property. Countries like China and India realise the importance of promoting innovations in the seed industry.

China, in particular, has announced that it aims to revitalize the seed sector, encourage germplasm collection, and strengthen intellectual property protection in the sector. In China, views on the importance of seeds in food security are reflected in various domestic policies such as in 2022’s “No 1 Central Policy Document”, the country’s agricultural blueprint. A top policy priority is the development of the seed industry in China.

The issues of seed sovereignty based on farmer-saved seed, when balanced against the track record of improved seeds from companies which give high yields, are complex. But in the final analysis, farmers will choose the seeds that give them the most assured yields under risky conditions, even if they have to pay for such seeds. This has been the case with almost all the developed and developing countries with food surpluses for export, such as the U.S.A., Canada, Brazil and Argentina. And consumers, as well as food importers are those who benefit by there being more food at affordable prices.

The first “Green Revolution” in Asia which took off in the 1970s was based on improved seeds of wheat and rice, bred using technologies which were novel at that time. However, towards the latter part of the last millennium, the need for more novel technologies to improve crops became obvious as yield gains were stagnating in many crops. The challenges facing all smallholder farmers arising from changes in climate, pests and natural resource depletion are becoming more intense and frequent. And unless new seeds are developed and made available to farmers in shorter timeframes, it is the consuming public that will suffer the consequences of reduced, unreliable food supply and higher prices.

The conundrum is how to balance local ownership of seed sources which are commonly unimproved and low-yielding with improved high-yielding seeds developed by seed companies (either domestic or multinational) using modern science. Ultimately, smallholder farmers worldwide deserve new “seeds of hope”.

Paul Teng is Adjunct Senior Fellow, Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies at Nanyang Technological University Singapore. He has worked in the Asia Pacific region on agri-food issues for over thirty years, with international organizations, academia and the private sector.

Genevieve Donnellon-May is a master’s student in Water Science, Policy and Management at the University of Oxford. Genevieve’s research interests include China, Africa, transboundary governance, and the food-energy-water nexus.

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The protected Kent Falls and Park in Connecticut, USA. GLO2 report calls on governments to create parks and restore wetlands to enhance citizens' quality of life. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Apr 27 2022 (IPS)

With 50% of humanity affected by land degradation, the world must move to a ‘crisis footing’ to conserve, restore and use land resources sustainably, a major UN report has said.

Released on April 27, the landmark Global Land Outlook by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification provides a sobering account of the state of the earth’s land and calls for ambitious plans for sustainable land use to protect human health.

Compiled over five years, in collaboration with 21 partner organizations, the report is considered the most comprehensive meta-analysis of land issues to date. Known as GLO2, it builds on the 2017 land outlook report, which assessed the consequences of deforestation and widespread unsustainable agricultural practices on human and ecosystem health, food security and stable livelihoods.

“We have already degraded nearly 40 % and altered 70% of the land. We cannot afford to have another “lost decade” for nature and need to act now for a future of life in harmony with nature. The GLO2 shows pathways, enablers and knowledge that we should apply to effectively implement the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Elizabeth Mrema, Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity

With a reminder that land is a finite resource, the report warns that current management and use are escalating the risk of ‘widespread, abrupt and irreversible environmental changes.’

It also focuses heavily on solutions – particularly land, soil, forest and other ecosystems protection and restoration.

“The report is highlighting the importance of protecting remaining tropical forests, especially of managing wildlife and biodiversity in a much more careful way, protecting and restoring to recover from some of the damage that has been done. It highlights the enormous opportunity globally for restoration of landscapes around the world, the potential for that to contribute to improving the production of food, protection of biodiversity, storage of carbon and the provision of livelihoods. There are enormous employment opportunities related to those activities, and in turn help to make our economies more resilient,” Tropical Forest Ecologist Dr Nigel Sizer told IPS.

Sizer, who is the Executive Director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition, says the report gives the world the wake-up call it needs to take urgent action to end forest destruction and protect human health.

“Our relationship with nature is so broken. We have heard a lot about climate change and the extinction of animal and plant species. What people did not realize so much is that pandemics are primarily a result of spillover viruses from wildlife, often related to the trade in wildlife species, deforestation and other exploitative aspects of our relationship with nature. This report highlights the massive amount of land degradation, forest loss and loss of biodiversity that is going on globally, and provides a very important call to address those challenges, especially to governments,” he said.

The GLO2 is calling for increasingly ambitious land restoration targets, with the largest emitters of greenhouse gases helping developing countries to restore their land resources.

“As a global community, we can no longer rely on incremental reforms within traditional planning and development frameworks to address the profound development and sustainability challenges we are facing in coming decades. A rapid transformation in land use and management practices that place people and nature at the center of our planning is needed, prioritizing job creation and building vital skill sets while giving voice to women and youth who have been traditionally marginalized from decision making,” said Nichole Barger, report steering committee member, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado.

Sizer agrees.

“We urgently need to see governments committed to protecting what’s left to restore a lot of what has been lost in terms of tree cover forests, wetlands, freshwater systems, coastal ecosystems. This is absolutely key for protecting our food production systems, restoring the soil and providing livelihoods, particularly in rural communities,” he told IPS.

The GLO2 has been released in what is expected to be a watershed year for action on land and biodiversity issues, including the hosting of the 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (COP 15), scheduled for May 9-20 in Côte d’Ivoire. That event is expected to focus on reviving global degraded lands and soils.

“As we come out of the pandemic, building back after the economic impact that this has had as well as the opportunity to create lots of jobs by restoring nature and managing the land and in a more responsible way is a great opportunity to stimulate economies to achieve more sustainability, and recover more quickly from this pandemic as well as reduced the risk of future pandemics,” said Sizer.

And what does failure to act mean?

According to the GLO2, by 2050 an additional area the size of South America will be degraded if the world continues along the current trajectory.

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Excerpt:

Devka and Krishna Desai on their multilayer farm. They are happy because this method has brought them great success. Here they are with their harvest of bananas and papaya. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Apr 11 2022 (IPS)

Even as erratic weather and extremely high temperatures increase pest infestation and affect harvests, a combination of traditional methods, integrated pest management through intercropping and multilayering is helping farmers in Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra, India.

Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts in the western Indian state of Maharashtra are semi-arid regions in the hinterland. Ahmednagar is drought-prone with erratic rains. Aurangabad district lies in the water-starved Marathwada region of Maharashtra. The mean maximum temperature is high, and the area experienced severe droughts in 2012 and 2014. Barring the Godavari, there are no perennial rivers in the region. Farmers have a trying time during the summer months, trying to prevent the soil from cracking due to intense heat. The rains are erratic, with untimely rains further exacerbating the onset of pests.

Yet, both districts lead in the production of pulses, maize, and grams. Since these crops are susceptible to aphids and pod-borers, high temperatures and erratic rains due to climate change have seen farmers resort to increased chemicals to check pest infestation.

This is where multilayer farming using natural organic methods, integrated pest management, and intercropping has proved beneficial to farmers in Gangapur, Shrigonda and Karjat.  Gradually reducing the chemical content in their farms over three full years, farmers are now opting for natural organic farming, with the help of technical expertise from the non-profit Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) and scientists from WOTR-Centre for Climate Resilience (W-CRES).

The design incorporates a variety of vegetable and fruit varieties planted in limited space. This means using trees and plants of varying heights and maturing time next to one another so that each is dependent on the other. Smaller plants grow under the canopy of tall trees and yield well, even as tall fruit trees shoot up to the sun. It also ensures adequate shade in the summer months to keep the farms cool and congenial for growth. Water consumption is kept at a minimum using a rain-pipe sprinkler that runs around the patch. The method also uses integrated pest management to control pests by choosing the right plants in a cluster, and natural pesticides, without using any chemicals.

W-CRES Senior Researcher Dr Nitin Kumbhar and Junior Researcher Satish Adhe explains: “Integrated pest management works at several levels. It works through the choice of natural and organic methods, natural pheromone traps, intercropping (as per a formula we have developed), and the use of organic fungicides/pesticides that can be easily made by farming households.”

A simple square design is used, wherein bananas are intercropped with marigold, mango, maize, and black gram (urad), and papayas are intercropped with chilli black gram, drumstick, and guava. Onions are intercropped with ginger; tomatoes are intercropped with spinach and pumpkin. Radish is planted in a single row, while ridge gourd, lemongrass, and coriander are grown on the outside flanks of the farm.

Soft-stemmed coriander attracts pests. When attacked, the affected stalks of coriander are easily discarded. Marigold destroys nematodes in the soil through its alkaloid roots and protects crops. It also attracts female moths who lay eggs on the plant (leaving other crops untouched). Maize attracts beneficial insects such as the ladybird beetle, which feeds on the aphids that destroy crops.

Integrated pest management also involves pheromone traps to attract and kill destructive pests. These traps can be used against leaf-eating insects, pod borers, mealy bugs, aphids, sucking pests or fruit flies.

For all crops grown on patches, it is imperative that planting is done in a north-south direction. “This allows the crops to access sunshine throughout the day,” explains Kumbhar.

Once the farmers did away with hybrid varieties and opted for traditional ones, there was less vegetative growth and fewer insect attacks.

“Part of the problem with hybrid varieties is more vegetative growth and softer stems. This makes it attractive for pests to attack. Traditional varieties are hardier and can withstand extreme temperatures that are now common due to climate change. Farmers do not lose their crops easily due to pest attacks,” Kumbhar tells IPS.

Dipali Bankar, whose family owns a 3-acre farm in Ambelohol village in Gangapur (taluka) of Aurangabad district. A Savita Bachat Gat (Savita microfinance group) member, Dipali used her savings to widen the varieties cultivated on her family’s farm, using the multilayer model on a patch.

“Earlier, we would grow cotton from June to October, Jowar in summer, soybeans and pigeon pea in the monsoons, chickpeas, and onion in winter. Limited availability of water-limited our options. In February 2020, I took the advice of experts from WOTR and went in for multilayer farming on four gunthas (400 square metres of our land. We planted papaya, moringa (drumsticks), bananas, mangoes, guava, lemon, figs, tomatoes, brinjal, chilli (curry leaves), and marigold. Despite the Covid 19 -induced lockdown, the family earned a sizeable sum from the fruit and vegetables cultivated. The Bankars had their first crop of chillies in April 2020 and have sold a sizeable amount every 15 days, helping the family earn Rs 15000 so far. Papaya matures in nine months, while bananas bear fruit in eight months, and moringa yields drumsticks in seven months. This helped the Bankars earn Rs 70,000 from papayas, Rs 28000 and Rs 56 000 from two banana harvests, respectively and Rs 40,000 from selling drumsticks. Although markets were shut during the lockdown, the family managed to sell through local grocery shops and used the rest for their consumption. Dipali’s husband, Devidas Bankar, managed to sell part of his produce in Surat and Mumbai, where he travelled once the lockdown eased.

Sindhubai Ramnath Desai of Ambelohol village in Gangapur taluka of Aurangabad was sceptical. She initially opted to experiment on just 100 square metres, planting moringa, bananas, papaya, lemon, mango, figs, tomato, chilli, brinjal, lemongrass, spinach, coriander, curry leaves and garden sorrel. But the earnings were so substantial that she soon revised her opinion on multilayer farming.

“We earned Rs 7000 from bananas, Rs 5000 from papaya, Rs 2000 from drumsticks, Rs 1500 from chillies, and Rs 2000 selling spinach following the first harvest, besides saving Rs 2000 every month using vegetables and fruit for our consumption.”

The Desais used to hire bullocks for their farm – with the extra money earned they bought cattle which they fed with home-grown fodder.

“We have a cow and two bullocks of our own, now. The special fodder bag we now make, using jaggery, salt and (maize) fodder grass, is very nutritious and has helped them yield good milk. The cattle relish it too, as you can see,” she points to her cow, hungrily devouring the contents of the fodder bag from a feeding bucket. The family has now decided to double the land under multilayer farming to 200 square metres (two gunthas).

Sangita Krishna Ballal and her family had been growing cotton as a monoculture crop on their farmland until the recent past. Their fortunes changed once they opted for multilayer farming on a single guntha (approximately 100 square metres). With drumsticks, papaya, mango, guava, figs, lemongrass, coriander, chilli, lemongrass, brinjal, tomato, curry leaves, marigold, spinach and dill to supplement their income, the family fortunes started looking up. Lemongrass proved an excellent cash crop, with factories regularly collecting it to manufacture flavouring essence.

Dipak Dattatraya Mandle and his wife Mangal Mandle of Mahandulwadi in Shrigonda taluka of Ahmednagar district found that apart from other achievements, marigolds were successful.  With marigolds priced at Rs 200 per kg, sales during the festive season in September-October clocked around Rs 7000/ per month.

Kavita and Aruna Bhujbal used the extra money earned to buy cattle.

“We now have 20 goats, in addition to our two buffaloes, and seven cows (four Guernsey and three local breeds). We have been selling the milk to the local dairy. Goat milk is in big demand,” Aruna said. Others are diverting their additional income to diversify into other livelihood options. For instance, Kausar Sheikh has used the money to expand her bangle business, while Mira Mahandule and Sangita Popat Birekar have started rearing goats.

In this, the FarmPrecise app developed by WOTR has been of immense help. A multilingual app, FarmPrecise helps the individual farmer with advice related to the amount of water, fertilizer, fungicide, or pesticide to be used for every crop and at what intervals. The farmers are also instructed on the organic concoctions for stimulating growth and keeping their crops pest-free.

For instance, the farmers use Bengal gram flour, jaggery, cow dung and cow urine to make Jeevamrut fertilizer, while Neemastra is made out of neem leaves, cow dung and cow urine to serve as a pesticide. The Amrutpani spray (pesticide), is made of a mixture of neem leaves, Bengal gram flour, jaggery and cow dung. The Dashaparni spray – a composition using ten different types of leaves along with garlic, chillies, cow dung and cow urine is another useful biopesticide that serves as a pesticide and growth stimulant.

This combination of traditional, time-tested methods and a modern app is helping farmers combat and overcome climate change, the newest scourge on the block.

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How would the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu have reacted to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine? Differently than you might think.

The invasion of Ukraine is a mass human tragedy. It is killing Ukrainians, exposing families to violent atrocities, and has driven a refugee crisis of over 4 million people and counting. The war in Ukraine has also reawakened our fear of global war – even nuclear war – and the importance we place on global peace.

Julius Awaregya

The war in Ukraine has also driven global food shortages, particularly in Africa. And it has sparked an energy crisis, and a reckoning with our global addiction to oil.

Seeing this war unfold, Archbishop Tutu would have been horrified. He would have condemned it. But he also would have been unequivocal: this is a crisis of peace, but also a climate crisis, and a once-in-a-generation moment to rally humanity around solutions that could improve our climate, economic and food futures. He would have believed what we believe:

There can be no true global peace, ever, without global action to avert climate change. And this moment is the time we must begin to link these crises inextricably.

Perhaps ironically, as if challenging the human project, the invasion of Ukraine occurred simultaneously with the most urgent and stark, clarion call in history by the United Nations for universal action to mitigate the impact of global warming. Four days after Russian troops began their thrust into Ukrainian sovereign territory, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a detailed report entitled Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability, on February 28.

Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth

Putin’s purge of Ukraine has triggered the biggest refugee crisis on European land since WWII. The scenes along the Ukrainian border are heart-breaking. Scenes of traumatised and separated families seeking refuge. But also, stories of discrimination experienced by innocent African and Asian students also seeking shelter from the war. But if current climate trends continue, the IPCC expects a billion people living in vulnerable coastal communities across the globe to be at risk from rising sea levels in the next few decades, due to “submergence and loss”. The report is, literally, awash with examples of where this is already happening on every continent.

In other words, what we’re seeing in Poland and worldwide is fast becoming the daily norm worldwide, and could ultimately dwarf the humanitarian crisis Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed. Seeing the scenes of suffering and bravery from Lyiv and Poland, we say that with humility. But what we see on the border of Poland and Ukraine today is soon to be the rule, not the exception, everyday of our lives if temperatures continue to rise.

Our only hope – and a response that would immediately aid Ukraine – is a collective uprising of humanity, fuelled by the same passionate determination evident in the Ukrainian people as they seek to protect their land. It is time to divert essential resources and energy away from war and the military industrial complex, to be urgently reinvested in a Marshall Plan that seeks to protect our common home and save humanity from existential threat.

Don Mullan

First, nations seeking to end-run or make do by continuing to access Russian oil and fossil fuels must cease and find other alternatives. Nations are putting funds in escrow to buy oil as payment for a day when a better behaved Russia can accept their fee. This day clearly will not come, and these purchases undermine the last best hope for democracy in Ukraine – cutting off Russia’s greenhouse gas economy.

This is what’s best for peace. it’s also ultimately in the best interests of the global community and the planet.

Second, and closest to home for us: The IPCC Report highlights the importance of policymakers focusing on “climate resilient development,” which they argue helps build strength in every society to cope with climate change. We have such a solution – one that only needs awareness, funds and hope.

The Great Green Wall is an epic African initiative whose aim is to cross the continent from Senegal to the Republic of Djibouti to combat desertification, restore degraded lands, protect biodiversity, and offer food and habitat security. We write today with deep concern for the global community, but also as champions of a project that could immediately address the food crisis, economic crisis and climate crisis facing Africa and the southern Hemisphere of the globe.

We have also decided, in memory of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu – inspired by the IPCC Report and in opposition to all war – to create the Desmond Tutu Peace Forest in Ghana and Burkina Faso as part of Africa’s Great Green Wall. This is a project for peace – one that would seek to turn global discord into optimism and action. Some of the last utterances of Archbishop Tutu’s remarkable life were in support of Africa’s Great Green Wall. In 2020 he said:

… one way to use our power wisely is for civil society across the globe to champion, in solidarity with Africa, the Great Green Wall. Supporting Africa in growing new lungs for the Earth. Lungs that become, with every tree planted, a ribbon of hope, inspiring interfaith harmony, and peacebuilding across the Sahel and throughout the continent.

In creating the Desmond Tutu Peace Forest, we also wish to highlight and support the four great legacy pillars of his life: the ending of all forms of apartheid and hate; the empowerment of women and gender equality; environmental integrity; and peace founded on justice for all.

These are the pillars that will uplift Africa. They are also the pillars that will move us from this conflict in Ukraine towards a solutions-focused humanity that seeks to weave peace from war; opportunity from climate emergency. The Great Green Wall is one of several solutions worldwide that can address the worst impacts of climate change – from the “Green New Deal” in the United States to the preservation and restoration of Amazon rainforest and ecosystems. It is also the least controversial, most immediately scalable and perhaps most powerful symbol of the future we hope to build together.

It’s popularly said and written that “the only way out is through.” The war in Ukraine is a conflict that clarifies the need to raise up solutions like the Great Green Wall – and the Desmond Tutu Peace Forest. The world’s most vulnerable people, indeed, all sentient beings and the Earth itself, need compassion, not conflict.

Help us to grow the Desmond Tutu Peace Forest, and let’s join today to move forward in his memory.

Julius Awaregya is the Founder and CEO, ORGIIS Ghana; Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth is the Co-founder and CEO of Tutu Teach Foundation; Don Mullan is Founder and CEO, Hope Initiatives International.

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India began its journey as an independent nation in 1947 with fresh memory of the Bengal Famine of 1943 which claimed 1.5 to 3 million lives. Against this backdrop, the First Five Year Plan (1951-56) prioritized agriculture which, however, shifted to heavily industrialization in the second Plan.

Shyam Khadka

The success, however, has come with significant costs. The resource intensification that the Green Revolution requires has adversely affected natural resources and environment. India pumped 245 million cubic meters – about 25 percent of total groundwater withdrawn globally – for irrigation in 2011. As a result, ground water in 1,034 blocks (16% of total blocks) are over-exploited. Worse, ground water table has become critical in 4% and semi-critical in 10% of the blocks. Similarly, some 37% of land area in the country (120.4 mn ha) is affected by various types of land degradation. Subsidy policy-induced non-judicious use of fertilizers has led to the chemicalization of soil and pollution of water through leaching and run-off. Despite abundant supply of food grains, in 2020 41.7% of under-5 children suffered from stunting. India is home to 208.6 million – or over a quarter – of world’s undernourished people. Other challenges that Indian agriculture faces today include uneven regional growth, rising fiscal constraints, mounting and unsustainable level of subsidies, small holding size and further fragmentation of holdings and accompanying land tenurial issues, and low resource use efficiency, particularly of water. These factors act as serious impediments for sustained agricultural growth and farmers’ livelihoods.

Amidst the success and emerging challenges NITI Aayog, the apex public policy think tank of the Government of India and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) decided to facilitate a national dialogue among key stakeholders including government agencies, academia, civil society organisations, farmers, private sector, international organizations, media and others to articulate a vision for 2030 and pathways for the remandating of agriculture in India. To this end, 10 thematic papers were commissioned from distinguished professionals. A 3-day national dialogue entitled, ‘Indian Agriculture Towards 2030: Pathways for enhancing Farmers’ Income, Nutritional Security and Sustainable Food and Farm Systems” was held in January 2021. NITI Aayog and FAO have now come up with a publication with the same title (Chand, R., Joshi, P, and Khadka, S., Editors (2022), Springer).

In addition to the challenges enumerated above the books also deals with issues of climate change and its impact on agricultural production and farmers’ incomes and the strategies to mitigate such change; growing incidence of pests, pandemics, and transboundary diseases and threat to biosecurity affecting agricultural production; and alternative farming systems for transformative and sustainable agroecology and biodiverse future. The role of science, technology and innovation is identified as key to sustainable and resilient agriculture. Similarly, role of structural reforms and governance are discussed in detail and the role of price policies, market reforms and institutions are being highlighted for an efficient, inclusive and sustainable agriculture.

The National Dialogue identified pathways for transformation with emphasis on remandating Indian agriculture in a way that makes it more productive, efficient, resilient, resource conserving, nutrition centered and globally focused. These transformational outcomes are to be achieved by focusing on following pathways:

• Increasing investment in agriculture, first to reverse the declining trend and then achieving ‘efficient’ growth rather than growth alone, increased adoption of improved technology, reorienting agricultural science, technology and innovations, applying digital solutions and artificial intelligence, better use of information and communication technology, application of One Health concept;
• Making Indian agriculture globally-focused, shifting attention from self-sufficiency to adding value through increased processing and achieving a high rate of export growth
• Enhancing the efficiency of the water and other resources, mainly by correcting distorted water pricing, adopting water conserving technologies and agro-ecological approach, changes in the cropping pattern, and reversing neglect of rainfed areas;
• Making agriculture climate resilient, by adopting several no-regret technological and institutional options as well as by undertaking more targeted research, use of big data analytics, and adoption of a science-based and green growth approach;
• Tackling nutrition and food safety, by diversifying diet, reducing post-harvest losses, encouraging bio-fortifications, empowering women, enforcing food safety standards, improving water sanitation and hygiene, and promoting food safety awareness and nutrition education;
• Focusing sharply on innovations, incentives and institutions that contribute to enhance productivity, enhance resilience to climate change, incentivize water and energy conservation, and by adopting more conducive regulatory environment such as for exploiting ground water; and
• Adopting appropriate policies and improving governance such as by reducing distortion caused by the MSP, accelerating rural infrastructure creation, ensuring greater engagement of the state governments, enhancing access to credit and extension services, and expansion of contract farming.

As emphasised by Honourable M. Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President of India in his foreword, the book ‘provides a sound basis for reflection because they distil important lessons and present an array of policy options for the government to choose from’.

Shyam Khadka is a former senior official of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations who served as representative in India (2015-18) and was Senior Portfolio Manager in United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (1997-2014). An international development professional, Khadka works on policies, programs and projects that aim at developing agriculture, ensuring food security, and reducing poverty globally.

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Rizwana Hasan

By Sania Farooqui
DHAKA and NEW DELHI, Mar 15 2022 (IPS)

In an exclusive interview to IPS UN Bureau, journalist Sania Farooqui is in conversation with Bangladeshi lawyer, Rizwana Hasan who was recently awarded the 16th Annual International Women of Courage Awards by the U.S Department of State. Hasan works primarily to protect the environment and defend the dignity and rights of marginalized Bangladeshis. Through landmark legal cases over the past 20 years, Hasan has changed the dynamics of development in Bangladesh to include a people-centered focus on environmental justice.

In her capacity as Chief Executive of the public interest law firm Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, she has argued and won monumental cases against deforestation, pollution, unregulated ship breaking, and illegal land development. In 2009, Hasan was named as one of 40 Environmental Heroes of the World by TIME magazine and was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2012 for her activism. In the years since, she has continued her crucial work in the courtroom to combat environmental degradation and the local effects of climate change, despite significant resistance from powerful interests and threats of violence to herself and her family. 

In this interview, Rizwana Hasan and Sania Farooqui touch upon various topics, including winning the International Women of Courage Awards, growing up in a patriarchal society to changes in the attitude towards women professionals, Hasan’s personal journey and challenges, what it took to become a lawyer and an environmentalist, and lastly impact of climate change, especially on marginalized communities.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

IPS: Congratulations on being awarded the International Women of Courage Awards by the US Department of State. You are among one of the 12 extraordinary women from around the world selected for this award. Tell us a little about the award ceremony on March 14, 2022. How do you feel about it?

Rizwana Hasan: It’s a very different kind of feeling. Initially, it gave me a very positive feeling. Every award recognises your efforts, (although) it’s not (only the) person being awarded – it’s also the process, the cause for which you fight. So, I took it in that spirit. When I saw other names, (I realised) my work had crossed all these continents and reached the US. It’s not recognition coming from your family, which is equally important or even more important, but coming from a country like the USA, which is, God knows, how many continents away from where you live. It is something very assuring and very empowering.

IPS: I want to talk a little about growing up in Bangladesh. Do you see changes in the attitude towards women in professional positions? Do you see a marked change in progress for women, especially those in rural areas?

RH: I would answer your question with a yes and a no. We have women in Bangladesh in leading positions (and) in many professional positions. It’s not that we are only getting professional jobs; we are getting leadership positions in many professions. We are taking up challenges. We are reaching heights that are unknown to many of our male counterparts. With women getting empowered, this is a definite threat to patriarchy.

(However), we operate in a very conservative society, and many women quit their jobs because they don’t have that support system to continue.

When women become independent and start speaking their minds, that is a definite blow to patriarchy.

For rural women, it’s more difficult. There is a disparity between urban and rural women regarding education and capacity, training, and access to the system. But again, some women leave Bangladesh and travel thousands of kilometres to enter the labour market in Middle East countries, which is a starting point for them. A few women in rural areas take up the challenge and try to find access to mainstream service. But the violence and exploitation they face in those markets are drawbacks.

IPS: At a time when women’s issues and rights in Bangladesh are in the news, tell us a little about your journey to becoming a lawyer and an environmentalist? How easy or challenging was it for you to pursue your passion? How would you compare your initial days of working on sensitive issues to now?

RH: I work to promote the notion of environmental justice. When I started working in this area, it was all very rosy, new agenda, very fashionable agenda. When I started going very deep into the crisis, I realised it was a very hard-hitting agenda, a very political agenda. You have to take a stand against very organised economic powers. Initially, it was easy, and I continued in this arena because I probably did not realise its consequences. So initially, people would take you lightly, as if it’s a romantic agenda. But when you started talking against real estate development because they were filling up wetlands, when you started talking against the shipbreakers because they were porting toxic vessels and dumping the western vessels on your beaches, (then) things started getting difficult for me.

So yes, (while) TIME Magazine may call me a hero, I am not a favourite to the realtors, shipbreakers, ship cultivators, and the polluters. On a personal note, it is fulfilling and satisfying because this is the best thing I could do for my children. I may practice other branches of law and earn a huge amount of money, but at the end of the day, my children will be inhaling polluted air and drinking water that’s not potable, their food will be unsafe. As a mother, I am standing for an agenda that I think is in the best interests of my children.

IPS: Who are the women pioneers in Bangladesh (that influenced you)?

RH: At this point, I would name two, Begam Rokeya Sakhawat, who started women’s education and then we have poet Begam Sufia Kamal. Both embraced different aspects of women’s liberation and their freedom. I also have Khushi Kabir, Sultana Kamal, Ayesha Khatoon, Rubana Haque – the Bangladeshi woman who went to the top of Everest – in mind. I am sure others have played a pivotal role in encouraging me.

IPS: Why does the world need to wake up to these climate change issues and act now? Some reports estimate that by 2050, one in every seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change. How urgent is it for people to start looking at climate change?

RH: During the (Covid-19) pandemic, we have learnt we must live with nature; we can’t win over nature. We are in an era of climatic change, and climate change threats are quite deadly. If I am not mistaken, fifty-two small island countries will go underwater if the temperature rise can’t be controlled by 1.5 degrees centigrade by the end of this century. We are on a pathway to a 4-degree increase. If that happens, then 52 island state nations will disappear. One-third of my country will go underwater, Mumbai, Karachi, and our neighbour, the Maldives, will disappear. With this comes the disappearance of civilisation and the disappearance of nations. We will be forced to draw the map of Bangladesh very differently.

During the pandemic, we realised that, even if we have crores and crores of dollars in our pockets, we won’t be able to buy food if the food supply system is disrupted, if the water is contaminated. You will not be able to buy the very expensive French bottled water even if you have enough dollars in your pocket. So, money will not solve your problem. The development paradigm has to shift. We have to rethink the development model and design them to be compatible with nature. I think all of us have to concentrate (on these issues); otherwise, actually, we will be betraying the future of our future generations.

IPS: Do you think we are doing enough to recognise the seriousness of climate change and how it impacts our lives, particularly those from marginalised communities?

RH: Our failure is deliberate, and our failure is criminal. I say this because you see a country like the US, which has a very good understanding of science, which has all the technological command and financial command in their hand, denied the reality of climate change until the presidency changed. They are doing it, the powerful economies are doing it, and they continue with their exploitative development model because they cater to the needs of a few oligarchs, fossil fuel companies, and some other corporations. We are not being mindful of our responsibility to the next generations.

We now have alternatives in hand. It’s not that we are (just) ignoring the challenges of climate. We simultaneously deny safer alternatives. We are trying to defend the current exploitative development model. There is inequity between urban and rural populations, and there is inequity between the western and southern populations.

IPS: What do you hope to achieve through your work, and what would your message be for all aspiring lawyers and women in Bangladesh and worldwide?

RH: For women worldwide, I would want everyone to define their true interests and the true interests of their children. For young lawyers, I would ask them to do at least one environmental case in their lifetime. I can bet it will be more rewarding and more satisfying than fighting hundreds and thousands of criminal, civil and corporate cases.

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By 2030 the ambition is to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land and sequester 250 million tons of carbon. Credit: Greatgreenwall.org

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Feb 17 2022 (IPS)

Once completed in 2030, it could well be considered the world’s eighth wonder, this time natural. It is the African-led Great Green Wall or the largest living structure on the planet – an 8.000 kilometres natural hit stretching across the entire width of the continent.

It is a symbol of hope in the face of one of the biggest challenges of our time – desertification, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) informs. And it aims at restoring Africa’s degraded landscapes and transforming millions of lives in one of the world’s poorest regions, the Sahel.

Launched in 2007 by the African Union, the Great Green Wall Initiative is being implemented in more than 20 countries across Africa.

The UN Convention adds that the initiative brings together African countries and international partners under the leadership of the African Union Commission and the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall.

Its implementation coincides with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.

What for?

On this, the UNCCD also reports that, by 2030, the ambition of the initiative is to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land; sequester 250 million tons of carbon and create 10 million green jobs.

This will support communities living along the Wall to the following five ‘grows’:

— Grow fertile land, one of humanity’s most precious natural assets

— Grow economic opportunities for the world’s youngest population

— Grow food security for the millions that go hungry every day

— Grow climate resilience in a region where temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else on Earth

— Grow a new world wonder spanning 8.000 km across Africa

Another challenge facing the African nations which will benefit from the Great Green Wall is the rapid advance of desert dunes on cultivated areas and entire villages and towns, which the Wall will help reduce.

From Senegal to Djibouti, from West to East

The Great Green Wall snakes the Sahel region from Senegal in the West to Djibouti in the East of Africa, explains UNCCD.

The 11 countries selected as intervention zones for the Great Green Wall are: Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan.

The total area of the Great Green Wall initiative extends to 156 million hectares, with the largest intervention zones located in Niger, Mali, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Since its launch, major progress has been made in restoring the fertility of Sahelian lands.

The big race

The race to restore 100 million hectares of Africa’s Great Green Wall now begins, the world Convention to Combat Desertification reported, as the ministers of Environment, Finance and Planning from Africa’s Great Green Wall countries and the partners active in the initiative met by the end of last October to discuss new arrangements to help countries in the Sahel Region in this giant effort.

Meeting for the first time since the Great Green Wall Accelerator was announced in January 2021, the partners reviewed proposals to overcome bottlenecks. Pledges have so far reached 19 billion US dollars.

According to Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD: “In a world that looks at the Sahel region and sees only despair, the Great Green Wall offers hope. In a world struggling to work out what ‘build back better’ or climate resilience or sustainable development really looks like, the Great Green Wall makes tangible and practical sense.”

The restoration of 100 million hectares of land by 2030 in the Sahel would create an estimated 10 million jobs and lock away 250 million tonnes of Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the soil.

Worth investing

Africa’s Great Green Wall initiative to combat desertification in the Sahel region is not only crucial to the battle against climate change but also makes commercial sense for investors, a recent study led by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and published in Nature Sustainability shows.

For every US dollar put into the massive effort to halt land degradation across the African continent from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, investors can expect an average return of 1.2 US dollars, with outcomes ranging between 1.1 US dollars and 4.4 US dollars, the study finds.

“The greening and land restoration along this belt stretching 8,000 km across the continent is already underway. Communities are planting resilient and hardy tree species such as the Acacia senegal, providing gum arabic, widely used as an emulsifier in food and drinks and the Gao tree or Faidherbia albida, which helps to fertilise soil for the cultivation of such staples as millet, and for animal fodder.”

Growing a World Wonder

The UNCCD has launched a public awareness campaign on the Great Green Wall, called “Growing a World Wonder.”

The campaign aims at boosting global awareness of the initiative in public spheres, policy debates, as well as media and cultural sectors with a clear view towards inspiring long-term public and private investment in the initiative.

As importantly, the Great Green Wall places local populations and national institutions at the center, making traditional knowledge and capacities the entry points, taking a holistic approach and putting in place effective governance and accountability systems.

History tells that in the so-called ‘Black Continent’ — home to nearly 1,4 billion people–, the region covered by the Great Green Wall was, once upon a time, a huge green valley.

Climate uncertainty could mean an increase in conflicts as tensions arise over scarce resources, like water. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Feb 14 2022 (IPS)

When years ago warnings were sounded that future wars would be fought not over oil but water, the predictions were dismissed as alarmist.

Yet, as climate uncertainty upends water availability in Africa, researchers say conflicts arise among local communities and across borders over access to scarce water resources.

In a commentary released in January last month, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) called for immediate action from world leaders to provide resources and funds to tackle what the researchers say is the “worst drought in a generation in East Africa.”

The climate crisis has led to widespread lack of pastures, decimating livestock, and creating a humanitarian crisis.

East Africa has seen a cyclical climate crisis where a mix of floods and droughts has resulted in increasing calls for action from more affluent countries.

“In 2011, the last severe drought to affect this region killed hundreds of thousands, but since then and despite promises by the international community, little has changed,” GWP says.

“There is a need to narrow the investment gap among rich countries, advocacy among African countries, and civic groups. African countries are already providing more funding to their water sectors than donor countries,” Alex Simalabwi, Global Water Partnership’s Africa Coordinator, told IPS.

And the statistics are pretty grim: one in every three people across Africa face water scarcity daily, and nearly 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa struggle to find access to drinking water, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

As UN Water starkly put it, “on a global scale, half of the people who drink water from unsafe sources live in Africa.”

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that US$100 billion needs to be invested annually towards climate adaptation in Africa by 2050, but that figure is far from being reached.

In a February 2 media brief, UNICEF said in Ethiopia alone, 6.8 million people would need urgent by mid-March, while another 4.4 million face acute water shortages, citing three consecutive droughts.

“The impact of the drought is devastating,” said Gianfranco Rotigliano, UNICEF Ethiopia Representative, adding that this has led to “major displacement out of affected areas.”

Researchers say these displacements have led to conflicts among communities over water.

“The lack of clean water is further exacerbating the situation for children and women. If children are forced to drink contaminated water, it puts them at risk to various diseases, including diarrhoea which is a major cause of deaths among children under five,” Rotigliano said.

Experts say increased collective action by African countries is required if richer countries act with the urgency demanded by the continent’s climate crisis.

“Africa countries should organise themselves to speak in one voice as a block. For Eastern Africa, a good example is the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) which has set up a common approach to addressing issues especially related to climate change,” said Levis Kavagi, the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Africa Regional Coordinator for Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

“Issues presented together as a group attract greater traction,” Kavagi told IPS by email.

Last year, research commissioned by the humanitarian agency CARE International exposed the broken promises of what it said was a “decade-old pledge” of climate financing for developing countries.

“Water is often seen from the end-user point of view and its challenges, but the issues related to where the water comes from are often not given the limelight,” Kavagi said.

Amid those concerns, lobbyists are pushing for more action.

“There is no framework to hold rich countries accountable,” Simalabwi told IPS.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in February 2020, “between now and 2050, Africa’s population is set to double. This alone brings with it great opportunities but also new realities. If we are not able to find ways to support these countries to grow sustainably, all of our work for decades in the UK and globally will be in vain.”

Other experts, however, note that the delays by rich countries to act, go deeper.

“Rich countries may be reluctant to recognise, in financial terms, that Africa is disproportionately affected by anthropogenic climate change, including through water-related impacts because they could expose themselves to liabilities for billions of dollars in loss and damage payments,” said Nathan Mason, a research associate at the UK’s Overseas Development Institute.

“International NGOs, research and advocacy groups, and enlightened donors need to listen carefully to African counterparts, support their efforts and put them in the driving seat of funded programmes,” Mason told IPS by email.

For now, researchers remain concerned that not just East Africa but countries across the continent facing hunger and drought will have to wait a little bit longer for largess from rich countries as the climate-induced humanitarian crisis continues unchecked.

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By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jan 6 2022 (IPS)

There are more under-reported consequences of human activities unmatching the rhythm of Mother Nature. Such is the case, among many others, of the growing salinisation and ‘plastification’ of the world’s soils.

In fact, currently it is estimated that there are more than 833 million hectares of salt-affected soils around the globe (8.7% of the planet). This implies the loss of soil’s capacity to grow food and also increasing impacts on water and the ability to filter pollution.

Unsustainable human activities are exacerbating soil salinity. Excessive tillage, the over-use of fertilisers, inappropriate irrigation methods and use of poor-quality water, deforestation or the overexploitation of groundwater are the main drivers of human-induced soil salinisation

Soil salinisation and sodification are major soil degradation processes threatening ecosystems and are recognised as being among the most important problems at a global level for agricultural production, food security and sustainability in arid and semi-arid regions, says the UN on occasion of the 2021 World Soil Day.

Not only: salt-affected soils have serious consequences on soil functions, such as in the decrease in agricultural productivity, water quality, soil biodiversity, and soil erosion and have a decreased ability to act as a buffer and filter against pollutants.

Salt-affected soils reduce both the ability of crops to take up water and the availability of micronutrients, and they also concentrate ions that are toxic to plants and may degrade the soil structure.

A threat to global pantry

Soil salinity is a naturally occurring phenomenon in arid environments, such as deserts, where intense evaporation and a chronic lack of water often turn the earth overly saline. Soils like these are less fertile because salt hampers plants’ natural ability to take up water from the ground, explains the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“But unsustainable human activities are exacerbating soil salinity. Excessive tillage, the over-use of fertilisers, inappropriate irrigation methods and use of poor-quality water, deforestation or the overexploitation of groundwater are the main drivers of human-induced soil salinisation.”

The World Soil Day 2021 and its campaign “Halt soil salinisation, boost soil productivity” aimed to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being by addressing the growing challenges in soil management, fighting soil salinisation, increasing soil awareness and encouraging societies to improve soil health.

According to FAO, these are, among others, the impacts of salt-affected soils:

Salt-affected soils have serious impacts on some of the ecosystem services soils usually provide, which are critical for supporting human life and biodiversity leading to an array of consequences including:

• decreased agricultural productivity, water quality, soil biodiversity, and increased soil erosion;
• decreased ability to act as a buffer and filter against contaminants;
• degraded soil structure;
• decreased functions of ecological systems such as the hydrological and nutrient cycles;
• reduced ability of crops to take up water
• reduced soil fertility and availability of micronutrients.

Half of Uzbekistan’s soils covered by salt

The Central Asian country is doubly land-locked – meaning it is surrounded by countries that are themselves landlocked – and more than half of Uzbekistan’s soils are salt-affected, making it extra hard to farm productively, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports as an example.

Not only salt… also plastic

A December 2021 new report by FAO suggests that the land human beings use to grow food is contaminated with “far larger quantities of plastic pollution,” posing an even greater threat to food security, people’s health, and the environment.

The report – “Assessment of agricultural plastics and their sustainability: a call for action” – is the first global report of its kind by FAO and contains some startling numbers.

According to data collated by the UN agency’s experts:

– Agricultural value chains each year use 12.5 million tonnes of plastic products.

– A further 37.3 million tonnes are used in food packaging. The crop production and livestock sectors were found to be the largest users, accounting for 10.2 million tonnes per year collectively, followed by fisheries and aquaculture with 2.1 million tonnes, and forestry with 0.2 million tonnes.

– Asia was estimated to be the largest user of plastics in agricultural production, accounting for almost half of global usage. In the absence of viable alternatives, demand for plastic in agriculture is only set to increase.

– According to industry experts, for instance, global demand for greenhouse, mulching and silage films will increase by 50 percent, from 6.1 million tonnes in 2018 to 9.5 million tonnes in 2030.

– Such trends make it essential to balance the costs and benefits of plastic. Of increasing concern are microplastics, which have the potential of adversely affecting human health. While there are gaps in the data, they shouldn’t be used as an excuse not to act, FAO warned.

“This report serves as a loud call to coordinated and decisive action to facilitate good management practices and curb the disastrous use of plastics across the agricultural sectors,” FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo said in the report’s foreword.

The report was presented today at a virtual event in conjunction with World Soil Day marked each year on 5 December.

Ubiquitous

“Plastics have become ubiquitous since their widespread introduction in the 1950s, and it is difficult today to envisage life without them.

In agriculture, plastic products greatly help productivity, according to the report.

“Mulch films, for instance, are used to cover the soil to reduce weed growth, the need for pesticides, fertiliser and irrigation; tunnel and greenhouse films and nets protect and boost plant growth, and extend cropping seasons and increase yields.”

This is also the case of “coatings on fertilisers, pesticides and seeds control the rate of release of chemicals or improve germination; tree guards protect young seedlings and saplings against damage by animals and provide a microclimate that enhances growth.”

Meanwhile, plastic products help reduce food losses and waste, and maintain its nutritional qualities throughout a myriad of value chains, thereby improving food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the report explains.

Billions of tonnes of plastic not properly disposed

Of the estimated 6.3 billion tonnes of plastics produced up to 2015, almost 80% has not been disposed of properly, says FAO.

Once in the natural environment, plastics can cause harm in several ways. The effects of large plastic items on marine fauna have been well documented.

However, as these plastics begin to disintegrate and degrade, their impacts begin to be exerted at the cellular level, affecting not only individual organisms but also, potentially, entire ecosystems.

Microplastics (plastics less than 5 mm in size) are thought to present specific risks to animal health, but recent studies have detected traces of microplastic particles in human faeces and placentas. There is also evidence of mother-to-foetus transmission of much smaller nanoplastics in rats.

While most scientific research on plastics pollution has been directed at aquatic ecosystems, especially oceans, FAO experts found that agricultural soils are thought to receive far greater quantities of microplastics.

Since 93% of global agricultural activities take place on land, there is an obvious need for further investigation in this area, concludes the report.

Need to know more?

Very little of the plastic we discard every day is recycled or incinerated in waste-to-energy facilities. Much of it ends up in landfills, where it may take up to 1,000 years to decompose, leaching potentially toxic substances into the soil and water, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which warns that one third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwater.

Furthermore: over 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year. It is estimated that one third of all plastic waste ends up in soils or freshwaters, according to Researchers from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB).

More than marine pollution

Most of this plastic disintegrates into particles smaller than five millimetres, referred to as microplastics, and breaks down further into nanoparticles, which are less than 0.1 micrometre in size.

“In fact, terrestrial microplastic pollution is much higher than marine microplastic pollution – an estimate of four to 23 times more, depending on the environment. Sewage, for example, is an important factor in the distribution of microplastics.”

Also that “80% to 90% of the particles contained in sewage, such as from garment fibres, persist in the sludge. Sewage sludge is then often applied to fields as fertiliser, meaning that several thousand tonnes of microplastics end up in our soils each year.”

Up to four billion people – over half the population of the planet – are already facing severe water stress for at least one month of the year, while half a billion suffer from permanent water stress. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 23 2021 (IPS)

Now it comes to the scary water crises, as it is estimated that, globally, over two billion people live in countries that experience high water stress.

On this, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) also reports that ”other estimates are even more pessimistic, with up to four billion people – over half the population of the planet – already facing severe water stress for at least one month of the year while half a billion suffer from permanent water stress.”

About 71% of the world’s irrigated area and 47% of major cities are to experience at least periodic water shortages. If this trend continues, the scarcity and associated water quality problems will lead to competition and conflicts among water users

This means that about 71% of the world’s irrigated area and 47% of major cities are to experience at least periodic water shortages. If this trend continues, the scarcity and associated water quality problems will lead to competition and conflicts among water users, it adds.

Climate crisis aggravates the risk

“Climate change will increase the odds of worsening drought and water scarcity in many parts of the world. Drought ranks among the most damaging of all natural hazards. While droughts affect every climate zone, drylands are particularly susceptible to drought and its impacts.”

Currently, most countries, regions and communities use reactive and crisis-driven approaches to manage drought risk. To address this issue, healthy land is a natural storage for fresh water. If it is degraded, it cannot perform that function. Managing land better and massively scaling up land rehabilitation are essential for building drought resilience and water security, explains UNCCD.

“Land restoration is the cheapest and most effective solution to improved water storage, mitigating impacts of drought and addressing biodiversity loss.”

Not enough rain? Too much rain?

Meanwhile, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification explains that communities all over the world have suffered some of the most brutal effects of drought and flooding this year.

“Flash floods in Western Europe, Eastern and Central Asia and Southern Africa. And catastrophic drought in Australia, southern Africa, southern Asia, much of Latin America, Western North America and Siberia are cases in point. The impacts extend well beyond the individual events.”

For example, the rise in food insecurity in the Southern African region and unprecedented wildfires in North America, Europe and Central Asia.

What is going on?

This is much more than bad weather in some cases, and is increasingly so, adds the UN Convention.

“Extreme events, including both droughts and floods are on the rise. With more land projected to get drier and more and more people living in drylands in the future, the discussions centred on the shift more than 60 countries are making from “reactive” response to droughts and floods to “proactive” planning and risk management designed to build resilience.”

Production systems, so constrained

For its part, the report The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture warns that production systems where the land and water resources supporting agricultural production are constrained to a point where their capacity to meet current and future needs is seriously jeopardised.

Constraints may be further exacerbated by unsustainable agricultural practices, social and economic pressures and the impact of climate change.

Land and water resources are central to agriculture and rural development and are intrinsically linked to global challenges of food insecurity and poverty, climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as degradation and depletion of natural resources that affect the livelihoods of millions of rural people across the world, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s report.

Food demand to surge

Current projections cited in the report indicate that the world population will increase from 6.9 billion people today to 9.1 billion in 2050. In addition, economic progress, notably in the emerging countries, translates into increased demand for food and diversified diets.

World food demand will surge as a result, and it is projected that food production will increase by 70% in the world and by 100% in developing countries.

“Yet both land and water resources, the basis of our food production, are finite and already under heavy stress, and future agricultural production will need to be more productive and more sustainable at the same time.”

Increased competition for land and water

And there are warning signs. Rates of growth in agricultural production have been slowing, and are only half the 3 percent annual rate of growth seen in developing countries in the past, says the report.

In 2007 and 2008, any complacency was jolted by food price shocks, as grain prices soared. Since then, the growing competition for land and water is now thrown into stark relief as sovereign and commercial investors begin to acquire tracts of farmland in developing countries. Production of feedstock stability of land and water resources.

“Deeper structural problems have also become apparent in the natural resource base. Water scarcity is growing. Salinisation and pollution of water courses and bodies, and degradation of water-related ecosystems are rising.”

Waters are shrinking

In many large rivers, only 5% of former water volumes remain in-stream, and some rivers such as the Huang He no longer reach the sea year-round.

Large lakes and inland seas have shrunk, and half the wetlands of Europe and North America no longer exist. Runoff from eroding soils is filling reservoirs, reducing hydropower and water supply, it explains.

Groundwater, over-pumped

Groundwater is being pumped intensively and aquifers are becoming increasingly polluted and salinised in some coastal areas.

Large parts of all continents are experiencing high rates of ecosystem impairment, particularly reduced soil quality, biodiversity loss, and harm to amenity and cultural heritage values, the report continues.

Agriculture, a major contributor to greenhouse emissions

Agriculture is now a major contributor to greenhouse gases, accounting for 13.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC, 2007). At the same time, climate change brings an increase in risk and unpredictability for farmers – from warming and related aridity, from shifts in rainfall patterns, and from the growing incidence of extreme weather events.

“Poor farmers in low-income countries are the most vulnerable and the least able to adapt to these changes.”

Also aquaculture

The steady increase in inland aquaculture also contributes to the competition for land and water resources: the average annual per capita supply of food fish from aquaculture for human consumption has increased at an average rate of 6.6 percent per year between 1970 and 2008, leading to increasing demand in feed, water and land for the construction of fish ponds.

The deteriorating trends in the capacities of ecosystems to provide vital goods and services are already affecting the production potential of important food-producing zones, according to FAO.

“If these continue, impacts on food security will be greatest in developing countries, where both water and soil nutrients are least abundant.”

“On present trends, a series of major land and water systems and the food outputs they produce are at risk.”

Women and men from the rural community of Sachac, at more than 3500 meters above sea level, build a kilometer-long infiltration ditch to capture rainwater and use it to irrigate crops in Cuzco, in Peru’s Andes highlands. CREDIT: Janet Nina/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUZCO, Peru , Dec 22 2021 (IPS)

“When I was a little girl we didn’t suffer from water shortages like we do now. Today we are experiencing more droughts, our water sources are drying up and we cannot sit idly by,” Kely Quispe, a small farmer from the community of Huasao, located half an hour from Cuzco, the capital of Peru’s ancient Inca empire, told IPS.

She is one of the 80 members of the Agroecological School of the Flora Tristan Peruvian Women’s Center, a non-governmental institution that has worked for the recovery of water sources through traditional techniques known as seeding and harvesting water in this part of the southern Andean region of Cuzco.

Muñapata, Huasao and Sachac are the three rural Quechua-speaking communities in the province of Quispicanchi, located between 3150 and 3800 meters above sea level, that have so far benefited from the project. The feminist-oriented institution promotes solutions based on nature and community work to address the problem of water scarcity and inadequate water use practices.

“We want to boost water security as well as gender equality because they are two sides of the same coin,” Elena Villanueva told IPS. On Dec. 14 she presented in this city the results of the initiative whose first phase was carried out in 2020 and 2021, with the support of the Basque Development Cooperation Agency and Mugen Gainetik, an international association for cooperation with countries of the developing South also based in Spain’s northern Basque region.

According to the National Water Authority (ANA), Peru is the eighth country in the world in terms of water availability, with a rich hydrodiversity of glaciers, rivers, lakes, lagoons and aquifers. However, various factors such as inefficient management of water and uneven territorial distribution of the population, in addition to climate change, make it impossible to meet consumption demands.

“The lack of water severely affects families in rural areas because they depend on small-scale agriculture for their livelihoods. The melting of glaciers as well as the increase in the frequency and intensity of droughts due to climate change are reducing water availability,” Villanueva explained.

This impact, she said, is not neutral. Because of the gender discrimination and social disadvantages they face, it is rural women who bear the brunt, as their already heavy workload is increased, their health is undermined, and their participation in training and decision-making spaces is further limited.

Kely Quispe, a farmer trained at the Flora Tristán Center’s Agroecological School, holds a tomato in her organic garden in the farming community of Huasao. Her vegetable production depends on access to water for irrigation, but climate change has made water more scarce in the Andes highlands region of Cuzco in southern Peru. CREDIT: Janet Nina/IPS

“Moreover, although they are the ones who use water to ensure food, hygiene and health, and to irrigate their crops, they are not part of the decision-making with regard to its management and distribution,” she stressed.

The expert said that precisely in response to demand by the women farmers at the Agroecological School, where they receive technical and rights training, they are focusing on reviving water harvesting techniques used in ancient Peru, while promoting the equal participation of women in rural communities in the process.

She said that approximately 700 families living in poverty, some 3,500 people – about 11 percent of the population of the three communities – will benefit from the works being carried out.

Harvesting water

So far, these works are focused on the afforestation of 15 hectares and the construction of six “cochas” – the name for small earthen ponds, in the Quechua language – and an infiltration ditch, as part of a plan that will be expanded with other initiatives over the next two years.

The ditch, which is one kilometer long in 10-meter stretches, 60 centimeters deep and 40 centimeters wide and is located in the upper part of the community, collects rainwater instead of letting it run down the slopes.

The technique allows water to infiltrate slowly in order to feed natural springs, high altitude wetlands or small native prairies, as well as the cochas.

The mayor of the rural community of Sachac, Eugenio Turpo Quispe (right), poses with other leaders of the village of 200 families who will benefit from the forestation works and the construction of small reservoirs and infiltration ditches that will increase the flow of water in this highlands area that is suffering from prolonged droughts due to climate change. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

In their communal work, villagers use local materials and greenhouse thermal blankets to help retain water. In addition, they have used extracted soil to raise the height of the ditch, to keep rainwater from running over the top.

Although the ditch has been receiving rainwater this month (the rainy season begins in November-December), the ecosystem impact is expected to be more visible in about three years when the cocha ponds have year-round water availability, helping villagers avoid the shortages of the May-October dry season.

Several community members explained to IPS that they will now be able to harvest water from the ditch while at the same time caring for the soil, because heavy rain washes it away and leaves it without nutrients. Some 150 agricultural plots will also benefit from a sprinkler irrigation system, thanks to the project.

Since agriculture is the main livelihood of the families and this activity depends on rainwater, the main impact will be the availability of water during the increasingly prolonged dry periods to irrigate their crops, ensure harvests and avoid hunger, for both villagers and their livestock.

Eucalyptus and pine, huge consumers of water

The mayor of the Sachac community, Eugenio Turpo Quispe, told IPS that this is the first time that water seeding and harvesting practices have been carried out in his area. “We had not had the opportunity before; these works have begun thanks to the women who proposed forestation and the construction of cochas and ditches,” he said.

The local leader lamented that due to misinformation, two decades ago they planted pine and eucalyptus in the highlands of his community. “They have dried up our water sources, and when it rains the water disappears, it does not infiltrate. Now we know that out of ten liters of rain that falls on the ground, eight are absorbed by the eucalyptus and only two return to the earth,” he explained during the day that IPS spent in the community.

Women farmers from the rural community of Sachac show the map of water sources in their area and the uses for irrigation of their crops, for human consumption and household needs, as well as watering their animals, which they cannot satisfy throughout the year due to the increasingly long and severe dry season. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Turpo Quispe said they had seen forestation and construction of cochas and ditches in other communities, but did not know how to replicate them, and that only through the Flora Tristán Center’s project have they been able to implement these solutions to tackle the serious problem of shrinking water sources.

In Sachac, the three techniques have been adopted with the participation of women and men in communal work that began at six in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon. “Side by side we have been planting native plants, digging ditches and hauling stones for the cochas,” the mayor said proudly.

In this community, 9,000 seedlings of queuñas (Polylepis) and chachacomos (Escallonia Resinosas) – tree species that were used in the times of the ancient Inca empire – were planted. “These trees consume only two liters of rainwater and give eight back to Pachamama (Mother Earth),” Turpo Quispe said. As part of the project, the community has built fences to protect crops and has relocated grazing areas for their animals.

“We have planted seedlings and in 10 or 15 years our children and grandchildren will see all our hills green and with living springs so that they do not suffer a lack of water,” the mayor said.

Kely Quispe from the community of Huasao is equally upbeat: “With water we can irrigate our potatoes, corn and vegetables; increase our production to have enough to sell and have extra money; take care of our health and that of the whole family, and prevent the spread of covid.”

“But just as we use water for life, it is also up to us to participate on an equal footing with men in irrigation committees and community councils to decide how it is distributed, conserved and managed,” she added.

A model shows the water sources in the rural community of Muñapata in the Cuzco region, in Peru’s southern highlands. It was made by local women and men who built a system based on ancestral techniques for the collection and management of water, as increasing drought threatens their lives and crops. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

The decade of water security

Villanueva of the Flora Tristán Center said it was important for the country’s local and regional authorities to commit to guaranteeing water security in rural areas within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development was declared for 2018-2028 by the United Nations and SDG6 is dedicated to water and sanitation, to ensure universal and equitable access for all, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, and support the participation of local communities in improving management and sanitation.

“At the national level, public policies aimed at seeding and harvesting water should be strengthened because they revive the communities’ ancestral knowledge, involving sustainable practices with low environmental impact that contribute to guaranteeing the food security of families,” she said.

However, Villanueva remarked, in order to achieve their objectives, these measures must not only promote equal participation of men and women, but must also be accompanied by actions to close the gender gap in education, access to resources, training and violence that hinder the participation and development of rural women.

Brazil has a "green future," announced Environment Minister Joaquim Leite and Vice-President Hamilton Mourão, in a videoconference presentation from Brasilia at the Glasgow climate summit, in an attempt to shore up Brazil’s credibility, damaged by Amazon deforestation. The two officials concealed the fact that deforestation in the Amazon rose by 21.9 percent last year. CREDIT: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil-Fotos Públicas

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 26 2021 (IPS)

For three weeks, the Brazilian government concealed the fact that deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest increased by nearly 22 percent last year, accentuating a trend that threatens to derail efforts to curb global warming.

The report by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) based on the data for the year covering August 2020 to July 2021 is dated Oct. 27, but the government did not release it until Thursday, Nov. 18.

It thus prevented the disaster from further undermining the credibility of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, already damaged by almost three years of anti-environmental policies and actions, ahead of and during the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the climate change convention, held in Glasgow, Scotland from Oct. 31 to Nov. 13.Brazil had managed to reduce Amazon deforestation since the 2004 total of 27,772 square kilometers. A concerted effort by environmental agencies reduced the total to 4,571 square kilometers in 2012. This shows that it is possible, but it depends on political will and adequate management.

INPE’s Satellite Monitoring of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon Project (Prodes) recorded 13,235 square kilometers of deforestation, 21.97 percent more than in the previous period and almost three times the 2012 total of 4,571 square kilometers.

The so-called Legal Amazon, a region covering 5.01 million square kilometers in Brazil, has already lost about 17 percent of its forest cover. In a similar sized area the forests were degraded, i.e. some species were cut down and biodiversity and biomass were reduced, according to the non-governmental Amazon Institute of People and the Environment (IMAZON).

Carlos Nobre, one of the country’s leading climatologists and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the world’s largest tropical forest is approaching irreversible degradation in a process of “savannization” (the gradual transition of tropical rainforest into savanna).

The point of no return is a 20 to 25 percent deforestation rate, estimates Nobre, a researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo and a member of the Brazilian and U.S. national academies of sciences.

Reaching that point would be a disaster for the planet. Amazon forests and soils store carbon equivalent to five years of global emissions, experts calculate. Forest collapse would release a large part of these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

A similar risk comes from the permafrost, a layer of frozen subsoil beneath the Arctic and Greenland ice, for example, which is beginning to thaw in the face of global warming.

This is another gigantic carbon store that, if released, would seriously undermine the attempt to limit the increase in the Earth’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius this century.

The Amazon rainforest, an immense biome spread over eight South American countries plus the territory of French Guiana, is therefore key in the search for solutions to the climate crisis.

Evolution of the deforested area in the Brazilian Amazon since 1988, with its ups and downs and an upward tendency in the last nine years. Policies to crack down on environmental crimes by strengthened public agencies were successful between 2004 and 2012. Graphic: INPE

Brazil, which accounts for 60 percent of the biome, plays a decisive role. And that is why it is the obvious target of the measure announced by the European Commission, which, with the expected approval of the European Parliament, aims to ban the import of agricultural products associated with deforestation or forest degradation.

The Commission, the executive body of the 27-nation European Union, does not distinguish between legal and illegal deforestation. It requires exporters to certify the exemption of their products by means of tracing suppliers.

Brazil is a leading agricultural exporter that is in the sights of environmentalists and leaders who, for commercial or environmental reasons, want to preserve the world’s remaining forests.

The 75 percent increase in Amazon deforestation in the nearly three years of the Bolsonaro administration exacerbates Brazil’s vulnerability to environmentally motivated trade restrictions.

This was the likely reason for a shift in the attitude of the governmental delegation in Glasgow during COP26.

Unexpectedly, Brazil adhered to the commitment to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, a measure that affects cattle ranching, which accounts for 71.8 percent of the country’s emissions of this greenhouse gas.

As the world’s largest exporter of beef, which brought in 8.4 billion dollars for two million tons in 2020, Brazil had previously rejected proposals targeting methane, a gas at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in global warming.

Brazil also pledged to eliminate deforestation by 2028, two years ahead of the target, and stopped obstructing agreements such as the carbon market, in a totally different stance from the one it had taken in the previous two years.

The threat of trade barriers and the attempt to improve the government’s international reputation are behind the new attitude. The new ministers of Foreign Affairs, Carlos França, and Environment, Joaquim Leite, in office since April and June, respectively, are trying to mitigate the damage caused by their anti-diplomatic and anti-environmental predecessors.

But the new data on Amazon deforestation and the delay in its disclosure unleashed a new backlash.

President Jair Bolsonaro stated that the Amazon has kept its forests intact since 1500 and does not suffer from fires because it is humid, in a Nov. 15 speech during the Invest Brazil Forum, held in Dubai to attract capital to the country. He made this claim when he already knew that in the last year deforestation had grown by almost 22 percent. CREDIT: Alan Santos/PR-Fotos Públicas

Leite claimed not to have had prior knowledge of the INPE report, difficult to believe from a member of a government known for using fake news and disinformation. He announced that the government would take a “forceful” stance against environmental crimes in the Amazon, commenting on the “unacceptable” new deforestation figures.

Together with the Minister of Justice and Public Security Anderson Torres, who has the Federal Police under his administration, he promised to mobilize the necessary forces to combat illegal deforestation.

The reaction is tardy and of doubtful success, given the contrary stance taken by the president and the deactivation of the environmental bodies by the previous minister, Ricardo Salles, who defended illegal loggers against police action.

The former minister stripped the two institutes executing environmental policy, one for inspection and the other for biodiversity protection and management of conservation units, of resources and specialists. He also appointed unqualified people, such as military police, to command these bodies.

President Bolsonaro abolished councils and other mechanisms for public participation in environmental management, as in other sectors, and encouraged several illegal activities in the Amazon, such as “garimpo” (informal mining) and the invasion of indigenous areas and public lands.

The result could only be an increase in the deforestation and forest fires that spread the destruction in the last two years. The smoke from the “slash-and-burn” clearing technique polluted the air in cities more than 1,000 kilometers away.

Bolsonaro, however, declared on Nov. 15 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, that fires do not occur in the Amazon due to the humidity of the rainforest and that 90 percent of the region remains “the same as in 1500,” when the Portuguese arrived in Brazil.

His vice-president, General Hamilton Mourão, acknowledged that “deforestation in the Amazon is real, the INPE data leave no doubt.” His unusual disagreement with the president arises from his experience in presiding over the National Council of the Legal Amazon, which proposes and coordinates actions in the region.

Brazil had managed to reduce Amazon deforestation since the 2004 total of 27,772 square kilometers. A concerted effort by environmental agencies reduced the total to 4,571 square kilometers in 2012. This shows that it is possible, but it depends on political will and adequate management.

Datong, in China’s Shanxi Province, was an old-fashioned coal mining city. It has been a key city for an environmental clean-up. China is the world’s largest emitter of CO2. Credit: Trevor Page

By Marwa Awad
OTTAWA, Canada, Nov 9 2021 (IPS)

Look up any map showing today’s global humanitarian crises and you’ll find it awash in red alerts more than ever before. Climate emergencies are fast emerging in new areas that have never previously witnessed them, and they are accelerating humanity’s march towards the precipice in regions long battered by conflict, hunger and displacement.

While developed countries are responsible for the lion’s share of CO2 emissions, developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are the ones suffering the most from the devastating effects of these climate-induced emergencies.

The adverse effects of climate change are already at an advanced stage, with many developing countries around the world living in climates 3 degrees higher than normal such as Mali and Burkina Faso. It is no longer enough to focus only on mitigating climate crises through reducing fossil fuels and transforming food systems.

Cracked earth due to drought in India’s north-eastern State of Bihar. Bihar was the epicenter of India’s last major famine in the mid 1960s. Credit: Trevor Page

With only a few days left of the UN COP26 climate talks, world leaders and experts negotiating mitigative measures to cap global warming at 1.5 C or face irreversible disaster would be remiss not to prioritize helping developing countries already devastated by the impact of global warming to quickly adapt to climate change.

“In parallel with mitigation, we need to help countries adapt to the new climactic stresses brought about by global warming,” says Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme. “Climate change adaptation is urgently needed in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America where people face climate extremes.”

Without the ability to adapt, people will have no other choice but to migrate to where they can survive. In 2020, 30 million people were internally displaced due to weather-related events, primarily storms and floods. That is three times as many as conflict, according to the Norwegian Refugee Committee.

“At WFP, we recognize that if we can keep people in their homes and on their land, we help reduce the number of people who become climate migrants and climate refugees. But to do so, we have to enable people not only survive but also thrive on their land,” said Abdulla.

Entire villages in the Fangak region of South Sudan have been submerged due to record floods that have swept across the country for the third consecutive year, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Credit: Marwa Awad

WFP has had a strong record of working with communities to recover from climactic shocks and stresses that jeopardize their food security. In some of the most arid regions, WFP helps smallholder farmers and communities establish free nurseries to hold back the desert and recover agricultural land.

In central America and the Dry Corridor of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, WFP helped more than 32,000 people adapt to their changing climate by creating livelihoods and income generating activities that are suitable for the drought condition, while also implementing community projects on land restoration the result of which has been the reforestation of more than 1,300 hectares of degraded and marginal land as well as the construction of nearly 3,000 water harvesting systems.

Another pathway towards climate change adaptation is providing climate risk insurance, whether for drought or floods, to smallholder farmers who cannot buy insurance to protect their crops. Since the past couple of years, WFP has protected 1.5 million people in Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe and the Gambia from catastrophic drought events with climate risk insurance, through its African Risk Capacity Replica Initiative. Smallholder farmers received payouts from climate risk insurance, without which they would have been forced to move. These insurance schemes have also benefited vulnerable people coping with the impact of COVID-19.

Conclusion

In a post-COVID-19 world compounded by an increase in climate emergencies, humanitarian needs will always outpace available resources and finances. Meanwhile achieving zero hunger by 2030 has already become a dream out of reach. But those with influence can carve out pathways to a safer, more stable future for all by working with humanitarian organisations and actors in a globally coordinated manner to establish early warning systems that can anticipate risk and map out preventative measures to mitigate climate hazards before they spiral into natural disasters. As for the sake of those living on the frontlines of the climate crisis who have not the luxury of time and cannot wait for developed countries to deliver on their promise of cutting down their CO2 emissions, these vulnerable communities need immediate help to adapt to their already changed and riskier world.

Marwa Awad, a resident of Ottawa, Canada, works for the World Food Programme. She is the co-host of “The WFP PEOPLE Show”.

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Addressing global warming requires cutting carbon emissions by almost half by 2030! For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, emissions must fall by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C, instead of the 2.7°C now expected.

Instead, countries are mainly under pressure to commit to ‘net-zero’ carbon (dioxide, CO2) emissions by 2050 under that deal. Meanwhile, global carbon emissions – now already close to pre-pandemic levels – are rising rapidly despite higher fossil fuel prices.

Anis Chowdhury

False promise
At the annual climate meetings in Glasgow, carbon pricing is being touted as the main means to cut CO2 and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The European Union President urged, “Put a price on carbon”, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau advocates a global minimum carbon tax.

Businesses are also rallying behind one-size-fits-all CO2 pricing, claiming it is “effective and fair”. But there is little discussion of how revenues thus raised should be distributed among countries, let alone to support poorer countries’ adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Carbon pricing supposedly penalizes CO2 emitters for economic losses due to global warming. The public bears the costs of global warming, e.g., damage due to rising sea levels, extreme weather events, changing rainfall, droughts or higher health care and other expenses.

But there is little effort at or evidence of compensation to those adversely affected. Therefore, poorer countries are understandably sceptical, especially as rich countries have failed to fulfil their promise of US$100bn yearly climate finance support.

The CO2 price market solution is said to be “the most powerful tool” in the climate policy arsenal. It claims to deter and thus reduce GHG emissions, while incentivizing investment shifts from fossil-fuel burning to cleaner energy generating technologies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Only 22% of GHGs produced globally are subject to carbon pricing, averaging only US$3/ton! Hence, such price incentives alone cannot significantly discourage high GHG emissions, or greatly accelerate widespread use of low-carbon technologies.

Powerful fossil-fuel corporate interests have made sure that carbon prices are not high enough to force users to switch energy sources. Thus, existing CO2 pricing policies are “modest and less ambitious” than they could and should be. Meanwhile, several factors have undermined carbon taxation’s ability to speed up ‘decarbonization’.

First, carbon taxes have never actually provided much climate finance. Second, CO2 taxes misrepresent climate change as due to ‘market failure’, not as a fundamental systemic problem. Third, it seeks efficiency, not efficacy! Thus, it does not treat global warming as an urgent threat.

Fourth, market signals from carbon taxation seek to ‘optimize’ the status quo, rather than to transform systems responsible for global warming. Fifth, it offers a deceptively simplistic ‘universal’ solution, rather than a policy approach sensitive to circumstances. Sixth, it ignores political realities, especially differences in key stakeholders’ power and influence.

Unfair to poor
Even if introduced gradually, the flat carbon tax will burden poorer countries more. Worse, carbon pricing is regressive, hurting the poor more. Thus, the burden of CO2 taxes is heavier on average consumers in poor countries than on poor consumers in ‘average’ countries.

A UN survey showed a seemingly fair, uniform global carbon tax would burden – as a share of GDP – developing countries much more than developed countries. Thus, although per capita emissions in poorer countries are far less than in rich ones, a flat CO2 tax burdens developing countries much more.

Also, a standard carbon tax burdens low-income groups more, by raising not only energy costs directly, but also those of all goods and services requiring energy use. With this seemingly fair, one-size-fits-all tax, low income households and countries pay much more relatively.

Analytically, such distributional effects can be avoided by differentiated pricing, e.g., by increasing prices to reflect the amount of energy used. Also, compensatory mechanisms – such as subsidies or cash transfers to low-income groups – can help.

But these are administratively difficult, particularly for poor countries, with limited taxation and social assistance systems. Furthermore, effectively targeting vulnerable populations is hugely problematic in practice.

Mission impossible?
Selective investment and technology promotion policies are much more effective in encouraging clean energy and reducing GHG emissions. Huge investments in solar, hydro and wind energy as well as public transport are required, typically involving high initial costs and low returns. Hence, public investment often has to lead.

But most developing countries lack the fiscal capacity for such large public investment programmes. Large increases in compensatory financing, official development assistance and concessional lending are urgently needed, but have not been forthcoming despite much talk.

Climate finance initiatives generally need to improve incentives for mitigation, while funding much more climate adaptation in developing countries. Potentially, a CO2 tax could yield significantly more resources to cover such international funding requirements, but this requires appropriate redistributive measures which have never been seriously negotiated.

Carbon taxes can help
Even without an ostensibly market-determined CO2 price, taxing GHG emissions would make renewable energy more price competitive. The UN advocated a ‘global green new deal’ in response to the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. It noted a US$50/ton tax would make more renewables commercially competitive, besides mobilizing US$500bn annually for climate finance.

A mid-2021 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff note has proposed an international carbon price floor. This would “jump-start” emissions reductions by requiring G20 governments to enforce minimum carbon prices. Involving the largest emitting countries would be very consequential while bypassing collective action difficulties among the 195 UN Member States.

The scheme could be pragmatically designed to be more equitable, and for all types of GHGs, not just CO2 emissions. But even a global carbon price of US$75/ton would only cut enough emissions to keep global warming below 2°C – not the needed 1.5°C, the Paris Agreement goal!

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Francisco Montes shows the cement tank where he collects rainwater in El Impenetrable. Scarce rainfall in the last two years has created serious trouble for the inhabitants of this four-million-hectare ecoregion, who are scattered around the Chaco region of northern Argentina. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
GENERAL GÜEMES, Argentina , Nov 2 2021 (IPS)

Next to the brick or adobe houses of El Impenetrable, a wild area of forest and grasslands in northern Argentina, loom huge plastic barrels where rainwater collected from the corrugated iron roofs of the houses is stored. However, the barrels are empty, because it has hardly rained for two years, local residents complain.

“Things have been very bad recently. It rained one day in September, but very little,” said Francisco Montes, who has lived for 35 years in a house in a large open area in the middle of a monotonous landscape of trees and bushes, several kilometres from his nearest neighbours.

On the dirt road leading to his house, it is rare to run into a person or a vehicle, but it is easy to come across cows, goats, horses and even pigs, since domestic animals are raised loose in this area, to roam freely in their arduous search for green pastures.

Located in the Argentine portion of the Chaco – the great sparsely forested plain covering more than one million square kilometres, shared with Paraguay and Bolivia – El Impenetrable was so named not only because of the thick brush and the scarcity of roads.

The ecosystem covering some four million hectares also owes its name precisely to the lack of water, which turns most of the vegetation a yellowish hue and is made more dramatic by the combination with temperatures that can be suffocating.

From droughts to floods

Rainfall in the area usually comes in just three months, during the southern hemisphere summer. And rains have been scarce for as long as anyone can remember in this part of the Chaco.

But for two years now the situation has been worse than usual, because the drought has been especially bad, after severe flooding in 2018 and 2019 that wrought havoc among local residents and their livestock, when it rained three times the historical average.

In the absence of piped water, Montes, who lives on his remote property with his wife, is one of the best equipped in the area to deal with the complex scenario, because in his field he not only has a large cement tank with a capacity to store thousands of litres of rainwater, which lately has been of little use. He also has an 11-metre deep well that allows them to extract groundwater.

But this is not enough either. “The water is very brackish. You would have to go at least 20 metres down to get good water,” he told IPS.

Montes, however, at the age of 73, has the resignation of someone who has lived a lifetime knowing that water is a scarce commodity. “Back then we used to take water directly from the river or from a well, when it was available,” he recalled.

He was referring to one of the branches of the Bermejo, one of the biggest rivers in the La Plata basin, which originates in Bolivia and passes about 500 metres from his field. The Bermejito – or “little Bermejo”, as the branch is known locally – is one of the few rivers in El Impenetrable, and the vegetation on its banks is a deep green colour that is not usual in this region.

Goats cross a dirt road in El Impenetrable, an ecosystem of four million hectares, where livestock is raised loose, to roam the area in search of pasture. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

A few kilometres from Montes’ home, near the entrance to the El Impenetrable National Park -a 128,000-hectare protected area created in 2014 – there is a 160 square metre rainwater collector sheet metal roof facility with two tanks that can store up to 40,000 litres.

It was built in 2019 to supply local residents, as part of the “Native Forests and Community” programme.

This Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development programme was supported by a 58.7-million-dollar loan from the World Bank and 2.5 million dollars from the national government and seeks to generate community roots in areas where there are no sources of employment.

Native Forests and Community benefits vulnerable rural communities, both indigenous and non-indigenous, through infrastructure works and training for the sustainable management of natural resources.

One of the programme’s priorities is to promote the use of renewable energies, and it has installed solar panels for electricity generation and solar stoves in areas where the most commonly used fuel is firewood.

According to official figures, the initiative has so far benefited 1,200 families from 60 communities in different provinces of the country, most of them in El Chaco and the rest of northern Argentina.

A community solar panel and rainwater harvesting roof installation near the El Impenetrable National Park in northern Argentina was built in 2019 by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, with support from the World Bank. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Esteban Argañaraz lives only 100 metres from the rainwater collector. Sometimes he goes to fetch water from the community tanks, although he cannot get enough there either, so he resorts to buying drinking water in the nearest town, Miraflores, which is 60 kilometres from his home down a dusty dirt road.

“This year I brought an 8,000-litre water tank. It cost 700 pesos (about seven dollars), but the complicated part was transporting it, which cost 4,000 pesos (40 dollars),” Argañaraz explained to IPS, while showing the well that was dug in front of his house to accumulate water for the animals and irrigation, which is completely dry.

Argañaraz, 60, and his wife have a garden at home to grow vegetables and fruits. But they have had to practically abandon it since 2020, due to the lack of water. Skinny cows and goats are another reflection of the severe drought.

The inhabitants of El Impenetrable rarely manage to sell any animals and almost everyone survives on social assistance. This ecosystem – environmentally degraded by the extractive economy – is part of Argentina’s Northeast region, which has the highest poverty rates in the country, with 45.4 percent of the population living in poverty.

But the situation is complicated in urban areas as well. In fact, the provincial capital Resistencia, with a population of 300,000, has the highest poverty rate in Argentina, at 51.9 percent.

Unpredictability is the rule

“The main characteristic of rainfall in (Argentina’s Chaco province) is its high variability: there are cycles of dry, normal and wet years. The other important aspect is that most of it is concentrated in one part of the year: in the case of El Impenetrable, the rainy season lasts only three months,” water resources engineer Hugo Rohrmann, former president of the Chaco Provincial Water Administration, told IPS.

Jorge Luna, a family farmer raising cows, goats and pigs in El Impenetrable in northern Argentina, stands next to plastic barrels where he collects rainwater and a solar panel that provides electricity. Rainwater harvesting is a very limited solution for families in the El Impenetrable ecoregion due to the lack of rain. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The expert pointed to another important fact: rainfall in El Impenetrable is usually between 600 and 800 millimetres per year, but evaporation, due to heat that can reach 50 degrees C in summer, is much higher – up to 1,100 millimetres.

“That is why neither wetlands nor aquifers with the capacity to supply a population are formed and there is no other choice but to collect rainwater, which is also scarce. The lack of water is becoming more and more evident and makes life more and more difficult for the local population,” Rohrmann added from Resistencia.

Constanza Mozzoni, a biologist from Buenos Aires who has been living in El Impenetrable for two years doing social work, has a categorical answer when asked what life is like for the local population, both indigenous and non-indigenous people: “Everything revolves around how to get water,” she told IPS.

Mozzoni works for the Rewilding Argentina Foundation, an environmental conservation organisation that works in and around the El Impenetrable National Park, and lives in a prefabricated house that also has a rainwater harvesting roof.

The foundation, however, provides all its staff with bottled water that is brought from the town of Miraflores, along the only safe road in El Impenetrable.

Delegation of the People’s Republic of China making its debut at the UN Assembly Hall. Credit: Xinhua

By Siddharth Chatterjee
BEIJING, Oct 11 2021 (IPS)

China was one of the architects of the United Nations and was the first signatory of the UN Charter in San Francisco in 1945.

But it was only in October 1971, with the Chinese delegation led by Mr. Qiao Guanhua, that China’s representation at the UN resumed. Since that time, the UN has had the great privilege of witnessing and supporting China in achieving one of the greatest periods of socio-economic progress in world history.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of China in the UN, I am honoured to serve as the UN Resident Coordinator, a post I took earlier this year.

While I took up my post in Beijing on 08 February 2021, I am only just beginning to understand its rich tapestry of over 5,000 years of civilization. The UN in China has had the privilege to shape and witness the profound economic and social transformations that have occurred since reform and opening-up.

As we commemorate a half-century of cooperation, a question naturally emerges: Which way now for the UN and China?

This is a weighty question, as China and the world are at a critical juncture. Tentatively emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, but with many countries still struggling terribly. Staring down the threats of climate change, with record-setting heat, fires, storms, and other disasters. Counting down the years in this “Decade of Action” to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

China’s standard-setting leadership in past decades gives me confidence that we can achieve even greater things in the years to come.

CHINA’S RECORD-BREAKING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening-up Policy began to transform the nation, as evidenced, for example, in Shenzhen, which changed from a fishing village on the Pearl River Delta into an international hub for research and innovation in a single generation.

And in 1979, China chose to accept development assistance from the UN, learning from its long experience in poverty alleviation and industrial and agricultural growth.

China’s success in the more than 40 years since then has been nothing short of miraculous. During this time, China:

• Lifted over 750 million people out of absolute poverty.
• Invested in public health and education, investing in human capital thus making possible a happier and healthier workforce that contributed to economic productivity.
• Became the world’s manufacturing centre, based on a growth model of foreign investments, resource-intensive manufacturing, cheap labour, and exports.
• Multiplied its per capita GDP from US $180 in 1979 to an incredible $12,000 today.

The signs of this progress are evident not just in statistics, but in daily quality-of-life matters. Throughout China now lie the classic hallmarks of a market economy, with opulent shops from luxury brands, foreign and domestic. A far cry from what I saw as a young boy growing up near Chinatown in my native Kolkata, India, though fondly remembered as a warren of alleys, narrow aisles of food markets, elderly men playing board games in parks, with Chinese characters on the signs overhead.

For example, in Beijing during the early 1980s, cabbage was often the only vegetable on menus. With help from the UN’s development agency in China, availability at markets expanded — supporting the diversification of domestic vegetables and introducing new ones from abroad, such as broccoli.

This startling success is on track to continue. China’s per capita GDP is projected to more than double by 2025, reaching over $25,000, adjusted for purchasing power. The country’s surging economy is set to overtake 56 countries in the world’s per-capita income rankings during the quarter-century through 2025, the International Monetary Fund projects.

No less an authority than Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a United Nations SDG Advocate and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, has called China an “inspiration” in stopping the pandemic and ending poverty.

This progress is all the more remarkable considering the hit that the pandemic has delivered to the global economy. China’s generosity and leadership on this front are commendable.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the 9th World Peace Forum in Beijing “to build a “Great Wall of Immunity” to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, challenges remain. As with any economy at this stage of development, the relentless pursuit of high growth is reaching its natural limits, and China faces new economic, social, and environmental challenges.

NEW PRIORITIES FOR AGENDA 2030 AND BEYOND

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are meant to be achieved by the year 2030, and we are now in what is called the “Decade of Action.” I see three areas for close cooperation at this critical juncture.

First, a new sustainable development model. The Government recognizes slower economic growth as the “new normal.” Changing demographic, labour, and investment realities present China with new obstacles in addressing food security, pervasive inequalities, and cost-effectiveness in universal healthcare.

In a post-Xiaokang society, China needs to embrace innovations and services that drive equitable and inclusive progress, dealing with the legacies of rapid expansion to achieve the SDGs and leave no one behind.

Second, climate change. As a consequence of its large population and economy, China is the world’s single largest emitter of carbon dioxide, responsible for a quarter of global emissions. Having recognized the environmental costs of this development model, President Xi Jinping has set a bold ambition for China to hit peak carbon emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

This enormous feat will require a massive transition in how China’s economy works and its population lives every day. Seismic shifts in investments and technologies will be needed. Here, China’s recent pledge to end all financing of coal plants abroad and redirect its support for developing countries towards green and low carbon energy is most welcome.

We will need to sustain this momentum ahead of and following the COP 15 UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, the second UN Sustainable Transport Conference in Beijing, and the COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

Third, multilateralism. China is a champion for multilateral efforts to address global challenges. China has the will, knowledge, and resources to contribute enormously to the SDGs and position itself as an exceptional member of the community of nations.

As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described, “In its successful efforts in the fight against extreme poverty, China’s accomplishments in the past decades set a powerful example that can be shared with other countries, through South-South Cooperation”.

Today, China is the second-largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and has sent more peacekeepers to UN missions than any other permanent member of the Security Council. China also played a vital role in shaping the consensus needed for the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.

Future efforts should emphasize initiatives that expand vaccine access, grant debt relief to lower-income countries, and provide sustainable financing for infrastructure and climate efforts.

On this front, we hope the Global Development Initiative announced by President Xi Jinping recently will accelerate needed international cooperation efforts and we extend our support to contribute our expertise, in line with international norms and standards.

CHINA AND THE UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations family in China is in lockstep with China’s vision. The 2030 Agenda and the recently agreed-upon Country Framework are the blueprints for building on the gains of the past.

In this Decade of Action to achieve the SDGs, the UN can support this ambition and convene, connect and catalyze stakeholders in leveraging China’s development experience to benefit other countries, especially those in Africa, in the spirit of South-South Cooperation.

As the world deals with the pandemic, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres put forward a “Common Agenda” at the 76th Session of the General Assembly, where he said, “We face a moment of truth. Now is the time to deliver…restore trust…[and] inspire hope. Humanity has shown that we are capable of great things when we work together. That is the raison d’être of our United Nations”.

October 2021 will also be time for the UN and China to celebrate our 50-year relationship. China and the UN will reimagine, innovate, reinvigorate and continue the hard and daily work and dedicate ourselves anew to creating lasting prosperity for the people of China and all the world.

The author is Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in China

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Many people living on the banks of rivers in the Amazon rainforest live in stilt houses over the water. Water into which garbage and other waste is dumped – the same water that is used for human consumption, with important consequences on their health, whose magnitude was underlined by the Covid pandemic. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RÍO DE JANEIRO, Oct 8 2021 (IPS)

Basic sanitation, a sector that is undervalued because, according to politicians, it does not bring in votes, has gained relevance in Brazil due to the pandemic that has hit the poor especially hard and the drought that threatens millions of people.

Brazil has made very little progress in sewerage construction in the last decade. In 2010, only 45.4 percent of the population had sewer service, a proportion that rose to 54.1 percent in 2019. Access to treated water increased from 81 to 83.7 percent in the same period.

During that time, however, hospitalisations due to waterborne diseases decreased by 54.7 percent, from 603,623 to 273,403, according to the study “Sanitation and Waterborne Diseases” by the Trata Brasil Institute, released on Oct. 5 in the city of São Paulo.

Among children under four, who represent 30 percent of the patients requiring hospital admission, the reduction was slightly more pronounced, 59.1 percent.

“The data make it clear that any improvement in the public’s access to drinking water, collection and treatment of wastewater results in great benefits to public health,” the Institute’s president, Édison Carlos, stated in the report.

Covid-19 has underscored the country’s social and economic inequalities by disproportionately affecting the poor, who for one thing are the least likely to have sewerage services.

This is reflected in the distribution of basic sanitation infrastructure by region in Brazil. In the North, only 12.3 percent of the population was served by a sewer system in 2019, the last year data was available from the governmental National Sanitation Information System (SNIS), which served as the basis for the study.

As a result, it is the region with the highest rate of hospitalisations, 22.9 per 10,000 inhabitants. It is also the region that concentrates the country’s most generous water resources, as it is located entirely in the Amazon basin.

But the presence of so many large rivers does not mean the local population has drinking water. In fact only a little more than half of the population has access to clean water.

The result is a high incidence of diarrhea, dengue fever, leptospirosis, schistosomiasis, malaria and yellow fever, all of which are waterborne diseases.

One of the favelas or shantytowns of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, where local residents have turned a stream into an open-air garbage dump and a source of frequent flooding due to lack of sewage and garbage collection. Nor do favelas in Brazil’s cities have piped water. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

At the other extreme, the Northeast region suffers from water scarcity in most of its semiarid territory. With only 28.3 percent of the local population served by sewer systems and 73.9 percent with access to treated water, it recorded 19.9 cases of hospitalisation per 10,000 inhabitants in 2019.

Part of the progress in sanitation in the region is due to the more than 1.2 million rainwater storage tanks that have been set up in rural areas by the Articulação do Semiárido (ASA), a network of 3,000 social organisations created in 1999.

The semiarid ecoregion, an area of 1,130,000 square kilometres (most of it in the Northeast) that is home to 27 million people, suffered the longest drought on record from 2012 to 2017, and even until 2019 in some parts.

But this time the hunger, violence and exodus to other regions triggered by similar calamities in the past did not occur.

Disparities in health

A comparison of Brazil’s 26 states reveals more alarming disparities. The northeastern state of Maranhão, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, registered 54.04 hospitalisations per 10,000 inhabitants, far higher than its Amazonian neighbour to the west, Pará, with 32.62.

“Maranhão faces huge challenges in sanitation, as does Pará, but it has higher population density, more people living close together and in contact with dirty water in the open air, for example. Its beaches, often polluted by irregular waste, are another factor to consider,” said Rubens Filho, head of communications at the Trata Brasil Institute and coordinator of its new study.

At the other end of the scale, Rio de Janeiro stands out with the lowest rate of hospitalisations, only 2.84 per 10,000 inhabitants, even though some of its low-income municipalities are among those with the poorest sanitation coverage.

“It is possible that some municipalities do not register cases of waterborne diseases or that people do not seek medical assistance,” Filho told IPS from São Paulo, in an attempt to put the low rate of hospitalisations into context.

“Above and beyond the differences between states, Brazil still has more than 270,000 hospitalisations for preventable diseases; these are costs that could be drastically reduced if everyone had sanitation coverage,” he stressed.

Rainwater harvesting tanks are now part of the landscape in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, thanks to recent initiatives to help people live with drought. There are some 200,000 tanks for irrigating crops, like those of farmer Abel Manto, and 1.2 million to store drinking water. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The North and Northeast are the poorest regions in the country, despite the enormous contrast in terms of their ecosystems – rainforest vs semiarid. They are both far from the goal of near universal sanitation in the country by 2033, set by a law – the Legal Framework for Sanitation – passed in 2020.

More precisely, the aim is to bring treated water to 99 percent of the population and sewerage to 90 percent in this enormous country of 213 million people.

The three regions least affected by the lack of such infrastructure, the Midwest, South and Southeast, are suffering this year from the effects of reduced rainfall, apparently due to climate change and no longer to occasional, short-lived droughts.

The low rainfall began in 2020 and since then has caused interruptions in the water supply in cities such as Curitiba, capital of the southern state of Paraná, and an increase in forest fires in the Pantanal, wetlands on the border with Bolivia and Paraguay, and in the southern Amazon jungle.

This year, many cities in the southeastern state of São Paulo began rationing water. In the state capital, São Paulo, and surrounding urban areas, the local sanitation company reduces the pressure in the pipes at night, a measure that prevents leaks but leaves some areas without water.

The fear is that there will be a repeat of the 2014 and 2015 water shortage crisis, which was similar to other shortages that have occurred this century. Twenty years ago a similar drought caused blackouts and ushered in energy rationing for nine months, starting in June 2001.

Brazil depends heavily on rivers for its electricity supply. Even though the proportion was much higher two decades ago, hydroelectric power plants still account for 63 percent of total installed generation capacity.

Reforestation and recovery of springs and headwaters have become part of the country’s sanitation and energy policy.

The frequency of droughts in south-central Brazil confirms the role of the lush Amazon rainforest in increasing rainfall in large areas of this country and neighbouring Argentina and Paraguay.

So-called “flying rivers” carry moisture from the Amazon to South America’s most productive agricultural lands and to watersheds that play a key role in the production of hydroelectricity. But deforestation of the world’s largest tropical forest is taking its toll.

A view of the shantytown in São Bernardo do Campo, the hub of Brazil’s automobile industry, near São Paulo. A common sight in the poor neighbourhoods in Brazil’s cities: unpainted cinderblock houses are stacked on top of each other over streams, into which they dump their debris and garbage. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Lessons learned from Covid-19

Covid-19 has highlighted the urgent need for sanitation. There is a consensus among epidemiologists that the lack of sanitation is one of the factors in the unequal spread and lethality of the coronavirus, to the detriment of the poor, by limiting access to proper hygiene as a preventive measure.

With 598,152 deaths recognised by the Ministry of Health up to Oct. 4, Brazil’s death toll is second only to that of the United States, which counts more than 703,000 deaths due to Covid. But in proportional terms, 280 Brazilians have died per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 214 in the U.S., according to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland., which keeps a global record on the pandemic.

The need for improved sanitation infrastructure is also gaining momentum for financial reasons. Brazil’s states, whose governments control the main sanitation companies, see privatisation as a source of revenue to overcome their fiscal imbalance and possibly give the sector a boost.

The 2020 Legal Framework for Sanitation encourages the concession of the service to the private sector as a way to attract investment and meet the goal of near universal coverage.

Companies in four Brazilian states have already been privatised. In Rio de Janeiro, on Apr. 30, 2021, the sanitation services of three of the four areas into which the state was divided will be handed over to private groups for 4.2 billion dollars, 133 percent more than expected.

The fourth area is to be privatised later this year. The 35-year concession requires larger investments than the sums paid for the operation of the services.

Cleaning up rivers, lakes and bays, expanding and repairing the pipeline network, improving water quality and reducing distribution losses, estimated at 41 percent, are tasks that will fall to the new owners.

Oxen have been used to plough in agriculture for at least 3,000 years. They are still used today. Painting from the burial chamber of Sennudjem c, 1200 BC, Egypt. Credit: Trevor Page

By Trevor Page
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

Why is the UN holding a Food Systems Summit? Two issues that need discussion at the international leadership level are: Long before the Covid crisis was upon us, the number of hungry people in the world was increasing. Why ? What is the cause of this disturbing trend? And, can a country really claim to be food secure, unless it produces or can buy enough food to feed its population and its people can access sufficient quantities to keep themselves fit and healthy? Disquietening questions as extreme weather begins to show the destructive power that climate change will have on the planet and its people.

A whole range of food system issues will be discussed at the summit, among them: production, processing, supply chain, consumption, nutrition, malnutrition, food aid and waste.

Food Production

Food, or the nutrients it contains, is fuel for the body. Agriculture and the production of food in an organized way is one of the earliest human endeavors. It started in the fertile crescent of the Middle East, some 10,000 BCE. While mechanization dominates the way food is produced today in the major food producing countries, animal traction is still important in many parts of the world.

Million dollar combines handle reaping, threshing, gathering and winnowing in a single operation on North American and European cereal fields today. GPS programmed, they are set to become driverless within a decade. Fruit and vegetables grown in vertical farms in cities using aquaponics are already springing up around the world. Aquaculture too can be moved to vertical farms, making fish much cheaper for urban dwellers. Vertical farms will greatly reduce labour costs and transportation requirements. Mechanization hugely reduces the number of people engaged in farming and consequently, the cost. Robotics and digital agriculture are already with us in some parts of the world. But where most people live in the world, traditional manual methods and animal traction are set to continue until the high investment needed for cutting-edge technology becomes doable.

Combines harvesting barley for the 2021 annual Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB) food drive, Alberta, Canada. The grain is auctioned and the proceeds matched 4:1 by the Canadian government and used by CFGB to promote agriculture in developing countries. Credit: Trevor Page

Wrestling with nature

Despite the advances in technology, drought can badly affect a crop. Cereal crops in western Canada and the United States have been seriously affected by drought this year. Climate change presents the greatest challenge yet to agriculture, and to the human species, generally.

Agriculture is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change. According to FAO, the rearing of livestock accounts for the highest proportion because of the methane produced from enteric fermentation as well as manure left on pastures. Also according to FAO, 44% of GHGs are emitted from Asia, 25% from the Americas, 15% from Africa, 12% from Europe and 4% from Oceania.

Is organic agriculture the answer to healthier food and also the way to go because it’s kinder to the planet? Studies have found that there are higher antioxidant levels in organically grown plant-based foods. There is also evidence that organic food has lower toxic, heavy metal levels and less pesticide residue, for instance organic eggs, meat and dairy products. Organic farms use less energy and have lower GHG emissions. They also reduce the pollution caused by the widespread use of nitrogen fertilizer on industrial farms, with the runoff causing the eutrophication of water bodies. Organic agriculture is based on nourishing the soil with composts, manure and regular rotations, keeping it covered with different crops throughout the year. That sequesters carbon, building healthier soil.

The problem is that organically grown food is more expensive that industrially produced food. On average, it retails around 25% more than food sold in supermarkets. Also, most organic farmers need to supplement their income from an additional occupation in order to make ends meet. So, despite the benefits to human health and to the planet, does organic farming have a future? The answer is a resounding “yes!”, both from producers and consumers. Although globally, only 1.5% of farmland is organic, in 16 countries 10% or more of all agricultural land is organic, and the proportions are growing. The countries with the largest organic share of their total farmland are Liechtenstein at 38.5 %, Samoa at 34.5% and Austria 24.7%, according to IFOAM Organics International. Today, organic food is more of a lifestyle choice, both by the producer and the consumer. But if its growth is an indicator of concern for our health and for that of the planet, and more and more people are willing and able to pay the extra cost involved, then organics can be seen as an indicator of wellbeing and a reduction of inequality, which is a major cause of conflict in the world today.

Healthy root formation on Mozart red potatoes on The Perry Farm in Taber, Canada. Regenerative agriculture is practiced on this farm. Credit: Trevor Page

Although humankind has grown up largely on a diet of just three cereals: wheat, corn and rice, potatoes are actually more nutritious. Furthermore, potatoes can be grown on marginal land and they require only one-third of the water needed to grow the world’s three main cereals. Five years ago, China moved to double its potato production and to add them to the diet of its growing population. Should Africa be following suit?

Conclusion

The Food Systems Summit kicks off in New York on September 23 during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. World leaders will come together to find common ground and form alliances that accelerate our way to realizing the SDGs in this remaining decade of action before 2030 is upon us. Will we succeed in making Zero hunger a reality? If we are serious about this goal, the answer includes rethinking and redesigning our food systems to make them more sustainable.

Trevor Page, resident in Lethbridge, Canada, is a former Emergencies Director of the World Food Programme. He also served with the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, FAO, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR and what is now the UN Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs.

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Farmers in Jamaica are already tallying the costs of crop losses from three tropical storms - Elsa, Grace and Ida. Credit: Zadie Neufville

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Sep 9 2021 (IPS)

Less than halfway into the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season, Jamaica and its Caribbean neighbours were already tallying the costs of infrastructural damage and crop losses from the passage of three tropical storms – Elsa, Grace and Ida. And after a record-breaking 2020 season, the region is on tenterhooks as the season peaks.

But while storm and hurricane damage are not new to the Caribbean, these systems’ increased frequency and intensity bring new reckoning for a region where climate change is already happening. According to data, the effects are likely to worsen in the next 20 years or so, earlier than previously expected.

What is more, the launch of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report (AR6) confirmed what regional scientists have said for years: the frequency and intensity of hurricanes will increase, and floods, droughts and dry spells will be more prolonged and more frequent. In addition, sea levels are rising faster, and heatwaves are more intense and are occurring more often.

AR6, the so-called ‘red code for humanity’, offers a frightening look at the global climate and what is to come. It also confirmed that for most small island states, climate change is already happening.

In a bid to bring home the reality of what is fast becoming the region’s biggest challenge, two leading climate scientists broke down AR6 to highlight the issues that should concern leaders and citizens of the Caribbean.

In a document named Caribbean Under Threat! 10 Urgent Takeaways for the Caribbean, co-heads of the University of the West Indies Mona, Climate Studies Group (CSG), professors Tannecia Stephenson and Michael Taylor warned: “We can now say with greater certainty that climate change is making our weather worse. It is affecting the intensity of heatwaves, droughts, floods and hurricanes, all of which are impacting the Caribbean”.

In a joint interview with IPS, Taylor and Stephenson noted, “Global warming has not slowed.”

They reiterated the IPCC’s warning that “The world will exceed 1.5 degrees between now and 2040” and urged Caribbean leaders to collectively lobby for deeper global greenhouse gas reductions at the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the UN Convention on Climate Change. The gathering of world leaders and negotiators will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 31 to November 12, 2021.

While AR6 offered some hope, in that there is still time to limit global heating to between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees of pre-industrial limits, Stephenson noted that there is an urgent need for more drastic cuts in emissions.

That will not be easy, Taylor added, because although the Caribbean’s contribution to global C02 emissions is already low – according to some estimates below two per cent. “The region must drastically reduce its footprint even further, through greater use of renewables, the preservation of marine and land-based forests and by reducing emissions from waste and transportation.”

The takeaway for the Caribbean, Stephenson said, is that the region will face multiple concurrent threats with every additional incremental increase in temperature. Atmospheric warming and more acidic seas and oceans will impact tourism and fisheries and the future of the region’s Blue Economic thrust.

She added: “The Caribbean must prepare itself to deal with water shortages and increasing sea levels which has implication for low lying areas and the many small islands of the region”.

The 20-country grouping of the Caribbean Community has rallied around the slogan ‘1.5 to stay Alive’ based on the premise that viability of the territories here, is dependent on global temperatures remaining below or at 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. But with global temperatures already at 1.1 of the 1.5 degrees, warming is outstripping the pace of the region’s response.

“If there ever was a time to step up the global campaign for 1.5 degrees, it is now,” said Stephenson, the region’s only contributing writer in Working Group 1, of the AR6.

According to the IPCC AR6 report, net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century can limit global warming to 1.5 or 2.0 degrees within this century. However, the Climate Studies Group has warned that some individual years will hit 1.5 degrees even before 2040, when temperatures are expected to exceed that target.

The signs are everywhere. Last summer, the CSG reported an increase in the number of hot days and nights in the Caribbean. Forecasts also indicate that in the next ten years, the day and night-time temperatures in the region will increase by between 0.65 and 0.84 degrees.

At the same time, the CSG forecasted a 20 per cent reduction in rainfall in some places and up to 30 per cent in others. Trends are also reflecting an increase in the number of dry spells and droughts. Between 2013 and 2017, droughts have swept the Caribbean from Cuba in the North to Trinidad and Tobago in the South, and Belize, Guyana and Suriname in Central and South America.

Since AR5 in 2014, the abundance of evidence links the catastrophic changes to humans, the scientist noted, adding that the changes from human-induced climate change are visible in the extremes of heatwaves, heavy rainfall, droughts, and tropical cyclones. This past summer, wildfires and extreme rainfall caused deaths and forced evacuations in every region of the world, and a cold snap covered Brazil in snowfall and freezing rain.
These intensity and frequency of heat extremes are quickly becoming a cause for concern for the region as the extremes are likely to impact energy use, agricultural productivity, health and water demand and availability. Stephenson urged leaders to make water security a top priority in their mitigation planning.

Three of the world’s most water-scarce countries are in the Caribbean. Water scarce is the term given when a country has less than 1,000 cubic meters of freshwater resources per resident.

The region has a role in deciding how bad things will become, Taylor and Stephenson said. In their 10-point takeaway, they challenge leaders to intensify efforts to keep the current limits on global warming. They must have collective positions on mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage even as the world has already committed itself to some level of increase and impact.

In the run-up to COP26, regional leaders are not only continuing their support for 1.5, but they have also positioned themselves behind the Five Point Plan for Solidarity, Fairness and Prosperity, which calls for the delivery of the promises made in the Paris Agreement.

If nothing else, the region will continue to be severely impacted and must invest heavily to shore up critical infrastructure, most of which are along the coast, said veteran climate scientist Dr Ulric Trotz.

Using Jamaica as an example, he pointed to the US$65.7 million coastal protection works along a 2.5- kilometre stretch of the 14-kilometre-long Palisadoes peninsula in 2010 after the international airport was cut off from the capital city, Kingston, by back-to-back extreme weather events.

“The Caribbean must be prepared for the ‘new normal’ of climate intensities,” Stephenson said. “The stark message is that everybody has to be part of the solution”.

*The Climate Studies Group, Mona is a consortium member of The UWI’s Global Institute of Climate-Smart and Resilient Development (GICSRD), which harnesses UWI’s expertise in climate change, resilience, sustainable development and disaster risk reduction across all UWI campuses.

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Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland in The Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian. Scotland expressed concerns about the impact of climate change on exacerbating superstorms, like this 2019 event which took a massive human toll. Credit: Commonwealth

By Alison Kentish
London, Sep 8 2021 (IPS)

This November, five years after signing the Paris Agreement and pledging to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a further target of below 1.5 degrees Celsius, world leaders will meet in Glasgow, UK amid COVID-19 pandemic shocks, rising hunger and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that warns of more extreme temperature, droughts, forest fires and ice sheet loss due to human activity.

The leaders are expected to submit more ambitious targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Out of the 197 countries which signed the Paris Agreement, 54 are members of the Commonwealth. That association has been helping its members to craft their national climate targets and follow through with implementation.

IPS spoke to Commonwealth Secretary-General the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC about the Association’s climate initiatives, the unique challenges faced by small states, its focus on gender mainstreaming and access to financing for critical adaptation and mitigation projects.

Scotland is the sixth Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and the first woman to hold the post. The Commonwealth is an association of 54 countries that work together to advance shared values enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter, including democracy, human rights and sustainable development.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

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Inter Press Service (IPS): Secretary-General, it is a pleasure to be able to interview you from a small community in Dominica. Dominica continues to be proud of not just being a member of the Commonwealth but the land of your birth and the home of the Baroness Patricia Scotland Primary School.

In Dominica, we know that the Commonwealth is invested in climate change, and I’m happy to be speaking to you about one of the most pressing issues of our time.

The IPCC report has been dominating the climate change headlines in the lead-up to COP26. It is a sobering report that calls for urgent, increasingly ambitious action by world leaders to tackle the climate crisis. What does the report mean for the 54 member countries of the Commonwealth?

The Rt Hon. Patricia Scotland QC (PS): The latest IPCC report is a stark warning for humanity. One cannot argue with the definitive scientific evidence in the report, which shows how climate change is intensifying on a global scale, with widespread impacts. Some of these impacts are unravelling on our television screens and even right before our eyes, including increasingly destructive extreme weather events – from monstrous super storms in the Pacific and Caribbean to deadly floods in Africa and raging wildfires in Europe.

In many ways, the report reaffirms many of the concerns the Commonwealth has been advocating for over the past 30 years, particularly in relation to small and other vulnerable states. It also challenges us, as an international community, to respond – urgently!

We no longer have any excuse not to act. We already have a blueprint for international cooperation in the form of the Paris Agreement. What’s more, emerging from the Covid pandemic, we have a critical window to set a new development path and build back better. What the world needs now is urgent, decisive and sustained climate action. As I’ve always said: if not now, then when; if not us, then who?

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland at COP 25. She was speaking to IPS ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) to be held in Glasgow in October and November 2021. Credit: Commonwealth

(IPS): We know that Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are important to gauge how each country intends to do its part to reduce global warming. We also know that new NDCs should be submitted every five years, but some countries have not met the deadlines. How is the Commonwealth assisting member countries with articulating and submitting their NDCs?

(PS): The Nationally Determined Contributions – or national climate plans – are at the heart of the Paris Agreement. I cannot overstate their importance. It is through the NDCs that we translate this global agreement into reality on the country level.

This is why the Commonwealth Secretariat is working with the NDC Partnership to support governments in enhancing and delivering their national climate plans under the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP).

Through this initiative, we embed highly skilled Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisers in countries to fast-track the process. In Jamaica and Eswatini, our experts help create frameworks to include climate-related spending in national budget planning. In Belize and Zambia, our advisers assist in developing national climate finance strategies.

Our flagship Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub has also deployed advisers in nine other countries across Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific to help governments develop strong climate finance proposals for NDC implementation and wider climate action.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland pictured in Seychelles. She is particularly concerned about the financing and support of small island developing nations with their climate change challenges. Credit: Commonwealth

(IPS): How can Commonwealth countries help each other with their NDCs submission and implementation?

(PS): The Commonwealth is a family of 54 equal and independent nations, spanning five geographical regions with a combined population of 2.4 billion people, 60 percent of whom are under age 30. Thirty-two members are considered ‘small states’, while we also have some of the world’s biggest economies along with emerging countries in our group.

One of the most valuable aspects of the Commonwealth is, therefore, its diversity and incredible capacity to be a platform for countries to share experiences on a wide range of global issues, examining what works and what does not work and cross-fertilising ideas. Building on this, the Secretariat organises regular virtual events, convening a range of actors from different regions and sectors to exchange knowledge and best practices for climate action.

We also welcome the generous financial and in-kind support from member countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and Mauritius, which enables the work of key programmes like the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub and the CommonSensing Project (funded by the UK). The CCFAH ‘hub and spokes’ model ensures a dynamic network of expertise and a useful mechanism for cross-regional dialogue and international cooperation around NDCs.

(IPS): Access to finance for climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives continues to be an issue of concern, particularly for small island developing states. What mechanisms have the Commonwealth Secretariat established to assist countries in financing their climate commitments?

(PS): Funding for climate action is absolutely critical for the survival of our small and vulnerable member states. However, a concerning paradox is that countries most vulnerable to climate change are often the ones that find it most challenging to access climate finance.

This is mainly because they have constrained resources or capacity. For example, a small island developing nation may have just a small ministry or unit dedicated to climate change, and a single officer, if any, focused on mobilising finance. When you look at the complex requirements, application processes and varying criteria set by different international climate funds, it is clear there is a gap.

Consequently, many countries can spend months and even years working through the process to access finance, delaying climate action whilst impacts are ongoing.

This is why the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH) was initiated in 2015, whereby long-term Commonwealth national climate finance advisers are embedded in government departments to help them develop successful funding proposals, and who then pass on the knowledge and skills to local officials and actors. As of June 2021, CCFAH has helped raise US$ 43.8 million of climate finance, including US$ 3 million of country co-financing for 31 approved projects. More than US$762 million worth of projects are in the pipeline.

We are also looking at innovative ways to fill the data gap in project proposals. Under the CommonSensing Project, we work with UNITAR-UNOSAT, the UK Space Agency and others, to use earth observation technology and satellite data to build more robust, evidence-based cases for climate finance in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

(IPS): According to agencies like UNICEF, women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate change – a reflection of patterns of gender inequality seen in other areas. Are you satisfied with the work of the Commonwealth in ensuring gender integration across climate change initiatives?

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland planting mangroves in Sri Lanka. Scotland believes that the diversity of the Commonwealth is its strength in tackling climate issues. Credit: Commonwealth

(PS): To tackle climate change, we simply cannot ignore the role of half the world’s people who are women. In fact, the most recent Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting in 2019 reiterated gender and climate change as one of four priority areas on gender equality. It is absolutely a top concern for the Secretariat, which is committed to mainstreaming gender across its work programmes.

All our regional/national climate finance advisers are expected to mainstream gender and youth considerations in their operations. All their projects must be responsive to the needs of women, men, girls and boys, as equal participants in decision-making and beneficiaries of climate action.

For instance, the Commonwealth National Climate Finance Adviser in Jamaica helped the government secure a grant of US$270,000 from the Green Climate Fund for the project ‘Facilitating a Gender Responsive Approach to Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation’.

The Secretariat recently launched a gender analysis of member country climate commitments. This research will help us better understand the current situation and inform future activities and programmes.

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African Risk Capacity Group Director-General and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Ibrahima Cheikh Diong. Credit: ARC

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 7 2021 (IPS)

The world faces multiple crises: climate change, extreme weather events, food security and biodiversity. For African nations, these issues are compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and epidemic outbreaks that include Rift Valley Fever and Malaria. With 35 African Union Member States as signatories to its establishment Treaty, the African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group – comprising of ARC Agency and ARC Limited – works with Governments to help improve their capacities to better plan, prepare, and respond to extreme weather disasters and natural disasters.

By building smart partnerships and promoting an anticipatory financing approach, ARC enables countries to strengthen their disaster risk management systems and access rapid and predictable financing when disaster strikes to protect the food security and livelihoods of their vulnerable populations.

Since 2014, the Group, through its commercial affiliate, ARC Limited, has provided USD $720 million in risk coverage against drought and made over USD $65 million in payouts to enable an early response to these extreme weather events thereby protecting 65 million people in participating Member States. Being demand-driven in its products offering, the Group has recently diversified its offerings to include Tropical Cyclone and is currently finalizing the development of a Floods product. This is in addition to its ongoing work in Outbreaks and Epidemics targeting four pathogens including Ebola, Marburg, Meningitis and Lassa Fever. The development of a Flood Risk Model is in an advanced stage in collaboration with the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) to ensure that it is offered as a world-class tool for building Member State resilience.

As the United Nations gears up for the September 23 Food Systems Summit – a crucial event that seeks to secure action to transform food production, packaging and distribution, as well as provide solutions to the climate, biodiversity and hunger crises, tackling the threat of drought will be a cornerstone of the discussions. 

In this regard, ARC is ahead of the curve. Using its cutting-edge tool, the Africa RiskView, the Group provides season monitoring, and early warning services to decision-makers on the likely impacts of natural hazards profiled for their countries. This software also estimates the impact of a disaster, estimating the number of people affected, and the associated response costs. It is, therefore, an important tool in enabling the ARC mandate of helping governments proactively manage disaster events and tackle food insecurity.

“The model ensures that governments, using data sets and information, are able to anticipate the probability of a drought or a tropical cyclone event, therefore enabling early-action to protect lives and livelihoods of communities at risk”, ARC Group Director-General and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Ibrahima Cheikh Diong told IPS.

He also added that “we are also looking at extreme weather conditions and exploring the possibility of raising money from capital markets in order to avail additional financing for adaptation or mitigation as well”.

The ARC Group Director-General is scheduled to speak on food systems transformation during the United Nations General Assembly. He hopes to steer the discussion away from a singular focus on food reserves and urge the world to explore options to provide additional financial resources to African countries to help them directly address food security and sustainable livelihoods.

“If we look at African countries, many are heavily dependent on rain-fed agriculture – I’d say almost 80 percent. Some farmers tend to be quite exposed to the lack of rain, or too much rain in some cases, and this creates additional risk among smallholder farmers.”

“In addition to having some solid irrigation systems to ensure more controlled agriculture, it is equally important to consider parametric insurance, as an innovative risk transfer mechanism to help Africa to be more resilient.”

By participating in ARC risk pools, Member States have access to rapid liquidity in the immediate aftermath of a severe insured disaster. This is critical in not only enabling response but in complementing food reserves.

The ARC business model is multi-dimensional, providing technical assistance through early warning and contingency planning tools, as well as risk transfer services. Such an approach relies heavily on innovative science and research and development, enabling a tailored offering to meet the needs of member states and the climate realities of each.

“It’s not just about the product that we offer from a research and development perspective. It is also about making sure that once the offer is clearly defined, we are able to provide the necessary capacity building to our Member States, so they are empowered with the skills and knowledge required to deal with natural disasters,” Diong said.

“Given the fiscal constraints faced by many African governments, one of our key initiatives has been the mobilisation of resources to provide premium support to countries in need of financial assistance. Accessing this funding allows countries to increase their coverage and be able to reach more people in the event of a disaster.”

As the risk insurer prepares to launch its Outbreaks and Epidemics product to the market, it is excited to be able to provide African countries with disease outbreaks early warning systems and response. The continent continues to suffer from outbreaks such as the Ebola Virus, Meningitis and Malaria.

ARC is also supporting efforts towards the first COVID-19 vaccine manufactured in Africa.

“As an institution, we are not involved in the manufacturing of vaccines, but we are in advanced discussion with an institution in Senegal called the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, which is trying to manufacture vaccines, not only for Senegal but for Africa as a whole,” said Diong. “We are partnering with them by making sure that we can provide the necessary capacity building as they produce a vaccine which will go a long way in protecting the vulnerable communities in our Member States.”

Acutely aware that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and disasters, Diong confirms that the Group’s activities are grounded on gender equality. As such, ARC has dedicated resources and training staff in gender mainstreaming and ensuring that the ARC programme always considers the gender perspective. Recently, the Group, together with the African Union, launched a Gender Disaster Risk Management platform that focuses on sustained advocacy and the importance of research & development, training, policy dialogue, resource mobilisation and knowledge management to advance gender in Disaster Risk Management in Africa.

Lastly, “I think the message I want to convey is that Africa is not lagging behind. Disasters do not discriminate. It is important to anticipate disasters as this allows each nation to come up with necessary measures and mechanisms to deal with disasters before they occur,” Diong told IPS. “As an organisation, together with partners, we are on a journey to ensure that we can make Africa more resilient, be able to adapt to the impacts of climate change and mitigate the damages caused.”

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