COP16: Family farmers lead climate resilience and nutrition security efforts

Saudi Arabia is hosting the UN Convention to Combat Desertification COP16 (December 2–13), focusing on land restoration, tenure and drought resilience. Nutrition Insight speaks with the CEO of the Eastern African Farmers Federation, who is present at the event, to unravel the link between family farmers and nutritious food.

Stephen Muchiri shares that farmers across the ten countries his organization represents are adopting agroecological practices and sustainable technologies. They are partnering to combat climate change and improve food security. He stresses that families produce 70% of Africa’s food, which helps combat malnutrition and ensures diverse, nutritious diets.

He stresses that family farmers play a crucial role in building resilient food systems by supporting fair trade policies, adding value and embracing traditional crop varieties. However, their success hinges on stronger policy support, fair pricing and targeted climate finance.

How can businesses better support family farmers in enhancing nutrition outcomes and food security?
Muchiri: First and foremost, it’s about ensuring family farmers in supply chains get a fair price for their produce so they can invest in their farms. For example, small-scale producers in West Africa produce 70% of the world’s cocoa and food for local markets. Yet, the price they receive for the cocoa — on average just 6% of the final cost of a chocolate bar — is barely enough to scrape a living, let alone invest in their farms. 

Farmers, therefore, need to be incentivized to be motivated enough to continue investing in their farms and sustain the chain from farm-to-fork — fairness in prices goes a long way in ensuring this. 

Beyond this, it is in agri-food companies’ interest to help the farmers in their supply chains adapt. For example, if companies had supported cocoa farmers in planting trees alongside their cocoa crops, they may have prevented some losses from the extreme heat wave earlier this year. This support can be provided directly through training, financial support and the respective companies’ CSR programs.

However, the deal maker for farmers can only be through value addition, where these companies can support farmers by sharing part of this value addition so that they are part and parcel of the value chain ownership.

How are family farmers in your region adapting to climate change to ensure nutritious food production?
Muchiri: Many farmers have been practicing and are continuing to embrace agroecological practices such as crop rotation, mulching, planting trees and using organic fertilizers produced from manure or crop residues, albeit at a small scale and in fragmentation. All these approaches help restore the soil structure and health and increase resilience to climate impacts since soil is the largest carbon sink.

Muchiri suggests that businesses can help ensure that family farmers in their supply chains are paid a fair price for their produce, allowing them to invest in their farms.These practices are important in reducing crop production costs, especially the cost of inputs such as fertilizer. However, the agroecology process is slow, with outcomes taking a bit longer to attain, and many countries do not have stand-alone supportive policies, meaning that farmers are, by and large, on their own.   

Farmers also access more information, including weather forecasts and market information. There is a lot of farmer-to-farmer learning, including indigenous knowledge about traditional crop varieties and livestock breeds that are better adapted to local conditions and more resilient to climate impacts.

For example, local chicken breeds can better tolerate the heat and live longer than imported breeds. Due to their high nutrients, consumers are also seeing an increased demand for these traditional crop products; this demand is seen in restaurants on the continent, African restaurants abroad and supermarkets.

What role do family farmers play in addressing malnutrition and ensuring access to diverse food?
Muchiri: Family farmers produce 70% of the food consumed in Africa, supplying communities in remote rural areas and major urban centers. We are central to global supply chains for commodities such as cocoa, rice, coffee, bananas, exotic vegetables and fruits, among others. We also produce many traditional foods that are highly nutritious and available in informal markets but are labeled “orphan” crops by the science community — thus, the science community has no data about them and is therefore not promoted or improved.

We are also major employers, providing an important source of income for millions of people in rural communities. Family farmers already play a significant role in feeding communities. With more support—for example, more direct access to climate finance—they can help ensure everyone has access to healthy, affordable food.  

What sustainable farming technologies adopted by family farmers bring nutrition security?
Muchiri: Many farmers are investing their savings in diversifying their farms — planting a greater variety of crops and trees, including local varieties. This means more sustainable and resilient farms and a more reliable and diverse food source for local communities.

Family farmers produce cocoa, rice, coffee, bananas, traditional foods and exotic vegetables and fruits.Farmers also practice cyclic agronomy by combining crop and livestock enterprises, where each complements the other. For example, manure slurry for the crops, manure for biogas, crop residues for livestock feed, and chicken droppings for fish feed pellets, both enterprises provide a complete and nutritious diet at the community level.

Technology needs to be appropriate. Farmers don’t necessarily need cutting-edge technology, which is expensive to buy or maintain. But they might need more basic equipment to thresh or dry produce.

Their technology requirements may change as they develop their farms and establish cooperatives. This is why governments must put farmers at the heart of decision-making on food and climate. Farmers know best what support and technology will be most beneficial.

But innovation isn’t just about technology, it’s also about creating partnerships across the food chain — with retailers, food companies and governments. For example, the government in Brazil has committed to sourcing produce for public institutions such as schools from family farmers, which supports family farmers and ensures children have access to healthy food.

How does being part of the Family Farmers for Climate Action alliance help drive solutions for nutrition challenges?
Muchiri: Being part of the Family Farmers for Climate Action alliance, which represents over 50 million family farmers across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, gives us a powerful voice to push for the finance and policy support we know is needed to safeguard our farms and feed our communities. The community also provides an opportunity to exchange and learn from each other as we come from different regions of the world.

Sustainable agriculture in the spotlight

In related news, leaders emphasized the need to strengthen agriculture to “fight poverty, end hunger and improve nutrition,” at the recent G20 Summit. The summit acknowledged that these goals are interconnected with global trade and sustainable farming practices.

Additionally, a recent discussion in India promoted regenerative agriculture as a lack of crop variety in farming systems threatens nutrition security for nearly three billion people in India and Africa. 

Meanwhile, a global “people’s” coalition urged systemic reforms to create equitable, rights-based food systems. The manifesto is made by small-scale food producers, Indigenous peoples and food-insecure individuals.