East Africa unite for funding in agriculture

By Taibot

Arusha. The philanthropies are soliciting close to 4.3 trillion US dollars to finance the transition of global agriculture to Agroecology in the next 10 years.

This was disclosed during the regenerative and agroecological and food systems transformation conference that was concluded last week in Arusha, Tanzania.

Ms Farley Sara, the vice president of the Rockafeller Foundation, disclosed that the transformation requires 4.3 trillion US dollars, and 430 billion is required annually.

“Total current investment is 44 billion US dollars per year. We are appealing to the Philanthropies, governments, private partners, and other well-wishers, we need a systemic and sustained approach to addressing the interlocking crisis of climate biodiversity crisis, food security, and inequality is already being felt by governments, taxpayers, and the most vulnerable,” Sara said.

The global Alliance for the Future of Food is leading the engagement process and it has been strategic in alliance of philanthropic foundations working together with others to transform global food systems now and for future generations.

Ms Lauren Baker, the deputy Director of the Global Alliance for Future of Foods said

“We know that we need ten times the amount of funding to properly transition to regenerative and agroecology approaches, as a group our job is to make a case and talk to other funders and make sure the funds are put to the right use.”

Jasmin Hundor, the senior advisor on Agroecology at GIZ observed that from 2014 to last year, GIZ invested 800million Euros on 80 projects globally for agroecology, noting that East African countries of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania have their area of Focus.

“We have come to listen to the demands of the different governments to be able to align strategies of the transformation agenda,” she said.

Daniel Moss, the president of the Agroecology Fund observed that they are committed to supporting grassroots initiatives for small-scale farmers that address food systems.

Dr John Garcia Ulloa, senior program Manager at Biovision Foundation notes that two critical areas need to be focused on, that is the coordination of the different foundations and also the element of finance and investment to achieve the target.

He also said that through proper coordination it will be easy to mobilise resources to fund the transformation and also avoid duplication of resources.

“The strategy is providing the elements, for this strategy to make a difference to transform the food systems we need resources, to strategies creating a market, strengthening network and building capacities,” Garcia said.

The Host government of Tanzania has committed Tzshs 1.248 trillion for the financial year 2024/2025 to transform into Agroecological farming.

The permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Mr Gerald Geofry Mweli said the government of Tanzania values the contribution of ecological agriculture in creating sustainable food systems.

It has been noted by the scientific community that Ecological Organic Agriculture can be among the vehicles towards achieving national and international goals of achieving food security, employment, and poverty reduction.

Thus, Tanzania through The National Ecological Organic Agriculture Strategy of 2023 – 2030, and other policies has set actions for sustainable utilization of land and water sources for agriculture, the use of climate resilient agriculture practices, and conservation of forests, and other natural ecologies to advance food and nutrition security and safety, climate resilience, biodiversity as well as income and job creation.

Swati Rendudintala, World Agroecology Center CIFOR-ICRAF, Kenya notes that the approach should be reaching out to more farmers and tapping on the experiences of small-scale farmers for inclusivity.

“We want to accelerate the process of regenerative and agroecology, we must take it to the farmers through collaborative approaches” Swati stated.

“Indigenous communities, local women and small-scale farmers are a bedrock in the solutions to achieve sustainable food systems,” Michael Kwam Nkonu of the IKEA foundation said.

Frison Emile the senior advisor of the agroecology coalition re-echoed from last year’s convening that was held in Rome, they have not yet moved.

“That is the reason we are here for this meeting, we want to identify a clear path and the different types of actors being government, and private sector to identify the different roles they play in accelerating the food systems transformation” Emile noted.

Background

The agroecology principles apply to all forms of sustainable agriculture and food production systems including crops, livestock and pastoral systems, agroforestry, fisheries, and aquaculture. 

The 13 principles of agroecology as defined by the high-level panel of experts of the committee on World Food Security and aligned with the 10 elements of Agroecology adopted by the 197 FAO members in December 2019.