gfia_-_logo_0_5.png
Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture presents the world’s largest showcase of sustainable agriculture solutions and hosts over 3,200 of the world’s brightest minds to show the world how game-changing technologies can change the way the world grows food forever.
GEF CEO and Chairperson, Naoko Ishii gave the following keynote speech at the forum:
Excellencies, colleagues and friends; Good morning to everybody.
It is a great pleasure for me to be here today. I congratulate the organizers for hosting this important forum at a critical time.
2015 is a defining year; we will meet in Sendai later this month to discuss natural disaster risk management; in Addis in July a framework for Financing for Development; in New York in September to agree on a set of global sustainable development goals, in Paris in December to reach a global agreement to combat climate change.
The challenge of 2015 is for the global community to find a way to pursue today’s aspiration for prosperity without undermining the opportunity for tomorrow. We’ve come to know that we are living years with serious threat to this prospect; we are pushing the carrying capacity of natural capital and the earth ecosystem, which is fundamental to sustainable development, to their limits. We may have already exceeded some of tipping points, or planetary boundaries, which define safe operating space for humanity. Climate change is one of those boundaries being almost crossed.
The challenges are mounting. The world population will grow from current 7 billion to 9 billion, with 3 billion more in middle class by 2050. This demands more energy, transport, buildings and food. Agriculture is expected to meet the growing demand for food by 70%.
However we cannot ignore that agriculture as we know it today has a huge environmental foot print across many domains. First, expansion of agriculture lands is the dominant driver of land-use change including tropical deforestation, causing negative impacts on biodiversity. Second, agriculture accounts for one quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Third, agriculture accounts for 70% of all freshwater withdrawn from rivers, lakes, and aquifers. And finally, agriculture is the primary source of nutrient runoff from farm fields, which creates “dead zones” and toxic algal blooms in coastal waters and aquatic ecosystems.
The global challenge ahead of us is how to feed the growing population while reducing the footprint of the agriculture, thus ensuring we will not step out the safe planetary boundaries.
The challenge is even more acute in Africa. Africa starts with a significant food deficit: about one quarter of Africa’s population is undernourished even today. Crop yields are lowest in the world. Soil quality is poor. Climate change will further exacerbate vulnerability and food insecurity in Africa. Meanwhile the demand for food in Africa will grow far more rapidly in the coming decades, due to doubling population by 2050. In a sense agriculture in Africa is facing a perfect storm.
It is easy to say that Africa faces the daunting challenge and that the agriculture is a source of the problem. I just came from AMCEN, the African Environment Ministers Conference, in Cairo. The challenge of food security was well highlighted and the solutions were discussed. The Cairo Declaration specifically recognized the nexus between land productivity, food security, and poverty eradication.
We are here to talk about the solution. In my view agriculture in Africa can present a huge opportunity to this very problem. I believe there is a clear way that agriculture can meet the sharp increase in demand for food, without compromising natural capital and the vital ecosystem, which are the basis for future development.
To test our thinking, we at the GEF are launching a new flagship program on food security in Africa by taking an integrated approach.
The focus of the program is to help small holders manage their natural capital in a sustainable manner—the land, soil, water, vegetation and genetic resources that are vital for continued and increased agricultural productivity. For example, the program will help small holders to have improved access to drought-tolerant seeds, strengthen the management of soil health, adjust planting periods and cropping portfolios, and enhance on-farm agro-biodiversity.
Under the program we will also support governments, both central and local, to strengthen policies and institutional frameworks that promote sustainable intensification of small-holders’ agricultural production. The goal of this program is to create a multi-stakeholder platform which unites small holders, the private sector including seed and fertilizer companies, governments, and scientists who can tailor the state of the art technology to the local conditions.
These measures are essential to foster long-term sustainability and resilience for food security. They are essential to reduce land degradation and recover natural vegetation, to reduce biodiversity loss, and increase soil carbon—all of which are good for the global environment.
The GFIA theme is exceptionally well-chosen. Serious new thinking is needed to ensure that the agriculture of tomorrow can both feed the world and reduce its harmful footprint on the environment. A paradigm shift is needed in agricultural development that places natural capital at the heart of investment decisions for long-term sustainability and resilience. And that, I believe, is possible through our collective and innovative thinking and actions taken by all partners together. Agriculture must reform into Climate Smart Agriculture.
I wish you all the very best for the deliberations ahead.
Thank you.