Food security, climate change closely linked

Nkoana-Mashabane was speaking at the opening of the two-day African Ministers in Agriculture Conference on Climate-smart Agriculture in Johannesburg.

"Food security, especially in Africa, is linked to the prevailing climate. Any long or short term changes are paramount to our ability to feed our nations with high quality, affordable and accessible staple foods.

"Food security is important to Africa's economy as it is impacts heavily on a country's poverty alleviation [ability] and sustainable development plans," she said.

The objective of the conference is for African ministers responsible for agriculture to share their leadership perspectives, explore challenges and grasp new opportunities for climate-smart agriculture in Africa.

The gathering will also enable the African ministers in agriculture to speak in one voice at the upcoming 17th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban in November and December.

COP 17 in Durban offers a unique opportunity for Africa to shape the global climate agenda and establish an agriculture work programme that is informed by science and covers adaptation and mitigation.

According to Nkoana-Mashabane, agriculture has the potential to cost-effectively mitigate greenhouse gases through changes in agricultural technologies and management practices.

"Improvements in water conservation and demand management and its spatial distribution will exacerbate the need for better water harvesting, storage and management.

Regarding the upcoming COP 17, the minister said: "It is critical that we have to start looking beyond this highly anticipated event. We need to link climate change, food security and poverty, we need to engage on emerging issues, including finance and technological support and approaches such as climate-smart agriculture that are geared towards addressing food security, adaptation and mitigation."

She further appealed to delegates to align themselves with the African Union (AU) to ensure that Africa takes a united stand in global negotiations and evolving mechanisms.

"This conference should assist our countries and the sector to be able to ensure that COP 17 becomes a truly African Conference of the Parties," she said.

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, said: "Ensuring food security under a changing climate is one of the major challenges in our era as African agriculture is vulnerable to climate change."

She also expressed her view that the upcoming COP 17 will be a success, adding that as African ministers responsible for agriculture, they will push for a climate smart agriculture to dominate the conference.

National director of agriculture, livestock and forestry in Angola, Domingos Nazare Cruze Veloso, said just like other African countries, Angola is also faced global warming challenges such as drought and floods.

"I think this gathering is important for us as Africans to work together towards finding lasting solution to this global warming challenge," he said.

Deputy executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP), Sheila Sisulu, said the conference is significant in the extreme, since 80% of people in the continent rely on agriculture.

"We hope that the COP 17 will come out with tangible solution on how best we can address the global warming, which is a huge threat to food security in the continent," she said.

Climate smart agriculture seeks to increase productivity in an environmentally and socially sustainable way, strengthen farmer's resilience to climate change and reduce agriculture's contribution to climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as increasing carbon storage on farmland.

It also includes practical techniques such as mulching, intercropping, conservation agriculture, crop rotation, integrated crop-livestock management, agroforestry, improved grazing and water management.