Two very different places – oceans apart – shared their climate-smart stories in a fascinating FAO/WFP/IFAD side event at the United Nations climate change meeting, COP17, on 2 December.
The introduction noted that “Agriculture must undergo a radical transformation to meet the related challenges of climate change, what is climate-smart agriculture in practice and how will it build resilience of vulnerable communities?”
Tekaling Mamo, State Minister and Minister’s Advisor, Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia, told us. As a way of scaling back on financially expensive and environmentally costly urea fertilizers, they are busy integrating Faidherbia albida, a nitrogen-fixing fertilizer tree, into their cropping systems. This practice has been common historically but it has never been scaled up. So the government intends to distribute 100 million seedlings to farmers and increase the use of compost as a way of scaling down urea use. However, they still have to apply phosphorus.
As a way of increasing soil drainage, poor farmers working black vertisol soils have historically heaped the soil up with crop residues and burnt them. This does improve drainage but emits CO2 and destroys the soil structure, so it is not sustainable. The authorities are now introducing modified drainage systems that are eliminating burning, thereby conserving the soil structure but at the same time evidencing a climate-smart approach.
Tokelau has gone even further. Foua Toloa, Head of the Government of Tokelau, called for climate change justice for his island. A “coral speck in the middle of the Pacific ocean,” Tokelau is already adapting its lifestyle to climate changes, reviving and integrating traditional practices in agriculture and fisheries, and integrated climate change into all planning and policies. Its challenge is that as a territory it is not eligible for global funding nor can it find a voice in the international fora.
In usual years there might be three to five cyclones hitting the island. In 2009 there were 11 cyclones and in 2010 there were nine. Storm surges severely eroded the coastline, showing the potential impact of extreme events from global warming, but now they are recovering, with only three such events in 2011. Seven months of drought drained water reserves and it takes 2-3 years for the crops to recover. Coral reefs, the source of food security, are bleaching because of increased temperatures. Runoff of imported chemical fertilizers was causing algal blooms in the fresh water lagoons.
In response, the territory has imported new hybrids of bananas, and varieties of year-round fruiting breadfruit from nearby Samoa. Chemical fertilizers have been completely banned from the group of three atolls about half way between Hawaii to New Zealand, and no insecticides and pesticides are permitted. Composting is widely promoted.
With fish as a primary source of food security and a valuable source of income, the Territory is handling its fisheries in a sustainable way and also managing the oceanic exclusion zone.
They are also inaugurating a renewable energy project in 2012 that will meet all of the population’s electricity needs from solar energy, linked with a campaign for raised public awareness of the efficient use of electricity.
Could it be that this ancient country and this tiny territory are showing us some ways forward on climate-smart agriculture?
Paul Stapleton
