“Climate-Smart” Agriculture and Moringa
“Climate-Smart” Agriculture and Moringa
Newton K Amaglo, PhD Student, Hunan Agriculture University,
Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Changsha, Hunan. China 410128.
Email; amaglonewton@yahoo.com Nov 2012
Introduction
There has been a time in history when humans used tens of thousands of vegetables, cereals, etc but today we rely on just a few cereals. After roughly 10,000 years of progressive agricultural civilization, seventy percent of the world’s food supply comes from just three grains ---- corn, wheat and rice---- and eighty percent of our plant-based food intake comes from just twelve plants—eight grains and four tubers (Nierenberg, 2011). Globalization, intensification and industrialization of agriculture, has been blamed for this trend where we concentrate on very small number of species in monoculture. Thus global agriculture is leaning too heavily on a few crops and need to plant a wider variety of crops to build a more resilient food system. The FAO reports that Crop agriculture is responsible for 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, new climate-smart policies aimed at improving both livelihoods of farmers, food security and access as well as reducing emissions of greenhouse gases are the need of the hour.
Climate change, Poverty and Sustainable livelihoods
Sub-Saharan Africa with a population of around 782 million people in 47 countries is home to 36 of the world’s poorest countries. Two-thirds of the estimated 33 million people suffering from AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa; the region with the highest rates of malnutrition (Kennedy, 2011). Sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region in the world that has failed to progress in terms of food security with more or less stagnant levels of production per capita in recent years (Spore, 2011a). Climate change presents a new major concern, often interacting with or aggravating existing problems. Small scale farmers in West Africa are already producing far below
Newton K Amaglo, PhD Student, Hunan Agriculture University,
Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Changsha, Hunan. China 410128.
Email; amaglonewton@yahoo.com Nov 2012
Introduction
There has been a time in history when humans used tens of thousands of vegetables, cereals, etc but today we rely on just a few cereals. After roughly 10,000 years of progressive agricultural civilization, seventy percent of the world’s food supply comes from just three grains ---- corn, wheat and rice---- and eighty percent of our plant-based food intake comes from just twelve plants—eight grains and four tubers (Nierenberg, 2011). Globalization, intensification and industrialization of agriculture, has been blamed for this trend where we concentrate on very small number of species in monoculture. Thus global agriculture is leaning too heavily on a few crops and need to plant a wider variety of crops to build a more resilient food system. The FAO reports that Crop agriculture is responsible for 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, new climate-smart policies aimed at improving both livelihoods of farmers, food security and access as well as reducing emissions of greenhouse gases are the need of the hour.
Climate change, Poverty and Sustainable livelihoods
Sub-Saharan Africa with a population of around 782 million people in 47 countries is home to 36 of the world’s poorest countries. Two-thirds of the estimated 33 million people suffering from AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa; the region with the highest rates of malnutrition (Kennedy, 2011). Sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region in the world that has failed to progress in terms of food security with more or less stagnant levels of production per capita in recent years (Spore, 2011a). Climate change presents a new major concern, often interacting with or aggravating existing problems. Small scale farmers in West Africa are already producing far below
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