Africa Confronts Food, Fertilizer and Climate Crises

My IATP colleagues are in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt at the COP27 climate summit, joining up with the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) to demand that agroecology be put at the center of the effort to help developing countries adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate. As AFSA shows in a great new report, “The Climate Emergency: How Africa can Survive and Thrive”, they are pushing back against efforts by the U.S. government and others to promote business-friendly “climate-smart agriculture,” with its continued dependence on fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. African farmers call such policies “climate-stupid agriculture.”

Bill Gates may call such fertilizers “magical,” but they are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. My research has shown that they are doing little to increase productivity in Africa and much to undermine small-scale farmers’ climate resilience. A new report from IATP and GRAIN shows that multinational fertilizer companies are profiteering off the Russia-Ukraine war, quadrupling their profits while developing countries see their fertilizer bills soar.

I was interviewed on Africa’s food, fertilizer and climate crises by Pacifica Radio’s Ann Garrison, who published our extended interview this week in Black Agenda Report. Read an excerpt below. And see IATP’s COP27 information hub for more analysis of the crucial issues on the table at the Climate Summit. And don’t miss IATP’s Uprooted podcast series: Talking COP27.

I was interviewed on Africa’s food, fertilizer and climate crises by Pacifica Radio’s Ann Garrison, who published our extended interview this week in Black Agenda Report. Read an excerpt below. And see IATP’s COP27 information hub for more analysis of the crucial issues on the table at the Climate Summit. And don’t miss IATP’s Uprooted podcast series: Talking COP27.

…(read more).

See related

• BBC World Service – The Climate Question, Can we feed the world without using chemical fertilisers?
• International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems
• The “Green Revolution:” Its Essence, Achievements & Aftermath
• “The Truth about the Green Revolution,” contribution to GTI Forum “Technology and the Future,” Great Transition Initiative (February 2022).
• Misplaced Metaphors in the Anthropocene: Beware of the Devastating Power of Cultural Clichés & Misconstrued Metaphors on a Small Planet
• The Vulnerability of the Global Food System and the Strategies Needed for a Sustainable “Recovery”
• The Agribusiness Alliance for a Green Revolution Failed Africa – Tim Wise (GDAE-Tufts University & IATP)
• Reversing the AGRA “meta-narrative” about Africa and the ‘Green Revolution’ – A conversation…
• Failing Africa’s Farmers: An Impact Assessment of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Timothy A. Wise
• Beyond the ‘Green Revolution:’ The Current Paradigm Shift in Global Agricultural Science
• Africa’s land use problem: Is Green Revolution agriculture a solution or a cause? | IATP
• Human Population Dynamics, European Arrogance & Anthropocentric Delusions in a Collapsing Ecosystem….
• The trouble with Economists is that they are – for the most part – focused upon the wrong problem: making extinction “more efficient….”
  and
• The Malthus Insight and the Global Limits of “Green Revolution” Food Production

as well as:

See related:

• The Malthus Insight and the Global Limits of “Green Revolution” Food Production
• International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems
• The “Green Revolution:” Its Essence, Achievements & Aftermath
• “The Truth about the Green Revolution,” contribution to GTI Forum “Technology and the Future,” Great Transition Initiative (February 2022).
• Misplaced Metaphors in the Anthropocene: Beware of the Devastating Power of Cultural Clichés & Misconstrued Metaphors on a Small Planet
• The Vulnerability of the Global Food System and the Strategies Needed for a Sustainable “Recovery”
• The Agribusiness Alliance for a Green Revolution Failed Africa – Tim Wise (GDAE-Tufts University & IATP)
• Reversing the AGRA “meta-narrative” about Africa and the ‘Green Revolution’ – A conversation…
• Failing Africa’s Farmers: An Impact Assessment of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Timothy A. Wise
• Beyond the ‘Green Revolution:’ The Current Paradigm Shift in Global Agricultural Science
• Africa’s land use problem: Is Green Revolution agriculture a solution or a cause? | IATP
• Human Population Dynamics, European Arrogance & Anthropocentric Delusions in a Collapsing Ecosystem….
• The trouble with Economists is that they are – for the most part – focused upon the wrong problem: making extinction “more efficient….”
  and
• BBC World Service – The Climate Question, Can we feed the world without using chemical fertilisers?

as well as:

• Ignorance, Arrogance, Overshoot & Collapse: The Destructive Power of Enduing Myths In Collapsing Civilizations
• Soils, Agriculture, Carbon Sequestration and Human Survival 
• Fresh Water, Food and Energy in a Market-Integrated, War-Torn World
• “No Soil. No Growing Seasons. Just Add Water and Technology:” The Recent Evolution & Tragic Trajectory of the World Food System
• Overcoming the Multiple Legacies of European Colonialism: Can The West Survive Its Most Cherished Historical Myths?
• The Enduring Legacy of Empire: Learning How We Came to Misconceive Our Role in a Complex Ecosystem
• The mistake of petro-intensive agriculture – the UNA “Global Engagement Summit”
• “We treat soil like dirt” — Topsoil, Climate Change and the Collapse of Civilizations

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