By Happy Mulolani
The numerous effects of climate change, such as flash floods, excessive heat and heavy rainfall, remain a source of concern in Zambia. To overcome these effects, the Consortium of Climate Change campaigners has intensified its efforts in formulating an agroecology strategy which will address particular concerns affecting production and productivity.
The strategy will champion the Consortium's needs to ensure that its work is enriched through the Agricultural Consultative Forum (ACF), which has provided a platform to ensure that the strategy speaks to specific needs and that the Ministry of Agriculture offers its facilitation role.
The Consortium is mandated to advocate and lobby for the transformation of food systems in Zambia by promoting agroecology. It also ensures the promotion of biodiversity and adaption, resilience and improving livelihoods since 2018.
PELUM Zambia Country Coordinator Wamunyima Muketoi explains that it becomes easier to mobilize a critical mass through the Agriculture policy, which runs for the next five years.
Mr Muketoi says that for the Consortium to be effective, they need to work on mapping key stakeholders in climate change-related work to avoid duplication of the same work.
Consultant Fatima Nkhuwa concurs that what needs to be taken into account are the international organizations and progressive partners who have pushed the agroecology agenda to influence appropriate actions to deal with climate change. Therefore, the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) synergy is critical to look at who is located in a specific context, providing particular interventions, and who the influencers are.
"If there is a Civil Society Organisation doing specific work, push the influencer to enable movement in tackling the climate change agenda in the various spheres," Consultant Fatima Nkhuwa explains.
This is amid the realization that several organizations work around various climate change interventions but work in silos. This means what is required is once key players are identified and come together, it will be easier to deal with addressing identified policy gaps.
Ms Nkhuwa explains that adopting a multisectoral approach of all key players will deal with climate change issues with one voice. This strategy needs to speak to national agenda such as food security, increased income, and food security.
The Consortium's clusters are already working on three critical clusters: the agriculture cluster, the climate and environment cluster will look at climate-related policies and the public resource management cluster will look at public resources. The last cluster is the movement-building cluster to speak with one voice.
These clusters are expected to inform a vivid agroecology strategy which will feed into the national agriculture agenda at the national level.
Adopting this approach with key players will enhance their momentum and policy gaps and opportunities within the agroecology sphere. It is key to clearly understand agroecology and its necessary elements, such as seed, soil, water and inputs, which will enrich the soils and produce healthy foods.
A farmer in Lusaka West, Robert Chimango, who has seriously taken up sustainable agriculture practices, said that there is a need for the Consortium to take on a pragmatic approach in reforming some of the policies and also speed up the process of coming up with an agroecology strategy.
Admittedly, much research has been conducted over the years around agroecology but needs a systematic way of disseminating this information to empower farmers and communities. This calls for the active involvement and participation of the media to provide essential information on the critical aspects of agroecology through integrated mass media.
PELUM Zambia Communications Officer Rebecca Mwila explains that the media is a powerful tool and should be at the forefront in propagating the media's advocacy role.
"A lot of effort needs to be put in packaging appropriate climate change information to raise awareness," Ms Mwila said.
The type of agriculture being experienced is industrial agriculture which some people have advocated for clearing the land. This practice of clearing the land has led to deforestation and other disastrous effects on the soil.
The climate change reality shows a reduction in water levels and excess greenhouse emissions which produces greenhouse gases.
This situation presents a gloomy picture which calls for the Consortium's interventions to promote the adoption of agriculture practices such as agroecology and its numerous advantages, as it cares for the earth and preserves the biodiversity through use of locally available resources and promotes integration.
The author works as a Principal Agricultural Information Officer at the National Agricultural Information Services(NAIS)
