The Brussels Development Briefing n.60 on “The future of food and agricultural transformation” organised by CTA, the European Commission/EuropeAid, the ACP Secretariat and CONCORD was held on Wednesday 26 February 2020 (9h00-13h00) at the ACP Secretariat, Avenue Georges Henri 451, 1200 Brussels. The briefing presented trends and discussed the sustainable and healthy food systems, the future of work in agriculture and the need for new skills in very complex food chains, the effects of disruptive innovations, fair and inclusive value chains and trade. The audience was made up of ACP-EU policy-makers and representatives of the EU Member States, civil society groups, research networks and development practitioners, the private sector and international organisations based in Brussels as well as representatives from ACP regional organisations.

1. Farmers and food systems
what future for small scale
agriculture?
Brussels Briefing 60 - 26th february 2020
Elizabeth Nsimadala
PAFO & EAFF President

2. PAFO
A continental body that brings together Regional
farmers Organizations in Africa
MEMBERSHIP
5 RFOs, 80 NFOs, Over 80M SHF 49 Countries
Vision
A vibrant African agriculture , prosperous
and sustainable ensuring food security and
sovereignty, including the socio-economic
development
Mission
Representing the interests of African
farmers and promoting development of
African agriculture

3. Food system Definition.
• According to the University of Oxford, “The food
system is a complex web of activities involving the
production, processing, transport, and
consumption” basically ‘farm-to-folk’ value chain.
Issues concerning the food system include the
governance and economics of food production, its
sustainability, the degree to which we waste food,
how food production affects the natural
environment and the impact of food on individual
and population health.

4. Global Food system
• The global food system can be described, in
most basic terms, as the production,
processing, and distribution of food
throughout the world, and is meant to "feed
the world" and "reduce hunger and
malnutrition" through trade by creating
higher levels of food availability, accessibility,
utilization, and stability.

5. Problems of African food system
What is not right?????

6. 1- Climate Change
• The recent events in climate change by far pause the
greatest risk to the African food system, we have
ravaging droughts in the southern Africa and major
insect (locust) infestation in East Africa that has
spiraled out of control, in Kenya farmers have asked
the government to declare this phenomenon a
“national disaster” since it has been unable to control
its spread. This incidence is after an outbreak of Fall
Army Worms and floods. There is urgency in making
available climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience
funds and support for the continent to restore what
looks like a major food crisis in the future for Africa

7. 2-Lack of sufficient support to Producers
• The African farmer practices an array of production
systems – from traditional to conventional and modern
practices. We have family farmers from the modest to
the largest and we have those in livestock and fisheries
who are often marginalized. With the continent
importing about 40 Billion USD worth of food per
annum, it means the African farmer cannot currently
feed her continent but has the potential to do so if
significantly supported through integration into existing
production systems, having requisite capacity to form
appropriate organizations of farmers, having the right
partnerships and support by governments. It is
imperative to adequately support the African farmer to
be able to feed the future generations.

8. 3-Agriculture Policies
• It’s a well known fact, Africa is rich in policies…CAADP,
National Agriculture policies, Regional and international
trade policies, regional integration, climate
change…etc. The problem is that these policies are
most times either not well researched, consultations
are not sufficient, awareness is not well done and
ownership is diverse. The inconsistencies in policy
result in poor resourcing and enforcement, we know
that most international trade agreements are not in
favor of Africa and our experts lack the capacity to
argue otherwise. We have also politicized food in the
continent making some of the major policies in-
effective hence the reason we suffer food dumping,
land grab and unfair competition with commodities
produced elsewhere.

9. 4- Agriculture investments
• It is said that the right policies are followed by the
right investments. The policies supporting agro-
ecological farming, family farming or conventional
farming have very little to show in investments
especially for the small holder producers. There are
so many opportunities say in post harvest,
infrastructure/ distribution, value addition, financial
inclusion, climate smart agriculture among others.
Investments Instruments developed for pro-poor
populations have created little impact because most
are not properly designed and the patience of the
investment is not long enough

10. 5-Data and information
• Bearing in mind the current challenges
facing our agriculture state of play, there
is need to create an information highway
that is fed by current data and analysis.
Africa in general lacks this capacity as
effort around it is very fragmented, we
will need to learn how to converge data
and information for it to make sense and
most importantly inform planning.

11. What are we doing as FOs
• There’s evidence of supporting Fo’s in managing
various food systems, Example, In West Africa –
Senegal and Mali we have strong farmers
associations supporting family farming which we
recognize as one of the processes to deliver agenda
2030 through the UNDFF, cooperatives in Uganda,
Rwanda and Ethiopia which are strong in
aggregation and value addition, in North Africa
Sudan and Morocco are good in producing from
arid conditions, in Southern Africa they are good in
precision farming.

12. Our experience on state of play
• In Countries where we have weak FOs,
the food import bills are very high, there
is relative political instability , ecosystems
have degenerated and the National debts
are very high.

13. The Food system that Farmers want!
• As Africans, we want a food system that restores
the dignity of the African farmer, a system(s) that
recognizes the diversity of production systems from
resilient to sustainable. A system(s) that doesn’t not
marginalize the livestock or fish-producer. We want
a system that is seen to put the Farmer at the
center of focus – as THE INVESTMENT – needed to
"feed the world" and "reduce hunger and
malnutrition" meaning the interventions will be
done involving the farmer at all times.

14. Continuation
• There is a lot of capacity to be harnessed in
organization of producer organizations to make
food available, accessible, utilized, and stably
produced, the farmers of Africa have struggled to
put together National, Regional and a PAFO to
achieve this fete, we plead with you and everyone
out there “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.

15. PAFO TRIBUTE TO CTA
• Out of the 60 Brussels Briefing, Africa was present
in 54 through our FO Leaders and entrepreneurs,
the first briefing dedicated to African agriculture
was held on 17th October 2007 on Advancing
African Agriculture, 5 continental briefings were
organized in Africa: September 2010 in Cameroon
on access to land , In Burkina Faso on Climate
change, 2014 in Kenya on promoting inclusive
financing models for farmers in Africa , November
2015 in South Africa on Agribusiness and PPPs and
October 2016 in Ghana on Youth and Agribusiness

16. Continuation
• CTA strengthened our communication work,
training on ICT4Ag and other web tools, supported
consultations on climate change, the use of Drones ,
partnerships like the MUUIS project in Uganda, the
E-extension project in Kenya, facilitating experience
capitalization workshops involving exchanges,
learning meetings , write shops and workshops to
pacific region, India and other countries,
Publications through Spore magazine was an
opportunity to publicize material and information
we had developed with CTA Support . There are
many ICT start ups supported in ACP countries .

17. Finally
• We can’t forget the strictness in reporting which we all
used as a bench mark for reporting to other partners.
• And finally, as PAFO we are able to assess the positive
results of the partnership including the Brussels
Briefings on farmers and FO’s in Africa, the knowledge
management exchanges which need to be
continuously supported. Having partnered with CTA in
all these activities, we have acquired enough skills its
our humble prayer that EU and ACP through joint
partnership grant us such an opportunity to manage
these activities on behalf of farmers globally but also
leverage on the already existing partnership like
FO4ACP

18. THANK YOU