Analysis: Community Seeds and Fertilisers: An Alternative Route to Food Security
As world leaders, researchers, businesses, communities and development partners prepare for the UN Food Systems Summit in September, some experts say that African farmers offer unique lessons for the future of resilient and sustainable food production.
“We already have sufficient knowledge among African communities on the ground,” says Million Belay, the general coordinator at the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). “But companies have locked everyone in a (closed) system.”
The biggest problem, he argues, is that agricultural policies in Africa are often geared towards producing more and more food, and as a result the needs of the African farmer are often neglected.
“As a result, African farmers have ended up pumping tons and tons of agro-chemicals including synthetic fertilisers into the soils, and this has adversely affected the soil health,” he says.
Source: African Business (link opens in a new window)
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