By Ezaruku Draku Franklin

Slow Food, a worldwide network of local communities to counteract the disappearance of local food traditions and the spread of fast food culture has raised the alarm about the serious lack of progress toward tackling the impact of food and agriculture on climate and building a resilient food system. A Slow Food’s Climate Declaration, says food and farming are part of the solution and not just a cause of climate change.

Edward Mukiibi, President of Slow Food said Agroecology should be recognized as a central tool to tackle the multiple crises we face, including the climate crisis. He said agroecology is rooted in rebuilding relationships between agriculture and the environment, and between food systems and society. 

“The COP is becoming a round table for industrial agriculture and polluting corporations to negotiate their right to pollute, putting the livelihood of millions of people at stake. Small scale agroecological farmers demand that COP27 treat the climate crisis as an emergency, by focusing on real solutions like agroecology and on the transition from fossil-fuel dependent practices,” Mukiibi said.

He said evidence shows that agroecological systems keep carbon in the ground, support biodiversity, rebuild soil fertility and sustain yields over time, providing a basis for secure farm livelihoods and healthy diets for all. 

“A fact that was most recently backed up by one of the IPCC’s latest reports Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability published earlier this year. Yet, although food and agriculture have had a more prominent place at COP26 last year in Glasgow, solutions that came out of it aimed at keeping the system in place. One example amongst other being the Koroniva joint work on agriculture, which does not address the food system as a whole, while focusing only on the adaptation to climate impacts, and putting climate mitigation and resilience building aside,” he said.

Marta Messa, Secretary General of Slow Food, comments said the need to tackle food systems as whole and the solutions offered by agroecology are clear and supported by a growing body of scientific evidence.

“We cannot afford to let agroecology be captured by vested interest or be used loosely as a term to legitimize pathways that ultimately maintain the status quo: some agrifood corporations, international philanthropic organizations, and governments are already using the term nature-based solutions to ‘hijack’ the food system sustainability agenda,” he said.

According to him, for decades, the COP has been riddled by corporate vested interests that put profits over people and the planet. He wondered whether COP27 will be an exception to this rule.

“The list of organizations involved suggests the contrary: CropLife International, the pesticide industry’s lobby group, PepsiCo, McDonald’s, JBS, the world’s largest meat company, and Coca-Cola, the world’snumber one producer of fossil fuel-based plastic waste, as a sponsorof COP27,” he said.

“Our industrial food production system and other land use activities are responsible for one third of global CO2 emissions, of which two thirds are linked to industrial livestock production. But agriculture, particularly small-scale farming in the Global South, is also the first victim of climate change. Farmers face increasing troubles to produce food due to changes in natural landscapes and extreme weather events (forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, floods, droughts, storms,” he adde.  

Shane Holland, Executive Chairman of Slow Food UK said taking place in Egypt, this COP is the perfect opportunity to highlight such impacts of climate change in the Global South, and the commitments made by the Global North to support developing countries which still remain outstanding.

“These payments are critical to not only mitigate the ravishes of climate change in the poorest parts of the planet; but to protect the green lungs of the plane,” he said.

“Also, the voices of those not usually heard are essential at this COP – those of women, people of colour, indigenous people and youth – they are at the forefront of the effects of climate change, and their traditional knowledge must be utilized in helping to tackle its worst effects,” he added.