Africa’s food system is failing. Food insecurity, malnutrition, noncommunicable diseases, environmental disasters, cultural erosion, a decline in access to food, and inequitability in the food system are escalating.
Policies encompassing land use, water management, seed sovereignty and market access must be mutually reinforcing.
Misleading narratives , typically influenced by external players, are shaping policy decisions and result in policies that often do not correspond with local needs and situations. Some of these narratives include the belief that Africa cannot feed itself without agrochemicals and genetically engineered seeds, that its agriculture must be reoriented to market demands, and that only knowledge derived from science is valid.
This predicament is worsened by policy incoherence, which leads to fragmented and ineffectual strategies. Social movements also lack political space, which hinders grassroots campaigning and policy change. In addition, innovative ground-level solutions and realities are often overlooked and not sufficiently reflected in policy formulation, causing a gap between policy and practice.
As movements, I believe we must counter this by engaging in the following five policy advocacy strategies that together can ensure a broad-based and coherent food system for Africa:
- Articulating Africa’s food system needs and ways to achieve them. Promoting concepts and values like agroecology, food sovereignty and biodiversity is essential for creating a sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system in Africa. This vision should be the basis for policy reforms, sustainable agriculture investments and local food economy support. Creating platforms for dialogue and collaboration among stakeholders is crucial for refining and implementing this vision, and ensuring that it is both practical and aspirational.
- Challenging Africa’s current food system approach. It is important that we evaluate existing food policies and practices to identify and critique their weaknesses in terms of food sovereignty, sustainability, equal access and other values mentioned above.
- Proposing cohesive and interrelated food and farming policy proposals. We must propose specific, evidence-based and integrated policy actions that encompass land use, water management, seed sovereignty and market access. These policies must be mutually reinforcing. Measures and mechanisms that support smallholder farmers, promote agroecology and protect food system workers are especially important. We need to promote cross-sectoral collaboration and coordination to improve policy coherence and effectiveness.
- Organising, campaigning and lobbying to reform Africa’s food system. For our advocacy and campaigning strategies to influence policy and public opinion, we can engage in public campaigns, write policy papers, undertake research and do media work. This requires clear goals, objectives and tactics, as well as the participation of a broad coalition of farmers, civil society organisations, academics and consumers.
- Building the foundations and pillars of an African food movement shaped by people from across the food system. Fostering the growth and development of a diverse and inclusive food movement involves creating spaces and opportunities where people from all sectors of the food system can come together, share experiences and collaborate on common goals. This means we need to invest in leadership development, capacity building and network strengthening, empowering individuals and organisations within our movements. When we promote the values of solidarity, equity and justice within our food movements, we can ensure that they are driven by the needs and aspirations of communities, making them a truly collective and transformative force.
These strategies need to be implemented at local, national and continental levels. Multiple voices, notably smallholder farmers, women, and marginalised groups, but also government officials, academics, and community members must be included to make policies more inclusive and representative of all stakeholders and to promote a meaningful food policy paradigm shift.
Author: Million Belay is the general coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). He is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). Contact: millionbelay@gmail.com
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This article is part of Issue 1-2024: Policies for Agroecology
