Twins; Food security and climate change.

There is consensus that food security is the most vital element in sustainable human development and therefore food crisis will always have a negative impact on human development usually with both short term consequence and some lasting effects. Some of the factors contributing to food insecurity are unsustainable land use, poor governance, lack of land rights and tenure, discrimination and social exclusion.

 However, the future of agriculture, particularly in Africa will depend on how we tackle two seemingly unrelated issues; exclusion from markets and climate change.

 They may appear unrelated but are contextually analogous in the sense that both require interventions that redefine how we conduct our affairs with the burden being on changing culture as a way to adapting new techniques, systems and technologies.

 Exclusion from markets renders farmers helpless and susceptible to exploitation which consigns them to the vicious cycle of poverty. Unless this state of affairs is checked, it could impede and reverse all efforts at attaining food security. Likewise, if the effects of climate change on agriculture are ignored, they could effectively suppress production, trigger dramatic increases in food price and for some, dire food scarcities.

 Whereas neither represents a greater risk than the other, sustainable livelihoods and economic wellbeing fosters a suitable environment for promoting those actions that transform and reorient agricultural systems to effectively and sustainably support development and food security under a changing climate. The priority will be to craft strategies, actions and thinking that combine these elements.