The Government of Zimbabwe, and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) last week launched a project titled: Capacity Building Related to Multilateral Environmental Agreements in African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries — Phase III (ACP-MEAs 3) project in Zimbabwe.

The project is funded by the European Union (EU) through a global project budget of about US$10 million.

Zimbabwe was allocated more than US$500 000 over three years (2021-2023).

Other African countries participating in this project are Rwanda, Tanzania and Niger, while Saint Lucia in the Caribbean and Solomon Island in the Pacific region are also participants.

The ACP-MEAs 3 project was initiated in order to address the impact of agricultural processes and practices that undermine the functional sustainability and resilience of agro-biodiversity and agro-ecosystems.

The project was jointly launched by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement, Dr John Basera and the Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Mr Munesu Munodawafa.

The launch brought together diverse key sector drivers and players drawn from relevant and critical agriculture stakeholders, academia, research and environmental institutions.

FAO sub regional coordinator for Southern Africa and FAO representative in Zimbabwe, Dr Patrice Talla and the European Union Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Timo Olkkonen, shared some critical insights and remarks on MEAs.

Zimbabwe is signatory to five multilateral environmental agreements that are key global instruments in promoting the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity within all its associated ecological, natural support services and the sound management of pesticides.

These are: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA); the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD); and the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (BRS).

The global loss of biodiversity in the agricultural landscape has reached unprecedented levels.

This poses a threat to the complex ecological processes that underpin the delivery of ecological services such as pollination and organic matter and nutrient cycling. Contemporary farming practices, widely adopted as critical food production systems, are significant contributors to biodiversity loss.

Currently, agricultural productivity is being sustained through heavy reliance on externally-sourced synthetic agricultural inputs such as inorganic fertilisers and pesticides for soil fertility and pest/disease management, respectively.

Some are classified as Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) which result in further demerit to flora and fauna as well as human life.

Additionally, over-dependence on scarce natural resources, climate change, and pollution, including from chemical mismanagement, have become critical challenges to mankind.

There is alarming evidence suggesting that the global environmental boundaries are reaching their thresholds and tipping, as evidenced by the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, pest outbreaks and other ecological imbalances.

Agriculture depends heavily on biodiversity, balanced ecosystem utilisation and the related components for its viability, sustainability and functioning.

The world population is projected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050 and one of the challenges that will face mankind then will be to produce enough food of sufficient diversity to ensure food and nutrition security, while balancing environmental sustainability.

It is against this background that ACP-MEAs3 seek to provide a global basis for addressing resilient and sustainable food production systems.

Building synergies and inter-dependency

The implementation of these interlinked MEAs will benefit from an effective synergised and cross-sectoral approach.

Mainstreaming biodiversity into sectoral and cross-sectoral relevant policies, plans, and programmes is essential for halting the loss of biodiversity and achieving resilient societies that depend on sustainable agricultural systems and provide food and nutrition security.  In order to enhance cross-sectoral coordination, seek clarity on the synergies and inter-dependence between ecosystems, biodiversity, and food/nutrition security from community to landscape levels, the MEAs 3 project in Zimbabwe will be spearheaded by two the two Ministries.

Senior Government officers from the two Ministries will provide strategic direction to the implementation of the project, working with a select team of a Project Technical Unit (PTU) drawn from relevant Government departments, private sector, civil society organisations, research and academia

The PTU will provide a unique platform for coordination, implementation and mainstreaming of cross-cutting climate-smart, environmentally sound and biodiversity policies between the two Ministries and across the sectoral divide that is critical for the nation to sustainably achieve National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025) and Vision 2030 targets. In order to domesticate the key MEAs, Zimbabwe has come up with several policy and strategy documents that acknowledge the need to mainstream climate-smart agriculture, conserve biodiversity and build resilient food production systems.

These policy documents include the Draft National Agriculture Policy Framework; National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025); National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans; National Climate Policy; Food and Nutrition Security Strategy; Food and Nutrition Security Policy; Agriculture and Food System Transformation Strategy; Climate-Smart Agriculture Manual; and the National Strategy and Action Plans for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

These policy and strategy documents converge on creating sustainable food production systems and promoting climate-resilient and viable production systems.

A recipe for upscaling

Currently, Zimbabwe is implementing sustainable climate-smart and ecosystems-based agricultural practices such as the Pfumvudza concept, Integrated Pest Management, Organic Farming; Minimum Soil Tillage; Conservation Farming; and Climate-Smart Agriculture, which all align well within the agro-ecological approaches being championed under the National Agricultural Policy Framework Pillar 8 work stream.

There is however, a need to popularise and upscale such sustainable ecosystems-based agricultural practices through generating evidence-based sustainable agriculture recommendation domains that are cognisant of the external and environmental costs, creating incentives, providing funding mechanism, optimising the productivity of ecosystem-based agricultural systems, and developing niche markets for products produced from ecosystem-based agriculture to enhance their adoption by smallholder, medium- and large scale commercial farmers.

In this nexus, there is a need to integrate climate-smart, agro-ecology and ecosystems based agriculture production systems into curricula of schools, agricultural colleges, extension services and to generate a critical mass of researchers and practitioners that will lead the transition of agriculture in Zimbabwe into more resilient, systemic and viable food production systems.

It is critical to understand why there is a growing global shift towards sustainable food production systems.

These processes are essential for sustainable crop and animal production, and carbon sequestration by plants and other autotrophs that mitigate against climate change and its negative impacts on agricultural productivity, livelihoods, and food and nutrition security, among many other impacts on human health and well-being.

To sum up

In the past few decades, green revolution technologies such as breeding of high yielding varieties, application of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, and more recently, the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture have been conceptualised as a solution to increase agriculture production, productivity and to enhance global food and nutrition security.

However, there is growing evidence that these modern agricultural technologies have caused negative impacts on the natural environment, agricultural ecosystems and the climate system.

Such impacts include an increase in environmental degradation and over-exploitation of agro-ecological systems and pollution; through excessive and inappropriate use of fertilisers and pesticides that pollute land and waterways. This directly affects the safety and environmental health of agricultural workers, and introduce sources of poisons into food systems that threaten the health and well-being of consumers worldwide and kill beneficial insects and other wildlife.

It is, therefore, timely for the MEAs-3 project to stimulate Zimbabwe to develop sustainable and resilient agricultural production systems.

Article Authors:

ACP-MEAs-3 Project Technical Unit

ACP-MEAs 3 National project Coordinators: Ms. Dorcas Tawonashe — A/ Director MLAFWRR ([email protected], Mr. Abraham Matiza MECTHI — Deputy Director ([email protected], Kudzai Kusena — Policy and Programmes Specialist (FAO), Donald Tafadzwa Chidoori — Communications Specialist (FAO), Barbra Machekano- Acting Deputy Director Communications and Advocacy — MLAFWRR