PROJECT SUMMARY
Adoption of agroecology and circular economy technologies among farmers and policy makers is essential towards reducing methane, and black carbon emissions in Africa’s agriculture particularly in maize and rice production. However, sub-Saharan Africa’s agriculture landscape is characterized by silo and fragmented approaches towards interacting with food systems and ecosystem services. This is evidenced by the limitation in experience among majority of African scientists and agricultural practitioners in the integration of agroecology and circular economy; there are no centres of ecology and circularity where practical knowledge can be obtained or experimented; and there are limited awareness of tools and technologies for the integration of ecology and circularity.
These constraints can be attributed to limited awareness of research works around ecology and circularity; low involvement of academia in agroecology research; low media publicity on agriculture-associated pollutants and research initiatives, limited policy clarity and institutional support for developing action and strategic plans of agroecology and circular economy practices; low integration of tools and technologies to simultaneously advance agroecology and circularity and low demand for such tools and technologies. If nothing is done, Africa’s agriculture and natural resources risk loss of biodiversity, high tillage, increased post-harvest open burning, increased flooding of rice fields, increased black carbon and methane emissions, respiratory disorders and ultimately reduced ecosystem productivity.
Consequently, the risk of experiencing increased hunger, malnutrition, climate shocks, soil erosion and water pollution from poorly-managed soils, crops and livestock would increase. These would reduce agriculture productivity, increase cost of living, poverty, inequality, unemployment, conflicts and underdevelopment. Overall, Africa’s quest to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) particularly of SDG 13, 14, 15, 16, 1, 2, 3, 8 and 11 will be defeated. The achievement of Africa Union Agenda 2063 on resilient agriculture would be stifled leading to poor national and local policy outcomes. Past investments towards agriculture productivity and resilience will be lost leading to worsened the state of food insecurity and ecosystem degradation.
To successfully address the problem, the ACE4ES project shall be implemented within the framework of technology and innovation, capacity development, governance strengthening and media engagement. The project’s theory of change is that if African farmers and policymakers can adopt agroecology and circular economy to mitigate black carbon and methane emission in maize and rice production, public and private sector institutions and farmers in and outside Ghana must have access to and make use of validated multicultural technologies; scientists, researchers, farmers and policy makers must acquire improved behaviors and attitude towards a gender integrated and culturally-appropriate technologies on preventing and mitigating SLCPs; key ministries, regional and multinational partners and international financial institutions (IFIs) must have action and strategic plans on vertical and horizontal policy coherence for mitigating SLCPs through agroecology and circular economy; and that key regional and national media networks must have plans for and reports on agroecology and circular economy technologies and associated public education and sensitization.
These would be achieved through the establishment of a multicultural technology park for agroecology and circular economy with validated tools for scale up initiatives; improvement in the knowledge on validated mitigation technologies for SLCPs among researchers in Africa-based public agriculture research and educational institutions; the development of IEC materials and training manuals for different SLCP mitigation technologies; improved interest in agroecology research and development initiatives; national and regional policy dialogues; development of policy briefs; and media incorporation of SLCPs mitigation initiatives in their planning and programming.
To achieve these outputs, the activities that would be carried out include the establishment of multicultural technology park and setting up validation trials; technology validation, reporting and publication; beneficiary training and capacity development; development of audiovisual documentary to guide workshops and media presentations, policy action and strategic planning towards integrating agroecology and circular economy and regional and national media training;
Accordingly, the ACE4ES project will work through consortium members to co-implement and generate multicultural technologies suitable for the operationalization of agroecology and circular economy principles to reduce black carbon and methane emissions in maize and rice production.