Key points:
- Colombia produces everything from coffee and sugarcane to bananas, cocoa and rice.
- In one part of the country, innovative techniques and practices are helping people to grow a range of produce.
A country of vivid beauty, Colombia is home to vast swathes of fertile land producing everything from coffee and sugarcane to bananas, cocoa and rice.
In Cauca, a department in the southwest of the country, efforts are underway to develop farming practices that it’s hoped will be both sustainable and resilient to future challenges.
Ana María Loboguerrero is head of global policy research at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. One of the schemes she’s involved in is the Cauca Climate-Smart Village project.
According to CGIAR – a “global agricultural innovation network” that’s received funding from organizations including the European Commission, African Development Bank and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – farmers in the area covered by the initiative are faced with a number of issues including “the impacts of climate variability and climate change.” This can in turn hit crop productivity, cause soil degradation and hamper access to water, it adds.
Speaking to
CNBC’s “Sustainable Energy,” Loboguerrero said the project was
co-generating evidence with farmers on “the practices, the technologies,
that can help us to increase productivity and food security, that can
help us to increase adaptation to climate change and variability and
that can help us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Loboguerrero
stated that information on temperature and precipitation was being
collected, while a low-cost weather station network was also being used.
“And
then we use this information from what we call the ‘agro-climatic
forecasts’, that tell us what is going to happen with respect to
precipitation, with respect to temperature, humidity, in the following
three months,” she added.
“And using this information, the
farmers make better decisions in terms of when to plant, which varieties
to use, when to apply the fertilizers. They are able to work with (the)
climate.”
Lilian Torres Erazo is one of the farmers involved in
the project, which has helped her to become self-sufficient by growing
cilantro, onion, peppers and lettuce. “It’s a huge change,” she said.
“We consume the food that we grow,” she added.
“We used to buy
our food at the supermarket or at the fruit and veg stall. Now, we go to
the fruit and veg stall to sell and what we can’t sell, we bring home
for our own consumption.”
There is also a social aspect to the
project. “Men have understood that women are able to do really good
things in terms of generating more income,” Loboguerrero said. “They are
becoming more empowered in terms of the household, they have more
freedom and they are feeling that they are doing really good things for
the community.”
The creation of more opportunities for young people is another feature of schemes like the one in Cauca.
Andrew
Jarvis, decision and policy analysis research area director at the
International Center for Tropical Agriculture, told CNBC that 30
“climate smart villages” had been introduced to 19 countries around the
world.
Jarvis added that the team was looking at how rural areas
could be re-invigorated so that they were attractive, “so that farmers
do want their children to continue in farming.”
Focusing on
Colombia and the project in Cauca, Loboguerrero noted how, initially,
children there did not want to learn about vegetables. Instead, they
dreamed of going to the nearest city, Popayan, to work in roles like
that of a taxi driver.
“We don’t have to force young people to stay here but we have to bring the opportunities, we have to speak a language that they understand and it’s technology, it’s digital agriculture, it’s big data,” she added.
“So, we are bringing this
and it’s amazing how the dynamics have changed: they want to study
careers related to agronomy, related to environmental engineering so
that they don’t have to run away from their lands.”
The work
being carried out by Loboguerrero, her colleagues and the farmers in
Cauca shows how projects that proactively involve local people can have
an impact across many facets of society.
Thousands of miles away, in Brittany, France, Yann Laurans, biodiversity and ecosystems program director at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, was asked whether small-scale initiatives should be encouraged in order to change people’s mindsets.
“Definitely,” he replied. “Working on nature-based solutions means working with people which means you have to ask them what they think: How they can produce, how they can manage space, which takes time,” he added. “And that’s why small projects, small-scale projects, are always better.”
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