FARM NEWS

Communities in Africa fight back against the land grab for palm oil

Published

7 years ago

September 23, 2019

Co-authored by: ADAPPE-Guinée, Bread for All (Switzerland), CDHD (Congo-Brazzaville), COPACO (DRC), Culture Radio (Sierra Leone), GRAIN, Joegbahn Land Protection Organization (Liberia), JVE Côte d’Ivoire, MALOA (Sierra Leone), Muyissi Environnement (Gabon), NRWP (Liberia), RADD (Cameroon), REFEB (Côte d’Ivoire), RIAO-RDC (DRC), SEFE (Cameroon), SiLNoRF (Sierra Leone), Synaparcam (Cameroon), UVD (Côte d’Ivoire), WRM, YETIHO (Côte d’Ivoire) and YVE Ghana.

Over the past decade, agribusiness companies have been increasing their production of palm oil to meet a growing global demand for cheap vegetable oil that gets used in the production of processed foods, biofuels and cosmetics. Community lands in many African countries are a main target for the expansion of their plantations.

In 2016, GRAIN reported that over 65 large-scale land deals for oil palm plantations in Africa had been signed between 2000-2015, covering over 4.7 million hectares.^¹ Multinational companies, in collaboration with local elites and development banks, had launched a full-scale attack against communities from Sierra Leone in West Africa to the DR Congo in Central Africa to take their lands for oil palm plantations.

Things have not, however, worked out entirely as the companies had hoped. Our updated accounting shows a significant decline in the number and total area of land deals for industrial oil palm plantations in Africa over the past five years, from 4.7 million hectares to a little over 2.7 million hectares. And only a small fraction of this area, 220,608 hectares, has been converted to oil palm plantations or replanted with new palms. We believe that strong resistance by communities has been key to slowing this expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in the region.

Communities in Africa have, by now, had more than enough experience with large-scale oil palm plantations to know that they are not needed nor wanted. Their traditional systems of oil palm cultivation and palm oil production are far more dynamic and far more capable of meeting the continent’s needs. It is time to completely stop the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations, and return the lands occupied by oil palm plantation companies to the affected communities.

The state of oil palm plantations in Africa

According to our updated data set, there are currently 49 large-scale concessions for oil palm plantations in Africa, covering 2.74 million hectares (see Annex I).

Many of the oil palm plantation projects that were announced over the past decade have failed or have been abandoned, as can be seen in the accompanying table (see Annex II). Other projects have been scaled back. And, while there have been some new projects and expansions since 2014, the pace has certainly slowed, with no announcements for new, large-scale oil palm plantation projects during the past two years.^²

The geographic focus has narrowed as well. Nearly all the corporate oil palm plantation projects for Africa that were outside of Central and West Africa have been abandoned. The focus is now on a handful of countries, with the priorities being Cameroon, the DR Congo, Congo-Brazaville, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. There is also activity, but to a lesser extent, in the Central African Republic, Guinée, Sao Tome e Principe, Togo and Uganda.

Another central point that emerges from the updated data set is the massive discrepancy between the area that corporations have acquired under concessions and the area that they have converted to industrial oil palm plantations. Only 463,000 hectares or 17% of the total area acquired under concessions (2.74 million hectares) is planted with oil palms, with another 55,000 ha planted for rubber and other crops within these concessions. Moreover, the majority of these corporate plantations are old plantations that date back to the parastatal projects of the 1970s and 1980s or even further back into the colonial era. We estimate that only 220,608 hectares have been developed into industrial oil palm plantations or replanted over the past decade.^³

The most clear case is in Congo-Brazzaville. Of the 520,000 ha in concessions that the government awarded to palm oil companies, less than 1,000 ha or 0.2% has been developed into plantations. It seems likely that these concessions were merely fronts to facilitate illegal logging operations by converting forested areas to agricultural lands.^⁴ Liberia provides another example. During the administration of President Sirleaf, the first elected government following the country’s horrific civil war, 755,000 ha were handed out to oil palm plantation companies in concessions. But today, less than 54,000 ha (7% of the total concession areas) have been developed into industrial plantations, even though some of the largest oil palm plantation companies in the world have acquired these concessions.

The big companies driving the expansion

The 2016 data set identified a long list of companies, some big, many of them small and with little experience in agriculture, that were acquiring lands for industrial oil palm plantations in Africa. But the updated data set shows that many of these small and inexperienced operators have disappeared. Today, the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa is dominated by a handful of large, multinational companies. Just five companies control about three-quarters of the planted, industrial oil palm plantation area on the continent (see Table 1).

Some of these companies are big Southeast Asian oil palm plantation companies, such as Sime Darby, Golden Agri, KLK, Salim Group, and Olam. Each of these companies have one major oil palm plantation project in Africa. Wilmar, which is based in Singapore, is the most active of the Southeast Asian oil palm plantation companies. It has oil palm plantation operations in five African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda), with 83,714 ha planted.

The other key companies operating oil palm plantations in Africa are the old European colonial agribusiness companies. The two most important are SOCFIN of Luxembourg and SIAT of Belgium. Both of these companies have built their plantation empires upon the ruins of a World Bank programme to construct oil palm and rubber plantations across several countries in West and Central Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. That programme was carried out in close collaboration with SOCFIN’s consulting firm, SOCFINCO. SIAT’s founder and co-owner was a member of the SOCFINCO team at the time.

Under this World Bank programme, SOCFINCO oversaw the development of blueprints for national oil palm and rubber plantation programmes, helped identify the lands for conversions to industrial plantations, and was paid to manage the plantations and, in some cases, oversee the sales of the rubber and palm oil by the state plantation companies established through the programme (see box: The World Bank and SOCFIN/SIAT’s plantation projects in Nigeria). The World Bank provided loans to the African governments for these projects, and then, in the 1990s, with the state plantation companies deep in debt, it pushed for privatisation. SOCFIN and SIAT ended up with several of the most prized plantations.^⁵

Today SOCFIN and SIAT have a combined total of 123,336 hectares planted to oil palm plantations in Africa (91,081 ha for SOCFIN and 32,255 for SIAT). These two companies therefore control a quarter of all the large oil palm plantations on the continent.

Table 1. Top five oil palm plantations companies in Africa

Company	Area under oil palm plantations (ha)	Countries
SOCFIN (Luxembourg)	93,764*	Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sao Tome e Principe, Sierra Leone
Wilmar (Singapore)	83,714**	Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda
Olam (Singapore)	71,500	Gabon
SIAT (Belgium)	32,415	Ghana, Nigeria
Feronia (Canada)	23,500	DRC

* Includes plantations owned by SOGUIPAH in Guinea.

**Includes plantations owned by SIFCA in Liberia. Wilmar owns 27% of SIFCA.

The World Bank remains an important actor in driving the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa, particularly through its International Finance Corporation. But it is not the only development bank active in this area. There are numerous development finance institutions (DFIs) that are involved in corporate oil palm plantations in Africa. Most of them are from European countries, but there are also DFIs from the US and China that are involved, as well as several African-based development banks, such as the African Development Bank and the West African Development Bank. Often the DFIs channel their money into plantation companies through private equity funds that are based in offshore tax havens, such as the African Agricultural Fund in Mauritius, which has shares in Goldtree (Sierra Leone) and Feronia (DR Congo).

Typically these DFIs provide loans to oil palm plantation companies on favourable terms. In some cases, they have provided support at the outset of the project, while in other cases they have stepped in to enable a company to expand its plantations or to keep it from going bankrupt. In certain cases, DFIs have even acquired shares in plantation companies and have taken seats on their boards of directors, such as with Feronia Inc in the DR Congo and Goldtree in Sierra Leone, in which DFIs now constitute the companies’ majority owners.

It is likely that without the current and historical involvement of the World Bank and other DFIs, many of the industrial oil palm plantations that exist in Africa today would never have gotten off the ground. For those of us working to stop palm oil companies from grabbing lands, it is thus important to keep pressuring DFIs to stop funding these industrial plantations.

Resisting the land grab

There are at least 27 large scale oil palm plantation projects reported or announced over the past decade that were abandoned or have failed. Numerous other projects have been scaled back or have stalled. These projects were supposed to transform over 3.1 million ha of land into industrial plantations, but they have not come near to this figure.

One reason for this failure is that many of the projects were led by companies with little or no previous experience with large scale agriculture. Some of these companies simply wanted to profit on the rush for farmland in Africa, and most were interested in securing leases or concessions over large areas of land that they could then sell to another company after making minor investments in operations or no investments at all. Other companies, such as China’s ZTE in the DR Congo, the Singapore-based Siva Group in Cameroon and Sierra Leone or India’s Karuturi in Ethiopia, lacked the capacity to carry out the projects they had embarked upon.

But a more important explanation for the difficulties that companies have had in pushing through on their projects is the resistance that they encountered from affected communities and groups supporting these communities. Protests by villagers in the Rufiji District of Tanzania killed a 20,000 ha industrial oil palm plantation project by the British company African Green Oil Ltd.^⁶ An intense struggle by communities in southwestern Cameroon, supported by community organisations and national and international groups, forced the government to scale back the concession it granted to US firm Herakles Farms from 73,000 ha to less than 20,000 ha. Ultimately the US company backing the venture pulled out, and the new investors have been unable to move ahead with the project.^⁷

Other villagers in Cameroon have stopped the expansion of Pamol’s plantations or are fighting protracted battles to get their lands back and stop the expansion of SOCFIN’s subsidiary Socapalm.^⁸

In Liberia, the Joegbahn clan stopped the UK company Equatorial Palm Oil, now owned by one of the largest oil palm plantation companies in the world, from taking their lands for plantations, despite the government having provided these lands to the company under a concession agreement.^⁹ The other major palm oil companies operating in Liberia are also coming up against fierce resistance from villagers and their partner organisations, as they try to carry out their industrial plantation plans.^¹⁰

Land conflicts are costly for companies. The fact that so many industrial oil palm plantation projects in Africa are embroiled in land conflicts has the effect of discouraging companies from pursuing investments. The resistance to Herakles Farms, for instance, surely influenced the decisions of the international food corporations Cargill and Sime Darby to pull back from pursuing oil palm plantations in Cameroon. The international criticism of development banks for their funding of Feronia’s plantations in the DR Congo has likely caused them to refuse funding for other industrial oil palm plantation projects in Africa. While there is no way for us to say for sure which projects or how many projects were shelved because of risks of land conflicts or local resistance, we do know from our experience in different struggles that resistance is having a big impact on their decisions and capacity to move industrial plantation projects forward.

The final chapter for industrial oil palm plantations in Africa

West and Central Africa are the origins of the oil palm. It is deeply embedded in the culture and history of most countries in the region– providing not only an important source of cooking oil to many, many generations of communities, but also beverages, animal feed, textiles, building materials, medicines and all kinds of spiritual and ceremonial uses.^¹¹ The local production of palm oil was thriving until it was brutally interrupted by a colonial occupation in which much of the region’s oil palm forest groves were put at the service of foreign companies and huge areas of lands were violently taken over to make way for the world’s first large-scale oil palm plantations.

The European colonial rulers selected from the diverse African palms and, with the same brutal force, established massive oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia. The cheap palm oil produced on these plantations, with virtual slave labour, would eventually be shipped back to Africa, turning a region that once had no problem to produce surpluses of palm oil, into a major importer.

The post-colonial period was not much better for communities in the region. Through the cover of the World Bank’s African plantation programmes of the 1970s and 1980s, the old colonial plantation companies were able to re-establish their presence in the region (see box: The World Bank and SOCFIN/SIAT’s plantation projects in Nigeria). In fact, because the oil palm plantation expansion during these years was led by parastatal companies claiming to act in the national interest, the companies could rely on governments to use Presidential decrees and the brute force of the army to displace people from the best lands for oil palm cultivation. The African governments also used public money to pay for this expansion, by way of loans from the World Bank, and then handed the plantations over to foreign companies in the 1990s and 2000s, through the privatisation processes forced upon them by the World Bank, as part of so-called structural adjustment programmes.

Box: The World Bank and SOCFIN/SIAT’s plantation projects in Nigeria

The World Bank pursued a programme to develop large-scale palm oil production in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s with the Nigerian government. This programme, financed by multi-million dollar loans from the World Bank and other development banks and ultimately paid for by the Nigerian public, was drawn up and executed by SOCFINCO, a consultancy firm created by the Belgian colonial plantation company SOCFIN, in association with the Dutch company HVA. The person leading SOCFINCO’s operations in Nigeria was the founder of SIAT, Pierre Vandebeeck. From 1974 to the end of the 1980s, SOCFINCO crafted master plans for at least 7 World Bank-backed oil palm projects in 5 different states. Each project involved the creation of a parastatal company that would both take over the state’s existing plantations and develop new plantations and palm oil mills as well as large-scale outgrower schemes.

SOCFINCO was then hired, with lucrative management fees, to handle the project management. All of the projects generated enduring land conflicts with local communities, such as with the Oghareki community in Delta State or the villagers of Egbeda in Rivers State. After dispossessing numerous communities from their lands and incurring huge losses for the Nigerian government, the parastatal companies were then privatised, with the more valuable of the plantation assets ending up in the hands of SOCFIN or SIAT, which Vandebeeck formed in 1991 to take over the plantations of the Oil Palm Company Ltd of Bendel State (now divided into Edo State and Delta State). These plantations are now operated by SIAT’s Nigerian subsidiary Presco. In 2011, another SIAT subsidiary in Nigeria, SIAT Nigeria Limited, acquired the 16,000 ha of plantations of the Rivers State palm oil company, Risonpalm, which Vandebeek, as staff of SOCFINCO, had overseen as plantation manager during the World Bank programme from 1978-1983.

SOCFIN, for its part, took over the oil palm plantations in the Okomu area that were developed under the World Bank programme. It was SOCFINCO that first identified this area for plantation development as part of the appraisal study it was hired to undertake in 1974. The Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc. (OOPC) was subsequently established as a parastatal company in 1976 and 15,580 ha of land within the Okomu Forest Reserve of Edo State was de-reserved and taken from the local communities to make way for oil palm plantations. The company hired SOCFINCO as the managing agent to oversee its activities from 1976-1990. Reports vary, but at some point between 1986 and 1990, OOPC was then divested to SOCFIIN’s subsidiary Indufina Luxembourg.^¹²

The new wave of industrial oil palm plantations that has taken place in Africa over the past 15 years is built, quite literally, on the back of this brutal history. The majority of recent industrial oil palm projects that are being implemented involve old concessions, abandoned plantations and long simmering land conflicts.

For communities across African countries, today’s industrial oil palm plantation projects are experienced as another round of colonial occupation.^¹³ Their lands are being taken from them, often by force, without consultation or consent. The industrial plantations destroy their forests and local biodiversity and pollute their water sources. They lose access to lands to grow food as well as their traditional palm groves, and they are forbidden from producing their own palm oil. The companies are only able to produce palm oil for cheap because the labour conditions on their plantations are so bad, often even worse than they were in colonial times, with wages, when they are paid, not covering basic living expenses and the vast majority of jobs being for daily labourers, with no job security. There are barely any social investments, such as schools, clinics and infrastructures, that might provide some compensation– and villagers rarely see any of the rental payments that companies claim to make.

Much like under the colonial period, villagers living in and around the concession areas are constantly harassed and beaten by company security guards who accuse them of stealing palm fruits from the company plantations. Opponents of the company are also routinely beaten, arrested and intimidated, and sometimes even killed. But it is women who suffer the most, and almost always in silence. The level of sexual violence faced by women living around the plantations or working at the plantations is generally horrific.^¹⁴

Yet today’s agrocolonialism is nevertheless cloaked in the story of a mission to help Africa, just as it was during the colonial period. All of the companies claim to be “responsible investors”, with several adhering to the principles of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and making ‘zero deforestation’ pledges. Although the RSPO certification criteria cannot be considered sustainable, since it promotes industrial plantations, it is interesting to see how few of these companies have achieved RSPO certification for their industrial plantations in African countries. Only 9 of the 52 large scale oil palm plantations in operation in Africa have RSPO certification.

Most of the corporate plantation projects include outgrower schemes, where the companies organise local smallholders to supply them with oil palm fruits. Sometimes, companies lure farmers into these programmes by providing seedlings and promising that such schemes are a way for villagers to ‘get rich quickly’. These programmes are sometimes written into the concession agreements with the government and companies often receive funding from African governments, UN institutions, donors or development banks for these outgrower or smallholder programmes. In several cases, the schemes are carried out with the collaboration of NGOs. Some outgrower schemes have existed for decades, and were established through the World Bank funded industrial oil palm programmes of the 1970s and 1980s. This is the case in Ghana, where the area under outgrower schemes is larger than the area under industrial plantations.^¹⁵ In most recent cases, however, these outgrower schemes are not the priority for the companies, and the companies channel far more of their resources into their own company plantations, for which they can maintain stricter control over production.

Olam, for example, established a joint venture company with the Gabon government to develop ‘outgrower’ programmes in nine provinces to allegedly support the country’s food security. The programme, called GRAINE, is supposed to develop smallholder plantations of oil palms and other crops covering 200,000 ha and involving 1,600 villages by 2020. Yet, by the end of 2017, the joint venture had invested $40 million in the GRAINE programme, in contrast with the $643 million that Olam’s plantation company spent on its own industrial plantations. Moreover, rather than increase food production, the GRAINE programme had instead devoted the funding it received from the African Development Bank to the development of a large oil palm plantation on a 30,000 ha concession in the savannah zone at Ndendé in Ngounié province.^¹⁶ A recent report indicated that this GRAINE oil palm plantation may now be handed over to Olam’s plantation company!^¹⁷

Where companies are actually implementing outgrower programmes or maintaining the smallholder schemes initiated by the previous plantation owners, the results are not much better. The villagers participating in these programmes have to cultivate industrial oil palms exclusively on part or on all of their lands and must produce exclusively for the company. The company sets the terms of the contract and determines the prices that are paid. Experience shows that the companies typically fix the contracts to guarantee their profits, while the villagers end up in debt at the end of each year. The villagers also sacrifice lands that they could have used to produce food for their families and communities.

Corporate oil palm projects are clearly a disaster for the local communities where they are based. The number of failed projects and the losses incurred by many active plantation companies at their operations in Africa seem to indicate that the companies are not profiting much either. But this does not mean that the main people behind these companies do not profit. The executives and directors of loss making oil palm plantation companies always ensure that they are paid handsomely, through salaries, bonuses, share options and all kinds of “service fees” or exaggerated expenses that they charge to the companies. While a company like Feronia Inc, which is heavily financed by development banks, complains of not being able to pay its workers even the legal minimum wage or to build decent health clinics within its concession in the DR Congo, its top executives received over $2 million in salaries and share options in 2017.^¹⁸ Moreover, when there are (declared) profits, such as with some of the SOCFIN owned plantation companies in Africa, most of the profits are distributed to the shareholders, and are not used to improve the wages of its workers or to construct the social projects that were promised to communities.^¹⁹

Turning the page

The experience with this latest wave of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa makes it clear that this model of corporate agriculture is totally inappropriate and ineffective for the continent. Villagers in many parts of the region have a long history of cultivating oil palms and producing palm oil without the involvement of big companies, and women are usually the main actors in these small scale systems. Today, smallholders in African countries, supplying small-scale mills, account for the vast majority of palm oil that is produced on the continent, and they are far more capable of expanding production to meet the growing local demand, if they have access to lands and markets.^²⁰ They also produce a palm oil that is of higher quality and more suited to local food cultures, whereas the industrial plantations produce a highly-refined palm oil designed for industrial uses, including unhealthy, ultra-processed foods and biofuels.

Despite all the support they get from governments, banks and donors, the plantations of the big palm oil companies still account for only 10% of the total harvested area of oil palms in Africa.^²¹ Most of the palm oil that the big companies sell in Africa is imported from Malaysia and Indonesia and this cheap, low quality palm oil undercuts the local markets for the higher-quality traditional palm oil supplied by small-scale producers.

It is the history of diverse small scale production that needs to be the foundation for the future of palm oil production on the continent. Communities do not need companies to manage their lands and to produce palm oil. As we have seen over the past decades, companies only drain the profits to far away places and their model of production leaves nothing but misery and pollution for local people.

For all of these reasons, there needs to be an immediate ban on all future, large-scale oil palm plantation projects and a halt to those currently being implemented. Where large-scale plantations already exist, the lands must be returned to the control of the local communities, who can then develop a vision for how they want to utilise and organise these lands, now and into the future. The concession agreements governments have signed with companies, most of which are in violation of the law and the rights of the local communities, must be scrapped.

It is time to turn the page on colonial plantations in Africa, and put oil palms back into the hands of communities!

1 GRAIN, “The global farmland grab in 2016: how big, how bad?”, June 2016: https://www.grain.org/e/5492

2 The exception is the company Africa Palm Corp which claims to have secured agreements with Guinea-Bissau, Republic of the Congo, Togo and Ghana covering 5 million hectares. There is little evidence, however, to indicate that this company will be able to move forward with these projects.

3 This comprises the plantation areas developed/replanted by Pamol, Nana Bouba Group, Palme d’Or, Agro Panorama, DekelOil, Feronia, Blattner, Volta Red, Olam, Golden Agri, KLK, SIFCA (Liberia), Sime Darby, Goldtree, Kalyan Agrovet and IDC, as well as the expanded/replanted areas by SOCFIN (27,980 ha), Wilmar (27,231 ha), SIAT (8,605 ha).

4 Earthsight, “The Coming Storm,” March 2018: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/624187_3b22354dff0843789fc440cb4674caaf.pdf

5 SOCFIN and SIAT acquired plantations that were developed and or privatised by way of World Bank programmes in Cameroon (Socapalm), Côte d’Ivoire (SOGB), Gabon (Agrogabon, now owned by Olam), Ghana (GOPDC and SIPL) and Nigeria (Presco, SIAT Nigeria, and Okomu).

6 Kizito Makoye, “Tanzanian Farmers Crack the Code for Fighting Land Grabs” MSN, November 2018: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/life-arts/tanzanian-farmers-crack-the-code-for-fighting-land-grabs/ar-BBPDXXv

7 WRM, “Palm oil concessions for logging: the case of Herakles Farms in Cameroon,” September 2015: https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/palm-oil-concessions-for-logging-the-case-of-herakles-farms-in-cameroon/

8 Fern, .Speaking truth to power: the village women taking on the palm oil giant,” September 2018: https://www.fern.org/news-resources/speaking-truth-to-power-the-village-women-taking-on-the-palm-oil-giant-45/

9 Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor and Jacinta Fay, “When our land is free, we’re all free,” Synchronicity Earth, https://www.synchronicityearth.org/when-our-land-is-free-were-all-free/

10 Ashoka Mukpo, “‘We come from the earth’: Q&A with Goldman Prize winner Alfred Brownell”, Mongabay, June 2019: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/06/we-come-from-the-earth-qa-with-goldman-prize-winner-alfred-brownell/

11 GRAIN, “Planet palm oil: peasants pay the price for cheap vegetable oil”, September 2014: https://grain.org/e/5031

12 Much of the information from the period of the World Bank programme is derived from the World Bank archives (http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/506921468098056629/pdf/multi-page.pdf; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/735641468915257440/text/multi0page.txt; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/328231468082133313/text/multi-page.txt; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/735641468915257440/text/multi0page.txt; http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/477341468075533881/pdf/multi-page.pdf). See also Emmanuel Okachukwu A. Omah, “Public Enterprises and Community Development in Rivers State: A case study of Risonpalm Limited,” June 2002: https://oer.unn.edu.ng/download/public-enterprises-and-community-development-in-rivers-state-a-case-study-of-risonpalm-limited; Nwizugbe Obiageri Ezenwa, “Corporate Community Crisis in Nigeria; Case Study of Presco Industries Ltd and Oghareki Community,” IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, March 2014: http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol19-issue3/Version-7/J019378289.pdf; and documentation from the evaluations of Okomu’s extension plans from 2016 conducted by Proforest and Foremost Development Services Limited.

13 World Rainforest Movement, GRAIN and an Alliance of community and local organisations united against industrial oil palm plantations in West and Central Africa, “Booklet: 12 tactics palm oil companies use to grab community land’ April 2019: https://grain.org/e/6171

14 RADD, Muyissi Environnment, Natural Resource Women Platform, Culture Radio, GRAIN, WRM, “Breaking the Silence: Violence against women in and around industrial oil palm and rubber plantations,” https://wrm.org.uy/all-campaigns/breaking-the-silence-violence-against-women-in-and-around-industrial-oil-palm-and-rubber-plantations/

15 Kwabena Ofosu-BUDU and Daniel Bruce SARPONG, “Oil palm industry growth in Africa: A value chain and smallholders’ study for Ghana,” Chapter 11, FAO: http://www.fao.org/3/i3222e/i3222e11.pdf

16 RADD, SEFE, YETHIO, SYNAPARCAM, GRAIN and WRM, “The seed of despair: communities lose their land and water sources due to OLAM’s agribusiness in Gabon,” 11 July 2017, https://grain.org/e/5755

17 “Gabon: la gestion du projet Graine cédée à la CDC,” Gabon Media Time, Novembre 2018: https://pmepmimagazine.info/gabon-la-gestion-du-projet-graine-cedee-a-la-cdc/

18 According to Feronia Inc’s annual report for 2017, available here: https://www.sedar.com

19 See Socfinaf’s 2018 annual report: https://www.socfin.com/sites/default/files/2019-04/Rapport%20annuel%20-%20Socfinaf%282018%29.pdf

20 Ordway, Elsa M et al. “Oil palm expansion and deforestation in Southwest Cameroon associated with proliferation of informal mills.” Nature communications vol. 10,1 114. 10 January 2019: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6328567/

21 According to FAOSTAT, the total harvested area in Africa in 2017 is 4,578,074 ha.

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Rising demand for cow dung pushes prices up

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2 weeks ago

August 7, 2026

witnessradio.org

Several years ago, cow dung was seen as simply animal excreta among cattle keepers, who did not value it as an organic source of manure. Some farmers could give it away as they heavily relied on chemical fertilisers to improve yields. Only a few livestock farmers who integrate cattle rearing with growing bananas were using it in their plantations as organic fertiliser.

However, today, this durable natural fertiliser has become a valuable resource with more Ugandans venturing into coffee farming where it (cow dung) complements artificial fertilisers to achieve better yields.

Today, many coffee farmers use cow dung, especially for soil preparation and fertility enhancement, alongside other organic materials.

This practice, which is gaining traction, helps to create a nutrient-rich environment that supports the growth of coffee plants. In Mpigi District, one coffee farmer, Mr Moses Ssendiwala is among a growing number of farmers who have embraced the use of animal manure as a cornerstone of their farming system.

From pig and goat dung to cattle manure, he believes organic fertilisers are helping farmers build healthier soils while reducing dependence on costly chemical inputs.

Cow dung is rich in minerals and nutrients and a good source of manure. Photo | Michael J Ssali

Standing in his coffee plantation in Bulerejje Parish, Muduuma Sub-county, Mr Ssendiwala points to the dark, fertile soil beneath his coffee trees as evidence of years of organic soil management.

“The strength and performance of a coffee plantation begins with the soil. When the soil is healthy, the coffee trees become stronger and more productive,” he told Monitor on Wednesday.

For Mr Ssendiwala, the journey towards organic farming was driven by concerns about declining soil quality and increasing production costs. Like many farmers, he once depended heavily on inorganic fertilisers.

However, over time, he noticed that maintaining soil fertility required increasingly higher quantities of chemical inputs. “I realised that chemicals alone could not sustain the soil for many years. Organic manure improves the soil structure and continues benefiting the crops for a long time,” he added.

Today, his coffee plantation depends largely on manure collected from pigs, goats and other livestock raised on the farm. According to him, goat manure is particularly valuable because of its long-lasting impact on soil fertility.

“Goat manure remains active in the soil for many years and continues nourishing plants. It is one of the best organic fertilisers a coffee farmer can use,” he said.

He added that pig manure is equally beneficial because it decomposes quickly and releases nutrients needed by crops. However, he cautions that farmers must apply it carefully. “If too much pig manure is applied in one area, it can damage crops. Farmers should use the correct quantities and ensure proper decomposition before application,” he explained.

One of the key lessons from Mr Ssendiwala’s farming model is the importance of integrating livestock and crop enterprises. His farm combines coffee, bananas and livestock production, creating a cycle in which waste from one enterprise becomes an input for another. Animal manure collected from pigsties and livestock shelters is processed and applied to coffee and banana gardens, reducing expenditure on purchased fertilisers.

Mr Ssendiwala estimates that manure from 10 pigs can adequately support one acre of farmland, while larger piggery enterprises can generate enough manure for extensive coffee plantations.

“If someone keeps 100 pigs on a 10-acre farm, there may be little need to buy manure from outside,” he said. The integrated approach is becoming increasingly popular among farmers seeking to lower production costs while improving environmental sustainability.

Agricultural experts say combining livestock and crop farming helps recycle nutrients, minimise waste and improve overall farm productivity. But in addition to manure, Mr Ssendiwala applies mulch around coffee trees to conserve soil moisture and suppress weed growth.

The combination of manure and mulching has helped his plantation remain productive even during periods of prolonged dry weather.

“When moisture is retained in the soil, coffee trees continue growing well even when rainfall reduces,” he said. Farmers in several coffee-growing districts report similar experiences. Many say trees grown in soils enriched with organic manure develop stronger root systems and maintain healthier foliage than those grown in depleted soils.

Various studies also report that earthworms are able to convert barren land into fertile land and increase the agriculture output. PHOTO | LOMINDA AFEDRARU

Agronomists explain that organic manure supports beneficial microorganisms that improve nutrient availability and overall soil biological activity. These organisms play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems that support crop growth. Over the past few years, high coffee prices have encouraged thousands of farmers to establish new plantations or expand existing gardens.

As a result, manure has become an increasingly valuable commodity. In livestock-keeping areas, traders now purchase truckloads of cow dung and transport them to coffee-growing districts where demand remains high throughout the year. What was once considered waste is now generating additional income for livestock farmers.

Many cattle keepers say manure sales have become an important supplementary enterprise.

“People used to collect manure for free. Today, buyers come looking for it and are willing to pay cash,” Mr Moses Kafeero, a livestock farmer at Kasubikamu Cell, Bongole Ward in Buwama Town Council, said.

The demand typically rises during planting seasons and periods of prolonged dry spells when farmers seek to improve moisture retention in their gardens. But while organic manure offers numerous benefits, increasing demand has also pushed prices upwards.

A farmer picks coffee from a garden in Kyotera District in May 2024. PHOTO/MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

Coffee farmers who do not own livestock are often forced to purchase manure from external suppliers, adding to production costs. Mr John Ssekindi, a coffee farmer at Wassozi Cell, Nabusanke Ward in Kayabwe Town Council, said acquiring sufficient manure is exceedingly expensive.

“Buying the cow dung is one thing, but transporting it to the farm and paying labourers to apply it adds significant costs,” he said.

According to him, a two-acre coffee plantation may require several truckloads of well-decomposed manure depending on soil conditions and the age of the coffee trees. Despite these costs, many farmers continue investing in organic fertilisers because of the long-term benefits. They argue that healthier soils ultimately lead to improved yields and higher profits.

Mad rush for cow dung in Ankole

Cow dung is becoming an unusual item that has recently attracted a lot of demand in the sub-region. In September 2024, Kiruhura District instructed its sub-county chiefs and town clerks to start collecting cow dung loading fees. The then chief administrative officer, Mr Charles Kiberu, argued that the move was intended to enhance local revenue.

“It is good that the Kiruhura leadership has identified this source of revenue, there are many lorries that are taking cow dung from the district. There is nothing special with taxing cow dung, we are doing this like we are doing with other identified sources of revenue like cattle loading,” Mr Kiberu said then.

In Mbarara City, Mr Vincent Mugabe, the city’s agricultural officer, said farmers are rushing for cow dung because it’s organic and convenient in application.

“Farmers are using cow dung, even goats and sheep droppings because they see it as purely organic. There are no chemicals, which at times they doubt of its possible negative effects to the soils. But it is also more convenient to apply than fertilisers that require lots of precautions like measurements and safety,” added Mr Mugabe.

But he warned that as farmers rush for cow dung they have to be cautious because the application of it randomly has negative effects on soils.

“With the increasing demand, extension workers need to come in and offer guidance because cow dung may affect the soil PH, also some cow dung has no nutrients required because it is mishandled at the source. For example, it should be covered as it decomposes to stop it from losing some nutrients like nitrogen,” advised Mr Mugabe.

Mr Suleiman Muhoozi , a farmer in Ibanda District, said animal droppings do not have the same prices, indicating that goat’s droppings are more expensive than for cows. He said a Forward truck of cow dung goes for Shs270,000, while an Elf tipper costs Shs170,000. For goat/sheep dung, it is Shs290,000(a Forward truck) and Shs200,000 for a (Elf tipper), he said.

Mr Muhoozi explained that these costs do not cover transportation, a farmer has to meet those costs separately. According to our findings, to have a truckload of cow dung delivered at your farm, one has to part with between Shs500,000 to Shs700,000 in Isingiro District, while in Mbarara, it costs Shs400, 000.

Agricultural experts such as Mr Valentine Ssekivuuvu, the Mpigi District senior agriculture officer, and Mr Emmanuel Mutebi Jjuuko, the Mpigi District agriculture officer, support this integrated approach. They say organic manure enhances soil structure, water retention and microbial activity, while inorganic fertilisers supply readily available nutrients required for rapid plant growth.

Goat dung versus cow dung

Among coffee farmers, discussions frequently arise about which type of manure offers the greatest benefits. Agronomists note that different manures possess varying nutrient compositions. Goat manure is generally regarded as nutrient-rich because of its relatively high concentrations of nitrogen and potassium. It is also less bulky and decomposes relatively quickly.

Cow dung, however, remains the most widely available organic fertiliser in Uganda. Its abundance makes it easier to obtain in large quantities, particularly in livestock-keeping areas. Agricultural extension officers say cow dung contributes substantial amounts of organic matter that improve soil texture and water-holding capacity.

“Each type of manure has strengths. The most important factor is ensuring that the manure is properly decomposed before application,” Mr Ssekivuuvu said.

With Uganda’s coffee industry continuing to expand, demand for sustainable soil fertility management practices is expected to grow. Government agencies, researchers and agricultural extension workers continue encouraging farmers to adopt methods such as composting, mulching and manure application. These practices are seen as critical for maintaining long-term productivity in coffee-growing regions.

For livestock farmers, the growing demand has created a new income stream. For coffee growers, it has become an important tool in the quest for sustainable productivity.

A farmer in his cabbage garden. Photo | File

While agriculture is the backbone of Uganda’s economy and employs more than 65 percent of Ugandans and feeds more than 80 percent of the country’s industries with raw materials, most farmers practice it without any training, something that has limited their opportunities of transiting from subsistence farming to large scale merchandised commercial agriculture.

Compiled by Al Mahdi Ssenkabirwa, Sadat Mbogo, Rajab Mukombozi & Jovita Kyarisiima

Source: monitor.co.ug

FARM NEWS

Africa’s El Niño Economic Impact: $20B at Risk in 2026

Published

3 weeks ago

July 31, 2026

witnessradio.org

The Hidden Cost of a Pacific Ocean Anomaly: Why Africa Bears a Disproportionate Climate Burden

Every decade or so, a warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean quietly reshapes weather systems across the entire planet. For most advanced economies, the resulting shifts in rainfall and temperature are inconvenient at worst. For large parts of Africa, the same atmospheric disruption can unravel years of economic progress, push tens of millions of people into food insecurity, and force governments into a fiscal spiral that proves far harder to escape than the weather event itself.

This is the structural reality that makes the El Niño economic impact in Africa so consequential, and so poorly understood outside development finance circles. The 2026 episode now taking shape is not a distant weather forecast. It is a measurable, quantifiable economic risk that the African Development Bank (AfDB) has placed at the centre of its near-term policy warnings, with loss estimates ranging from $10 billion to $20 billion across the continent and GDP contractions of 1% to 2% in the hardest-hit nations.

To understand why those numbers carry such outsized consequences, it helps to first understand what makes African economies structurally different from other regions facing the same climatic event.

Why African Economies Convert Weather Into Economic Crises

The Architecture of Vulnerability

Rain-fed agriculture remains the foundation of food production across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike irrigated farming systems common in parts of Asia and the Americas, rain-fed systems carry no mechanical buffer against rainfall deficits. When rainfall fails, yields collapse almost immediately, and the effects radiate outward through household income, rural consumption, and national output.

The energy dimension adds a second layer of fragility that is often underappreciated. Several of Africa’s largest economies depend on hydropower for the majority of their electricity generation. Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo each rely heavily on reservoir-based hydroelectric capacity. When drought drains those reservoirs, electricity generation falls, load-shedding intensifies, manufacturing slows, and mining productivity drops.

A rainfall deficit in the Zambezi basin is not simply an agricultural problem. It is an industrial problem, an investment climate problem, and ultimately a fiscal problem. Furthermore, the energy transition challenges facing resource-dependent economies compound these vulnerabilities significantly.

Infrastructure deficits compound both dynamics. Roads, drainage systems, and irrigation networks in many African countries remain inadequate to absorb either prolonged drought or acute flooding. The same infrastructure gap that amplifies drought damage also amplifies flood damage, meaning El Niño’s geographically inverted impacts across the continent both translate into disproportionate economic harm.

El Niño’s Asymmetric Geography Across Africa

A critical but underappreciated feature of El Niño is that it does not impose a uniform shock across Africa. Its effects are almost geographically inverted between the continent’s sub-regions, which complicates both economic forecasting and policy response.

Southern Africa experiences drought, harvest contraction, livestock stress, and hydropower shortfalls during El Niño years
East Africa typically faces excess rainfall, flooding, infrastructure destruction, and population displacement
West Africa and the Sahel face secondary but real exposure through rainfall variability and commodity market disruptions
Fragile and conflict-affected states experience the same physical shocks but with far less institutional and fiscal capacity to absorb them

The 2023-2024 El Niño episode illustrated this geographic divergence with unusual severity. Southern African countries reported harvest losses exceeding 50% of annual production in the worst-affected areas, while East Africa simultaneously faced destructive flooding that damaged transport corridors and urban markets. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Southern African impact was characterised as among the most severe in over a century.

Quantifying the 2026 Threat: What the Numbers Actually Mean

AfDB Loss Projections in Context

The AfDB’s estimate of $10 billion to $20 billion in aggregate economic losses deserves careful interpretation rather than simple citation. African economic growth is projected at 4.2% in 2026 and 4.4% in 2027, representing one of the continent’s more promising growth windows in recent years. A climate shock that strips 1% to 2% from the GDP of multiple countries simultaneously does not merely slow growth; it disrupts the compounding dynamic that allows development gains to build on each other over time.

A 2% GDP loss in a high-exposure economy is not a one-year setback. It triggers chain reactions across fiscal balances, debt servicing capacity, and social spending programmes that compress development gains accumulated over several years.

The AfDB has estimated that African agricultural producers could lose approximately $327 million to $330 million in income from the anticipated disruptions. The fisheries sector faces additional pressure, with rising sea temperatures and storm events projected to reduce productivity by 1% to 4%.

Sector	Estimated Economic Impact	Primary Driver
Agricultural producer income	~$327-$330 million in losses	Drought-driven crop failure and flood damage
Maize prices	2%-20% increase in strong El Niño years	Supply contraction in Southern Africa
Fisheries productivity	1%-4% reduction	Sea temperature rise and storm disruption
GDP contraction (worst-affected countries)	1%-2%	Multiple transmission channels
Aggregate continental losses	$10B-$20B	Combined agricultural, energy, and fiscal impacts

The 2026 Probability Assessment

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has assigned an 80% probability to El Niño developing between June and August 2026, with the likelihood of the event persisting through November approaching or exceeding 90%. The anticipated intensity is classified as moderate-to-strong. The WMO has explicitly noted that the term super El Niño, which circulates widely in public discourse, does not represent an official scientific classification and should not be used as a technical benchmark.

A moderate-to-strong event is sufficient to activate the full range of agricultural, hydrological, and fiscal transmission channels documented in previous episodes. The 2023-2024 episode, which serves as the most recent empirical reference point, demonstrated that even a single El Niño cycle can push 61 million people across Southern Africa alone into requiring humanitarian assistance.

The AfDB has scheduled a formal portfolio impact assessment for September 2026 to evaluate exposure across its active investment operations and identify necessary adjustments.

Five Transmission Channels: How Weather Becomes a Fiscal Crisis

Channel 1: Agricultural Output Collapse

Rain-fed farming systems that dominate food production across Sub-Saharan Africa have no mechanical buffer against rainfall deficits. Drought reduces yields, destroys livestock, and eliminates the seasonal income that rural households rely on for a significant portion of their annual consumption. Flooding in East Africa simultaneously destroys standing crops, degrades soil quality, and disrupts planting cycles for subsequent growing seasons.

Channel 2: Food Price Inflation and Urban Purchasing Power Erosion

As agricultural supply contracts, staple food prices rise. This dynamic disproportionately affects urban low-income households that spend the highest share of their income on food. Maize price increases of 2% to 20% in strong El Niño years have been documented across Southern African markets. Food inflation reduces real household incomes, suppresses consumer spending, and can contribute to social instability in urban centres already under economic pressure.

Channel 3: Hydropower Shortages and Industrial Disruption

Drought reduces reservoir levels, cutting electricity generation capacity and forcing load-shedding that affects manufacturing, mining, and services simultaneously. Businesses dependent on continuous power face higher operating costs as they switch to backup generation. The energy transition in mining and related industries is consequently further complicated by climate-driven energy instability. Persistent power instability deters investment and reduces the competitiveness of export-oriented industries.

Channel 4: Infrastructure Damage and Emergency Fiscal Pressure

Flooding in East Africa and storm events along coastal regions damage roads, bridges, drainage infrastructure, and urban markets. Reconstruction costs divert government capital budgets away from planned development expenditure. Emergency response requirements force fiscal reallocation that crowds out health, education, and productive infrastructure investment.

Channel 5: The Climate Finance Trap

Anthony Nyong, Director of the AfDB’s Climate Change and Green Growth Department, has identified a structural dynamic that explains why El Niño’s fiscal consequences often exceed its direct physical damage. When governments are forced to redirect pre-allocated development budgets toward disaster response, they erode the long-term fiscal architecture of planned growth.

Countries without adequate insurance instruments or contingency reserves face the hardest trade-offs between immediate relief and sustained development investment. This pattern compounds across multiple El Niño cycles, progressively narrowing fiscal space.

The Countries Facing the Greatest Exposure

A Regional Risk Framework

Southern Africa: Drought, Harvest Collapse, and Energy Shortfalls

Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Madagascar face the most consistent drought exposure during El Niño years. Hydropower dependency amplifies the economic impact beyond agriculture into energy and industrial sectors. The 2023-2024 episode produced harvest losses exceeding 50% of annual production in the worst-affected areas.

East Africa: Flooding, Infrastructure Destruction, and MSME Disruption

Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Uganda face elevated flood risk during El Niño years. Flooding damages transport networks, disrupts urban commerce, and creates displacement that reduces labour market participation. Micro, small, and medium enterprises, which form the backbone of urban economic activity across East Africa, face acute disruption from flooding and market closures.

Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: Compounded Vulnerability

The AfDB has specifically identified Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Burundi, and Nigeria as among the countries most exposed to the anticipated impacts. In fragile states, climate shocks interact with pre-existing governance deficits, displacement crises, and food insecurity to produce disproportionately severe outcomes. These countries also have the least fiscal capacity to self-finance recovery and the most constrained access to international capital markets.

Africa’s Climate Finance Gap: A Structural Inequity

The Numbers That Reveal a Systemic Failure

Financing Metric	Figure
UN estimated annual climate finance need for developing countries by 2035	~$365 billion
International public climate adaptation finance delivered in 2023	~$26 billion
AfDB estimate of Africa’s climate financing need in 2026	~$100 billion
Previous AfDB climate financing estimates for Africa	~$50 billion
UN CERF preventive mobilisation for highest-risk countries	Up to $100 million

The gap between what is needed and what is being delivered is not a marginal shortfall. International public adaptation finance of $26 billion delivered in 2023 represents less than 7% of the $365 billion annual requirement projected for 2035. Africa’s estimated 2026 climate financing need of $100 billion represents a doubling of previous estimates, reflecting both escalating climate risk and the accumulated deficit of underinvestment in adaptation infrastructure.

Why Adaptation Financing Consistently Lags Behind Mitigation

A less commonly understood dynamic within climate finance is the persistent structural imbalance between mitigation spending and adaptation spending. Global climate finance flows have historically favoured mitigation projects, which reduce greenhouse gas emissions, over adaptation projects, which build resilience to the climate change already locked in.

The reasons are partly financial. Mitigation projects such as solar farms and wind energy installations generate revenue streams, attract private co-investment, and can be structured for commercial returns. Adaptation investments such as flood barriers, drought-resistant crop varieties, and early warning systems generate economic value by preventing losses rather than creating new income streams.

This distinction makes adaptation harder to monetise and less attractive to private capital. However, the El Niño economic impact in Africa demonstrates precisely why sustained adaptation investment is essential. For a continent that contributes a small fraction of global emissions yet absorbs a disproportionate share of climate impacts, this imbalance represents a fundamental equity failure in the international climate finance architecture.

In addition, the growing importance of critical minerals and energy security means that climate disruptions increasingly threaten strategic supply chains that extend well beyond Africa’s own borders. Furthermore, renewable energy solutions designed to reduce hydropower dependency are increasingly being considered as a structural hedge against El Niño-driven energy instability.

Mechanisms Being Mobilised Ahead of the 2026 Peak

The AfDB is facilitating access to several international financing instruments for affected member states:

Green Climate Fund targeting both adaptation and mitigation in vulnerable developing nations
Adaptation Fund focused specifically on countries with the least capacity to self-finance resilience building
Climate Investment Funds providing multi-donor capital for low-carbon and climate-resilient development
Loss and Damage Mechanisms offering compensation for climate impacts beyond adaptive capacity
UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) mobilising up to $100 million for preventive measures in the highest-risk countries

Embedding Climate Risk Into African Development Planning

The Case for Treating El Niño as a Fiscal Variable, Not an Exceptional Event

One of the least-discussed but most consequential shifts in African public finance management concerns how climate risk is categorised within government planning frameworks. Treating El Niño as a recurring fiscal variable rather than an unpredictable exceptional event changes everything from budget reserve requirements to debt sustainability assessments.

Countries that establish contingency reserves, parametric insurance instruments, and pre-arranged emergency credit lines are measurably better positioned to absorb climate shocks without derailing multi-year development trajectories. Parametric insurance, which triggers automatic payouts when pre-defined weather thresholds are crossed rather than requiring lengthy loss assessments, is particularly relevant for African economies because it delivers capital precisely when it is needed most.

Preparedness Investment as a Fiscal Efficiency Measure

Evidence from disaster risk economics consistently demonstrates that pre-event investment in preparedness generates substantially higher returns than post-event reconstruction spending. Irrigation infrastructure, drought-resistant crop varieties, early warning systems, and flood-resilient road construction each reduce the economic cost of El Niño events in ways that reconstruction spending cannot replicate after the fact.

For African governments, the structural challenge is financing preparedness during periods of fiscal constraint. This is precisely the window before an El Niño peak when investment would generate the greatest returns. Bridging this timing gap requires concessional pre-event financing that existing multilateral instruments have not consistently delivered at scale.

Research on El Niño’s economic devastation further confirms that the El Niño economic impact in Africa is not simply a humanitarian concern but a macroeconomic one, with effects that reverberate through fiscal systems for years after the weather event subsides. Consequently, the critical minerals demand picture is also affected, as climate disruptions to mining and energy infrastructure interrupt the supply of materials essential to the global clean energy transition.

The AfDB’s planned September 2026 portfolio review signals an institutional shift toward treating climate risk as a standing variable in development finance planning, rather than a one-off emergency to be managed after impact.

Key Statistics at a Glance

$10B-$20B in projected aggregate economic losses across Africa
1%-2% GDP contraction in the hardest-hit countries, against a continental growth projection of 4.2% for 2026
$327-$330 million in estimated agricultural income losses for African producers
61 million people required humanitarian assistance during the 2023-2024 El Niño across Southern Africa
80% probability assigned by the WMO to El Niño developing between June and August 2026
$26 billion in international public adaptation finance delivered in 2023, against a $365 billion annual need by 2035
$100 billion in climate financing estimated as Africa’s requirement for 2026, double previous estimates
Up to $100 million being mobilised through the UN CERF for preventive measures in the highest-risk countries

Disclaimer: All loss projections, GDP impact estimates, and probability assessments referenced in this article reflect forward-looking forecasts from multilateral institutions including the AfDB and WMO. Actual outcomes will depend on the intensity, duration, and geographic distribution of any El Niño event, as well as the policy and financing responses mobilised before and during the episode. This article does not constitute financial or investment advice.

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FARM NEWS

Five counties roll out agroecology policies to boost climate resilience

Published

3 weeks ago

July 29, 2026

witnessradio.org

At least five counties have adopted agroecology policies as Kenya accelerates efforts to promote climate-resilient and sustainable farming.

Murang’a, Makueni, Nakuru, West Pokot and Kiambu have already developed county agroecology policies, while Trans Nzoia, Turkana, Laikipia, Kirinyaga and Machakos are drafting similar frameworks.

Stakeholders are urging more devolved governments to fast-track implementation to strengthen food security.

Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (Pelum) Kenya country coordinator Rosinah Mbeya said counties must move beyond policy development by allocating adequate budgets and implementing programmes that directly support farmers. She spoke during the Third Agroecology Symposium.

Mbeya said although agroecology is gaining momentum in Kenya, greater political commitment, increased financing and faster implementation are needed to help farmers cope with climate change, rising production costs and declining soil health.

Kenya continues to grapple with multiple agricultural challenges, including climate change, emerging crop pests and diseases and increasing input costs driven by global economic disruptions.

“These challenges are making farming increasingly difficult, particularly for smallholder farmers. However, they also present an opportunity to transform our food systems and build farming systems that are more resilient and less dependent on external inputs,” Mbeya said.

Agriculture& Forestry

She described agroecology as an environmentally sustainable approach that restores ecosystems while improving agricultural productivity, conserving biodiversity and protecting human health and the environment.

Mbeya said the focus should now shift from developing strategies to implementing them through adequate funding and practical support for farmers.

“The discussion is no longer about developing strategies. It is now about implementation, budgeting and ensuring these policies benefit farmers on the ground,” she said.

Mbeya said agroecology continues to attract support from development partners, researchers and policymakers.

However, only a small proportion of Kenya’s estimated 7.5 million smallholder farmers practise agroecology through organised networks.

She said Pelum works with about 1.5 million farmers but said wider adoption is needed to transform the country’s food systems.

Farms& Ranches

Agriculture secretary in the State Department for Agriculture Peter Aoko said crop diversification remains one of the government’s key strategies for strengthening climate resilience and improving household nutrition.

“Different crops perform differently under different ecological conditions. Diversification ensures that if one crop fails because of weather or pests, another succeeds while also providing better nutrition,” he said.

Aoko said the government is strengthening farmers’ capacity through agricultural extension services and knowledge sharing while working with county governments to domesticate the National Agroecology Strategy.

He acknowledged that implementation has progressed slowly because agriculture is a devolved function but expressed confidence that momentum would increase as more counties adopt the strategy.

“Agroecology is about producing food sustainably while protecting the environment, particularly soil health. Without healthy soils, agricultural production cannot be sustained over the long term,” he said.

Dr Lisa Fuchs, a scientist with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, said agroecology extends beyond environmentally friendly farming by integrating ecological sustainability, economic viability and social equity.

She said the approach promotes crop diversity, healthy soils, circular farming systems and locally adapted food production to improve food security and nutrition.

Agriculture& Forestry

Fuchs encouraged farmers to recognise the value of indigenous knowledge and work collectively to develop solutions suited to local conditions.

“Agroecology is a science, a practice and a movement. Farmers should organise, share knowledge, work with their neighbours and partner with government, researchers and other stakeholders to strengthen local food systems,” she said.

She said agricultural research institutions are increasingly embracing participatory approaches that involve farmers and communities in developing, testing and scaling innovations to ensure solutions respond to local needs.

Source: the-star.co.ke/

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK2 weeks ago

Communities once resettled by President Museveni in Kiryandongo now find themselves losing their land to a sugarcane investor, accusing the Uganda Land Commission of granting a leasehold behind their backs.