Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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Prof. Roger Leakey

Member since
Organization: International Tree foundation
Country: United Kingdom
Field(s) of expertise:
I am working on:

New approaches to tropical and sub-tropical agriculture that are multifunctional, reverse the cycle of land degradation and social deprivation, so increasing agricultural productivity, reducing poverty/malnutrition/hunger while also mitigating climate change. See: Leakey, R.R.B. 2018. Converting ‘trade-offs’ to ‘trade-ons’ for greatly enhanced food security in Africa: multiple environmental, economic and social benefits from ‘socially modified crops. Food Security 10: 505-524. DOI 10.1007/s12571-018-0796-1

This member contributed to:

    • Sustainable Food Systems 

      Key literature

      Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems (2014), Vols 1-4, van Alfen, N. et al., (eds.). Elsevier Publishers, San Diego, USA.

      Multifunctional Agriculture: Achieving Sustainable Development in Africa (2017). Leakey, R.R.B., Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA, 480pp.

      International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development: Global Report (Eds. B.D. McIntyre, H. Herren, J. Wakhungu and R. Watson). Island Press, New York, USA.

      Section 2.1.2 The Sustainable Food Systems Approach

      The text states “While there will clearly be trade-offs to be made (i.e. between key priorities of the food systems: inclusive poverty reduction, increased agricultural productivity, improved nutrition, and enhanced environmental sustainability), there will also be opportunities to simultaneously accomplish multiple objectives”. This concept is central to the development of Sustainable Food Systems. It is the so-called inevitable ‘Trade-offs’ that make modern agriculture unsustainable, especially in the tropics and sub-tropics. The often-mentioned inevitability of these trade-offs is a fallacy; arising from a lack of understanding of the issues that constrain farm productivity in tropical/sub-tropical regions, especially Africa. While, conventional modern agriculture is productive in temperate regions due to its compatibility with: the socio-economic and biophysical environment, high capital investment, globalized markets, etc., it fails in the tropics where it is incompatible with all these factors (Leakey, 2013). The result is the downward spiral of the ‘Cycle of Land Degradation and Social Deprivation’ which drives the creation of Yield Gaps in staple crop production. These Yield Gaps can be (and often are) as great as 85% of potential yield (Leakey, 2013) and result in the rural population suffering from hunger, malnutrition, ill health, poverty and social injustice; while the land degradation contributes to Climate Change.

      The solution, especially in the tropics and sub-tropics, is to find ways to reverse the ‘Cycle of Land Degradation and Social Deprivation’ by developing better land husbandry in ways that are also compatible with the socio-economic and biophysical environment, lack of income and capital for investment, local markets, etc. In other words, the common ‘Trade-offs’ have to become the focus of both policy, agricultural interventions and agribusiness to convert them to ‘Trade-ons’ (Leakey, 2018). Work in Cameroon since 1994 has been trying and testing this innovative approach and it has been found to be highly successful – beneficially transforming numerous components of the food system (Leakey and Prabhu, 2017). This approach is based on 12 Principles (Leakey, 2014a) and the social modification of ethnobotanically-recognized cultural and traditional food species by community level participatory domestication (Leakey, in press). With hundreds of candidate species from all ecoregions of the world and a generic 3-step process (Leakey, 2013, 2018) that diversifies and rehabilitates degraded agroecosystems (Leakey, 2014b) and generates income from expanded trade, new business and employment from local non-timber tree products (Leakey, 2017a; in press), these innovations appear to offer a new approach to revitalizing food systems in the areas of the world where the problems are greatest. This approach which is designed to reverse the Cycle and Land Degradation and Social Deprivation, so closing the very common Yield Gap in many staple food crops, needs to be up- and out-scaled to verify its apparent potential.

      Section 2.2 should address the issues of Yield Gaps – the embodiment of an unsustainable food production system that then impacts the whole system.

      2.2.4 Resilient Production Systems and 3.0 Different Roads leading to Sustainability

      The above text also applies to the rehabilitation of abandoned and degraded farm land and its transformation into Resilient Production Systems through sustainable intensification.

      The above approach in effect combines the development of agroecological approaches (delivered by agroforestry) with income generation from the domestication and commercialization of the products from culturally- and traditionally-important indigenous food species (many of which are trees) (Leakey 2017a, 2018). Agroecology without income generation does not restore the whole food system as it does not address the social and economic constraints to tropical/sub-tropical agriculture.

      A Table in Leakey and Prabhu (2017) illustrates impacts flowing from the interlinkages, overlaps and complementarities (Section 3.2).

      The integrated rural development approach presented above is relevant to the Main strategies to promote sustainable food systems (Section 3.3).

      Definitions:

      Agroforestry is: “a dynamic, ecologically based, natural resource management system that, through the integration of trees in farm- and rangeland, diversifies and sustains smallholder production for increased social, economic, and environmental benefits” (Leakey, 2017).

      Multifunctional Agriculture is illustrated by FSF in Figure 2 (a Figure from IAASTD Global Report, 2009).

      References

      Leakey, R.R.B. 2013. Addressing the causes of land degradation, food / nutritional insecurity and poverty: a new approach to agricultural intensification in the tropics and sub-tropics. In: Wake Up Before it is too Late: Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now for Food Security in a Changing Climate, 192-198, UNCTAD Trade and Environment Review 2013, U. Hoffman (ed.), UN Publications, Geneva, Switzerland.

      Leakey, R.R.B. 2014a. Twelve Principles for Better Food and More Food from Mature Perennial Agroecosystems, In: Perennial Crops for Food Security, 282-306, Proceedings of FAO Expert Workshop, Rome, Italy, 28-30 August 2013, FAO. Rome.

      Leakey, R.R.B. 2014b. The role of trees in agroecology and sustainable agriculture in the tropics. Annual Review of Phytopathology 52: 113-133.

      Leakey, R.R.B. 2017. Definition of agroforestry revisited. In: Multifunctional Agriculture – Achieving Sustainable Development in Africa, RRB Leakey, 5-6, Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.

      Leakey, R.R.B. and Prabhu, R. 2017. Towards multifunctional agriculture – an African initiative. In: Multifunctional Agriculture: Achieving Sustainable Development in Africa, RRB Leakey, 395-416, Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.

      Leakey, R.R.B. 2018. Converting ‘trade-offs’ to ‘trade-ons’ for greatly enhanced food security in Africa: multiple environmental, economic and social benefits from ‘socially modified crops. Food Security 10: 505-524.

      Leakey, R.R.B. In press. From Ethnobotany to Mainstream Agriculture – Socially-modified Cinderella Species Capturing ‘Trade-ons’ for ‘Land Maxing’. In: Special Issue on Orphan Crops, Planta 0: 000-000.

      See the attachments: