The Ethiopian Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands – which one of us heads – recently banned the import of diesel irrigation pumps to support the rapid transition to renewable-energy solutions. Solar-powered pumps have boosted farmers’ incomes by more than 50 per cent in India and led to significant increases in yields in Rwanda. Solar-powered irrigation, for example, has significantly improved water access and enabled multiple cropping cycles, increasing productivity and reducing GHG emissions. Last but not least, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and decentralising energy production can help shift global power dynamics within the food system. But it could contribute significantly to stabilising the global food system by lowering energy costs, a crucial factor for boosting productivity by facilitating financing for productive applications, which could democratise access to yield-enhancing technologies and by reducing GHG emissions and promoting climate-change adaptation. To be sure, decentralised renewable energy is not a panacea. This will require a shift to distributed renewable energy, which can be used in primary production, post-harvest processing, storage, and cooking – the agricultural activities that tend to consume the most energy in developing countries. Given this, achieving sustainable and climate-friendly food production in the Global South could lead to significant welfare improvements. That conclusion reflects agriculture’s central role in the developing world: in some of the least-developed countries, it accounts for more than 25 per cent of GDP, while 52 per cent of employed people in Sub-Saharan Africa are active in the sector. The International Monetary Fund has found that a single drought can lower an African country’s medium-term economic-growth potential by one percentage point. For example, Sub-Saharan Africa, which relies on rainfed agriculture, already experiences one-third of the world’s droughts and is vulnerable to higher temperatures and other extreme weather. While the effects of climate change are felt throughout the global food system, they are disproportionately borne by those least responsible for the problem: smallholder farmers in the Global South. As a result, agribusiness (including the production, transport, and storage of food) today accounts for roughly one-third of all GHG emissions, which in turn threaten the future of agriculture. Previously, concerns about food supply – including high prices during the 2008 global financial crisis – invariably led to agricultural intensification and mechanisation, as well as an increase in land use. Past solutions and approaches will no longer work on the contrary, they contributed to the current problems. Translating this into public policies has taken on new urgency, given that rapid global warming, population growth, public-health crises, volatile energy markets, and conflict have exposed the food system’s unique vulnerabilities and shortcomings. When it comes to strengthening the long-term resilience and adaptability of the global food system, these two objectives are interlinked. In July, the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York and the UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment in Rome underscored the importance of ensuring access to modern energy (SDG 7) and achieving zero hunger (SDG 2), respectively.
Halfway to the 2030 deadline, progress toward the SDGs – conceived as a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet” – is lagging significantly. Failure to do so would jeopardise efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and threaten our very survival. To prevent it from unraveling, we must embrace distributed renewable-energy solutions, which are critical for reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, boosting resilience and productivity, and cutting costs.
The fabric of our global food system is fraying under the strain of climate change and an ever-expanding population.
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