Experts in the agricultural space have embarked on developing a comprehensive roadmap to disrupt financial flows to industrial agriculture but instead champion funding for agroecology.
Building on the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa's (AFSA) Healthy Soil Healthy Food initiative, participants will explore strategies to address the financial imbalances, focusing on shifting investments towards sustainable farming practices that ensure food sovereignty.
Speaking when opening the three-day meeting at Maanzoni, National Coordinator of BIBA Kenya Anne Maina said industrial agriculture is an extractive, monoculture-driven model that undermines food sovereignty, depletes our soils, and erodes the resilience of our farmers. "Despite the overwhelming evidence of agroecology's benefits for climate resilience, biodiversity, and nutrition, financial flows continue to prop up industrial agriculture at the expense of people and the planet," she added. "There is a need to come up with a campaign strategy to disrupt the financial systems that sustain industrial agriculture and redirect resources to agroecological practices that nurture our soils, sustain our livelihoods, and secure our food systems," Maina said.
She added that farmers and communities deserve investment and therefore need to mobilise resources for agroecology, develop concrete advocacy action that will drive change at local, national and continental levels, and also strengthen collaboration between civil society, researchers, and policymakers to unify our voices and efforts in reclaiming Africa's food systems.
