Africa Fights US Push for “Climate-Smart Agriculture” at Climate Summit

My IATP colleagues are in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt at the COP27 climate summit, joining up with the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) to demand that agroecology be put at the center of the effort to help developing countries adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate. As AFSA shows in a great new report, “The Climate Emergency: How Africa can Survive and Thrive”, they are pushing back against efforts by the U.S. government and others to promote business-friendly “climate-smart agriculture,” with its continued dependence on fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. African farmers call such policies “climate-stupid agriculture.”

Bill Gates may call such fertilizers “magical,” but they are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. My research has shown that they are doing little to increase productivity in Africa and much to undermine small-scale farmers’ climate resilience. A new report from IATP and GRAIN shows that multinational fertilizer companies are profiteering off the Russia-Ukraine war, quadrupling their profits while developing countries see their fertilizer bills soar.