Colombia is home to vast swathes of fertile land producing everything from coffee and sugarcane to bananas, cocoa and rice. Efforts are underway to develop farming practices that it’s hoped will be both sustainable and resilient to future challenges. Global agricultural innovation network” that’s received funding from organizations including the European Commission, African Development Bank and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – farmers in the area covered by the initiative are faced with a number of issues including the impacts of climate variability and climate change. This can in turn hit crop productivity, cause soil degradation and hamper access to water. The project was co-generating evidence with farmers on the practices, the technologies, that can help us to increase productivity and food security, that can help us to increase adaptation to climate change and variability and that can help us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
There is also a social aspect to the project. Men have understood that women are able to do really good things in terms of generating more income. They are becoming more empowered in terms of the household; they have more freedom and they are feeling that they are doing really good things for the community. Focusing on Colombia and the project in Cauca, children there did not want to learn about vegetables. Thousands of miles away, in Brittany, France, biodiversity and ecosystems program director at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, was asked whether small-scale initiatives should be encouraged in order to change people’s mindsets.