CA4SH co-hosted a side event at the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue: Using Evidence to Inform Policy
23 October 2024: The Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) co-hosted a virtual side event with CIFOR-ICRAF and the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) at the Norman A. Borlaug Dialogue of the World Food Prize (WFP). The event highlighted the critical importance of leveraging robust soil health monitoring methodologies to answer key knowledge gaps on the impact of land management and landscape restoration practices on soil health and to translate this information into policy.
The World Food Prize is close to the heart of CA4SH, as Dr Rattan Lal, Distinguished Professor of Soil Science at Ohio State University, is both a CA4SH co-founder and a 2020 WFP Laureate. Dr Lal provided opening remarks for the webinar, underscoring the central role of healthy soils in achieving all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. He emphasized the need for multistakeholder action to drive this multi-faceted solution. Indeed, change can not happen in a vacuum, which is why CA4SH now has over 200 partners who represent all sectors and scales, working together toward the common goal of healthy soil ecosystems, improved livelihoods, mitigation of the climate crisis, and more. Dr Lal’s approach to action for soil health is deeply rooted in compassion, humanism, and supporting farmers and land managers on the ground, especially the rural poor.
CA4SH is also connected with the WFP Foundation through CA4SH Co-Lead Dr Leigh Ann Winowiecki, Soil and Land Health Theme Leader for CIFOR-ICRAF, who was recognized through the inaugural Top Agri-Food Pioneer (TAP) initiative from WFP this year. Dr Winowiecki was TAP-ped for her countless contributions to advancing soil health through robust evidence, landscape health monitoring, and regenerative agriculture. Since 2021, Leigh has been at the helm of CA4SH through advocacy initiatives, work on the ground, and more.
Catalyzing the discussion, Dr Winowiecki shared highlights from her work leading the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) with CIFOR-ICRAF. The LDSF is a systematic field sampling method that utilizes citizen science to create spatially robust maps of soil health and land use features for monitoring landscape health change over time. She emphasized the need for multiple stakeholders to engage in sampling and monitoring of soil and land health saying, “by integrating communities into the monitoring - even decision-makers, policymakers - once we analyze the data together, they are more easily internalized and actioned.” Measuring and tracking soil health over time must be coupled with uptake and ownership by partners for enhanced sustainability.
During the side event, Dr Winowiecki led a panel discussion with Dr Sieglined Snapp (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre), Dr Ekwe Dossa (IFDC), and #Youth4Soil member Ivy Gloria Aiteno (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development, Kenya).
Dr Snapp shared insights from the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) program from the United States Department of Agriculture, citing the need to diversify crop systems away from monocultures of cash crops like corn, wheat, and rice. The VACS approach harnesses public-private partnerships to scale diverse crop systems that support healthy soil ecosystems. VACS also centres gender and social inclusion by examining the role of marginalized communities in farming systems and value chains and seeks solutions that are context-specific and farmer-led. “If there’s one word I want you to take away from VACS, it’s ‘local agency’”, she shared. “learning agenda - ext that incorporates the latest of technologies to … farmer voice.” Dr Snapp also spotlighted the role that youth can play in scaling the production of neglected crop species through innovative entrepreneurship models.
Dr Ekwe Dossa discussed several initiatives from IFDC, all with a common underlying theme: matching soil solutions to specific contexts. The Space2Place initiative from IFDC is a co-learning approach that engages farmers as researchers and peer supports. High rates of degradation are characteristic of soils in the X African countries where IFDC is currently present, but through integrated approaches, this trend can be reversed. Dr Dossa explained that as part of the IFDC process, farmers are presented with tested solutions to scaling soil health, including fertilizer, but only in addition to circular, local inputs. For example, farmers learn new skills like recycling chicken droppings and applying local phosphate-rich rock to their fields to replace the much-needed nutrients that are missing from their soil. In turn, farmers provide feedback on the soil solutions and add to the growing community of practice.
The final panelist, Ivy Gloria Atieno rounded out the session with a poignant call for all stakeholders to include youth voices in every stage of scaling soil health, from designing policies to on-the-ground implementation to monitoring progress over time. Ivy cited the vast presence of youth, especially in her home country of Kenya where 80% of the population is under 35 years old. Ivy is extremely motivated to engage in these processes and recently joined the CA4SH #Youth4Soil Initiative, where she is partnering with youth colleagues from Peru to Kazakhstan and beyond. Through #Youth4Soil and YPARD, Ivy is contributing to a growing movement of young people who are influencing the policies that enable their work now and in the future, supporting their peers, and implementing unique initiatives in their local contexts.
Unfortunately, Phrang Roy, Coordinator of the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP), was pulled away from the session through no fault of his own, but he shared his message with the CA4SH network in a written statement that was shared in part during the webinar. We are extremely pleased to end with the full version of his powerful words below:
TIP STATEMENT (23 OCTOBER 2024) BY PHRANG ROY, COORDINATOR TIP
Indigenous Peoples have a sacred relationship with nature from which stems their values systems that uphold and govern their food systems. Their food systems are very much nature based.
A 2023 study highlighted that most of the Indigenous Peoples Food Systems performed very well in promoting diversity, synergies, efficiency, recycling, cultural and social values of caring and sharing, promotion of circular economies and responsible governance. The Study also found that these food systems have the potential to build dietary diversity, soil health and women and youth empowerment.
Indigenous Peoples approaches to soil healthcare, like their approach to food systems, are very much deeply rooted in their value system and fundamentally stem from their philosophy of nurturing Nature.
Indigenous Peoples communities recognise the importance of specific plants for improving soil health. Indigenous Peoples farmers recognise different soil types and have their own soil classification which guides what crops can be grown well in a particular soil type and in which crop combinations.
We believe that policy approaches must consider the holistic approach of Indigenous Peoples’s soil health management through landscape management approaches. Indigenous Peoples soil health management, unlike conventional soil healthcare, is holistic and spans across scalar spectra – from plot to the landscape. At a minimum, policy approaches need to recognise the potential of Indigenous Peoples soil healthcare approaches and must facilitate the co-creation of soil healthcare practices drawing from the wisdom of Indigenous Peoples practices. This we believe should be a pre-condition before we even consider a soil health monitoring mechanism.
TIP while developing its 2024 Outcome Framework has been discussing with communities their monitoring systems about soil health. The participating communities spoke of the smell and the colour of the soils and the attraction of birds to cultivated and fallow areas as indicators of good soil health.
TIP had therefore invited CA4SH to participate in one of its immersive experiences in Northeast India and Thailand so that such Indigenous Peoples soil health indicators could be further developed and refined in a co-creation way of using contemporary science and Indigenous Peoples insights and systems as equal knowledge holding partners. We need to pursue this idea of co-creation of monitoring tools. But this idea of co-creation will have to be also institutionalised so that we can develop a cadre of people working on soil health who would emerge from new ways of training from farmer to farmer and all the way to PhD programmes. TIP will be pleased to work with CA4SH on this.
Thank you for this opportunity to share our feedback from Indigenous Peoples with those present in the webinar.
