Strengthen biocultural innovations for food security

Lazarus Sauti

Collence Chisita, a Harare based knowledge management expert believes that strengthening biocultural innovation is good for the African continent.

He said biocultural innovations are part of the African heritage and biocultural knowledge is critical in supporting food security in the face of climate change.

“Biocultural innovations are part of heritage and they encompass to the knowledge and practices of indigenous people and their biological resources, from the genetic varieties of crops they develop, to the landscapes they create.

“As indigenous peoples have adapted to harsh climates over many generations, bio-cultural knowledge or intellectual capital is critical in supporting food security in the face of climate change and impact of vagaries of nature like drought,” he said.

Chisita therefore urged countries within and across the African continent to revitalise biocultural innovation systems of smallholder farmers to strengthen food security in the face of climate change.

“Biocultural innovation - new kind of innovation - is needed for food and nutrition security in countries within and across Africa,” he said.

To embrace biocultural innovations, Chisita also urged African governments, scientists and key stakeholders in the agricultural sector to work with indigenous or traditional farmers in areas vulnerable to climate change but rich in crop diversity to identify, conserve and spread resilient crop varieties for adaptation.

For this to be effective, he said governments should empower communities to protect their right to bio-cultural knowledge for example knowledge on crop varieties like maize, ground and round nuts.

More so, he said strong policies are needed if Africa is to strengthen biocultural innovations for food security and he urged stakeholders to craft strategies and policies that seek to strengthen biocultural systems.

He said, “Since biocultural innovations are part of indigenous knowledge, governments, scientists and agricultural policy makers should craft strong policies that recognise the close inter-dependence between traditional knowledge, biodiversity, landscapes, customary laws and cultural and spiritual values.”

This is so because strengthening biocultural innovations for food security requires effective and sustainable programmes.

Central to the effective adoption of biocultural innovation is the leadership of local authorities because it holds the negotiation and partnership capacity of the small-scale farmers in most – if not all African communities.

More so, colleges, universities and research institutions are of paramount importance in the quest to promote and strengthen biocultural innovations for food security in African countries. These institutions should therefore generate new evidence of the role of biocultural innovations - such as traditional crops and related practices - in resilience to climate change (for example, coping with drought and pests).

Furthermore, these institutions should develop practical tools and approaches to strengthen local innovation systems and rights, including community seed registers, novel biocultural products, biocultural protocols and participatory plant breeding.

Chisita said, “Strengthening biocultural innovation needs to go further and integrate the local knowledge with the scientific research to establish and coordinate a trans-disciplinary research and action innovative learning system addressing sustainability and resilience.”

A crucial characteristic of transdisciplinarity is the inclusion of stakeholders in defining research objectives and strategies in order to better incorporate the diffusion of learning produced by the research and the adoption of biocultural innovations to ensure food security in Africa.

It is critical to note that biocultural innovations can also be achieved with on-farm conservation initiatives, biodiversity conservation as well as utilisations that represent the biggest part of the food system.

Accordingly, African governments should support on-farm conservation initiatives, stimulate small-scale farmers and encourage them to cultivate traditional local crops.

For example, through the implementation of programs to strengthen biocultural innovations of food systems, governments could indirectly set systems of payments for environmental services.

More so, governments could give small-scale producers a better, sustainable and inclusive access to local and national markets.

Krystyna Swiderska, senior researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London said, “Governments (in countries within and across Africa) need to recognise that innovation by farmers is crucial for food security – it is as important as scientific innovation.”

Accordingly, they need to invest in systems that support, encourage and protect the innovation that happens in farmers’ fields and in partnership with scientists.

Swiderska advices: “One step would be to legally recognise more indigenous biocultural heritage areas and protect them as centres of innovation with secure land rights.

“In such areas, farmers can work jointly and equitably with scientists to improve local, but also global, food security by enriching the genetic basis for crop breeding and developing new resilient crop varieties.”

It should therefore be the responsibility of African governments and agricultural policy decision makers to promote enabling policies at local, national, regional and continental levels, which support biocultural innovation, such as ‘biocultural heritage indications’ to protect novel products.