Agroecology)and)climatechangein)South)Africa ......1!! Introduction)!...

Agroecology and climate change in South Africa: The contribution agriculture can make to reversing global warming

Prepared for AIDC/One Million Climate Jobs campaign

August 2013

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Table of contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1

The agri-‐food system and climate change .............................................................................................. 2

Overview of the global carbon cycle ...................................................................................................... 4

Carbon sources sinks and fluxes ......................................................................................................... 4

The soil-‐plant ecosystem .................................................................................................................... 6

Reducing atmospheric carbon and nitrogen ...................................................................................... 8

Primary agricultural production and greenhouse gas emissions in South Africa ................................... 9

Livestock and climate change in South Africa .................................................................................. 10

Synthetic fertiliser use and climate change in South Africa ............................................................. 12

Agroecological responses and challenges ............................................................................................ 13

“Oxidise less, photosynthesise more” .............................................................................................. 15

Livestock and holistic management ................................................................................................. 18

What climate impact might this have? ............................................................................................. 19

Challenges ........................................................................................................................................ 19

Possible employment/livelihood impacts ............................................................................................ 20

Technologies and scale ..................................................................................................................... 20

Employment and livelihoods in primary agriculture ........................................................................ 22

Extension and R&D ........................................................................................................................... 24

Practical starting points ........................................................................................................................ 25

Acronyms .............................................................................................................................................. 27

Glossary ................................................................................................................................................ 28

Links ...................................................................................................................................................... 29

References ............................................................................................................................................ 31

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Introduction The focus of this paper is on climate change and the agri-‐food system, especially looking at primary agriculture, i.e. the actual production of agricultural products on the farm, as opposed to inputs such as fertilizer, animal feed as well as processing, transport and storage, for example. It is clear from the available information that primary agriculture produces the largest greenhouse gas emissions throughout agri-‐food chains. Climate change is one of nine key ecosystem processes that are currently under pressure, to a greater or lesser extent as a result of human activities1 (Rockstrom et al., 2009). It is one of the three ecosystem processes that are already exceeding their safe operating boundaries, the other two being loss of biodiversity and the nitrogen cycle (Dietz & O’Neill, 2013:20). These are all connected, along with desertification, acidification and other ecological factors we are facing in land and water ecosystems as a whole. The biosphere (the arena of life on earth) and atmosphere (the air surrounding the earth) are systems that generally are balanced. The unique conditions this balance creates allowed for life to arise on the planet. However human activities threaten that balance. One of the most important is the gradual warming of the whole ecosystem caused by the release of gasses into the atmosphere that are not taken out again in a short time frame. Scientists fear that human driven changes to climate may produce temperatures between 2-‐4.5oC warmer than current average global temperatures (IPCC, 2007:12). In Africa this could be up to 7oC according to the United Nations Development Programme2.These temperature increases can reach a point where the delicate balance in the biosphere and atmosphere is disrupted, with potentially disastrous consequences. Humanity can respond in one of two ways to this challenge. We can either reduce our greenhouse gas emissions so that we are not putting more gasses into the air than we are taking out of the air. This requires large-‐scale changes to industry, transport, housing and manufacturing. On the other side, we can try to increase absorption of these gasses out of the atmosphere at a rate higher than we are putting them in. Agriculture has a major role to play in responding to the challenges of climate change. The industrial agri-‐food model that relies on fossil fuel inputs (fertilisers, agrochemicals, tractors and other industrial machinery), intensive livestock production and long distance transport (including by air) is responsible for producing a large share of greenhouse gas emissions. We must change the way we produce and distribute food so we can reduce these emissions. On the other hand, agriculture is perhaps the best placed economic activity in efforts to absorb greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere. Photosynthesis – the basic functioning of plants in combining sunlight and water into energy – is responsible for net removal of 98% of all greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. This paper looks at both sides of agriculture: the activities responsible for emitting greenhouse gasses (especially livestock and the use of synthetic fertilisers) and the activities that can increase absorption and long term storage (sequestration) of these gasses in a beneficial form in the soil. The ecological challenges face humanity at the same time as economic systems are increasingly concentrated, causing ever-‐larger numbers of people to be passive consumers of goods and services produced elsewhere rather than active economic participants. While more jobs may be required, we also need a change in the economic system that has some people working for others without any decision-‐making power as to what to produce or how to distribute the wealth created. Again 1 Climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, global freshwater use, changes in land use, atmosphere aerosol loading and chemical pollution 2 http://web.undp.org/africa/climate_change.shtml

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agriculture has a key role to play. The majority of the world’s agricultural producers are small-‐scale (producing on small pieces of land and/or with relatively small financial turnovers). They are not working directly for someone else in a “job” but are critical actors in the agricultural and food economy. In South Africa, small-‐scale agriculture was long ago driven to the margins of subsistence and a large corporate model has become dominant especially in the past 20 years. But many middle sized commercial farmers are finding it difficult to make ends meet, and the chances of a significant increase in formal agricultural employment with decent standards does not look very promising. This paper considers the connection between changes to respond to the climate challenges required in agricultural production and distribution, and the employment or livelihood implications of these changes. While there is little empirical work on these so far, we can begin to see the possibility of a radical change in the structure of production and distribution with a beneficial effect on drawing many more people actively into economic activity. In preparing this paper I have relied heavily on an excellent book by Judith Schwartz (2013), which directly answers many questions about the possible role of agriculture in reversing climate change in a very practical way. It is within human capability and knowledge. Activists need to work with farmers and food producers to identify and put into practice alternative ways of producing that are less ecologically damaging. Agricultural production is essential for the survival of the human species. A reduction in productivity will mean less food at higher prices. The losers will first be those who do not have enough money to buy food, and those who do not have access to land or other resources to produce food for themselves. Without changes in the ways we produce and distribute food we can expect the further growth of enclaves of wealth surrounded by a sea of poverty. This paper starts with an overview of the role of the agri-‐food system3 in greenhouse gas emissions, then turns to some of the basic science behind climate change, focusing on carbon pools and fluxes and the soil-‐plant ecosystem. It then looks at greenhouse gas emissions in South African agriculture, with some focus on livestock and synthetic fertiliser use as the two major contributors to greenhouse gases in our agri-‐food system. Possible agroecological responses to the challenges of greenhouse gas emissions are suggested, and connections are made between these activities and jobs or livelihood4 opportunities. Very little work has been done on the overall employment or livelihood impacts of adopting agroecological practices, and it is only possible to make some very broad statements at this stage. The paper concludes with a look at points where we might begin to do some practical work, and an initial list of organisations and contacts we could draw into a campaign.

The agri-‐food system and climate change There are different estimates on the contribution of agri-‐food production and distribution to overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GRAIN (2011) estimates up to half of all human-‐generated GHG emissions are from the food system. GRAIN identifies chemical fertilisers, heavy machinery and other petroleum-‐dependent farm technologies as important contributors to emissions in production. Destruction of forests and grasslands for expansion of cultivation and grazing, and the creation of climate damaging waste through too much packaging, processing, refrigeration and long-‐distance transport of food are other causes GRAIN identifies (Table 1).

3 The ways in which agricultural products and food are produced and distributed 4 The ways in which people meet their basic needs from day to day

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Table 1: Estimated contribution of industrial food system to total GHG emissions % of total anthropogenic

emissions Agricultural production 11-‐15 Land use change and deforestation 15-‐18 Processing, transport, packaging and retail 15-‐20 Waste 2-‐4 Total 43-‐57 Source: GRAIN, 2011:4 Other studies show slightly lower estimates than this, although the estimates are still high. According to Engelhaupt (2008:3482), food production results in one third of total global emissions. A study on the food system in the United Kingdom worked out that food contributed 19% of total GHG emissions (Garnett, 2008). Vermeulen et al. (2012) calculate that food systems contribute 19-‐29% of total human-‐produced greenhouse gas emissions. A lifecycle assessment approach (LCA) is useful because it looks at the whole value chain, not just at primary production. A simple value chain includes production inputs (especially fertilisers, pesticides and feed for livestock); primary production (the actual production of crops or animals on the farm); transport, storage and processing; distribution including retail (such as supermarkets), and consumption (eating the food or otherwise using the product). But everyone agrees that the major emissions in the agri-‐food system are from primary production. Growing and harvesting agricultural products is responsible for 83% of emissions in the United States (Engelhaupt, 2008:3482). Vermeulen et al. (2012) estimate that agricultural production, including land cover change5, contributes 80-‐86% of total food systems emissions. Most of this is from actual production. Pre-‐production (fertiliser manufacturing, energy use in animal feed production and pesticide production) is equal to about 5-‐6% of emissions from agricultural production itself (Vermeulen, et al., 2012:198). As we will see in more detail below, however, the contribution of fertilisers and animal feed production in releasing greenhouse gases in primary production are important, so it is not only about their manufacture but also their use. Engelhaupt (2008) indicates that red meat and dairy products are the agricultural sectors making the largest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (30% and 18% in the US). Cereals/carbohydrates (11%), fruit and vegetables (11%) and chicken/fish/eggs (10%) are other important emitters. A major study by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed that primary production of livestock is the major contributor to emissions, with 93% of emissions from dairy farming from the start of the process until the farm gate (FAO, 2010). A South African life cycle assessment on dairy in the Western Cape found that primary production accounted for 51-‐59% of total greenhouse gas emissions from dairy (in carbon dioxide equivalents6 or CO2e), processing was 10-‐18%, the end consumer produced 13-‐18% of emissions, retail produced 10-‐13%, packaging was 4-‐6% and distribution was 2-‐4% (Notten & Mason-‐Jones, 2013:36). The share from retail and processing is quite high because of the use of coal-‐based electricity. The high proportion of emissions from the end consumer is mainly transport of the product to their houses, with use of private cars producing high levels of emissions. The range in estimates arises from differences in farming practices. 5 Changes between one use of land (e.g. forests) and another (e.g. agriculture or cities) 6 A quantity that describes, for a given mixture and amount of greenhouse gas, the amount of CO2 that would have the same global warming potential (GWP), when measured over a specified timescale (generally, 100 years) -‐ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_equivalent

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Vermeulen et al. (2012:198) worked out that the contribution of all post-‐production emissions is about 10-‐17% of total emissions from the agri-‐food system. They drew from studies in China, because there is no information from other places. They thought China could be used as an average because China is a large middle-‐income country. Refrigeration (32% of emissions after production), and then storage, packaging and transport (26%) are the largest emitters after production. GRAIN (2011:3) estimated processing and packaging of food at around 8-‐10% of total GHG emissions. Studies of the European Union found that about a quarter of overall transportation involves commercial food transport. All transport accounts for about 25% of overall GHG emissions, therefore food transport is around 6% of total (GRAIN, 2011:3). It should be noted that this is in highly industrialised systems, so transport emissions will be higher than in less industrialised countries. As countries urbanise and industrialise, transport emissions will increase. Food retail is estimated to produce around 1-‐2% of total GHG emissions (GRAIN, 2011:3). Food refrigeration contributes an estimated 3-‐3.5% of total emissions in the UK, with about 2.4% in manufacturing, retail and domestic food refrigeration, and another 1% for refrigerated transport of imports (Garnett, 2007). Tristram Stuart (2009:302-‐303) estimates that fully one third of world food supplies are wasted, either through inefficient feeding of surpluses to animals, waste in the supply chain or food eaten in excess of needs. Apart from the moral questions this poses, if food waste was halved, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 5% or more. And if trees were planted on land currently used to grow wasted surpluses, further greenhouse gas emissions could be offset (Stuart, 2009:xix). The overall picture, then, is that the agri-‐food system is a big contributor to total human-‐generated greenhouse gas emissions, even though estimates vary from 19% to 57%. A lot depends on how food is produced and distributed in particular places. In agri-‐food systems, primary production is by far the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, with general agreement that it contributes more than 80% of total emissions from the agri-‐food system. And within primary production, livestock and livestock products are the biggest contributors, though this may include production of feed crops. The focus of this paper is on primary production as the priority for intervention, given its overall contribution to agri-‐food greenhouse gas emissions. But we shouldn’t think of agriculture only in terms of how much GHG emissions it is producing, that is, purely as a problem. Agriculture can play a very important, if not central, role in reducing atmospheric carbon to sustainable levels and at the same time responding to other ecological challenges.

Overview of the global carbon cycle

Carbon sources sinks and fluxes Carbon is one of the basic building blocks of life: “all living things are made of elements, the most abundant of which are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorous. Carbon is the best of these at joining with other elements to form compounds necessary for life, such as sugars, starches, fats and proteins. Together, all these forms of carbon account for approximately half of the total dry mass of living things” (University of New Hampshire, n.d.:1). Carbon is also found in the Earth’s atmosphere, soils, oceans and crust. These are carbon pools or reservoirs. Any movement of carbon between these pools is called a flux. Fluxes connect reservoirs together to create cycles and feedbacks (University of New Hampshire, n.d.:1).

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When there are too many greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and others), they cause a heat build-‐up with negative ecological consequences. Increasing emissions of these gases caused by human activities are a dangerous threat (IPCC, 2007) which has the potential to alter or destroy the Earth’s ecosystem which sustains life. The release of carbon into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels, deforestation and other carbon-‐generating human activities have not been matched by increasing absorption of carbon by natural sinks. The result is imbalances in the ecosystem (University of New Hampshire, n.d.:2). Figure 1 shows that the largest carbon pool by far is the Earth’s crust where it is stored in sedimentary rocks, equivalent to about 100 trillion Gigatons (Gt)7 of carbon. Another 4,000 Gt are stored as hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) in the Earth’s crust. Figure 1: A simplified diagram of the global carbon cycle

Pool sizes, shown in blue, are given in petagrams (Gt) of carbon. Fluxes, shown in red, are in Gt per year. Source: University of New Hampshire, n.d.:3 The Earth’s oceans contain about 38,000 Gt of carbon, with about 1,000 Gt of carbon near the surface of the ocean actively involved in carbon cycling (it is available to be moved from or to the earth or water) (University of New Hampshire, n.d.:4). The atmosphere holds about 750 Gt of carbon, mainly in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) and a lesser amount of other compounds such as methane (CH4). CO2 is only a small part of the atmosphere. About 78% of the air is nitrogen (N2), 21% is oxygen, and argon is another 0.9% of the atmosphere (total 99.9%). The remaining 0.1% is mostly water vapour, with CO2 and other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide only making up a very small part of the

7 One billion tons

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atmosphere, but with an influence out of proportion to their presence (Roston, 2008:169). Water vapour in the atmosphere has a major warming effect, but it recycles in a few days or weeks while about a third of CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years or more. The more carbon is in the atmosphere, the longer it stays, and the hotter it gets (Roston, 2008:168). Terrestrial (land) ecosystems hold carbon in the form of plants, animals, soils and micro-‐organisms (bacteria and fungi). Of these, plants and soils are by far the largest pools, and store around 2,060 Gt of carbon between them. Unlike the Earth’s crust and oceans, most of this carbon is in organic forms (living things and decomposed remains of formerly living things). Terrestrial ecosystems are the focus of this paper, and shortly we will look in more detail at the working of soil-‐plant interactions. Life on Earth has survived for as long as it has because there has been a balance in the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere and being absorbed back into the Earth. This has allowed the formation of the right ecological conditions for life to flourish. But human-‐generated activities over the past 150 years have caused an imbalance by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than is being reabsorbed. Figure 1 shows the estimated amount of carbon that moves between different pools every year. Burning fossil fuels release between 4 and 6 Gt/year of carbon into the atmosphere without any counterbalance of drawing carbon out. Deforestation (cutting down trees and not replacing them) and land-‐use change (paving over soil or otherwise stripping land of plant cover) release another 1 Gt of carbon into the atmosphere every year. This carbon in the air causes the ecosystem to heat up, which is ok in some instances, but can also have unpredictable effects on the fragile balance within which we can thrive. But the main movement of carbon between pools is in the terrestrial ecosystem (plants and soil). Photosynthesis8 draws 120 Gt of carbon from the atmosphere every year (of which half goes into the soil through the absorption of dead organic matter). Trees are the main store of carbon amongst plants because wood is dense and trees can be large (University of New Hampshire, n.d.:5). This flux of carbon out of the atmosphere is balanced by the release of 60 Gt/year of carbon into the atmosphere by plant respiration (breathing) and another 60 Gt per year by soil respiration. Photosynthesis accounts for 98% of movement of carbon out of the atmosphere (Soil Carbon Centre, 2004). This is of absolute importance, because the aim is to move extra carbon out of the atmosphere. Increasing photosynthesis, and keeping the carbon in the terrestrial ecosystem once it has been brought out of the atmosphere, is the only way to do it. That means storing it in the soil, which is like a sponge for carbon because human activities have depleted an estimated 50-‐80% of soil carbon stores since the start of the industrial era (Schwartz, 2013:12).

The soil-‐plant ecosystem One of the most important functions of soil is the recycling of nitrogen, phosphorous, carbon and other nutrients. This occurs in interaction with plants, and the two cannot be separated in this process.

8 Photosynthesis is the plant’s ability to take energy from the Sun and combine it with water and carbon dioxide to make food and mass. It is the basic process for life on earth.

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On short time scales (seconds and minutes) plants draw carbon (the basis for plant organic compounds) out of the atmosphere. Christine Jones, a soil scientist from Australia, talks about the “liquid carbon pathway”, with the plant as a two-‐way pump. “The upward flow is water, minerals and other substances the plant needs; the downward flow is soluble carbon (dissolved organic carbon) that seeps into and out through the plant’s roots so as to feed other organisms in the soil” (Schwartz, 2013:34). These other organisms are vital to the task of capturing and storing carbon in the soil. Mycorrhizal fungi (meaning ‘root fungi’) forge symbiotic associations9 with the roots of plants. They get their energy in liquid form from the roots of plants, attaching themselves to the plant root and producing a network of threads that extend the root system into the soil. They act as a connection between the plant and the soil, drawing carbon from the plant and in exchange taking nutrients from the soil, such as phosphorous, zinc, calcium, boron, copper and organic nitrogen, and providing these to the plant (Jones, 2009:4). Mycorrhizal fungi work together with many other living organisms in the soil that assist the process. Mycorrhizae play a critical role in forming soil. On longer time scales, carbon from dead plant material can be incorporated into soils where it might reside for years, decades or centuries before being broken down by soil microbes and released back into the atmosphere (University of New Hampshire, n.d.). The other side of the cycle is respiration (where some of the carbon is released back into the atmosphere), and oxidation or combustion (burning), which turn carbon compounds back into CO2 and water and release energy. Carbon isn’t the only greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are dominated by non-‐CO2 gases methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from crop and livestock production and management activities (FAOSTAT, 2013)10. Methane is a natural gas emitted through anaerobic respiration (breathing without oxygen) by organisms that live in landfills and the guts of ruminants11 (e.g. cattle) and termites. It is a very strong greenhouse gas, with about 25 times the warming effect of CO2 over 100 years12. Methane lasts for a shorter time in the atmosphere than CO2, but its effect is far greater during this time.

9 Relationships in which both the plants and the fungi benefit from the interaction 10 http://faostat.fao.org/site/705/default.aspx 11 Mammals that digest plants by softening them in one part of the stomach first, mainly through the actions of bacteria, and then regurgitating the semi-‐digested mass and chewing it again 12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane

Box 1: Some key soil facts

• A sample of mineral soil consists of (by mass) minerals (25-‐95%), water (15-‐35%), air (15-‐35%) and organic matter (5%).

• In some temperate ecosystems, 5 tons of living organisms can be found in one hectare of soil – most of which still need to be studied.

• Soil can reduce the risk of floods and protect underground water supplies. Soil organic matter can store more than 10 times its weight of water.

• The soils of Africa store about 200 Gigatons of organic carbon – about 2.5 times the amount contained in the plant communities of the continent.

Source: Jones et al., 2013:9

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Unlike for carbon, the atmosphere is the sole major nitrogen sink, with 99.999% of all nitrogen stored in the atmosphere (FAO, 2006:102). The molecular nitrogen (N2) found in the atmosphere is neither a greenhouse gas nor an air polluter. Although N2 is found everywhere in the atmosphere, it is not readily available for plant or animal use. Only a few natural processes (including nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria) can convert it into usable form. Lack of availability of nitrogen in the form needed is a limit to plant growth13. Humans invented techniques (known as the Haber-‐Bosch process after its inventors) in the 1930s to produce nitrogen synthetically (through manufacturing) for crop production (FAO, 2006:86). Nitrogen that can be used by plants and animals is called reactive nitrogen (Nr) because it takes a chemical form that can react with other chemicals. ) Reactive nitrogen, especially in the form of nitrous oxide (N2O) is a very strong greenhouse gas, with 298 times the warming effect of CO2 over 100 years. Thus despite its low concentrations in the atmosphere, it is the third largest contributor to greenhouse gases (behind CO2 and CH4)14. The use of synthetic fertilisers led to an increase in plant yields, but also to an increase in reactive nitrogen in the ecosystem, because reactive nitrogen is inefficiently used by plants and animals. About 50% of synthetic nitrogen from fertilisers is transported downstream or downwind. Reactive nitrogen has become widely dispersed in the water and air, and is accumulating in the environment because creation rates are greater than removal rates (Galloway, et al., 2003:342-‐3). Soils reach a nitrogen saturation point, and the excess either oxidises to become N2O or leaches into water as nitrate (Schwartz, 2013:49). Seepage of reactive nitrogen into water ecosystems leads to eutrophication (too much plant growth and decay), hypoxia (loss of oxygen in the water), loss of biodiversity, increase in acid levels and habitat degradation (Galloway, et al., 2003:343). Too much reactive nitrogen in the soil removes soil carbon. It speeds up the growth of micro-‐organisms that feed on nitrogen at the expense of other soil dwellers, and these microbes eat the humus (Schwartz, 2013:49-‐50). Humus is the nutrient-‐rich layer of the soil plants require to survive. Too much nitrogen also decreases biodiversity in many natural habitats (Calloway, et al., 2003:343). Human activity is thought to produce about 30% of all nitrous oxide released into the atmosphere, with livestock producing about 65% of human-‐related nitrous oxide15. Elsewhere the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says most human-‐generated N2O released into the atmosphere is caused by the application of nitrogen-‐based fertilisers16.

Reducing atmospheric carbon and nitrogen There are only a few places that humans can intervene to reduce the levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. We can either intervene to reduce their release into the atmosphere, or to increase absorption (especially of carbon) out of the atmosphere. Reducing the amount of greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere means reductions in burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees. Primary agriculture has an obvious role here, since some fossil fuel emissions come from agricultural system (machinery) and agriculture (especially industrial agriculture) is responsible for clearing forests to expand cattle grazing.

13 Although this is not the case in all ecosystems, for example tropical ecosystems are limited by phosphorous rather than nitrogen. 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide 16 http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/n2o.html

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We can also reduce unnecessary synthetic nitrogen use in agriculture. The problem with nitrogen is that we need additional nitrogen for agriculture, because natural processes do not convert enough into a form we can use in agriculture. We can improve the way we use nitrogen in agriculture, especially as half of synthetic nitrogen leaks out of the system in a form that contributes to global warming. One way is to recycle nitrogen back into agriculture again, for example by using crop residues and manure as fertilisers About 13% of reactive nitrogen produced by animals can easily be collected from intensive feedlots17, and 39% of human waste (the share that goes through urban municipal sewerage systems) is also easily collectible. It can either be removed or used productively such as for biogas for energy production (Galloway, et al., 2003:353). The only possible way to draw carbon out of the atmosphere is to increase photosynthesis, which means encouraging more plant growth. Before dealing with the details of these proposals, we should look at GHG emissions from South African agriculture to see what other issues there might be.

Primary agricultural production and greenhouse gas emissions in South Africa In South Africa, primary agriculture produced about 5% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2000. In comparison the ‘energy sector’ contributed around 79% (DEAT 2009:iii-‐iv). The share of primary agriculture in South Africa is slightly lower than estimates elsewhere as indicated in the section on agri-‐food chain emissions above. This may partly be because of methodologies based on estimates and standard conversion rates rather than actual measurements. Of course, all economic sectors consume energy and so that has to be distributed into the various sub-‐sectors, including agriculture. According to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), energy sector emissions in agriculture were 3,718 Gg CO2e in 2000 (99.7% of which was CO2). This equals just 1% of total energy emissions in South Africa (DEAT 2009:20). Agricultural machinery is reported separately from transport emissions where possible (DEAT 2009:26), and agricultural vehicles on paved roads are included under road transport (DEAT 2009:27). But energy use in agriculture is obviously not a priority point for intervention at the outset because it is a small amount. Table 2: South African agricultural greenhouse gas emissions/removals (Gigagrams), 2000 GHG source and sink category CO2 CH4 N2O Total 3. Agriculture, forestry and land use -‐20 279.43 22 136.94 18 636 20 493.51 A. Enteric fermentation18 18 969.09 18 969.09 B. Manure management19 1 904.70 415.40 2 320.10 C. Forest land -‐13 020.52 -‐13 020.52 D. Cropland -‐7 730.15 -‐7 730.15 F. Wetlands 190.89 190.89 I. GHG emissions from biomass burning 471.24 1072.26 793.6 2 337.10 M. Indirect N2O emissions from managed soils

17 427 17 427

Source: DEAT 2009:iv Agriculture, forestry and land use had net emissions of 20,492.51 Gg CO2e in 2000, according to the latest South African government statistics (Table 2). This is mainly in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. With reference to CO2 itself, agriculture and forestry is a major carbon reservoir.

17 Confined or concentrated animal feeding operations where livestock are fattened for market 18 The digestive process by which carbohydrates are broken down by microorganisms into simple molecules for absorption into the bloodstream of an animal 19 The capture, storage, treatment, and utilization of animal manures

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If we break down the information in this table, we can make it more readable: Livestock: enteric fermentation plus manure management = net emissions of 21,289.19 Gg CO2e Forests and cropping: forest land plus crop land plus indirect N2O emissions from managed soils = net storage of 3,323.67 Gg CO2e – biomass burning could be added to this, but there would still be a net capture and long-‐term storage of 986.57 Gg CO2e. So according to these figures, the major challenge in South African primary agriculture is enteric fermentation, followed by indirect N2O emissions from managed soils. Table 3: South African agricultural GHG emissions, 201020

Item CO2e (Gigagrams)

% of total

Enteric fermentation 12,666.82 47.5 Manure left on pasture 9,704.69 36.4 Synthetic fertilizers 2,570.19 9.6 Crop residues21 732.92 2.7 Manure management 605.08 2.3 Burning crop residues 198.65 0.7 Manure applied to soils 183.62 0.7 Cultivated organic soils 25.91 0.09 Rice cultivation 6.47 0.02 Total 26,694.34 100 Source: FAOSTAT, http://faostat.fao.org/site/705/default.aspx Later figures published for South Africa by FAO (FAOSTAT, 2010) show an overall increase in CO2e produced by agriculture and forestry, but they do not provide a breakdown of the types of gases emitted (Table 3). The figures emphasise the point that livestock produces the main emissions: enteric fermentation and manure left on pastures contribute 84% of all primary agricultural emissions between them. Synthetic fertilisers contribute another 9.6%. So these three produce nearly 95% of emissions from agricultural production, and we need to focus on them. Much smaller amounts are released through crop residues and manure management.

Livestock and climate change in South Africa There is some debate about the role of livestock in climate change. It is a difficult question because of the wide variation in structures and practices of production, for example industrial feedlots, extensive grazing on grasslands and pastures, and extensive grazing with supplementary feed production. Each of these has its own processes that release and absorb greenhouse gas emissions. As we have seen, the largest greenhouse gas emissions in agrofood systems including in South Africa are from enteric fermentation from ruminants (for South Africa particularly cattle, sheep and goats). This functioning of the ruminant’s gut, incorporating micro-‐organisms, produces methane. In addition, nitrogen fertilisers for the production of feed crops, and emissions from animal manure exposed to the sun both release reactive nitrogen into the air (FAO, 2006). As we saw earlier methane and nitrous oxide are both far stronger, unit for unit, as greenhouse gases than CO2.

20 All computed at Tier 1 following the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Vol. 4, Chapters 2,5,10 & 11; available by country, with global coverage and relative to the period 1990-‐2010, with annual updates. 21 Materials left in the field after the crop has been harvested, including stalks, stems, leaves and pods.

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In South Africa, about three quarters of beef sold through markets passes through feedlots (SAFA, 2013), although the majority of cattle are not marketed in the formal system (Palmer & Ainslie, 2006). There is a split in systems of production. Most resource-‐poor farmers rely on uncontrolled extensive grazing without providing additional feed. Both feedlots and uncontrolled extensive grazing have damaging ecological effects, including unnecessarily high levels of reactive nitrogen production and release. There is disagreement amongst scientists about how important feedlot production is in producing greenhouse gases. Thinking about climate change, the main issue is manure management. Feedlots handle manure in liquid form, in lagoons or holding tanks, which are ideal for creating methane. If cattle graze on fields in lowered concentration rather than in feedlots (where they do not graze but are fed in closed areas), the manure becomes fertiliser (Schwartz, 2013:27). Others argue that intensive (feedlot) production is better than grazing because it limits overgrazing on large pieces of land (FAO, 2006; Galloway et al., 2003). But this depends on grazing management. To manage methane emissions from existing feedlots, technologies (such as controlled anaerobic digestion in a closed vessel) exist to produce biogas. Using this gas for energy can reduce methane emissions by up to three quarters in warm climates and by half in cool climates when compared with storage in liquid slurry form (FAO, 2006:121). This can significantly reduce nitrogen losses in industrial feedlots. Production of feed crops for concentrated feed uses a lot of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, producing a large amount of extra reactive nitrogen that damages the environment. Maize is a very heavy nitrogen feeder, and 47% of maize in South Africa is used for livestock feed (Grant, et al., 2012:13). An increase in cattle grazing in fields will reduce nitrogen fertiliser use by replacing feed crops with natural grass. When we think about feedlots we should not only think of the climate effects but should also think about animal health and social issues. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or ‘mad cow’ disease) started in feedlots when non-‐meat eating animals (cattle) were fed the diseased remains of other animals. Socially we should think about the impact of the ever-‐greater concentration of ownership and exclusion of most people from active participation in production created by feedlots.

Box 2: Livestock and climate change globally • Livestock accounts for 40% of agricultural GDP globally • It employs an estimated 1.3 billion people • Livestock products provide one-‐third of humanity’s protein intake • Grazing covers 26% of the ice-‐free terrestrial surface of the planet • Feedcrop production covers another 33% of total land • Overgrazing, leading to land degradation, and deforestation for expansion of grazing are

major problems • Livestock is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e, and 9%

of human-‐generated emissions • Livestock emits 37% of human-‐generated methane and 65% of human-‐generated N2O • Ammonia emissions add to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems. Source: FAO, 2006

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But it is not only commercial farming that poses ecological challenges. Uncontrolled extensive grazing is also a problem, leading to overgrazing and soil and veld degradation of grasslands. In South Africa degradation is worst in the communal areas of the former homelands (although this isn’t necessarily because of the type of ownership – it is more a question of grazing management techniques). In the early 1990s 52% of cattle in South Africa were held on less than one-‐fifth (17%) of the total farming area in the former homelands (Palmer & Ainslie, 2006:12). There are high stock numbers in these areas with few or no controls over movement and gazing patterns (Palmer & Ainslie, 2006:19). Grasslands are major carbon sinks, so their degradation both releases greenhouse gases and prevents the sequestration (storage) of these gases in the land. In Southern Africa as a whole, nitrous oxide emissions from livestock went down a lot between 1970 and 2005 mainly because people were burning less grassland. Fire is an important management tool in keeping grassland systems operating properly in the region (Trollope & Trollope, 2004) and grassland burning was still the biggest source of nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture in the region in 2005 (about 52% of emissions) (Hickman, et al., 2011:371). Emissions from pastures, ranges and paddocks constituted another 34% of agricultural nitrous oxide in 2005. So we need to think of ways to change practices in both commercial and ‘traditional’ livestock systems. As noted earlier, there is a debate about the role of livestock in methane production. It is not clear how methane and the number of ruminants are related. A joint programme of FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) noted that between 1999 and 2007 atmospheric methane concentrations were stable while the population of ruminants worldwide increased rapidly (FAO/IAEA, 2010). According to FAO (2006:96) “assessing methane emission from enteric fermentation in any particular country requires a detailed description of the livestock population (species, age and productivity categories), combined with information of the daily feed intake and the feed’s methane conversion rate”. This means we have to look at the relationship in specific contexts. According to a FAO report (2010), emissions from dairy production are about 4% of total global greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, looking throughout the value chain (cradle to grave). Milk production, processing and transportation account for about 2.7% of total emissions. Sub-‐Saharan Africa has the highest emissions per kilogram of milk products of any region in the world (FAO, 2010:10). Grassland systems have higher emissions than mixed farming systems (where crops, animals and trees are grown together). About 93% of total dairy emissions on average are from cradle to farm gate. This means inputs and primary production are the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain. Methane is the main greenhouse gas (about 52%) produced by dairy, while nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions from dairy are greater in industrial production systems than in less industrialised ones. As indicated earlier, an LCA done on dairy in the Western Cape showed primary production accounted for 51-‐59% of total greenhouse gas emissions from dairy (Notten & Mason-‐Jones, 2013). Ruminant livestock do not use nitrogen very efficiently (there is a lot of waste), and absorb only about 14-‐20% of nitrogen from feed. The rest is released, although – if used as organic fertiliser, or directly deposited on grassland or crop fields – some reactive nitrogen can re-‐enter the crop cycle (FAO, 2006:107).

Synthetic fertiliser use and climate change in South Africa Agricultural soils in South Africa were a net sink of CO2 in the early 1990s (DEAT 2009:54). The main greenhouse gas emissions from cropping, as indicated above, are from reactive nitrogen emissions from fertilisers. For Southern Africa as a whole, direct emissions of N2O (production by bacteria in

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agricultural fields) was only 7.7% of total agricultural N2O emissions in 2005. Indirect emissions (leaching22, runoff etc) were just 2.5% of the total (Hickman, et al., 2011:371). One reason these are so low is because of low levels of fertiliser use in most of Southern Africa. South Africa uses much more fertiliser (51.34kg/ha on average between 2002 and 2009) compared with other countries in the region. For example, Mozambique only used an average of 4.43kg/ha in the same period, with other countries in the region going up to 34kg/ha23. The emphasis of the Green Revolution24 is to increase fertiliser use, and this is supported by African governments in the 2006 Abuja Declaration25 on expanding fertiliser use. As we have seen, some fertiliser addition is needed for plants to grow. Although these inputs are not always ideal (e.g. reactive nitrogen has damaging ecological effects), they make an essential contribution to food production. But the indiscriminate use of these chemicals upsets the balance of the ecosystem and may not always be the best answer. Table 4: Estimated fertiliser use in South Africa by crop (‘000 tons of nutrients and % of total), 2006-‐2007 Cereals Sugar cane Fruit & veg Oilseeds Other crops Total Maize Total cereals N+P+K 310 (39.5%) 378 (48.1%) 142 (18%) 112 (14.3%) 35 (4.5%) 119 (15.1%) 786 N 206 (48%) 243 (56.6%) 49 (11.5%) 49 (11.5%) 18 (4.2%) 68 (15.9%) 429 P2O5 84 (41%) 107 (52.5%) 27 (13%) 24 (12%) 14 (6.9%) 31 (15.2%) 204 K2O 21 (13.5%) 29 (19%) 66 (43%) 38 (25%) 2 (1.3%) 18 (11.8%) 153 *N=nitrogen; P2O5=phosphorous; K2O=potassium Source: Heffer, 2008:9 In South Africa maize is by far the largest user of fertilisers (40% of total NPK26), followed by sugar cane and fruit and veg (18% and 14.3% respectively) (Table 4). According to the (then) Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism27 (DEAT, 2009:39) N2O from the production of fertiliser itself in South Africa is negligible. We saw earlier that fertiliser production was a small part of total agri-‐food system emissions. Around 40-‐60% of nitrogen for fertiliser production in South Africa is imported (FAO, 2005:20). Managing for the amount of fertiliser and the form and timing of applications can increase efficiency by up to 70% (FAO, 2006:106).

Agroecological responses and challenges The principle underlying agroecological responses is to adapt production to the environmental and social conditions rather than trying to bend these conditions to suit the production goal. Ojiem et al refer to the ‘socio-‐ecological niche’, defined as “the convergence of agroecological, socio-‐cultural, economic and ecological factors to describe a multidimensional environment for which compatible technologies can be predicted” (Ojiem et al., 2006:79). Simply put, we must understand the place well before we try to introduce technologies. Technologies that developed over long periods of time through experience in response to local conditions should be identified, supported and built up, and 22 Where the nitrogen leaves the soil through drainage water 23 World Bank, “World Databank”, http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx 24 The Green Revolution is a way of farming and a set of technologies on which commercial agriculture everywhere in the world rests, based on synthetic fertiliser and pesticides, hybrid seeds, debt/credit and sometimes irrigation, which, if successfully applied, can lead to higher yields but can also produce greater social inequality through concentration of land holdings and ecological damage. There is a strong push for the adoption of these technologies and methods in Africa at present, spearheaded by Northern governments and corporations with support from some African governments. 25 http://www.nepad.org/foodsecurity/knowledge/doc/1815/abuja-‐declaration-‐fertilizer-‐african-‐green-‐revolution 26 Nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium 27 The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) since 2009

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maybe blended with outside technologies, but should not be thrown out and completely replaced by outside technologies. Agroecological responses to climate change focus on building soil life or “carbon farming”, which requires nurturing soil life as the basic starting point. It is a longstanding organic principle that you feed the soil, not the plant. The antidote to oxidation of organic soil carbon is regenerative agriculture; working the land with the goal of building the topsoil, encouraging the growth of deep-‐rooted plants and increasing biodiversity. As carbon levels in the soil are built, land productivity, plant diversity and resilience amid changing conditions will follow (Schwartz, 2013:12). Agroecological practices are best understood as resource-‐conserving, life-‐enhancing methods and practices of producing food, applying the principles of nature to agricultural production. Box 3 highlights core permaculture principles. Permaculture is one of many production systems that fit within the broad umbrella of agroecology. These principles are a great guide for thinking about how to integrate agricultural production into the ecosystem in a mutually beneficial rather than extractive way. Plenty has been written on the practical ways to go about doing this. There is a long history of organic, agroecological, conservation farming, bio-‐dynamics, permaculture and other systems of production with key similarities. Many of these connect with so-‐called ‘traditional’ farming methods based on trial and error in locally unique contexts. These many practices are entirely compatible with the notion of “carbon farming” and nurturing the soil life as the basis for increased healthy plant life. We would make a mistake to get stuck on one name or another. Key elements of agroecology include cover cropping, crop rotation, no till/minimum till and no synthetic chemicals, planting trees integrated with other agricultural activities and holistic livestock management. The combination of these can make a big contribution to absorbing carbon from the air while still producing enough food for human and animal needs.

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“Oxidise less, photosynthesise more”28 Keeping carbon and nitrogen in the soil and increasing photosynthesis are two sides of the same coin. Photosynthesis is the basic process for generating life. It is the photosynthetic capacity of living plants rather than the amount of dead biomass added to the soil that is the main driver for soil carbon accumulation (Jones, 2009:5). The idea is to make top soil using good farming practice. Maintaining ground cover, increasing biological activity, and imposing levels of disturbance that add oxygen and moisture (as can be done with livestock) can accelerate the process (Schwartz, 2013:20). The conventional capitalist technological response to nutrient deficiencies is to respond to the most obvious elements that are missing and make and add them if enough of the nutrients cannot be found naturally. The focus is on short-‐term plant growth instead of on long-‐term soil life. The result is that the soil becomes an inert carrier of short-‐term nutrients for plant growth, but is unable to carry out its critical role in the nutrient cycle. Chemical farming is based on clearing the land of vegetation, ploughing and replanting every season. This is highly damaging to the soil: soil exposed to the sun and rain loses its fertility and oxidisation happens at a fast rate; and ploughing disturbs the soil structure and prevents the activity of living organisms in the soil. Soil carbon needs to be built by biological processes, and is hindered by the very additions and changes (agrochemicals and synthetic fertilisers) that produce large yields (Schwartz, 2013:30).

28 Borrowed from Schwartz, 2013

Box 3: Permaculture principles

1. Observe and interact -‐ By taking time to engage with our environment we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.

2. Catch and store energy -‐ By developing systems that collect resources at peak abundance, we can use them in times of need.

3. Obtain a yield -‐ Ensure you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work you are doing. 4. Apply self-‐regulation and accept feedback -‐ We need to discourage inappropriate activity to

ensure that systems can continue to function well. 5. Use and value renewable resources and services -‐ Make the best use of nature's abundance

to reduce our consumptive behaviour and dependence on non-‐renewable resources. 6. Produce no waste -‐ By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us,

nothing goes to waste. 7. Design from patterns to details -‐ By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and

society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go. 8. Integrate rather than segregate -‐ By putting the right things in the right place, relationships

develop between those things and they work together to support each other. 9. Use small and slow solutions -‐ Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones,

making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes. 10. Use and value diversity -‐ Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes

advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides. 11. Use edges and value the marginal -‐ The interface between things is where the most

interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.

12. Creatively use and respond to change -‐ We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.

http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles.php

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Factors that inhibit mycorrhizae (the essential root fungi mentioned earlier) include lack of continuous groundcover, single species crops and pastures (monocultures) and applications of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and large quantities of water-‐soluble phosphorous (another main ingredient in commercial fertilisers). The result is few of the fungi in annual-‐based or conventionally-‐managed agricultural landscapes. Fungi that survive in these conditions are non-‐mycorrhizal, and rely on dead organic matter for their energy source rather than on plants. They have much smaller networks into the soil (Jones, 2009:4-‐5). Therefore different practices are required to encourage the growth of mycorrhizae: continuous groundcover, polycultures (many different plant and animal species growing together), exclusion of use of synthetic poisons or chemical additives, and a focus on mycorrhizae-‐compatible crops. Cover cropping is a basic organic practice. Avoid bare soil: “without plant cover, soil carbon is prone to bind with oxygen and go airborne” (Schwartz, 2013:47). Mycorrhizal fungi die if there are no plants, since they only get their energy from plants. This requires permanent cover on the land, and a change from annual to perennial ground cover, including grasses. Perennial grasslands (those that survive over many years) are the most important plant-‐soil carbon sinks because of their dense root networks. The section on livestock below offers one proposed way to regenerate grasslands. In South Africa, grasslands are a major ecosystem, covering most of the central plateau (highveld). However, degradation is an issue. A method called ‘pasture cropping’ has been developed in Australia, where conditions are similar to South African ecological conditions in many ways. Pasture cropping works within grasslands rather than replacing grasslands in order to grow crops. The method is to sow annual winter crops into perennial (preferably indigenous) summer pasture29. Crops are sown into existing plant and litter cover without eliminating other plants. Livestock are used as nutrient recyclers through intensive time-‐controlled grazing as an alternating land use (see the section on livestock below). Perennial grasslands inter-‐planted with broadleaf crops30 are used to build up mycorrhizal networks and plant guilds. A cover crop mix is added to create crop diversity, add nutrients and build soil organic matter. This is an experimental method that is spreading rapidly, although it is reliant on mechanised technologies (tractors and appropriate planters) and access to large amounts of pasture or grassland. It is apparent that crop rotations are a central part of these methods. Cover cropping requires a permanent cover on the land to protect the soil life. If the crops are seasonal they need to be rotated with one another seasonally. A standard organic technique is to rotate between nitrogen fixers (legumes), fruiting plants (plants where the nutritional component for humans is the fruit or grain, e.g. tomatoes or maize), root plants (e.g. potatoes or carrots) and leaf plants (e.g. spinach). ,. Each of these types of plants uses different nutrients. If the same species is planted in the same place for more than one season in a row, the plants will deplete the soil of those specific nutrients. Churning crop residues back into the soil enables the recycling of carbon, nitrogen and other nutrients. Crop rotations therefore both encourage more efficient nutrient use and protect soil life. No till is a production methodology that aims to limit or entirely stop soil disturbance in production. Every time the soil is disrupted, the fragile networks coming from the mycorrhizae are broken. Not only mycorrhizae but all the microbes and fungi working in the root zone are disrupted or destroyed. For grasslands, pasture cropping and direct drilling into grasslands instead of stripping (removing vegetation and ground cover), ploughing and replanting can ensure the soil is not unduly disturbed. The densest networks of mycorrhizal fungi are found in perennial grasslands. Inter-‐planting to 29 http://www.pasturecropping.com/ 30 Legumes (crops harvested for dry seed, such as dry beans or lentils) which fix nitrogen, or brassicas (mustard family, including cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli etc)

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include perennial grasses can produce guilds (common networks between different mycorrhizal-‐compatible plant species) that allow for exchange of nutrients and water (Jones, 2009:5). Weeds can be an issue with no-‐till cropping. Prevention of weeds will have to be managed through cover cropping and other agroecological methods. The third principle we can propose is no chemical use. Application of broad spectrum chemicals (including glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide and the chemical agent in Monsanto’s RoundUp and other similar products) destroys all life forms in a certain category, not only those they aim to kill. This includes beneficial microbes like mycorrhizae. The more that Roundup is used, the longer it stays in the soil. A response requires the use of biological techniques for management of insects and diseases. These techniques are knowledge intensive and can be more suited to smaller scales of production. The approach requires the integration of diversity onto the farm in all spheres. Agroforestry (integrating trees and agricultural production) is central to increasing the carbon absorption of the plant-‐soil carbon sink. Trees are very good carbon sinks because of their woody stems. Trees have multiple functions: they are a carbon sink, they provide food, fuel and forage. Trees must be integrated into the agroecological conditions. This could mean a return to older and indigenous varieties that are more stable in the specific environment. Diversity remains at the centre. Another example of the multiple beneficial effects of trees is that they bring bees. Bees play a fundamental role in crop production (pollination) and are also a sustainable food source and income generator (honey). Again, agroforestry and beekeeping require technical and management skills. Conservation agriculture (CA) is one response from the mainstream, including FAO and some of the agrochemical companies. Support from this quarter gives us pause to consider the content of CA. Agrochemical companies and their allies talk about no-‐till agriculture, winter cropping (crop rotation) and use of legumes for nitrogen fixing (the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA31) is a good example), but within a chemical and mechanised farming context (e.g. rotating maize with soya, but using genetically modified plants and their associated herbicides, or operating on an industrial scale). Christine Jones (2009:5) argues that “biologically friendly farming practices based on living plant cover throughout the year (e.g. cover cropping or pasture cropping) and the use of bio-‐fertilisers enhance mycorrhizal abundance and diversity and are more beneficial for soil health than chemical farming systems based on intermittently bare soils and minimal soil disturbance”. Conservation agriculture and its practitioners are worth paying attention to, but we must be aware of the nuances. There is some debate about the value of these types of agroecological interventions. Giller, et al. (2009) question whether the evidence supports claims that conservation agriculture increases yields and improves soil fertility. They highlight a point made later that ecological and socio-‐economic conditions are important determinants of whether these practices can succeed. The International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology in Development (IAASTD)32 pointed to the positive sides of CA, but also indicated that CA increases production of N2O and CH4 due to higher denitrification rates, increased vulnerability to pests and diseases and in some systems increased need for herbicides (IAASTD, 2008:4).Many others indicate benefits of CA in African conditions (e.g. Thierfelder et al., 2013). Benefits are best checked in specific circumstances rather than making blanket statements of how effective these methods are. Farmers will need to find out through their own experience what works and what doesn’t. Nevertheless, there is a broad map,

31 www.agra.org 32 The IAASTD was a very large, multi-‐year study supported by many governments and multinational agricultural institutions that more or less called for a shift to agroecological practices on a large scale. It reported its findings in 2009.

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with relatively widespread scientific agreement, of the types of techniques to start experimenting with, that have worked in many different socio-‐ecological niches.

Livestock and holistic management As shown above, livestock accounts for the largest proportion of agri-‐food system greenhouse gas emissions. Ruminants require more feed than monogastric33 animals (pigs and poultry) and therefore emissions per kilogram of product are higher for ruminants (Vermeulen, et al., 2012:199). Grasslands are a major potential carbon sink but have been degraded through incorrect management. Overgrazing is the greatest cause of degradation of grasslands. According to FAO (2006:118), “improved pasture management could potentially sequester more carbon than any other practice”. Grassland grazing on land not suitable for cropping will reduce emissions associated with land use change (Vermeulen, et al., 2012:199). Dry land pastures have great potential as a carbon sink because of historic carbon losses and because dry soils are less likely than wet soils to lose carbon (FAO, 2006:118). Livestock are a natural part of the ecosystem. It is a question of how it is integrated into the ecosystem. There are practices that retain large herds of livestock but manage them in such a way that they regenerate the grasslands. Allan Savory is the founder of the holistic management movement34, which seeks to regenerate grasslands and degraded land by increasing the number of livestock but using time-‐controlled livestock management techniques. Savory argues that animals must be put back on the land, with domestic livestock managed to copy the behaviour of wild herbivores that used to roam the same land in the past. According to this view, overgrazing is a function of time not numbers of animals (Gretel Erlich, foreword in Schwartz, 2013:xiii). In areas with degraded grazing land, livestock is mostly allowed to roam at will across vast areas of land. The herder follows the rhythm of the animals as they move a bit, stop to nibble, move a bit further, drop some dung, move a bit further, and so on. Plants are not disturbed enough to produce new growth. The dry tops oxidise and the nutrients are not made available to the soil in the form of litter. Soil life suffers. Over-‐resting is as much a problem as overgrazing, because perennial plant species become moribund and unproductive if there are no natural disturbances of the plants and soil (Dugmore, 2012:61). But with more intensive livestock management, these areas can be regenerated. “To restore healthy soil to the seasonally humid and dry grasslands of the world requires substantial numbers of large herbivores on the land, tightly herded together, grazing, trampling, dunging and urinating on a piece of land and then moving on after a brief period, just as the great wildlife herds once did” (Dugmore, 2012:60). According to the holistic management method, smaller areas of land are grazed more intensively for a day or two and then the animals are moved to another small area of land where they are bunched to graze intensively again (Dugmore, 2012:61). In the process, they release a lot of nutrients in a relatively small space, break down the dead layer of grasses or crop residues that fall to the ground and become available to the soil as litter. Litter build-‐up also slows down water and soil runoff, evaporation and wind erosion (Dugmore, 2012:62). “Herbivores aerate, nourish and graze the land in ways that regenerate all the basic building blocks, increase biological activity and increase productivity” (Gretel Erlich, foreword in Schwartz, 2013:xiii). The herder directs the herd rather than following it. After animals have passed through an area, farmers can then plant maize and other crops directly into the soil without further treatment (Allan Savory, cited in Schwartz, 2013:67-‐68). Holistic management proposes an orientation to perennial pastures instead of fertiliser

33 Animals with a simple, single-‐chambered stomach 34 www.savoryinstitute.com/

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intensive grain production (Jones, 2010), which also contributes to easing the ecological damage of industrial grain production by reducing demand.

What climate impact might this have? Measures of climate impact are fragmented, with different reports referring to different aspects or impact indicators – ultimately, the science is not perfect and we should also use our critical faculties and intuition to guide us.

It is clear there are major debates about the role of livestock. Livestock will release a large amount of greenhouse gases. But if they are managed in tune with the ecosystem, they will also contribute to absorbing their share and probably more, because the soil is a hungry carbon sink, and livestock have a role to play in restoring it. The science of methane is also a bit cloudy at the moment. It is clear that it is a greenhouse gas stronger than CO2 in its atmospheric warming effect. It is partially clear that livestock are a primary cause of human-‐induced greenhouse gas emissions, although figures have shown a disconnection between the growth rate of these two in recent years as indicated above. Methane can be used as a biogas, and so efforts have to be made to find ways of capturing and recycling this gas. The key question is whether these processes are net greenhouse gas sources or sinks. We require sinks that can form part of a productive ecosystem. Evidence of the impact of no till farming on nitrous oxide emissions is mixed. There are very many variables that affect the extent of emissions, including soil temperature, water content, presence of other chemicals etc (Omonode, et al., 2011).

Challenges These are technology-‐based adaptation strategies. But realisation of agroecological responses is not as easy as it seems: there are major institutional and social challenges, and knowledge intensity which requires interaction with a formal knowledge system, i.e. a functioning agricultural research and development (R&D) system. The key point made by Ojiem, et al. (2006) is that even if a technology makes perfect scientific sense and has benefits for the environment, people will not automatically adopt it. Adoption of new

Box 4: Estimations on sequestration potential of agroecological practices • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the “global technical mitigation potential” of agriculture is estimated to be in the region of 5,500-‐6,000 MtCO2e/yr (Smith et al., 2007:499).

• “Soil carbon restoration can potentially store about one billion tons of atmospheric carbon per year. This would offset around 8 to 10 percent of total annual carbon dioxide emissions and one-‐third of annual enrichment of atmospheric carbon that would otherwise be left in the air” (Schwartz, 2013:5).

• Increasing soil organic matter can allow the offset of between 24-‐30% of current annual global GHG emissions (GRAIN, 2011:5).

• Conservation tillage, cover crops, agroforestry and other measures could sequester up to 1.3 tons of carbon per hectare per year, with additional amounts available through restoration of desertified pastures (FAO, 2006:xxii).

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technologies is influenced not only by scientific factors but also by cultural and social factors. Taking these factors into account requires working together with farmers in their embedded ‘socio-‐ecological niches’ on production technologies. This requires effort to be put into social, institutional and organisational structure as well as science. Many studies indicate the challenges in translating effective technologies into accepted practices. Salomon (2012), as one recent example, provides a detailed study on the failure of efforts to develop rotational grazing systems in KwaZulu-‐Natal. There is a lot of experience in South Africa and regionally on the challenges facing communal property institutions such as communal property associations (CPAs) and community-‐based natural resource management (CBNRM). We should engage more closely with this body of knowledge and the practitioners. However, this is a question of methodology and approach rather than a problem in principle with collective land and natural resource management. It is not a short-‐term fad but a long-‐term restructuring of the social structures that relate people to the land. What changes are required and where do they come from? They incorporate ‘traditional’ and ecologically-‐attuned practices and knowledge, e.g. seed identification, saving and sharing; methods of sharing knowledge; dryland cropping practices; livestock management practices. These might not be perfect, but there are things to learn from them as from formal science-‐based agriculture. We need to break down the specific detailed tasks for producing plants and thus food, and develop a practically verifiable system of regenerative agriculture based on socio-‐agro-‐ecologically-‐appropriate (socio-‐ecological) practices. At a minimum, the proposed agroecological practices are highly knowledge intensive and require intensive community-‐based extension support (Thierfelder & Wall, 2009). To this we can add that on the ground support must be linked to a broader R&D system, with extension workers as possible facilitators between these two zones of practice and research. In the face of high levels of poverty, a key consideration must be the ability of people to benefit from their productive activity, and to secure relatively immediate returns on production. There is a challenge of yield dips as farms adapt out of chemical farming, especially at the outset. There is less information available on productivity changes in adapting from ‘traditional’ agricultural practices to specifically agroecological practices. A number of studies indicate yield increases in other parts of Africa (e.g. Pretty et al., 2006; UNEP-‐UNCTAD, 2008; UK Government’s Office for Science, 2009). But this is new territory in South Africa and the production base is different. In most other African countries, small-‐scale agricultural production has endured through colonialism as the primary form of production, whereas in South Africa small-‐scale agriculture is emerging from a very weak base of sub-‐subsistence production, for all the historical reasons we know and which have been repeated ad naseum.

Possible employment/livelihood impacts

Technologies and scale These are the technical responses to the ecological challenges posed by industrial capitalist agriculture and climate change. This technical response is to some extent neutral with regard to land ownership and organisation of production. That is, it can be carried out on privately-‐owned as much as on collectively-‐owned land, and can take the form of capitalist enterprise (owners and workers, with expropriation of surplus by the owners) or collective enterprise (democratically-‐decided organisation of production and distribution of the wealth generated by production). Much work has been done on the multi-‐functionality of agriculture which suggests that farms with some resources to start with are best situated to make a transition to multi-‐functional agriculture

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(Wilson, 2008). Multi-‐functionality refers to many different uses of agriculture35. There are positive externalities36 from agricultural practice that are essential for sustaining ecosystems and the social fabric. There are, of course, questions about what social fabric is being maintained by existing agricultural systems, with commercial agriculture in South Africa still based on starvation wages for workers (see BFAP, 2012). We need to imagine a different social fabric in agrarian transformation, but it is important to recognise the (potential and actual) positive non-‐commodity roles agriculture plays. At the macro-‐level these include landscape maintenance, climate regulation and social stability (again, with a question on the latter if it means continuing servitude of some to others). At more localised levels they can include water provision, waste treatment capacity, nutrient management, watershed functions and others (IAASTD, 2009:462). Wilson (2008:368) presents a spectrum of multi-‐functionality ranging from strong to weak, with strong multi-‐functionality characterised by strong local embeddedness with strong governance structures, co-‐operation in the food supply chain, high environmental sustainability, localisation of food chains, weak integration into global capitalist markets, lower farming intensity and productivity, and higher food quality with differentiated food demand from consumers (different people wanting different things). The scale slides away from each of these dimensions as multi-‐functionality gets weaker. However, Wilson also indicates that farmers do not have equal opportunities to move towards strong multi-‐functionality. Farm type and agroecological context determine the possibilities of farm-‐level multi-‐functionality. Wilson says it will be hardest for small, economically marginal farms in developing countries to realise strong multi-‐functionality. Similarly, he says it is more difficult for multi-‐owner (collectively owned) farms than single owner-‐occupied farms to move to strong multi-‐functionality because majority or consensus decisions are required to make changes on the farm (Wilson, 2008:373). But these farmers are still less constrained than tenants (people living on farms who do not own them) who have very little decision-‐making power at farm level. In relation to multi-‐functionality, we need some further thinking around attitudes towards payment for ecosystem services (PES). Here ecosystem services are measured, a value is placed on them and custodians of the land (including farmers) are paid for these services according to a money value that is placed on them. The concept of PES is supported by FAO, the World Bank and others, including the International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD, 2009) which is seen by many as a blueprint for a shift to agroecology. There are pros and cons to PES. Pros include an income source for people owning or managing land where agricultural production is not likely to produce much. Ecological management of the land performs an important function and this can be recognised as an economic activity without forcing production on land unsuitable for it. Of course, a lot depends on how these ‘services’ are defined and valued. Cons include the measurement and placing of a market value on ecosystem services, which opens the door for these services to become yet another conduit for the circulation of capital. This is the main reason it is being proposed in the first place, with the climate crisis seen as an opportunity for further accumulation of capital. This logic is as clear as day with the banks and financial institutions in contemporary capitalism. GRAIN (2005) suggests that constructing these ‘positive externalities’ as ecosystem services can bind small farmers into particular activities which both reduce their flexibility

35 The paragraphs on multifunctionality and ecosystem services draw from an unpublished paper on agroecology in South Africa prepared for Surplus People Project in 2011. 36 A benefit (or cost, in the case of a negative externality) from an activity that affects someone else who didn’t choose it

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and present potential dangers of them losing their land if they do not carry out these services in accordance with top-‐down agreements of unknown length. In implementing these agroecological approaches, scale of production will vary. Pastures and holistic land management for livestock require large amounts of land. But there is nothing in principle to prevent this from being managed collectively. This suits South African ecological conditions where most land is most suitable for livestock. Crop production will best happen on smaller units than are currently farmed in South Africa. It requires intensive management. This can also suit South Africa’s context, especially the need to get more people onto the land and using it productively. But the support system, especially knowledge/information interactions, needs to be working. Allan Savory identifies natural resources, labour and human creativity as the three core ingredients for the ability to nurture and benefit from the land. Labour and creativity are in potentially plentiful supply in our context. We must prioritise the struggle for access to natural resources. Without widespread secure access to land and water, any practical work on agroecology will remain contained within a small core of relatively wealthy land owners. Given that agroecological practices do not necessarily require a small scale (although for crops there is a closer connection) or a redistribution of land, it is for us to assert the importance of redistribution and support for a wider productive base. The positive thing is that agroecological practices can also work at a smaller scale, and therefore can have social and ecological benefits at this scale. Diversity is an underlying principle of sustainable agriculture. This is not only biodiversity, but also diversity in the production structure. In South Africa, it is imperative to involve more people in productive activity, not merely as workers being told what to do, but as agents who can make and implement decisions about what and how to produce, using their own and collective creativity.

Employment and livelihoods in primary agriculture The employment or livelihoods link is through increasing the number of opportunities to be involved in and benefit from production. The National Development Plan (NDP) outlines some approaches that can increase agriculture’s contribution to livelihoods/employment by supporting a combination of targeted interventions in large-‐scale agriculture and by supporting the expansion of small-‐scale agriculture especially combined with irrigation (NPC, 2011:195-‐214). But it is based on a commercial farming model where small-‐scale farmers are inserted into existing corporate-‐controlled value chains and where chemical farming remains the norm. Aliber, et al. (2009) in a report for the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape have done some preliminary work on the potential for an increase in livelihood opportunities through the expansion of small-‐scale agriculture (Table 5). One of the scenarios Aliber et al. considered was the transfer of 30% of commercial farm land to small-‐scale producers, and the retention of the remainder in the hands of a commercially competitive core. We might want to go beyond this, but this scenario gives an indication of what might be expected from an employment/livelihoods point of view. The three sub-‐scenarios are: first, all land redistributed to semi-‐commercial smallholders only (scenario 1 in Table 5); second, 20% to large-‐scale black farmers, 60% to semi-‐commercial smallholders and 20% to semi-‐subsistence farmers (scenario 2); and scenario 3 is the same as the second one but with two-‐thirds of the land being unutilised land. As the table shows, the last will have least impact on formal employment, but will have a lower impact on employment/livelihood opportunities for black smallholder farmers and workers on their farms.

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Overall, however, it is apparent that redistribution of land to smallholders can have significant positive effects on livelihood opportunities. There is an issue about the quality of employment, especially for workers on smallholder farms, and that is a question about class formation and the types of alliances that can be forged in the process of transforming the agrarian structure. The social conditions in which these classes are forming in deeply embedded in local histories and cannot simply become a binary between workers and owners. There is a deep social intertwining between people that is older than capitalist classes. Table 5: Potential employment from successful redistribution of 30% of commercial farm land and maintenance of a commercially competitive core Scenario 1 – All transfers to

smallholders Scenario 2 – ‘Balanced’ land

reform Scenario 3 – ‘Balanced’ land reform targeting unutilised

land No. % change

relative to 2020 baseline

No. % change relative to

2020 baseline

No. % change relative to

2020 baseline Formal agricultural employees

407 998 -‐30% 442 950 -‐24% 536 156 -‐8%

Large-‐scale black farmers

4 000 0% 14 996 275% 14 996 275%

Black smallholders

1 002 666 301% 701 600 181% 701 600 181%

Semi-‐subsistence farmers

5 000 000 0% 6 077 275 22% 6 077 275 22%

Smallholder employees

501 333 301% 350 800 181% 350 800 181%

Source: Aliber, Baiphethi & Jacobs, 2009:147 Small-‐scale agriculture is not necessarily a panacea to all ills. There are limits to what it might achieve. But the production structure in South Africa is skewed too far towards concentrated corporate production. This is recognised across the board, from the World Bank in the early 1990s to mainstream agricultural economists today as well as by activists who favour an orientation towards small scale agriculture in government policy and practice. Michael Aliber and others refer to a ‘missing middle’ in the South African agrarian structure: millions of very small sub-‐subsistence farmers – mainly farming in the former homelands -‐ on the one hand, and a small core of very large producers on the other hand. Diversity is a principle of ecological design, and this applies to the structure of production as much as it does to biodiversity. Creating a more diverse and distributed production structure where many more people are actively involved in economic activity rather than passive consumers of corporate or government goods and services requires support and growth for many more smaller producers in the missing middle. A key issue is how they can compete with the largest producers. But there are niches where small-‐scale production is an advantage (e.g. labour intensive fruit and vegetable production) and small-‐scale production for more local markets can generate product attributes (e.g. freshness, type, authenticity) favoured by consumers. Aliber (2013) suggests that South Africa’s over-‐concentrated agri-‐food structure has produced supply chain inefficiencies (e.g. raw materials produced in rural areas, transported to centralised processing facilities and then being transported back to rural areas for consumption at inflated prices). Aliber et al. say nothing about types of production. The connection still needs to be made in practice between land redistribution for small-‐scale production and farming practices that build soil life. According to Savory and Butterfield (1999), the originators of holistic management as described above, money and labour are interchangeable. If you are in an environment with limited money

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resources, a combination of human creativity, labour and natural resources can substitute. Labour-‐intensive agroecological approaches can therefore work without necessarily having a lot of financial resources, but do require the availability of labour (including their own), secure access to natural resources and knowledge. The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) estimates that activities that support soil carbon sequestration can produce up to 240,000 jobs in management alone. The IDC does not elaborate any further on this figure. However, because of lack of baseline information and – according to the IDC -‐ lack of a local level carbon trading system figures cannot readily be supplied on potential employment benefits of carbon sequestration. The IDC cites international studies that show sustainable agricultural techniques as discussed above (e.g. conservation agriculture, reducing synthetic fertilisers etc) can increase labour requirements by between 7% and 75% depending on the specific practices (Maia et al., 2011:146). The Industrial Policy Action Plan 2 (IPAP2) shows agriculture has the fifth highest employment multiplier of any sector of the economy, with food at 10 and wood at 11 out of 42 sectors (DTI, 2011:35). The plan identifies organic agriculture as an industry with the potential to create 20,000 jobs over 5 years (DTI, 2011:125). It does appear that the DTI does not consider the possibility of expansion through land redistribution and agrarian transformation, preferring to remain within the framework of the existing agrarian structure.

Extension and R&D Building the right kind of knowledge can be a limitation but also an opportunity. Agroecological practices are knowledge-‐intensive and while some of this knowledge already exists in indigenous systems, a lot has been lost and it is unevenly spread amongst agricultural producers. Western science also has a lot to offer in understanding production, but most people have not studied formal science in their lives. An opportunity exists to build hybrid knowledge systems – adapting to change with a blend of traditional and technologically-‐improved practices -‐ through a state-‐supported extension service. People may at times oppose new technologies, but both the technologies and the contestations are part of building collective knowledge. This requires skilled workers and therefore has direct connections to broader educational and research and development (R&D) systems, and back to the material world. The extension service is at the fulcrum between formal R&D and producers. Inherited extension services in South Africa follow the general split in the production system: highly-‐qualified support staff and material resources for commercial farmers and poorly-‐qualified staff with few resources for homeland farmers. Publically-‐funded extension services were run down as deregulation and withdrawal of the state took effect in the agricultural sector in the 1990s. Extension services for commercial farmers were privatised and captured the core of qualified staff, while resource-‐poor farmers had to make do with an inefficient, weak and poorly-‐equipped public service. In 2009 there were 2,210 extension officers in South Africa (DAFF, 2009:3). Extrapolating from the figures of farmers identified in its survey, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (DAFF) indicated that there should be between 3,858 and 7,715 extension officers in the country (DAFF, 2009:47-‐50). This means that even in the existing system, another 1,650 to 5,500 skilled workers are required. Why are they not being produced? Is it that these are unfunded posts, or that the money is not being spent? Based on international standards, DAFF proposes one extension officer per 250 up to 500 people (depending on crop type and character of farmer). If the farmer base expands, the base of skilled extension workers will also need to expand. For every 250-‐500 new farmers, an

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additional extension officer will be required. If we use Aliber et al.’s figures in scenario 2 or scenario 3 (Table 5) of the additional number of producers with a redistribution of just 30% of agricultural land (even underutilised land), we can extrapolate that an additional 3,400 extension officers37 would be required to meet the new demand. To this must be added the ‘multiplier’ effects of new decentralised agricultural colleges and the employment these would create. These would be skilled jobs. We can go further and talk about the possibility of setting up semi-‐voluntary community-‐based extension workers that come from the locality and work closely with groups of farmers (e.g. 7 groups of 7 farmers each) and also perform the function of being the intermediary between farmers and the extension officers. This is a well-‐developed methodology used globally including in Zimbabwe (Practical Action, 2010). The key question is what training extension workers receive. Eighty percent of current extension workers in South Africa have a diploma or lower qualification, while government norms and standards require a degree or higher (DAFF, 2009:3). And still there is a question of the content of the training. Government has started a process of developing an agroecology strategy, but this is viewed as a niche that is not integrated into mainstream agricultural policy. It is unclear whether the strategy is even moving at the moment. Agroecology needs to be mainstreamed into the training system, and accompanied by an overhaul of the entire R&D structure, in the form of participatory R&D in constant and direct interaction with farmer organisations. Extension services can play the role of a bridge and facilitator between the formal R&D system and farmers and their organisations. Cuba offers a good example of a public system explicitly oriented to agroecological production. Highly qualified scientific workers interact with organised farmer associations to generate technologies that can support agroecological practices, and participatory extension systems driven by farmer associations play a critical role in supporting sharing and learning (Funes et al., 2002). The Cuban example indicates what can be done if a government makes a decision to orient towards agroecology, and is willing to alter structures in support of this goal. So when we are thinking about changes even in primary agriculture, it has ripple effects on the structure of support services with positive employment and skills implications. It is clear that very little work has been done on the employment/livelihood impacts of adopting agroecological practices. The primary benefits of adopting these practices are ecological, whether they are carried out on large-‐scale commercial farms or on smaller pieces of land. The main benefits to employment will come from redistribution of natural resources to allow more people to apply their labour and creativity to the land and thereby to create wealth under their own control. It is for us to make the connection between redistribution of natural resource ownership and management and agroecological practices. They do work hand in hand, so the challenge is to develop an agenda that can push both of these in combination.

Practical starting points We need to start with the land question. People cannot begin producing until they have secure access to land to do so (whether individually or collectively owned and managed). There are two sides here: i) access to land for productive use, including grazing land; and ii) access to land for demonstrations and experimentation, working in interaction with farmers in specific areas. We can try to connect to the existing R&D infrastructure (e.g. the Agricultural Research Council) where they have outreach programmes.

37 Based on one extension worker for every 500 semi-‐subsistence farmers and one worker for every 250 smallholder farmers

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We need to learn about and develop our understanding of the practice of collective land ownership and management. We should argue for and test approaches that combine land transfer with agroecological techniques/”carbon farming”. We need practical demonstration farms run in a participatory way with small-‐scale farmers, and as a model for research and extension (integrated livestock, crops and trees). Approach Farmer Support Group (FSG) and Surplus People Project (SPP) to provide guidance and technical support, and offer them our support to get practical agroecological demonstration farms operating. We need practical, farmer-‐driven training and knowledge sharing on agroecological practices. We should start working with the various movements and organisations already espousing these approaches (ranging from Food Sovereignty movements in South Africa and Africa to Holistic Management advocates). We could do some work together with interested farmer organisations to match them with appropriate technical support and document the process for sharing. This increasingly has benefits on a regional level, to widen the pool of experience and sharing in small-‐scale agricultural production. Connect up with soil scientists, livestock farmers and support services and other practitioners working on these and related issues in South Africa, the region and globally. There are already people doing this kind of work. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but can work with them. We should identify and approach these people together with farmer organisations to see if there are ways to work together. We can look at the LandCare programme, holistic management and conservation agriculture in South Africa as starting points for possible intersection with the state and commercial agriculture. While we can learn from them and also support transitions towards agroecology in commercial agriculture, we should also be on the lookout for permaculture and other organisations and practitioners that might be able to provide support to resource-‐poor small scale farmers to move towards agroecological practices. We can engage with government around the agroecology strategy and content of extension services. These are current policy processes that require a push from progressive organisations and farmer associations to mainstream and support implementation of agroecological strategies as widely as possible. We can also engage with the DEA because agriculture is both a major greenhouse gas emitter and potentially a major greenhouse gas sink.

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Acronyms AGRA Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa C Carbon CA Conservation agriculture CH4 Methane CO2 Carbon dioxide CO2e Carbon dioxide equivalent CPA Communal property association DEAT Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism EPA Environmental Protection Agency (US) FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN Gg Gigagram (one thousand tons) GHG Greenhouse gas GWP Global warming potential Gt Gigaton (one billion tons) IAASTD International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology in Development IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change LCA Life cycle assessment N Nitrogen N2 Nonreactive nitrogen N2O Nitrous oxide Nr Reactive nitrogen NDP National Development Plan NPK Nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium O Oxygen PES Payment for ecosystem services Gt Petagram (equals one Gigaton) R&D Research and development SAFA South African Feedlot Association

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Glossary Anaerobic respiration respiration without oxygen Atmosphere layer of gasses surrounding the Earth that is retained by Earth’s

gravity Biosphere the global sum of all living ecosystems Carbon cycle biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged between pools Denitrification microbially facilitated process of nitrate reduction Enteric fermentation digestive process by which carbohydrates are broken down by

micro-‐organisms into simple molecules for absorption into the bloodstream of an animal

Global Warming Potential relative measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere, expressed as a factor of carbon dioxide (whose GWP is standardised to 1)

Greenhouse effect process by which thermal radiation from the planet’s surface is absorbed by greenhouse gases and re-‐radiated in all directions

Land use change changes between one use of land (e.g. forests) and another (e.g. agriculture or cities)

Nitrogen cycle biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is exchanged between pools Rhizobia fixation nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria

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Links [Others should be added] Abalemi Bezekhaya, Cape Flats http://www.abalimi.org.za/ African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) www.acbio.org.za African Centre for Food Security, University of KwaZulu-‐Natal http://acfs.ukzn.ac.za/ Agricultural and Rural Development Research Institute (ARDRI) (link provided doesn’t work) Agricultural Research Council-‐Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute (ARC-‐VOPI) Crop Science

Unit http://www.arc.agric.za/home.asp?pid=6425 Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) www.afra.co.za Biodynamic Agricultural Association of Southern Africa http://www.bdaasa.org.za/ Biowatch http://www.biowatch.org.za/ Catholic Development Centre, Mthatha -‐ email: [email protected] Centre for Rural Community Empowerment (CRCE), University of Limpopo

http://www.ul.ac.za/application/downloads/crce/crce_index.html Church Land Programme, based in Pietermaritzburg http://churchland.org.za/index.php Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) www.copac.org.za Earthfirst http://www.earthfirst.co.za/ Eastern Cape Agricultural Research Project (ECARP) Ecosystems http://www.ecosystems.co.za/ Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit (ELRC), Rhodes University

http://www.ru.ac.za/elrc/ Farm and Garden National Trust http://farmgardentrust.org Food and Agricultural Workers’ Union (FAWU) Food and Trees for Africa (FTFA) http://www.trees.co.za/ Food Gardens Foundation (FGF) http://www.foodgardensfoundation.org.za/ Food Sovereignty Campaign Farmer Support Group (FSG), UKZN email [email protected] Go Organic http://www.go-‐organic.co.za/ Institute of Natural Resources (INR) – email [email protected] Jakkalskloof Permaculture Farm, Swellendam http://xhabbofarmcommunity.co.za/ Klein Karoo Sustainable Drylands Permaculture Project (KKSDPP) http://berg-‐en-‐dal.co.za/ Land Access Movement of South Africa (LAMOSA), www.lamosa.org.za Living Seeds http://livingseeds.co.za Mahlatini Organics http://sites.google.com/site/mahlathiniorganics/ Midlands Meander Association Education Project http://www.mmaep.co.za/ National Organic Produce Initiative (NOPI) – email [email protected] National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) Network for Ecofarming in Africa (NECOFA) http://www.necofa.org/ Organic Freedom Project (aims for 20,000ha under small scale organic production, partnering with

Pick n Pay and Anglo Coal) -‐ Heinrich Schultz cell: 083 287 2699 Pan African Conservation Education Project (PACE) http://www.paceproject.net/index.asp Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) http://www.pelumrd.org/ Promoting Local Innovation (PROLINNOVA) South Africa http://www.prolinnova.net/South_Africa/ Rainman Landcare Foundation http://www.rainman.co.za/ School Environmental Education Development (SEED) –training in schools http://www.seed.org.za/ South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) http://www.sanbi.org Southern Africa Food Lab, Stellenbosch University www.southernafricafoodlab.org Southern Cape Land Committee (SCLC), www.sclc.co.za Surplus People Project (SPP), www.spp.org.za

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The Valley Trust http://www.thevalleytrust.org.za/ Tlholego Ecovillage, near Rustenburg http://www.sustainable-‐futures.com/ Transkei Land Service Organisation (Tralso) Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE) www.tcoe.org.za Tshintsha Amakhaya (TA) https://sites.google.com/site/tshintshaintranet/programme Tsogang Water and Sanitation www.tsogang.org Wilgespruit/Ecohope, Johannesburg -‐ email [email protected] Zululand Centre for Sustainable Development http://www.ecosystems.co.za/zcsd.htm Technical: Savory Institute Jodie Butterfield, Director of Southern Africa Programmes www.savoryinstitute.com/ Rolf Pretorius (SA Savory Institute hub leader, Eastern Cape) www.savoryinstitute.com/ Jozua Lambrechts, SA Holistic Management educator, 083 310-‐1940 and [email protected] Andre Mentz, holistic farming practitioner, 034 312 9207 and [email protected] Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM, part of Savory Institute) operates from

Dimbangombe Ranch in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe www.achmonline.org Huggins Matanga (Zimbabwe Savory Institute hub leader, ACHM director) [email protected] FSG, SPP, TCOE, SCLC, AFRA and others have technical knowledge to share, as well as organising

methodologies Erna Kruger, agroecological specialist associated with NGOs, [email protected] Paul Cohen, Tlolego Ecovillage, North West prov, [email protected] Allan Savory [email protected] Government processes Agroecology policy – Thabo Ramashala Director: Plant Production, 012 319 6079 and [email protected] Extension policy -‐ Rick de Satgé [email protected] US organisations Savory Institute www.savoryinstitute.com/ Soil Carbon Coalition (US) www.soilcarboncoalition.org

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