Event - The FARM Foundation in Ivory Coast to talk about forest soils
From May 15 to 17, in Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire), the international seminar on the preservation and restoration of forest soils in West Africa brings together numerous stakeholders. The FARM Foundation is present at this event and is ensuring the arrival of two African farmers: Philemon Kyaharkat, coordinator of the Nigeria Young Farmers' Network, and Joséphine Francis, vice-president of ROPPA.
You can follow the seminar remotely by registering via the next link
Soil degradation affects more than a third of the world's land. It is a global issue due to its impacts on food security, biodiversity, desertification, and climate change. While the impacts of soil degradation in arid and semi-arid areas of West Africa are currently in the spotlight, the threats to soils in the humid tropics should not be overlooked. Indeed, in humid tropics, the rapid depletion of soil fertility resulting from deforestation is jeopardizing the agricultural and forestry production systems of these countries and the populations who depend on them.
In the forested countries of the West African coastal strip, such as Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, the success of cash crops (cocoa, coffee, rubber, palm, etc.) was built on rich soils resulting from deforestation. The disappearance of more than 80,000 hectares of this forest cover since 1900 threatens the sustainability of these production systems. In these post-forest conditions, renewing aging cocoa plantations is a major challenge for producers.
In many regions, population pressure limits the possibilities of leaving food land fallow between two crops. This leads to a long-term loss of overall soil fertility, and leads producers to resort to expensive chemical inputs, which ultimately exacerbates the loss of soil fertility. Moreover, soil restoration has little-assessed potential for mitigating and adapting to climate change and is not integrated into the mitigation and adaptation strategies of West African countries in their climate strategies.
The direct and indirect benefits of soil restoration are the very foundation of the “4 per 1000” Initiative. Launched in 2015 during COP 21 of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, this initiative consists of bringing together all voluntary stakeholders from the public and private sectors to demonstrate that soils can play a crucial role in food security and the fight against climate change.
The Government of Côte d'Ivoire is a member of the "4 per 1000" Initiative – just like the FARM Foundation – and is implementing the Terri4Sol project to restore soils and forest landscapes in Côte d'Ivoire. Coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MEMINADER) and the Centre for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), this project aims to demonstrate that it is possible to reconcile reducing pressure on forest lands, economic development, food security, and climate change mitigation.
The FARM Foundation is actively participating in this seminar. In addition to being present in Abidjan, it is covering the travel expenses of two African farmers: Philemon Kyaharkat, coordinator of the Nigeria Young Farmers' Network, and Joséphine Francis, vice-president of the ROPPA.
In the coming weeks, FARM will also highlight the solutions identified to forest soil degradation through several publications.
Discover the full program of this seminar by clicking here.
