For hours, António Guterres’ car moved along a winding road, opening up over an arid landscape, but then at a final bend, and a few hundred meters up a hill, the view outside his window was filled with countless shades of green, like a small thing. Steps supported by stone walls planted with bananas, palm trees and sugarcane, came into view, with silvery waters glistening in the distance.
The lush Paúl Valley can be found on the mountainous island of Santo Antão, the westernmost island of Cape Verde, and represents an oasis in an archipelago where only 10% of the land is arable. . Of that already small area, nearly 18 percent was lost between 2000 and 2020.
When Mr. Guterres visited one of the rice terraces, on the second day of his visit to the country, he was greeted by a group of farmers. With them, an expert from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Katya Neves, explains that they are in the middle of an experimental garden where men and women are trying out new plant varieties and learning about sustainable techniques.
“Muitos Parabens,” or “well done,” the Secretary-General congratulated the group in Portuguese, pointing to a colorful table filled with coffee beans, cabbage, tomatoes, yams, cassava and produce is different. Locally grown bonuses are rare in a country that needs to import 80% of the food it needs to feed its population.
The head of the United Nations has been told some garden crops are a new type of cassava, which experts are hoping will prove more resilient to the drought that has afflicted the country for five years. via. He also heard about how farmers learned new ways to irrigate or fertilize their soil.
This initiative is benefiting around 285 farmers and is part of a series of projects led by UN agencies and other partners in the hope of transforming domestic agriculture for subsistence. More people and more sustainability for the entire planet.
Water management in drought
‘Gota a gota’ is one such initiative, and it has made it easier for hundreds of farmers to access drip irrigation. “Only 3,000 hectares spread across 10 islands are irrigated, but studies suggest this number could rise to 5,000,” explains Ms. Neves, Assistant Representative at FAO.
Angela Silva, who lives nearby, also met the Secretary-General. She is one of the beneficiaries who hope to start installing the drip system soon.
“I was born into a farming family, my parents, grandparents, and great-grandfather were all farmers. But until I separated from my husband, he took care of the land,” she explained.
Two years ago, the full-time teacher decided to start working on the lands she inherited.
“I am still learning, but I want to learn more and be able to turn this into a way of making money,” she said. “My dream is to turn it into a food forest for my children and grandchildren to enjoy.”
Most of her land has been taken over to grow sugarcane, a crop that isn’t very profitable or sustainable, so she has started replacing it with bananas, papayas and other vegetables. This is one of the lessons she learned in the UN-supported training course.
With the new irrigation system, she hopes to avoid some of the worst consequences of drought and make better use of water in an average year. Studies show that, even when it rains in Cape Verde, about 20% of water is lost through surface runoff, 13% seeps in, while 67% evaporates.
This is one of the challenges for Dairson da Cruz Duarte, the young local farmer who brought a coffee that surprised the Secretary General – he had no idea the island produced it.
Pointing at the bottom of the valley, near a creek filled with yams, the farmer explained that the beans were grown from the ground up in Santa Isabel, a locality atop the highest mountain visible to the naked eye, a jagged precipice where the green of the earth meets the blue of the sky.
You can only walk to this town of 100 people and all farming is powered by rainwater. That has made the five-year drought particularly difficult for the people.
When the rain stopped, the young people were the first to leave.
Cruz Duarte explained: “I don’t know if there are 10 young people living there now. “Others have all left, because of lack of work, rain, sun, drought. Sometimes, even if you have livestock, you don’t have enough forage to feed them. With no other livelihood, they left to find a better life.”
Increasing food insecurity
After years of constant drought, the 2021-2022 crop will be zero. By then, climate change, COVID-19 The pandemic and the socioeconomic consequences of the war in Ukraine have combined to create a perfect storm for the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and the Government of Cape Verde is forced to make a decision. difficult determination. In June last year, law enforcement agencies declared a national social and economic emergency.
Until very recently, the archipelago, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa, could be seen as a champion in efforts to alleviate poverty in sub-Saharan countries. Estimates from the World Bank show that the poverty rate fell by 6 percentage points between 2015 and 2019, from 41% to 35%.
But by June, the number of people affected by food insecurity had spiked, according to data from the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP). More than 46,000 women, men and children – almost 10% of Cape Verde’s total population – are facing a severe decline in food security between June and August.
This represents a threat to the development achievements that the country has struggled to achieve in recent years. Cape Verde has pledged to eliminate extreme poverty by 2026, and on Saturday the Prime Minister reassured the Secretary-General that the country was sticking to that goal. But, he admits, the last few years have made it much more difficult.
Expressing that sentiment, the Secretary-General said at the same event: “I know it for Cape Verde – just like other countries Small island nation developing – which is a priority in UN partnerships and action – faces major challenges, such as the consequences of the pandemic and, above all, an increase in the cost of living, which has always been devastating impact on people.”
The UN chief added that “rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity and ecosystems pose existential threats to this archipelago, like many others.”
Katya Neves, FAO expert, told UN News that last year’s crisis has brought a new sense of urgency to the efforts of the UN and its agencies. “We can achieve these goals and we can do this by improving the way agriculture is done.”
Back in the valley, Mr. Cruz Duarte did not give up. Even after seeing most of his friends leave his small town, he did just the opposite – after years on a neighboring island, São Vicente, the farmer returned to work on his land. his ancestors. “Agriculture is my profession,” he said.
He has two children who have to live on the other island because the school has been closed for a few years in a remote area, but he has been able to provide for them since then. He proudly lists all the crops he grows – sweet potatoes, beans, pumpkins, coffee that are sold in other islands for high prices – and how they change with the seasons. “Now I know how to do it. I can keep it up,” he said.
It was no easy task in these islands. But even after a successful crop, there is still a long way to go.
From the farm to the school canteen
For Amilcar Vera Cruz, “the biggest challenge is selling it,” he says of the crops he grows.
Sara Estrela, Sustainability Assistant at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), explains that, historically, farmers were not usually organized into associations or cooperatives in Cape Verde.
“With the rule being subsistence farming or small family businesses, it’s hard to sell at a fair price,” she said.
One of the projects that the United Nations system has supported is the establishment of the Association of Producers in this valley. Agencies have also supported the construction of two commercial warehouses for gathering, washing and preparing agricultural products for sale.
For Estrela, “the bigger goal is to look at the entire industry and try to organize the whole chain, from putting the seed on the floor to putting the food on the plate.”
She added: “We are empowering manufacturers with knowledge and equipment.
Mr. Vera Cruz has received this support and after decades of struggling with the sale of his crops, he hopes “the association is a way to open up new horizons in the market”.
“We still have other difficulties, but that has slowed down agricultural development, product consumption, and price fluctuations. Sometimes you don’t make enough money to cover production costs,” he said.
Farmers have been thinking about this day for a long time. He has big dreams of seeing his products go beyond the big island town, Porto Novo, to faraway countries, as rumors about the quality of these products spread. A combination of government and UN-funded projects can help make this a reality, he said.
For many years after the country’s independence, in 1975, the WFP was responsible for providing meals for all students in Cape Verde. But the country graduated out of the United Nations Least Developed Country classified as a low-middle-income country in 2007 and a few years later the government took over that task. One of the decisions made was that 25 percent of all food used in schools should be purchased locally.
With that decision, the first major challenge for the Vale Manufacturers Association was recently founded by Paúl. During the entire school year 2021-2022, these producers sold out of bananas consumed at schools on the islands of Santo Antão, São Vicente and Santa Luzia. The initiative has reached 20,000 students.
Now, the association is preparing and, at the end of this month, will hold its first meeting. At the end of March, a final test will come.
Food grown by these farmers, like the Secretary-General tried today, will be washed and packed in new warehouses, loaded onto boats and eventually reach children on all the islands. In just a few weeks, the Paúl Oasis will help feed about 90,000 students, nearly 20% of the country’s population.
