November 14, 2022     Accra

Dr. Fatima Denton, UNU-INRA director, discusses the issue of food security and agriculture in a panel called Cropped out: Farming in an age of food insecurity at the New York Times, Climate Forward Conversations. The Panel, which took place on the 9th of November, 2022, coincided with COP27  held in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt.

Dr. Denton explained that she was looking into the issue of energy poverty when she saw the need to investigate food security. “It slowly dawned on me that when we put so much emphasis on the form of mitigation, we must look at the issue of loss and food and security,” she said. There was an emphasis on trying to address the fragility of certain entities that are to address the issue of food security. “The institutions are in place, but they don’t have the foundational resources to do it,” she said. She went on to explain why that is an issue using data collection, saying; “If we don’t have the relevant data, we can’t do the relevant planning and If we can’t do the relevant planning, Governments will be caught by surprise.”

When talking about the solution, Dr. Denton said that “Scale is everything.” She explained that a part of the problem was the scale of the solution, noting that “You can’t look at the issues in a silo way.” Dr. Denton also took note of the fact that even though Africa has its liabilities in the fight against climate change, it does have its assets that if utilized correctly will allow Africa to reap its rewards.