News

Building climate change resilience through regenerative agriculture

31st July 2024

Convening the agrifood industry for the first time on the African continent, #SAIPlatform2024 offered inspiring field visits, solution focused discussions with industry experts and unparalleled networking opportunities.

Kicking off with the General Assembly on 24^th June, the 9 new and re-elected members of the Executive Committee were officially endorsed and the final version of the SAI Platform 2025-2030 strategy was presented to members following a comprehensive consultation process.

A choice of five insightful field visits spanning two full days provided members with a unique opportunity to engage with pioneering South African farmers and underscored the potential for public-private partnerships and innovative crop nutrition and water management practices to drive positive change in agriculture. See here for a more detailed account of the field visits.

The in-field elements of the event paved the way for thought provoking keynotes, dynamic breakout sessions and engaging cross-sector panels at the conference on 26^th June. The event provided a safe space for transparent, solution focused discussions led by a plethora of esteemed speakers including pioneering farmers, sustainable agriculture researchers and industry experts.

Wandile Sihlobo, Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, set the scene with a captivating opening keynote providing context about the challenges and opportunities facing smallholders and commercial farmers in South Africa, from an economic, environmental and social perspective.

Despite South Africa’s recent economic challenges, the agricultural sector has shown strong performance. However, black smallholder farmers account for only 10% of the commercial output, leaving the benefits of this growth primarily in the hands of white commercial farmers. Additionally, 2.5 million hectares of land remain underutilised due to the shortcomings of the land reform policy. While there is an urgent need to address racial disparities, black smallholder farmers should be supported in a way that is not at the expense of commercial operations.

Members had the opportunity to hear firsthand from Futhi Mkwanasi, a smallholder farmer from Eswatini about how her community has thrived by combining land and forming a farmers’ union. This has helped to facilitate knowledge exchange and access to markets, leading to livelihoods improvements including access to education, healthcare and infrastructure.

Her story underscored the key takeaway from the panel discussion which focused on building resilience through regenerative agriculture – it is crucial to expand our view beyond environmental risks to include socio-economic aspects. In the smallholder context, regenerating the community must come before regenerating the environment.

If the global transition to regenerative agriculture is to be realised, farmer buy-in is critical. With three sessions dedicated to bringing forward the farmer’s perspective, members had ample opportunity to engage with smallholders, large scale producers, female and next generation farmers.

With extreme weather events more commonplace, there is consensus that we need to focus on improving soil health. It is not just about reducing inputs but optimising crop nutrition and water use to ensure that farmers remain profitable. There is no silver bullet or one-size fits all solution and regenerative agriculture is a process that takes time. Farmers must be supported to de-risk the transition.

Collaborating across the private sector, key institutions, and government is a core way of working in the South African context and an engaging panel discussion moderated by Kebba Colley from ITC focused on the role of public private partnerships in building resilient supply chains.

Common consensus is that clarity, transparency, and pragmatism are key ingredients for effective partnerships and while collaboration has a cost, if done right it can reap rewards that could not be accessed if acting in isolation. Different actors bring different strengths such as the private sector’s agility, academia’s research lens and government links for policy reform. 

The event culminated with a succession focused session with two successful next generation farmers. Keategile Mnguni and Andile Ngcobo highlighted the need for better support networks to provide entrant farmers with access to the agronomic, economic and technical resources and skillsets required to turn unproductive farms around. Collaboration at a landscape level is required and there is ample opportunity for the industry to support. On a global level, if we want to prevent further rise in rural urban migration, there is an urgent need to focus on making agriculture profitable.

Other highlights from the conference included a lively debate on the controversial motion: Our focus on sustainable agriculture principles and practices has failed. An outcome-based model is the only solution to building resilient food systems for the future and interactive breakout sessions focused on how industry can better support farmers in building resilience.

All presentations are now available exclusively for members on My SAI Platform. Members can also access the photo gallery and videos from the five-day event here.

The SAI Platform Executive Committee and Secretariat would like to extend our gratitude to the incredible speakers, panelists, field visit hosts and attendees for their active contribution in creating the positive, transparent and solution focused energy that made this year’s event such an overwhelming success. Your passion and commitment to advancing sustainable and regenerative agriculture are truly inspiring.

A very big thank you also goes to our Platinum sponsors, Nestlé, Syngenta Group and Unilever and our Silver sponsors, ABF Sugar, Illovo Sugar Africa and Yara International for their financial support and unwavering support in the organisation of the in-field elements of the event. We also extend a special thanks to our moderator and host, Sasha Twining, whose efforts were instrumental to the event’s success.

SAI Platform looks forward to future events and continued collaboration with members and partners as we lead the transition to a more sustainable, resilient and equitable agricultural system.