The Landscape Alliance states drylands are critical ecosystems, yet too often, they are undervalued and overlooked. At Food Tank’s 3rd Annual Chief Sustainability Officer and Food Systems Funders Summit at London Climate Action Week, speakers explored why the sustainable management of these regions is so important and the best practices to preserve and restore them.
The conversation was part of an event that brought together more than 250 leaders from the private, investment, philanthropic, and research sectors to discuss climate solutions in food and agriculture systems. It was hosted in partnership with Google Cloud, Compass Group, the U.N. Environment Programme, PAI, Landscape Alliance, Kinisla, Tapestry Foundation, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, WWF, Strong Roots, and the Institute of Food Technologists.
Drylands support roughly 44 percent of global food systems and are home to more than 2 billion people, according to the Landscape Alliance. This means that many brands touch drylands and the foods produced there in some way, says Myriam Sidibé, Chief Mission Officer and Founder for Brands on a Mission. But their value isn’t always fully recognized or reinvested back into the communities that grow them.
“Are they priced the right way?” Sidibé asks. “Do they give us the kind of value addition that we want to give back to the landscape where they are grown and where we are learning to thrive?”
Drylands are also under threat—and degrading quickly. But if this can be reversed, there is great potential. For every dollar invested in drylands, the return is 30 times that, says Dr. Éliane Ubalijoro, CEO of the Landscape Alliance. She calls them “places of deep opportunity.”
Fortunately, companies, researchers, and businesses see this, and they are working together to support dryland farming systems. The Landscape Alliance’s Thrivelands Project, for example, is a global initiative to restore these ecosystems, driving climate resilience and food security.
Brands on a Mission works with food businesses to accelerate their impact on global health and well-being, while centering the communities who live in drylands. “You cannot separate resilience of landscape from resilience of humans,” Sidibé says.
In India, “drylands are a way of life” for many of the country’s 100 million farmers, says Kaushik Kappagantulu, Co-Founder and CEO of Kheyti. His company is working with producers to bring them low-cost, climate-smart agriculture solutions suited for their environment. He says he has seen farmers “double their incomes while using 90 percent less water and having 60 percent less crop loss.”
In Egypt, SEKEM Group believes carbon credits can help farmers build resilience. “Organic, biodynamic is cheaper, and it’s only by hiding and externalizing costs that it seems to be more expensive,” SEKEM’s CEO and Founder Helmy Abouleish says.
Although carbon credits may not be a permanent solution, they can offer an economic incentive for farmers, allowing them to produce foods using climate-smart practices while keeping their costs down.
“We all have an opportunity—with enabling policy, with enabling investment, with enabling storytelling, with enabling work with farmers in the value chains—to really start making that difference,” Ubalijoro says. “This is an opportunity for all of us…to make these thrivelands not only a source of prosperity but also a source of peace.”
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Photo courtesy of Shai Dolev for Food Tank
