SECAM Joins Call for Food Systems that Promote Africa’s Rich Diet and Traditions

It further undermines the food and seed sovereignty and self-determination of local communities, the Church leaders say.

According to the Church leaders, the practice further enables the concentration and abuse of power by large-scale agribusiness, thereby sidelining smallholder farmers from decision-making.

In their joint statement, the Church entities in Africa and beyond propose a system that moves away from industrial food production to agroecology.

They observe that hunger is not a production problem but “a justice issue”, related to the sharing of resources and financial access.

“Hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity persist in Africa today largely due to the logic and priorities of a development model that is designed to maximise economic growth,” they say.

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According to the Church leaders, the AU-EU partnership must support a transformation of agriculture that breaks free from what they describe as an “exploitative and extractive” way of farming, and from the dependency on imported fertilisers, chemical inputs, and genetically modified seeds.

They instead propose a system that includes promoting agroecology which they say is a tested and proven model for climate resilience among rural communities.

The leaders call for the protection of farmer-managed seed systems that enable the preservation of traditional crop species, the development of local varieties adapted to farmers’ specific needs, the self-sufficiency of farmers and environmental stewardship.

They say that traditional African farming systems “are rooted in knowledge, values and wisdom built up over thousands of years and provide a strong basis for people to respond to their own needs for healthy, culturally-adapted foods.”

“Criminalising farmers for saving and exchanging seeds or imposing rigid intellectual property regimes or corporate agendas violates both their rights and the planet’s needs,” they say.

Calling for an end to “double standards”, the Catholic Church leaders say that pesticides that are prohibited to be used in European agriculture because of the harm they cause to people’s health or the environment should no longer be produced for export to outside the EU, including Africa.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church leaders have expressed optimism that the AU-EU summit will be “an opportunity to work together on the building blocks of an equitable partnership between the two regions.”

“Speaking from the direct experiences of our communities and people we serve, among them those experiencing poverty and hunger, farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, women and youth, we take this occasion to advocate for a fair and responsible AU-EU partnership,” the Church leaders say in the statement also signed by Caritas Africa, Caritas Middle East and North Africa, and Caritas Europa.

Agnes Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor's Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya's Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.