By Nellie Kapatuka:
An agriculture expert says smallholder farmers in the country are reluctant to participate in afforestation activities because of no direct benefits attached to it.
Derrick Kapolo, Head of Agribusiness for the Farmers Union of Malawi, said putting a monetary value to afforestation works is the only way to get farmers on board towards the realization of Malawi’s commitment to restore 4.5 million hectares of land by the year 2030.
He said this on Wednesday during a panel discussion on mobilizing private finance for forest restoration and regenerative models organized by the UK government at the ongoing COP27 taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt.
According to Kapolo, costs attached to restoration activities as well as land holding size are further pushing farmers away with some venturing into unsustainable coping mechanisms.
“If we are really talking about supporting farmers to venture into afforestation and also for Malawi to reach its regeneration goal, we have to start thinking about how to monetize this work to ensure we keep farmers motivated and at the same time move towards the realization of the degraded forests regeneration goal,” he said.
According to Kapolo, it is difficult to control farmers’ activities because most of the smallholder farmers in the country use customary land and big decisions on how to use their land are made by the farmers themselves.
He has since put forward suggestions including the introduction of de-carbonization grants and carbon financing where farmers can be financed through subsidies for keeping a portion of their land to regenerate.
“We cannot talk about serious reforestation works without the involvement of farmers, especially for Malawi where about 60% of land is customary,” said Kapolo.
However, Jorim Schraven, Director of Impacts at the Dutch Development Bank suggests the need for public private partnership to mobilize enough resources towards the restoration initiative.
According to Mamadou Dakhite, leader of the African Landscape Forests Restoration Initiative (AFR100), to mitigate the impacts of climate change, African countries made commitments to restore 100 million of degraded forests by 2030 which will subsequently contribute towards the reduction of green gas emissions.
“Forest landscape restoration is more than just trees hence we are also talking issues to do with farmers and agriculture as well as soil conservation. We need to bring a lot of stakeholders on board to ensure smooth financing mechanism of the initiative,” he said.
Landscape restoration initiative, is among Malawi’s top priorities in the fight against climate change as outlined in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) which is in accordance with article 4 paragraph 12 of the Paris agreement.
