Ted Audio Collective One of the great sources of joy in my day -to -day life is my garden.
It's a quiet oasis taking me away from the hustle and bustle of New York City.
And it's where I grow roses and begonias, I have a maple tree, hydrangeas, no vegetables yet, but maybe one day.
I've had this garden for a while, but recently I noticed something different going on.
2024 was one of the hottest summers on record in New York City, with many days of intense heat.
This wreaked havoc on my little backyard garden.
Everything started to die.
My flowers baked in the harsh sun, it was so painful to see.
And if my little decorative garden was being thrown into chaos, I began to think about what's happening on a much larger and critical scale.
What about farms? What about people who make their livelihoods feeding the world?
I'm Madupa Akinola, this is Ted Business from the Ted Audio Collective.
Our speaker today is Agnes Calabatta, she's an agricultural scientist and policy maker.
She's here to tell us that the small -holder farmers, millions depend on for food, are now suffering due to the effects of climate change.
The time is now for climate resilience strategies, and Agnes says that we should be providing farmers access to the tools they need to withstand the climate crisis.
Then after the talk, I'll discuss what these ideas can look like in action.
But first, a quick break.
And now, Agnes Calabatta takes the Ted stage.
I have told this story a million times, but I'm going to tell it today again, so that can help you connect with the 500 million small -holder farmers that are out there.
I grew up on a small farm in Uganda, where my parents were refugees from Rwanda.
My parents found the group cassava, maize and potatoes.
My mom dug the land and fed us.
My dad never touched the food even worse.
And my mom never complained because she felt it was her responsibility to feed the family.
First forward, I got out of there at the age of around 14, thanks to the fact that my dad had been a teacher in Rwanda.
But I was the exception, not the rule.
And I'm here today to tell you that empowering small -holder farmers can change their lives, can nourish people, improve economies and actually help them deal with the current challenge of climate change.
When I finished school, I worked in research in Uganda.
And a friend of mine gave me two kilograms of seeds to take to my parents.
This was an improved variety.
When my mom planted it, she got 10 bugs in a place where she would have usually got three bugs.
She sold some to farm farmers and bought herself a traditional dress.
She did not have to ask my dad for money.
That was the first time.
And I still remember the excitement and the joy in her face like it was yesterday.
But of course she needed more seed and she wanted more of the same seed.
In my mind, I was like, if I can empower my mother like I did with one sock of seed, I can definitely pour whole villages.
I can help send more girls to school.
I still remember the pain I felt when I was told that my best friend had been married at 15 because her parents could not keep her in school.
And I still think of all the girls that did not make out of my village because they didn't have the opportunities I had.
And it gives me a certain yarning that actually keeps me grounded in the realities of my world.
The opportunity came 15 years later when I joined the leadership of Mr.
Publicity in Rwanda, ultimately as the minister.
This is not a country where you want to wake up as a minister.
farmers' land holdings are the smallest in the world, at least in Africa.
The country's mountainous farmers' lands land every season.
And the country was just coming out of a genocide and everybody was struggling.
But this did not water down my excitement.
In my mind, I was serving lemons and I needed to make lemonade.
I took advantage of the fact that Rwandan farmers owned their land.
And we designed a program to consolidate land and synchronize how farmers farm without worry of land boundaries.
My government put in place policies to ensure that farmers had access to seeds and to fertilizers.
We put in place extension for every 500 hectares.
The first season of farming was a lot of preaching and campaigning.
Why would farmers want to use seeds and fertilizer they had never seen?
But by the plant season, farmers were demanding that seeds and fertilizers be delivered in good time for planting.
Three years in, we had a bumper harvest.
And it was my worst nightmare because we had not prepared for markets.
I had not thought about storage and maize was everywhere.
I went back to government and my government helped me working with World Food Programme and government procurement agencies.
We were able to buy farmers produce and we worked with the private sector and set up more long -term solutions through processing, storing processing capacity.
Once farmers had a market, the transformation was palpable.
I remember feeling as I walked around the country, feeling that the air around me was vibrating with energy and excitement.
My people were happy.
My country was proud.
And in the period of six years, Rwanda was recording poverty reduction levels that were not being seen in the region.
And the World Bank attributed it, attributed 65 % of that poverty reduction to what was happening in the agriculture sector and related by the addition.
Here is the thing. 2 .5 million farmers, some of the smallest in the world, were feeding 12 million people and were creating work for themselves.
To me, this is what importing smallholder farmers looks like.
By a new challenge lay ahead, climate change.
By 2013, crop failure was becoming clear because rains were coming too late or stopping too early.
I vividly remember when I went on a food visit with my president and clouds started gathering back to rain.
Fertilizers were on their way from Ukraine and seeds were on their way from Zambia because we hadn't yet figured out how to produce seeds ourselves.
It was two months before the rains and my heart started beating in my chest.
I was like, what am I going to do?
Here I am. I'm going to let these farmers down again because then every drop of rain mattered.
Climate change has taken away the ability of farmers to understand seasons.
Farmers don't know when rains are going to come or when to plant.
Farmers don't even know what crop to plant anymore.
I see this in every country of the 15 countries where I now work as agro -president.
Right now as we speak, Southern Africa is going through one of the worst droughts ever.
Zimbabwe has just lost 70 % of their maize crop yield because of a scorching heat wave, the first ever in 40 years.
Kenya has just experienced a flood that has left the land buried after farmers had planted.
But our hands are not tied.
There must be something we can do about it.
We have tools that we can deploy.
There are so many things in our capacity, in our ability that we can do to empower farmers to take back their lives and be part of feeding the world.
One, we need to stop climate change in strokes.
Stop emitting countries need to stop emitting or be prepared to pay farmers every time they lose a crop, livestock or property.
Two years ago, farmers in East Africa lost everything after six consecutive seasons of drought.
Today, we should be able to pay those farmers using now the loss and damage fund that was launched last year at COP 28.
Reversing climate change is going to take some time.
In the meantime, we need to ensure that farmers have access to improved varieties of seed that need less water, good fertilizers, extension services, soil health information, climate information and crop insurance that can help them know when to plant.
Plant early or not to plant at all and save that seed if rains are not going to happen.
Most important, we need to ensure that farmers know the disasters are coming so that they can get out of the way.
Third, we need to invest in post -hivest losses so that we save everything that comes from every season.
Pixbergs designed out of Purdue University and now commercialized in most of East Africa are actually ensuring food security because they are allowing farmers to store grain for longer periods.
Lastly, we need to rethink markets and how farmers access trade, especially how African farmers engage in African food markets.
You recently saw European farmers demonstrate because they were worried that they were losing their market share.
African farmers lost their market share in the 80s and have never gained it.
As a result, Africa produces what does not consume and consumes what does not produce.
The African free continental trade area that has just been launched is an opportunity for us to start advancing into continental trade in Africa in ways that can work for African farmers.
We want food to be cheap and affordable, but we can't do this at the expense of small order farmers.
They are businesses too and want them to be successful.
We want them to be successful because in Africa and parts of Asia, 70 % of the food we eat is grown by small order farmers.
So I would like to flip this.
I would like us here, consumers, businesses, politicians, to recognize the place and role of small order farmers and how when we empower them, they can feed themselves, improve their livelihoods, be part of feeding 10 billion people while nourishing the planet.
See, we do not recognize that farmers are the best custodians we have of this planet.
They tour the land and understand it.
They know it's what they are going to person to their children.
They treasure it. Empowering small order farmers and ensuring that they are able to advance the lives of their children, give them a shorter education like my dad did is what I work towards and it's what keeps me awake every night.
Thank you. That was Agnes Kalabata at TED Countdown 2024.
Agnes is highlighting some really striking data.
I had no idea that across Africa and in parts of Asia, 70 % of the food eaten is grown by small order farmers.
That's a lot of people whose nourishment is dependent on small farms.
I visit Rwanda where Agnes' parents are from every spring with 30 students for a course I teach on conflict, leadership, and new business opportunities.
On one of our most recent trips, we had the pleasure of visiting a farm that captured exactly what Agnes is advocating for.
Farmers were given valuable resources like financing, fruit trees, and other supplies meant to increase their crop yields.
Climate change can sometimes seem so overwhelming and abstract, but for many this is an everyday emergency, especially for farmers who are trying to figure out how to make their land more sustainable and survivable.
So consider this a call to action.
To think of the concrete ways we can improve food systems across the world, including empowering small farmers.
Agnes is telling us there's a lot more to be done.
That's it for today.
TED Business is part of the TED Audio Collective.
This episode was produced by Hannah Kingsley Ma, edited by Alejandra Salazar, and fact -checked by Julia Dickerson.
Special thanks to Maria Lajas, Farrah de Grunge, Daniela Balorazo, and Roxanne Highlatch.
I'm Madupa Akinola.
Thanks for listening.
