African Development Bank

The March edition of the CRG Newsletter has been published, and can be accessed through our library at https://globalresearchalliance.org/library/crg-newsletter-march-2021/.

On 22 June 2021 between 9:30 and 11:00 CEST the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V. and the Joint Program Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE JPI) together with partners are organising a virtual panel discussion as a launch event for the MACSUR SciPol pilot project. The MACSUR pilot Science Policy hub which is a follow up to MACSUR 1 and 2 (https://macsur.eu/) aims to bring science and policy together to strategically design a response to climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges in the agri-food sector in Europe. With transdisciplinary and modelling approaches, the SciPol pilot will generate key lessons to establish and operationalize a science-policy knowledge forum. The organising team invite policy representatives, researchers, farmer groups or interested farmers, and knowledge brokers to this kick-off networking event.

The panel will focus on the “Role of Science Policy Knowledge Hubs in Addressing the Policy Challenges of Agriculture in the Context of Climate Change in Europe”

To attend the event and receive updates about the speakers, please register here: https://macsur-kickoff.eventbrite.de

Scheduled for 12:00GMT on the 22nd of June 2021, this webinar will aim to share knowledge and keep the connection of animal health and greenhouses gases under discussion. Registrations close in a week. TO register and receive the access link, please email [email protected]. An agenda can be found below:

The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) is pleased to announce Cuba as our newest member country. This now raises the total membership to 65 countries.

As a signatory to the UNFCCC and having ratified the Paris Agreement, Cuba has a strong focus on climate change. The recent GHG inventory in 2016 highlighted how Agriculture, Forest and Other Land Use account for about 20% of the country’s GHG emissions. It is from this background that Cuba has decided to join the GRA.

The 65 member countries now participating in the activities of the Global Research Alliance are: Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, eSwatini, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Samoa, Senegal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

On 7 May 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture Sri Lanka/National Institute of Postharvest Management along with University of Peradeniya held a virtual workshop on “Exploring the opportunities and challenges in addressing food losses and waste in Sri Lanka and their climate change impacts”. The Workshop was supported by the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in support of the objectives of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.
Forty experts from academia, industry, and government agencies participated in the workshop (see Figure 1 for a breakdown of the participants). Speakers and participants discussed the progress of the on-going GRA-funded small project, “Strengthening Sri Lanka’s efforts to quantify and mitigate greenhouse gases related to postharvest losses” and explored ideas to develop a more extensive research programme to address food loss and waste issues in Sri Lanka and the broader aspects of climate change.

The Workshop found that the following issues need to be prioritised to address the food losses and waste issue in the country and the associated climate change impacts:
i. Robust data are crucial for estimating the greenhouse gases from the Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector and therefore to achieve the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Immediate action is required for improving greenhouse gas inventories for the agriculture sector. This may cover activities such as collecting activity data, developing country-specific emission factors, and building a data-sharing platform;
ii. Visualisation and traceability of the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains are key to identifying the economic, environmental, and social hotspots and to develop ways of addressing them;
iii. Coordinated efforts are critical to enhance productivity and address climate change. Most of the current initiatives are fragmented and they focus on particular elements of the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains rather than at the system level; and
iv. Capacity building is key. To achieve the above, Sri Lanka requires support in establishing an effective capacity building process that would address current and emerging gaps and needs.

Details of the discussions

Dr Chanjief Chandrakumar from MPI opened the Workshop, emphasising the role of the GRA in achieving food security and mitigating climate change – “bringing countries together to find ways to grow more food without growing greenhouse gases”. He briefed on the continuing relationship with Sri Lanka – a GRA member since 2013, before moving into the details of the on-going GRA-funded small project, “Strengthening Sri Lanka’s efforts to quantify and mitigate greenhouse gases related to postharvest losses”. The collaborative project between the Ministry of Agriculture Sri Lanka/National Institute of Postharvest Management and University of Peradeniya project aims to quantify the postharvest losses in Sri Lankan banana supply chains and to estimate the associated greenhouse gases.

Mr Andrew Traveller, Deputy High Commissioner – New Zealand High Commission in Sri Lanka, addressed the workshop. In his speech, he highlighted the long-standing bilateral relationship between Sri Lanka and New Zealand. He further emphasised that mitigating agricultural greenhouse gases is a priority for both island nations and New Zealand is committed to strengthening Sri Lanka’s efforts through providing technical expertise and implementing research and capability building programmes. Some of the current initiatives include the twining program between the University of Peradeniya and Massey University to upgrade the veterinary curriculum to global standards, dairy excellence training for dairy advisers, and dry zone smallholder dairy expansion to boost milk yield.

Prof Ajantha de Silva, Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture in Sri Lanka, highlighted the extreme effects of climate change and their impact on the sustainability of the Sri Lankan agriculture sector. He highlighted the timeliness of the work on mitigating banana postharvest losses and their greenhouse gases in Sri Lanka and acknowledged the support from the GRA and the New Zealand Government.

A poll was used to obtain the participants’ views on postharvest losses specifically, and on the issue of food loss and waste in Sri Lanka broadly. The poll revealed that the experts are aware of the severity of the issue and emphasise the importance of developing and implementing effective research programmes and policy measures.

In a breakout session, participants were split in two groups. Group 1, led by Prof Palitha Weerakkody, discussed postharvest losses and current practices to reduce them. Key messages include:

• Some of the data gaps in the sour banana supply chain have been addressed through the on-going GRA funded small project. However, data gaps exist in supply chains for other banana varieties and other fresh fruit and vegetables.
• The economic impacts of implementing mitigation options are unknown – an economic analysis is critical to understand this aspect. This is highly relevant for export-oriented fresh produce.
• Existing studies, including this one, have not addressed the social aspects of the stakeholders in the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains. Efforts are required to investigate the social aspects such as ergonomics.
• Uptake of postharvest management practices is very slow in the country, despite a range of effective mitigation options already in existence.
• Value addition to traditional banana supply chains has not been much explored. Market exists for banana-based foods and beverages globally, but a market analysis is necessary to understand the local context.
• A life cycle thinking approach is critical in mitigating food losses and waste including postharvest losses – this requires addressing environmental impacts beyond climate change.
• Waste management and alternative uses of wastes (e.g. for industrial purposes) would contribute towards establishing circular economic systems – closing nutrient, resource, and economic cycles.

Group 2, led by Dr Asela Kulatunga, discussed the approaches to estimate the greenhouse gases associated with the losses and the existing challenges. Key messages include:

• Visibility and traceability of the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains are essential in addressing food losses and waste. They will help in identifying the hotspots and undertaking relevant interventions. This is however not straightforward and requires additional resources to map and redesign the current supply chains.
• Limitations in activity data and country-specific emission factors hinder the accurate estimation of greenhouse gases. Sri Lanka needs to prioritise improving their greenhouse gas inventories in order to achieve their NDCs. This may include compiling activity data, developing country-specific emission factors, using higher tier approaches for quantifying emissions, and establishing data sharing platforms;
• Although effective interventions have been proposed in the past to address postharvest losses, they were mostly unsuccessful due to reasons such as affordability, time requirement, manpower requirement, and poor understanding/communication. Capacity building and behavioural change are crucial in this context.
• Collaboration and coordination between different stakeholders are critical in addressing food losses and waste in Sri Lanka. This includes identifying opportunities to connect with relevant international and national initiatives/programmes, such as the #Nitrogen4NetZero initiative led by the UK and the Collaboration Initiative Food Loss and Waste led by Germany.

Finally, Dr Chandrakumar in closing remarks, summarised the key aspects discussed in the workshop and the opportunities for future collaboration.

Lessons learned and future activities needed

Food losses and waste is indeed an issue of great public concern in Sri Lanka. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reflects the increased awareness of this issue globally as well as nationally. Hence, more coordinated efforts are essential.
The ongoing GRA-funded small project has started to address some elements of the food losses and waste issue and the climate change impacts, by quantifying the banana postharvest losses and their associated greenhouse gases. However, wider efforts are critical to address this prominent issue.
Some of the identified key priorities include:

• Improving greenhouse gas inventories for the agriculture sector;
• Redesigning conventional fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains;
• Adopting circular food system approaches to close the nutrient and resource cycles;
• Establishing collaborations to develop effective mitigation solutions and policies; and
• Building national capacity to address current and emerging gaps and needs.

As the next step, the researchers leading the current banana postharvest losses project and the workshop participants propose undertaking a meta-analysis/stocktake to identify the gaps related to different aspects of the Sri Lankan fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains. This could be done with the involvement of the workshop participants. Once the gaps and priorities are identified, a more extensive research and capacity building programme will be developed with several work packages led by relevant field experts.

This networking event will provide agriculture inventory and NDC policy actors, inventory compilers and researchers an opportunity to meet and create new enduring networks, and ensure research is relevant and adopted for policy and inventory outcomes. Held virtually, there will be two sessions to accommodate for different time zones. Both sessions have the same agenda, so please only register for one by clicking the following dates. They are scheduled for Tuesday 2nd of June UTC 0700 and Thursday 3rd of June UTC 1300. Questions can either be submitted prior to the meeting to the GRA secretariat email, or live during the meeting.

Further information and the final agenda can be found below: