By Pavan Muntha and Chloe Rourke
As climate change is expected to stress the agricultural sector in the coming decades, it is crucial that we transition to climate-smart agricultural practices like agroforestry that build resilience and provide farmers with greater flexibility.
Groups identified as particularly vulnerable to climate change, such as people with disabilities, must be fully included to ensure this transition is successful and its benefits are equitably distributed.
Reforming the agricultural sector will be integral to the success of the world’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Agriculture is responsible for approximately one third of annual global greenhouse gas emissions and the pursuit of carbon neutrality by 2050 requires significant changes in patterns of food production and consumption.
In addition, the impacts of climate change pose a severe threat to the food security of the world’s poor. The World Food Programme estimates the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20% if climate mitigation and adaptation strategies are not implemented. Climate smart agriculture is thus emerging as a key element in the development of low-carbon and climate resilient societies and meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Agroforestry, which combines woody perennials like trees and shrubs with crops and livestock in an integrated system, is one approach that is gaining significant traction. By mimicking natural forests, multi-strata agroforestry systems can sequester carbon, support biodiversity, and withstand adverse weather events better than conventional agricultural systems. Agroforestry can support soil health, reduce heat stress on crops, increase groundwater recharge in dry-lands, prevent soil erosion, and improve nutrition.
The incorporation of fauna in agroforestry systems as a tool for soil health management reduces reliance on inputs such as fossil fuel-based fertilizers. Further, by raising animals and growing several types of crops on the same piece of land, farmers can also take advantage of multiple income sources with different time horizons to better manage risk. For example, farmers practicing agroforestry can rely on income from fruit trees when floods wash away other crops.
Importantly, agroforestry has the potential to generate significant benefits for people with disabilities and foster their inclusion in climate action. Recognizing their agency as stakeholders, climate action strategies must include persons with diverse disabilities to ensure their skills are leveraged and they share in the ecological and economic co-benefits from transitioning to climate-friendly systems.
Inclusive agroforestry could help realize the human rights of people with disabilities, particularly for those in rural areas who often face additional challenges securing a livelihood because of limited access to health care, physical infrastructure, and transportation.
Already, training programs and start-up loans have helped support people with disabilities in building successful small businesses in a variety of agricultural ventures. Projects supported by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in many countries around the world have enabled people with disabilities to enter the agricultural sector and generate an income including through poultry and bee keeping, mushroom harvesting, and food processing. While these projects demonstrate the importance and viability of inclusion of persons with disabilities in agriculture, more are needed. As well, such initiatives must support the development of regenerative, climate-smart agriculture systems like agroforestry.
For example, raising poultry or other animals is a valuable agricultural activity but should not be done in isolation. Industrial-style concentrated feedlots pollute local waterways and generate increased methane emissions. They confine animals in small, crowded spaces leading to elevated risks of disease and inhumane living conditions. In contrast, integrating free-range fowl and other animals into an agroforestry system encourages nutrient-cycling, supports soil microbial life and can provide a source of natural “pest” control for other crops while providing the animals with a better quality of life. Organizations like the FAO are already promoting regenerative agriculture models like agroforestry. They must continue to do so while including people with disabilities as partners.
Agroforestry can provide important benefits for smallholder farmers (1-3 acres), including farmers with disabilities. The design of agroforestry systems is conducive to mechanization, however the machinery used is generally smaller and less expensive and not dependent on fossil fuel inputs. Machines commonly used in agroforestry include small hand-held tractors for low-tilling, foliage sprays for applying bio-inoculants, and drip irrigation systems. Since agroforestry incorporates perennials plant species they can require less labour to maintain than conventional agriculture.
The wide range of tasks and knowledge required in agroforestry provides opportunities for people with diverse disabilities – a variety of skills are required at all stages of food production. From planning and planting crops, to irrigating and harvesting them, to feeding and grazing animals, to processing and selling food products, there are many roles that people with disabilities can assume in alignment with their individual skill set. While research is needed to support disability-specific adaptive tools, it is also important to recognize that the barriers preventing people with disabilities from accessing a livelihood in agriculture are often social and financial. Overcoming prejudice and misconceptions about disability and providing access to land and start-up funding are critical to disability inclusion in agriculture.
Providing training and education opportunities is also important: agroforestry is knowledge intensive. It requires understanding complex relationships between different types of plants and animals, soil health, nutrient cycling, water storage and applying them to specific local contexts.
Agroforestry reflects a fundamentally different approach to agriculture and a renewed relationship with nature. It is embedded in agroecology principles, which may be understood as an inclusive philosophical ideology that recognizes the diverse potential of species and their interdependent role in co-creating the natural world. It rejects extractive models of agriculture predicated on human supremacy and the subjugation of non-human species. Whereas conventional industrial agriculture degrades ecosystems and requires ongoing conversion of new land, regenerative agriculture aims to integrate and support ecosystems and biodiversity. In addition to traditionally farmed animals, agroforestry can provide habitat for local wildlife, such as through planting flowers that attract pollinators or predatory insects as a pest control method. It is farming with — rather than in opposition to — nature. Agroecology thus repositions humans as inalienable from our ever-evolving relationships with other species and provides an inclusive paradigm through which to advance climate justice.
Pavan Muntha is a visually impaired disability and Nature rights activist and a farmer engaged in promoting natural/regenerative agriculture in India and has been a strong advocate for cross disability perspective for the last two decades.
Chloe Rourke is a third year law student working at the intersection of climate justice and disability rights. She works as a research assistant to Professor Sébastien Jodoin examining the impacts of urban climate policy on people with disabilities and coordinates the Food and Agricultural Law Clinic at McGill.
