26:T434,

Climate smart villages (CSVs) are new and promising approaches to tackle the negative repercussions of climate change and to tackle the food insecurity that affects close to one billion people globally. CSVs are envisaged to result into empowerment of participating farmers; however, given the novelty of this concept in different geographical spheres, limited literature exists. This review paper therefore conducted a systematic analysis of some previous studies around this concept and assessed their contribution to understanding empowerment of farmers regarding intrinsic, instrumental, and collective agency. From the results, these studies assessed empowerment majorly in-line with the female gender; some focused on both. Results lacked focus on empowerment in the intrinsic, instrumental, or collective agency realms, though possibility of using proxy concepts can’t be dismissed. However, at the heart of any agricultural extension model, a clearly outlined gender-inclusive farmer empowerment pathway should be a fundamental cornerstone for sustainability.

27:T419,

Drought is an inevitable feature of South Africa's climate. Its slow onset and recurrence threaten livelihoods dependent on agriculture. Responses to drought have mostly been ex-post impact management with little ex-ante resilience building in vulnerable areas. Implementation of ex-ante strategies has been severely challenged by lack of skilled human capital to predict and respond timely and effectively to the impacts of drought, particularly in smallholder farming areas. Human capital development, should therefore, be prioritised as a key drought management strategy. In this regard, it is important to determine farmers and agricultural professionals’ current and future needs for capacity development in drought management. This is important given that drought is projected to increase risks and introduce new ones with far more devastating impacts on agriculture. The current review outlines the implications of drought on agricultural skills in South Africa and the way forward.

28:T414,

We review the Canadian federal government‘s recently enacted Food Policy for Canada (FPC). Three arguments are developed. First, the development and vision statement of the FPC implies that improving Canadian food security is a specific objective of the policy. Second, if assessed by the measure of food insecurity promulgated by Statistics Canada, the effectiveness of the FPC in reducing Canadian food insecurity will primarily depend on the extent to which it improves household incomes and/or lowers food prices. We evaluate the current programmatic content by these criteria. Third, and related to the second point, we argue that the variation in the severity of food insecurity is an important consideration in assessing the effectiveness of FPC programs in reducing food insecurity as measured by Statistics Canada. Finally, we combine these three arguments into a simple figure/heuristic that can serve as a guide to the assessment and development of FPC programs seeking to enhance food insecurity in Canada.

29:T7a8,