The conference theme – cost effective, rapid methods of environmental restoration as a pathway to food security and adaptation to climate change – is particularly pertinent at this time with:

• A precarious food security situation in Southern Africa requiring an urgent approach to successfully intensify smallholder farm production
• Ominous observations and predictions of the effects of climate change on food production and livelihoods in the Southern Africa region that must be addressed through greater adaptation of agriculture to climate change
• Severe and accelerating deforestation and land degradation in the region that necessitates changes in farming methods to improve soil health and regenerate the land.

Objectives  

Within the Southern Africa Region –

• Stimulating national and regional stakeholder (governments, NGOs, donors, community) awareness and action to adopt cost effective high impact techniques to address food insecurity
• Building resilience and create robust, productive farming systems in a changing climate
• Fostering a very large transformation in thinking and practice to tackling hunger resulting in a self propelling movement

Globally –

• Stimulating awareness and action from international participants to take and apply learnings from the conference to their own spheres of influence