Building resilient food systems

The Nature Positive Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation (Nature+) is Canadian Foodgrains Bank’s flagship initiative to strengthen climate resilience and food security in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. 

Nature-based Solutions

Through Nature+, the Foodgrains Bank network is promoting four key Nature-based Solutions – actions that protect and restore ecosystems, as well as address societal problems, such as food insecurity, especially among women and other vulnerable groups:

• Conservation agriculture: minimal soil disturbance, maximizing soil cover, and maximizing crop diversity
• Assisted natural regeneration (allowing trees and other plants to naturally re-establish themselves) and additional planting of trees, shrubs, and grasses
• Improved soil and water conservation, including structures to reduce soil erosion and small-scale community water harvesting
• Improved rangeland management, such as community-planned grazing and improved crop-livestock systems
• By December 2025, more than 52,000 farmers had adopted at least one nature-based solution practice. 

Improved Livelihoods

The Foodgrains Bank network is supporting families to improve incomes while strengthening biodiversity. These include community gardens, poultry farming, small livestock, beekeeping, mushroom farming, and ecotourism.

New livelihoods are strengthened through training and farmer champions who support their peers; through improved technology, such as more accessible bee hives; and through financial inclusion, particularly through community-based savings groups. More than 27,000 individuals have joined 991 groups, and can more easily access credit now and invest in new livelihoods.  

Landscape Governance

Nature+ is strengthening local governance systems, such as Natural Resource Management Committees, to enable community members to better participate and lead in decision-making processes within their communities and landscapes.

Community groups, supported by implementing partners, have successfully advocated for 26 policies to benefit communities and their landscapes. Partners are working with stakeholders such as local businesses and national parks to build stronger long-term partnerships.  

And Nature+ is empowering women and other vulnerable groups to take on new leadership opportunities. By the end of 2025, 15,878 individuals (58% women) were actively participating in decision-making processes within community and landscape governance systems across Nature+ project landscapes.