Tag Archive for: Africa

Nigeria: Agricultural Policies and Climate Change

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Author: Martins Eke | Published: December 19, 2016 

Climate change has emerged one of the most challenging environmental issues of the 21st century. As a driver of many kinds of environmental changes, climate change poses risk to fresh water supply, food production and economic development. The massive shrinking of the Lake Chad in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria which played a key role in predisposing the people of the zone to enlistment into Boko Haram terror group is a clear example of how far-reaching the consequences of climate change can be. Agriculture has being identified as having huge potential in the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. However, the ability of the government to formulate good climate change policies and effectively implement the agricultural sector strategies of the policies are key to the fight against climate change.

One major policy of the Nigerian government in the fight against climate change is the National Adaptation Strategy and Plan of Action on Climate Change for Nigeria (NASPA-CCN). This strategy envisions a Nigeria in which climate change adaptation is an integrated component of sustainable development, reducing the vulnerability and enhancing the resilience and adaptive capacity of all economic sectors and of all people particularly women and children to the adverse impacts of climate change, while also capturing the opportunities that arise as a result of climate change. Some of NASPA-CCN strategies for the agricultural sector includes: Increase access to drought-resistant crops and livestock feeds; adopt better soil management practices; provide early warning/meteorological forecasts and related information; increase planting of native vegetation cover and promotion of re-greening efforts. Considering the huge adverse effects of climate change, Nigeria has no other option than to move from business-as-usual model of agriculture to climate-smart agriculture. Capturing the opportunities arising from climate change entails taking full advantage of the employment opportunities arising from climate change in terms of the new and sustainable jobs it will create through use of new and improved ways of doing things. Planting of native vegetation cover and promotion of re-greening efforts will provide employment for those producing nursery bags as well as those on the field who plant and nurture the trees.

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The Smarts of Climate Change Agriculture

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Author: Paul Harman | Published: December 12, 2016 

US President-elect Donald Trump has made no bones about his dismissive stance towards climate change – an approach our farmers can ill afford to emulate. It just makes sense for them to adopt sustainable farming practices – for the environment, as well as their bottom line.

But, for our farmers to adopt sustainable farming practices, we need robust support structures in place, especially from the government.

The South African government and industry associations have indeed provided support to farmers to help them farm sustainably – starting in the Western Cape, and hoping to branch out to the rest of the country.

This support comes in the form of initiatives such as SmartAgri, the Greenagri portal, GreenCape’s sector desk, FruitLook and other interventions focused on community-based adaptation and disaster risk reduction and management.

The Western Cape Department of Agriculture and the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning launched SmartAgri in 2014.

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Africa at Highest Economic Risk From Climate Change

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Author: Alex Whiting | Published: December 18, 2016

Countries most dependent on agriculture are also at high risk of experiencing changes in climate over the next 30 years and face the biggest costs in dealing with the effects of extreme weather, according to a global climate index published on Monday.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 17 of the 20 countries most economically reliant on agriculture in the world.

Of the 17, all but two are at “high” or “extreme” risk of experiencing changes in temperature and rainfall, and extremes such as drought and floods, according to the Climate Change Exposure Index.

These are typically countries whose governments lack the financial or technical resources to plan 20 or 30 years in advance, said Richard Hewston, principal environmental analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a UK-based risk management company which compiled the index.

“They’re dealing with droughts now, they’re dealing with food security issues now, they don’t have that capacity to be looking 30 years down the line,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

The majority of farmers in these countries are smallholders using traditional farming methods, who do not have the financial safety nets to invest in new crops which may improve yields in years to come, Hewston said.

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Drought in Southern Africa Points to Urgent Need for Climate Change Plans

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It is expected that temperatures in southern Africa will rise by between 1.5°C and 3°C due to climate change by the year 2050. This is likely to cause heavy fluctuations of weather patterns and more frequent severe weather events like droughts and floods. Agriculture will be severely affected.

In turn, many economies in southern Africa which are dependent on agriculture will feel the impact. The effects of climate change are already being felt. The 2015 agricultural season in southern African was considered the driest in 35 years.

Five countries in the region – Swaziland, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe – declared national drought disasters. Eight of South Africa’s nine provinces and the southern and central areas of Mozambique declared partial drought emergencies.

Massive crop failures were experienced across the region. This led to a deficit of 9.3-million tons in cereal crop harvests. On top of this 643 000 cattle were estimated to have died in the drought. Because of these agricultural failures, food insecure populations increased by 31%. This implied that more than 40 million people needed humanitarian assistance.

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Africa: Climate Finance for Farmers Key to Avert One Billion Hungry

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Author: Fabíola Ortiz | Published on: November 21, 2016 

Marrakech — With climate change posing growing threats to smallholder farmers, experts working around the issues of agriculture and food security say it is more critical than ever to implement locally appropriate solutions to help them adapt to changing rainfall patterns.

Most countries consider agriculture a priority when it comes to their plans to limit the rise of global temperatures to less than 2 degrees C. In line with the Paris Climate Change Agreement, 95 percent of all countries included agriculture in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

“We need to find solutions that allow people to live better, increase their income, promote decent jobs and be resilient.” — Martial Bernoux of FAO

“The climate is changing. We don’t have rains that we used to have in the past. In the last decade, we had two consecutive years of intense drought and we lost all the production. The animals all died because they had no water,” Ahmed Khiat, 68, a small farmer in the Moroccan community of Souaka, told IPS.

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Re-framing Food and Agriculture: From Degeneration to Regeneration

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Author: IISD | Published: November 19, 2016

This event, moderated by Alexis Baden-Mayer, Organic Consumers Association, US, addressed the use of sustainable agricultural practices and landscape restoration as tools to address climate change, and contribute to negative carbon emissions.

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10 Million Hectares a Year in Need of Restoration Along the Great Green Wall

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Published: November 16, 2016

A groundbreaking map of restoration opportunities along Africa’s Great Green Wall has been launched at the UN climate change conference, based on collection and analysis of crucial land-use information to boost action in Africa’s drylands to increase the resilience of people and landscapes to climate change.

“The Great Green Wall initiative is Africa’s flagship programme to combat the effects of climate change and desertification,” said Eduardo Mansur, Director of FAO’s Land and Water Division, while presenting the new map at the COP22 in Marrakech.

“Early results of the initiative’s actions show that degraded lands can be restored, but these achievements pale in comparison with what is needed,” he added during a high-level event at the African Union Pavilion entitled: “Resilient Landscapes in Africa’s Drylands: Seizing Opportunities and Deepening Commitments”.

Mansur hailed the new assessment tool used to produce the map as a vital instrument providing critical information to understand the true dimension of restoration needs in the vast expanses of drylands across North Africa, Sahel and the Horn.

Drawing on data collected on trees, forests and land use in the context of the Global Drylands Assessment conducted by FAO and partners in 2015-2016, it is estimated that 166 million hectares of the Great Green Wall area offer opportunities for restoration projects.

The Great Green Wall’s core area crosses arid and semi-arid zones on the North and south sides of the Sahara. Its core area covers 780 million hectares and it is home to 232 million people. To halt and reverse land degradation, around 10 million hectares will need to be restored each year, according to the assessment. This will be major a contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

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Protecting and Developing African Agriculture in the Face of Climate Change

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Author: Patrick Dupoux and Younes Zrikem | Published: November 18, 2016

The United Nations 2016 climate change conference (COP 22), meeting this week—through Nov. 18—in Marrakech, Morocco, presents an historic opportunity to refocus the global community’s attention on the need to help developing nations adapt to climate change. In no area could this be more pressing than Africa, where protecting food security and ending hunger is an urgent necessity.

During the COP21 last year in Paris, the world’s developed nations reaffirmed their commitment to provide at least $100 billion per year, beginning in 2020, to help developing nations combat climate change.

In the past, most funds have been used on mitigation projects—those intended to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. But there is a growing consensus that work focused on adapting to climate change is of equal importance and more funding needs to be devoted to it.

This is a step in the right direction. With 28 African countries expected to more than double in population by 2050, and 10 African countries—Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia—expected to grow “by at least a factor of five” by 2100, according to the U. N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Africa will be hard pressed to feed itself as temperature increases drive farm production down.

While increases in temperature and carbon dioxide “can increase some crop yields in some places,” experts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have noted, Africa isn’t among them.

In fact, the opposite is true: The scientific consensus is that a temperature increase of 2°Celsius would result in an average reduction of 15% to 20% in agricultural yields on the continent.

The Center for Global Development’s 2011 report, “Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change Implications for Adaptation Assistance,” forecasts median agricultural productivity losses due to climate change ranging from 18% in North Africa to 19.8% in Central Africa through 2050.

The weak output in Africa, reinforced by a spike in temperatures and exacerbated by extreme climate events, could create a vicious loop of food insecurity, impoverishment, mass migration and, finally, armed conflict. Climate-related migration and conflict already are a reality on the continent, and more often than not they are related to agriculture and food.

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Agriculture Gets Attention at COP22 With AAA Initiative

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Author: Chuka Uroko | Published: November 15, 2016

For the first time in the 22 years of  Conference of Parties (COP) session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agriculture is being  given attention during climate discussions at the ongoing  COP22 conference in Marrakech, Morocco.

This will be made possible by the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA) to Climate Change initiative adopted in September this year by a coalition of 27 African countries who gave their backing and commitment to placing this initiative at the heart of COP22 negotiations.

Pitched as a major challenge for the COP22, agriculture is for the first time in the history of the COP brought to the forefront of climate discussions.

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Agriculture and Food Security at Heart of Climate Change Action

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Published: November 16, 2016

The world must rapidly move to scale up actions and ambitions on climate change FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told delegates at the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP22) in Morocco today.

Speaking at the high-level action day on agriculture and food security, Graziano da Silva noted that climate change impacts on agriculture – including crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, land and water – are already undermining global efforts to assure food security and nutrition.

And the rural poor are the most affected.

With over 90 percent of countries referring to the important role of agriculture in their national plans to adapt to and mitigate climate change, Graziano da Silva stressed that

“it is time to invest in sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture as a fundamental part of the climate solution.”

Last year’s conference in Paris led to the world’s first legally binding global climate deal. The current summit in Marrakech, Morocco is geared to implementation of the pledges all signatory countries made. Echoing the prevalent spirit at the COP, the Paris Agreement is irreversible and inaction would be a disaster for the world.

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