The Smarts of Climate Change Agriculture
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.