Growing food INSECURITY

Africa's agriculture is predominantly rain-fed and based on small landholdings. This makes it highly vulnerable to climate change. With changing rainfall patterns and degrading land, productivity of beans, maize, banana and millet could suffer a huge setb

agriculture sector, including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry, absorbs 22 per cent of the economic impact caused by natural disasters. But in Africa, the sector only adds to the impact. Africa’s crop and livestock losses caused by natural disasters in 2003-13 were US $26 billion. Kulthoum Omari, Coordinator, Adaptation of African Agriculture (aaa), a 27-nation coalition, cites the enormity of the problem: “About 80 per cent of people in Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihood and sustenance. Therefore, boosting agricultural activities will have a positive impact on local and national economies in Africa. However, this is being hampered by the impacts of climate change.”

The latest ipcc report also states that climate change is worsening the already deplorable state of agricultural systems in Africa. The white paper on the initiative for the Adaptation of African Agriculture (aaa) to climate change, presented at the Marrakech UN Climate Change Conference in 2016, says the continent has 500 million hectares of severely degraded land—this accounts for 27 per cent of the world’s total degraded soils. The paper cites water erosion, chemical degradation and soil compaction as the prime reasons for land degradation. Further, about 66 per cent of African lands are located in arid or semi-arid areas, and suffer from water shortages. Due to uneven distribution of water resources, around 25 per cent of the population faces water scarcity, especially in North Africa and the Sudano-Sahelian region, and only 2 per cent of arable land is irrigated in Africa against 42 per cent in Asia, highlights the white paper.

Worse, Africa is least prepared to tackle weather-related risks. Two-thirds of its countries have little or no capacity to manage these risks. According to the aaa white paper, there are only 781 synoptic weather stations (that collect meteorological information every six hours) in Africa as compared to 1,696 synoptic weather stations in Asia. Besides, Africa is the world’s lowest consumer of improved agricultural inputs, such as seeds resistant to heat, drought or diseases. Though some farmers are adopting climate resilient agriculture, such attempts are limited to certain pockets. For instance, farmers in Bankass district of Mali are infusing vigour to the degraded soil by growing trees as well as staple food like millets on the same farm. In Northern Ghana, several non-profits are sensitising women farmers about the effects of pesticides on food crops as well as soil.

There is an urgent need to replicate such initiatives across the continent as extreme weather will significantly disrupt the agricultural calendar and affect crop yields and livestock production.

TIME TO STEP UP ACTION

Going by the latest ipcc report, changes in average temperature would be greater over northern and southern Africa and relatively smaller over central Africa. This means, Sahara and southern parts of Africa would get warmer in coming years. Extreme precipitation changes, such as droughts and heavy rainfall, that eastern African has been experiencing more frequently in last 30-60 years, is likely to batter the region in future.

By 2080, arid and semi-arid areas could expand by 60-80 million hectares. Viable arable land is predicted to decline, with 9-20 per cent becoming less suitable for agriculture. Suitable land for corn (maize) and beans—staple crops in the continent—could reduce by 20-40 per cent. Conversely, sorghum, cassava, yam and pearl millet could show little loss, or even gains, in the area suitable for production. Western Africa appears to be a highly vulnerable region, where suitable land for maize, sorghum, finger millet, groundnut and bananas are likely to reduce by 10 per cent.

This will impact crop productivity. A study by international research firm cgiar predicts that because of climate change, maize yield could reduce by 22 per cent, groundnut by 18 per cent, sorghum and millet by 17 per cent and cassava by 8 per cent. Banana production could also decline in western Africa and in the lowlands of eastern Africa. In arid Egypt, production of paddy would decline by 11 per cent and that of soybean by 28 per cent by 2050.

While rising sea levels will affect fisheries

Two-thirds of African countries have little or no capacity to manage weather-related risks. It has fewer weather stations when compared to Asia and is the world's lowest consumer of agricultural inputs

productivity by 50-60 per cent, substantial reductions in forage availability in some regions would alter productivity of livestock. It is projected that at temperatures above 30ºC, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry reduce their feed intake by 3-5 per cent for each 1°C increase. These impacts will have varying effects on the millions of African farmers who depend on livestock for incomes and food security. “Temperature changes also have a much stronger impact on yields than precipitation changes. It is clear that the economic cost of natural disasters in agriculture sector is expected to increase because of climate change,” says Tarfa.

An estimation by the UN Environment Programme (unep) shows that African countries would face 2-4 per cent annual loss in gdp by 2040 due to climate change. However, there will be a strong regional variability in the degree of loss experienced in the agriculture sector. fao estimates that parts of Sahara would suffer the maximum agricultural losses, followed by western and central Africa and northern and southern Africa.

To increase climate resilience among farmers, several African countries have introduced novel adaptation initiatives. In fact, 50 of the 54 African countries have made these initiatives part of their climate action plans submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc). One such initiative is the establishment of African Risk Capacity. The specialised agency of the African Union aims to help member states improve their capacities to plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events, and thereby improve food security and vulnerability of their populations. The other initiative is setting up Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (acre), the largest agricultural index insurance programme in sub-Saharan Africa in which the farmers pay a market premium. The programme now spans across Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. A similar insurance programme in Ethiopia allows farmers to pay the insurance premium through labour. But implementation of these initiatives is still a challenge.

Says Omari, “Many African countries still lack comprehensive disaster risk management plans because of reasons, such as lack of guidelines, insufficient capacity at the regional, national and sub-national levels to assess and address loss and damage, and insufficient research in understanding the scope, magnitude and character of the climate risks and impacts.” Magenya says unless countries prioritise and integrate climate change programmes into their development plans, the effects of climate change on agriculture in Africa are likely to persist. Seid says there is an urgent need to integrate solutions offered through technologies, institutions and government policies to manage the risks of drought and climate variability in Africa.

There is also a need for the international community to safeguard agriculture from climate change impacts. The Paris Agreement, the landmark climate change deal that came into force in November 2016, talks of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change in the preamble. But the word agriculture finds a miss in the Agreement.