FIGHTING A LONELY BATTLE
African countries are embarking on ambitious adaptation measures because for them it is a lonely fight against an existential crisis
$50 BILLION a year. That’s the kind of money Africa requires to survive the onslaught of extreme weather events, diseases and loss of livelihood sources in case the global temperature rise does not exceed 2oC, says the World Bank’s Africa Climate Business Plan. The amount will rise to a humongous US $200 billion if global warming continues unabated over the next few decades. But just the way world leaders show no commitment to contain the temperature rise, there is no commitment as to who will bear the cost. This is worrying as the continent accounts for just 9 per cent of the global carbon emissions (including emissions from land-use changes), according to non-profit World Resources Institute. But it will be hit the hardest as almost 80 per cent of the population directly depends on natural resources. “The funding needs to address climate change effectively, in particular for adaptation, are high in the region, and will increase as climate change unfolds in the coming years,” warns the Bank.
Such predictions have rattled African leaders, who frequently voice the urgency for climate adaptation and mitigation at domestic, regional and international forums. Adaptation means measures that make people and governments resilient to climatic vagaries. This includes everything from diversifying agriculture to developing early warning systems for natural disasters. Mitigation measures, such as switching to cleaner sources of energy, are the other half of climate action. So far, 63 per cent of African countries have estimated their needs for adaptation financing in their Nationally Determined Contributions, compared with 27 per cent in the rest of the world. Yet, financing adaptation measures remains grossly inadequate for Africa; as of now, just $3 billion a year has been made available to the continent. First, almost 70 per cent of the funds committed by developed countries to finance climate action are tied to conditional loans and credit lines. Besides, several countries are yet to link the risk factors to climate change. For instance, Ghana, despite enough research showing climate change has pushed incidence of water- and air-borne diseases, has failed to link the 2012 National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy with its National Health Policy of 2007, and there are no projects to address the health risks due to climate change.
As a result, several African countries are trying to be self-reliant in climate change adaptation. The continent is already spending more than its fair share for climate adaptation, says a 2017 undp-Africa report. Public expenditure on adaptation by African countries constitutes 20 per cent of their total needs presently, which is significantly higher than the adaptation resource flow from international sources. “Although the level of investment as a proportion of gdp expenditure varies among countries, it ranges between 2-9 per cent of gdp, and represents more than other forms of expenditure in public services such as healthcare and education,” says the report. South Africa plans to introduce a carbon tax bill to meet its adaptation and mitigation commitments, while Kenya has developed a fund to accelerate adaptation in priority areas (see ‘Cost to survive climate change’ on p62). The voices for self-reliance in climate finance are not new, but
for the first time, there seems to be some collective motion beyond the voice. Under the blazing sun, small farmers of Nakuru, a semi-arid village some 150 km from Nairobi, are harvesting bumper crops unperturbed by the fact that the monsoon has eluded them in recent years. Patrick Ndung’u, who has harvested bulb onions and potatoes from his 5-acre (a little over 1 hectare) land, is neatly packing the produce in sacks for traders to collect from his farm. On an average he earns Sh4,000($40) a week by selling vegetables, which he grows on a rotational basis. Just three years ago, when parts of Kenya, including Nakuru, were hit by a severe drought, Ndung’u was among the worst affected. “I had planted Irish potatoes and the entire crop got nearly burned. But it taught me a lesson,” he points out.
After the incident, Ndung’u divided farms in the village into 40 small plots of 0.5 ha each and grew a variety of crops. He formed a self-help group along with other small farmers, and together, they dug small ponds, of 400,000 litre capacity, in all farms in the village. “Hiring labourers is too expensive for us. So we did all the work ourselves,” says Kariuki Wachira, another farmer. “It took us a week to dig a pond in every homestead. But the challenge was nothing compared to what we face during droughts,” he says. The ponds, then lined with an ultra-heat treated polythene sheet to prevent percolation, were then used to store harvested rainwater. To minimise wastage, farmers acquired drip irrigation kits that directly feed water to the crop roots. Tillage was kept to the bare minimum so that soil retains moisture for long. The farmers are also shunning traditional waterguzzling crops like maize and growing droughttolerant crops. Ndung’u says he grows red and white bulb onions that require watering only twice a week.
In Makueni, part of the arid Eastern Kenya, farmers are innovating to survive against all odds. “I use a chisel-shaped plough, known as spring plough, which digs deep into the soil beyond the hard pan. This increases rainwater infiltration into
deeper layers,” says Peter Ndabi of Makueni.
Kenya’s current per capita water availability is less than 600 litres per day, which is below the global threshold of 1,000 litres, making it one of the chronically water-scarce nations. But a study by the World Agroforestry Centre (icraf) and the UN Environmental Programme shows that Kenya’s rainwater potential is above 350 trillion litres, which means farmers can benefit from investing in rainwater harvesting. Victor Gitonga, a water engineer at Netherlands Development AgencyKenya, says farmers can increase their productivity by at least 20 per cent by increasing water storage and use of technologies, such as lined ponds, dripirrigation kits and solar- powered water pumps.
Micheni Ntiba, former permanent secretary with the ministry of agriculture, says a combination of right technologies such as water harvesting, hybrid seeds, timely planting, crop diversification and post-harvest management will help farmers adapt to climate change impacts.
MALAWI: Climate smart farming gets popular
Land is a valuable possession around Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi. Grace Manda owns 1 ha of farmland here but has lived most part of her life complaining about acute poverty. She lives in a mud house and struggles to arrange food, clothes and school fees for her three children. “The region hardly receives any rain, which has made the soil hardy and barren. Even if I take up cultivation, the land cannot grow enough for us,” she would say. But that was some 10 years ago.
In 2009, Manda attended a meeting on conservation agriculture organised by the National Smallholder Farmers Association, and since then her life has changed for the better. Now she grows crops twice a year. She is not only able to afford her children’s school fees but also has built a better house and is taking care of her mother. Due to her farming prowess, she now gets invited to training programmes on promoting farming as business, climate smart agriculture and market exploration, and in the process has become a role model to most women farmers in the country.
“All I did was practise conservation agriculture,” Manda adds. This new method of farming promoted by the TerrAfrica Sustainable Land and Water Management partnership, popularly known by its acronym CA, is “a concept for resourcesaving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment”. The Food and Agricultural Organization (fao) has determined three key principles for CA: minimum mechanical soil disturbance or no-tillage; managing top soil to create a permanent organic soil cover; and crop rotation with more than two species.
The simultaneous application of the three principles help boost yields. With regards to climate change, CA advocates building and storage
FARMERS IN KENYA CAN IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY BY 20% BY USING LINED PONDS, DRIP IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGIES