Africa needs to adapt to changing climate

Arecent report from the South African Weather Service suggests the El Nino weather pattern, which is typically associated with hot and dry weather, may return as early as August 2017. This would be an odd phenomenon given that we recently came out of an El Nino-induced drought in 2015-16.

Although it would be premature to jump to conclusions based on this outlook, it is worth noting that Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology concurs with our local weather service, which sees a 50% chance of El Nino development later in 2017.

This will not affect the current summer crop and it is likely to be a good season for grains and oilseeds. The challenge raised by these developments is whether SA and the continent are prepared to deal with these erratic weather patterns.

In October 2015, AfricaBio, an independent, nonprofit biotechnology stakeholders’ association, hosted a business breakfast on Water-Efficient Maize for Africa (Wema). Wema is a drought-tolerant maize variety developed for dryland farmers who are dependent mainly on rainfall.

This initiative came at a time when Africa was seeing early signs of the 2015-16 drought. In fact, participants at the event, many of whom were seed breeders and farmers, hoped this could be a breakthrough for agricultural development in Africa. But, many months have gone by without much more about this development in the news.

But if we do experience another drought season soon, this would underscore the urgent need for initiatives such as Wema.

There is a generally low adoption rate of agricultural technology among African countries. For example, there are only three that plant genetically modified (GM) crops: SA, Sudan and Burkina Faso. SA was the first country on the continent to commercialise biotech production of cotton, maize and soya beans in 2002. It is the largest producer of GM crops on the continent and the ninth-largest producer of GM crops in the world.

Although opinions about GM crops differ, based on production volumes, SA has seen tremendous gains. Before the introduction of GM maize, average yields in SA were about 2.4 tonnes per hectare, but these increased to about 5.3 tonnes per hectare in the 2013-14 production year, which is the highest average commercial yield on the African continent to date. Meanwhile, sub-Saharan African average maize yields have remained below two tonnes per hectare. Much of this can be attributed to the failure to adopt GM crops.

More recently, GM maize crops have proved to be slightly more resistant to armyworm. As I noted in my column of February 16, African countries that do not plant GM maize are in a far more precarious food security position due to armyworm infestation than is SA.

According to BMI Research, the low adoption of GM crops on the continent is largely due to institutional problems. In other words, farmers have difficulty building savings or acquiring credit for expensive inputs such as GM seeds. This is a vicious cycle, as profitability remains poor due to low yields.

The lack of widescale GM adoption can also be attributed to the absence of functional regulatory systems. This has led to conflicting views about the control of first-generation seeds.

Despite the challenges, Africa’s agricultural sector needs to devise strategies that will allow it to thrive and adapt in these unpredictable climatic changes. One way to do this is through seed development that enables farmers to produce food with limited water intake.

African regulators and seed technology developers will have to devise strategies that lead to seed development that suits the needs and budgets of African farmers. Fortunately, the Wema project seems to concur with this view and it would perhaps also offer some lessons for further development.

More encouraging are developments in Kenya and Ethiopia, where governments have started conducting field trials of GM cotton and maize. I hope that with time, these will be commercialised so farmers enjoy the higher yields and pest tolerance many South African commercial farmers enjoy. For this to succeed, scientists in these countries will have to collaborate with farmers in improving local seed strains that adapt to changing climatic conditions.

With the world’s population expected to grow 30% to 9.7-billion by 2050, Africa will need to increase its efficiency in agricultural production to benefit from the prospective global food demand. One way of doing this could be through maximising and rolling out technological benefits.

SA WAS THE FIRST COUNTRY ON THE CONTINENT TO COMMERCIALISE BIOTECH PRODUCTION OF COTTON, MAIZE AND SOYA BEANS IN 2002