CLIMATE CHANGE WILL ADVERSELY AFFECT SMALL-SCALE FARMERS IN AFRICA

"For hundreds of millions of people in Africa, climate change is not about lowering smoke stack emissions or turning off electric lights," says Dr Akin Adesina, Vice President of Policy and Partnerships Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), rather "it is about whether or not they will have enough to eat."


Adenisa articulates that agriculture is Africa’s main connection to climate change. Adding that this fact must inform the global climate change campaign to address Africa’s needs and realize its potential.


AGRA spells out that more than 70 per cent of Africans gain their livelihood through farming, and almost all are smallholder farmers who rely on erratic rains and risky agricultural systems. "It is predicted that climate change will put up to 250 million people in the semi-arid Sahel at increased risk of droughts," the VP says, projecting that: "Flooding in southern Africa is expected to increase floods, bringing to mind those of 2000 which wiped out one-third of Mozambique’s crops, killed many and displaced entire populations. Africa’s smallholder farmers are in the eye of the climate change storm."


AGRA which is working across African continent to help millions of small -scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger further points out that: "while Africa contributes less than 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 40 per cent from the G-8 countries, it stands to bear the brunt of the economic, human and social consequences of climate change."


In some countries, says Adesina, crop yield may be cut in half. This would be devastating, given that even now yield is just one-quarter the global average. Such low yield is the result of low-input, low-output agriculture which mines the soil of nutrients, and fuels both hunger and deforestation, he says.


He calls the International and African policymakers and scientists to move urgently and help Africa’s smallholder farmers increase their productivity while also adapting to and helping to mitigate climate change.


Adesina says that adaptation should occur in scores of ways, across the agricultural system: through farmer production practices, market approaches, technological and policy innovations. New crop varieties are needed that can better withstand drought, water-logging, increased crop diseases and pests. "We must look across the agricultural value chain to put in place an integrated set of changes, from improved access to finance and weather-indexed crop insurance, to better crop storage and access to local and regional markets."


Mitigation is also a complex challenge, but solutions are at hand in the fields of farmers, the partnership points out, further expressing that most smallholders farm the land continuously, without the benefit of fertilizers, organic or manufactured. In this regard, "three-quarters of Africa’s farmlands are depleted. But given appropriate tools and support, smallholder farmers could farm carbon along with their crops. By employing agricultural practices that boost productivity while rebuilding the soil and incorporating agro-forestry, Africa’s farmers will turn their fields into giant carbon reservoirs, so-called carbon sinks. This will help mitigate climate change."


Adesina calls upon the global community and African policymakers to provide incentives for farmers to avoid deforestation through intensified production on existing land, implemented through environmentally sound land use practices that also sequester carbon and protect crop diversity.



"It is a challenge we must meet if African carbon is to count the global carbon market," he says, adding that "we must insist on a global carbon market which fully accounts for the environmental benefits of sound agricultural practices of smallholder farmers.


"We cannot let the global inequality which distorts the world’s agricultural markets replicate itself in the global carbon market. To do so would be counter-productive and inexcusable."



African farmers are called to embark on a sustainable, uniquely African green revolution, alongside accessing technologies that will enable them to grow more food and do so sustainably.