Climate Change in Africa


In this blog post, I will be writing about one of, if not, the most pressing concerns worldwide: climate change. While climate change is not new, the current rate of change, driven by anthropogenic causes, is alarming. This post will focus on the (future) problems of Africa and what makes it so challenging before examining certain approaches proposed.

Defining climate change

Climate change as a phenomenon, is not new. There have been past cycles of Ice Ages and warming in the Earth’s history (Aguado & Burt, 2013) but the current climate change in the age of the Anthropocene is startling with how quickly climates are altered (Root, et al., 2003). Climate change can be defined as alternations to any “statistical property of the atmosphere” such as precipitation or temperature (Aguado & Burt, 2013, p. 466). The impacts of climate change are far reaching but variable, as some places warm faster than others and precipitation patterns will change across different localities (Aguado & Burt, 2013). Additionally, more extreme weather phenomena are likely to occur more frequently (Aguado & Burt, 2013).

The increases are as of 2019. Source


What about Africa?

Within the African context, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the environments and peoples are among the most at risk in the world (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016). Rainfall variability will increase over all areas due to changes in seasonality and intensity, but locational specifics are extremely important (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016). For example, Christensen et al. (2007) note that based on climate models, annual precipitation is projected to increase in East Africa while annual precipitation in Southern Africa is projected to fall during the winter months and western edges.

With rainfed agriculture being practiced by most smallholder farms in Africa (80% in SSA), this makes them susceptible as greater variance in rainfall limits crop growing seasons, thus decreasing the yields of many crops such as the widely grown wheat and maize (Adhikari, Nejadhashemi &Woznicki, 2015). Further compounding this problem is the rapid population growth projected in the continent. The United Nations (2015) projects Africa’s population to more than double from 1.1 billion in 2015 to 2.5 billion by 2050, largely owing to the 2.7% population increase per annum in SSA (as cited in Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016). In a nutshell, Africa has to contend with a (likely worsening) food security crisis with its growing population and more erratic rainfall despite having one of the lowest yield rates in the world and environmental degradation problems. 

Can anything be done?
The outlook is definitely bleak for Africa but certain measures can be taken for adaptions to climate change. Adaptation refers to reducing the vulnerability of communities to climate change and this next section will focus on agricultural practices as adaptations to climate change. Due to the wide geographical variations of Africa, there is no one definitive solution but rather a guided approach (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016).
Diversification of crops
Not all crops fare equally under the same climatic conditions and with increased variability of precipitation and temperature, focussing on a specialised crop increases the risk of crop failure. While smallholder farms are thought to be very much more susceptible to climate change, Tibeisigwa, Visser & Turpie (2015) note that in their study in South Africa, commercial and smallholder farms are to an extent, equally susceptible. What mattered more in their findings was the type of farming performed – a single/specialised crop farm fared much worse than a farm using mixed crop methods. A previous blog post of mine focussed on the benefits of cassava as it was both resistant to future climate scenarios in 2030 and widely consumed within SSA. Thus, diversifying the crops planted by farmers and selecting appropriate crops that can withstand varying climatic conditions can be important ways to protect farmers’ livelihoods and increase food security. Additionally, developing new crops varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases are another adaptation for farmers (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016), if made available to them.    
Irrigation
With more potential droughts, rainfed agriculture is likely to have shorter growing periods for crops. Successfully implementing irrigation would reduce the dependency on increasingly erratic rainfall and allow farmers to grow crops throughout the year (Abraham, 2017). Africa has an innate high variability of freshwater resources and groundwater might play an increased role in irrigation. However, economic water scarcity still plagues Africa (as covered in a previous blog post) and hampers the adoption of increased irrigation that might help in increasing yield. Still, there is much potential given that only an estimated 5% of farmland in SSA is under irrigation.   
Soil management
Fertile soils in Africa are increasingly subjected to degradation despite the many ecological services (such as increased infiltration and water retention) that soils provide for agricultural communities and the natural habitat (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016). Soil degradation is a process that is “unrecoverable within the human lifespan” (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016, p. 437) and thus has strong ramifications for long term agricultural sustainability. The proper management of soils through re-carbonisation can increase both soil and water quality, promote better retention of water and nutrients and reduce impact of droughts on soils (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016). With continuous soil fertility, agricultural activities can be sustained, which is critical considering the context of future food insecurity.
Conclusion
Climate change further exacerbates Africa’s food insecurity dilemma that is driven by its fast-increasing population. The above three suggestions of diversification of crops, irrigation and soil management are by no means exhaustive for adapting to climate change. However, adaptations need to be contextualised in their localities to be effective and should be used in tandem with both new technologies and traditional ecological knowledge. (Were, Gelaw, & Singh, 2016). Nevertheless, these adaptations require buy in from different stakeholders, from farmers to the state, to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

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