Strategies for smallholders

The experts, who were on a three-day workshop, discussed activities that should be pursued over three years, to be implemented in Ghana, Mali, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The University of Zimbabwe is leading the project in collaboration with the Soil Fertility Consortium of Southern Africa SOFECSA and the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center.

Brian Maposa, a research scientist and organising secretary of the workshop, said climate change had recently become the most significant threat to sustainability of human livelihoods, including health and the environment. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states in its Third and Fourth Assessment Reports that Africa will suffer the most from the impact of climate change and that scientific evidence of human-induced global warming is unequivocal, worse than previously estimated,” he said.

Maposa said climate change posed one of the most serious challenges to food security in Africa, which is predicted to be record a 30 per cent decline in agricultural productivity in this century. He said the high prevalence and intensity of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa was likely to amplify the negative impact of climate change, particularly on rural and peri-urban populations.

Maposa said any short or long term climate change would force farmers to adopt new agricultural practices including choice of crop varieties, timing of major operations and designing of alternative food supply systems.

The government, Maposa added, should start working on a project to quantify greenhouse gases, assess the levels of vulnerability of communities to climate change, assess the impact of climate change and advise on adaptation strategies for the country. Some top government officials, agricultural experts and other stakeholders attended the meeting.