Best Practice

Impact story 

Impact story

Eng. Sipho Sibanda describes in this presentation the importance of post-harvest management.

Topics covered are

• what is postharvest handling
• purpos eof postharvest management
• climate change and its impacts
• factors affecting postharvest systems

The purpose of this study was to undertake an empirical investigation of adaptation “good practices” and define six categories of actions that can be practically considered by governments for scaling-up in order to reduce the risks of climate change.

The focus is on what needs to be in place, in terms of the enabling environment, in order for the good practices to be effectively transferred to other contexts. The report thus intends to provide governments with practical options to consider in order to undertake agricultural adaptation to climate change, based on tangible and proven practices.

Six case study countries were chosen for empirical investigation of adaptation. Within Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, South Africa, Togo and Zambia, agricultural subsectors were chosen to represent various crops and livestock grown under different production systems. The purpose was to ensure that subsectors were investigated in more than one country so that there would be scope to compare different contexts. Categories considered for each adaptation practice were: proof of concept; robustness under projected climate change; environmental and social externalities; acceptability to farmers; accessibility to farmers; productivity; access to markets; support of appropriate institutions; level of government support; effects on women; and then a criteria to capture co-benefits, such as mitigation, biodiversity conservation, or multiple production objectives.

As a result the following six good practice categories are: use of improved seeds; soil fertility management; changing timing of farming practice; changing crop/livestock distribution and density; tillage and associated practices; and diversification.

This study has been produced with the overall goal to document and analyse exisiting best practices in the field of RWHI management in sub-Saharan Africa, with a special focus on Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. This is meant to determine the suitability of RWHI management under multivariate biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. The best practices include specific information and know-how on the performance, cost-efficiency and impacts of RWHI technologies. This information and know-how intends to contribute on the capitalisation of successful and unsuccessful experiences in the field of RWHI management in order to identify best practices which can then be replicated, adapted, improved and scaled-up, leading to greater impacts and benefits on one hand, and effective policies and investments on the other.

Agriculture is one of the sectors affected adversely by climate change. Attaining food security and development goals at both household and national levels requires deployment of efficient and sustainable food production practices  Furthermore, the fragile soil structure and the low nutrient composition in most parts of the country make farmers more vulnerable. The common farming practices by the majority of farmers in Namibia are characterized by extensive soil disturbance through ploughing, low use of agricultural inputs, and overexploitation of fragile lands. Inappropriate agricultural practices and poor soil management have resulted in soil erosion, land degradation, loss of vegetation cover, and consequently into low agricultural production.  These land management practices can cause degradation leading to a decrease in soil organic matter. Thus, to mitigate these impacts, there is a need for promoting sustainable farming interventions such as Conservation Agriculture (CA) in the country.
This video in the external link was composed by a number of partners in addressing the effect of Climate Change and sensitise Conservation Agriculture.

Majority of farmers in Zimbabwe are small-scale based, poverty stricken and vulnerable to climate shocks, stresses and impacts. The small-scale farmers have no access to bank loans, crop insurance and other public interventions. This leaves them highly exposed, neglected and defenceless to climatic threats. The national input scheme, otherwise known as the Presidential Input Scheme, has its shortcomings and a few merits.

AAIN is registered in Accra, Ghana as a private sector entity & internationally recognised as a Business Development Company.

Adapting to the negative impacts of climate change is a pressing challenge for  anyone engaged in the agricultural sector. Smallholder farmers are particularly vulnerable to these changes such as erratic weather patterns, increased water shortages, shorter growing seasons, and changes in plant and animals diseases and agricultural pests. As a result of these challenges, water availability and soil quality decline. The knowledge and skills that help farmers protect themselves against these changes are imperative. The Clinton Development Initiative(CDI) works with 25,000 smallholder farmers in Malawi to apply Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) adaptation and mitigation techniques on their farms. We sat down with Austin Ngwira, CDI’s Director of Agriculture, to learn more about how CSA is helping improve farmers’ food security with techniques that are more resilient to climate change. Read our Q&A with Austin below.

Falling prices of cotton, normally referred to as ‘‘white gold’’ is not good news for small- scale farmers in Eastern province, as the crop has been a source of livelihoods to them for many years. A significant decrease in the number of small-scale farmers currently growing cotton in the province has resulted in an increase in poverty levels. This has exposed small-scale farmers whose livelihood is derived from farming to much more challenging survival mechanisms.