Case Study

Namibia is one of the countries mostly vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change which may affect our national development goals, particularly the agricultural sector, including food security. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF) is implementing a five-year project entitled “Scaling up community resilience to climate variability and climate change in Northern Namibia, with a special focus on women and children” (SCORE Project) with funding resources from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The project aims to strengthen the adaptive capacity of 4000 households to climate change and reduce their vulnerability to droughts and floods, with 80% of these households being women-led, and children from 75 schools in Northern Namibia. The project’s desired outcomes include: (1) Smallholder adaptive capacity for climate resilient agricultural practices strengthened; (2) Reduce vulnerability to droughts and floods; and (3) Mainstreaming climate change into national agricultural strategy/sectoral policy, including budgetary adjustments for replication and scaling up.

The South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas (SARVA) is a platform for global change information transfer from research to policy and decision makers. The SARVA program provides a centralised repository for global change research (www.rvatlas.org.za) as well as a collection of integration and awareness tools aimed at improving evidence-based decision-making concerning global change. The current focus of the Atlas is on the country, regions and localities of South Africa. However investigations are being carried out to assess expansion opportunities into other parts of the region.

This document is a National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) for Namibia. It presents information about the main expected impacts of climate change and, those most vulnerable to climate change. The document also proposes objectives that the Government of Namibia will aim to achieve through an effective and efficient response to climate change. This policy was developed based on information obtained from prior climate change related studies that were undertaken for the First Namibia National Communication (FNC) to UNFCCC as well as that used to prepare the Namibia’s Second National Communication (SNC) and the assessment of financial and economic flows. Lastly but not least, input from various stakeholders have been incorporated.

Namibia, being a semi-arid country could potentially increase food security at a household level through conservation agriculture. Hence, there is a need for mind shifting among subsistence farmers from conventional farming to Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices such as CA. Climate Smart Agriculture entails technologies aiming at transforming and reorienting agricultural systems into a sustainable agricultural efficiency in support of food security under climate change mitigating interventions. CSA is not only about new farming technologies, but a combination of traditional indigenous knowledge with common agricultural practices and appropriate agricultural technological developments. In addition, CA tend to be successful when combined with other climate smart strategies such as the use of drought tolerant and short maturing crops varieties. The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF) of the Republic of Namibia strives towards attaining food security at both household and national levels through the deployment of efficient and sustainable food production practices. For this reason, MAWF had launched a Comprehensive Conservation Agriculture Programme for Namibia (2015-2019) in an attempt to educate and support subsistence crop farmers on new farming interventions aiming at addressing problems of food insecurity and mitigating the effects of climate change.

Ce rapport évalue les évolutions des investissements, du capital humain et des résultats dans la recherche agricole en Afrique. Le rapport fait ressortir les grandes tendances transversales et les défis qui se dégagent des données nationales. La présentation de l’information est structurée selon quatre axes thématiques, à savoir la capacité de financement, le capital humain, les produits et résultats de la recherche, et la configuration institutionnelle.

This report assesses trends in investments, human resource capacity, and outputs in agricultural research in SSA, excluding the private (for-profit) sector. The analysis uses information collected by Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI)—led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) within the portfolio of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM). The comprehensive datasets were derived from primary surveys, collected through a series of consecutive data collection rounds; a small number of secondary sources, where survey data were missing or of poor quality; and ASTI’s older investment and human resource datasets. This report highlights the cross-cutting trends and challenges that emerged from the country-level data, structuring it within four broad areas: funding capacity, human resource capacity, research outputs, and institutional conditions—all in terms of whether they support or impede the effective and efficient conduct of agricultural research. This report concludes with a set of policy recommendations for regional and national-level decision makers, and other stakeholders.

Throughout Africa indigenous and indigenised vegetables and fruit have sustained rural populations for many centuries. Through natural selection by survival under local environmental conditions, aided by collection of seeds from top-performing plants only by local farmers, these have become adapted to these conditions. Unfortunately, indigenous plants have received scant attention by researchers in Africa (including South Africa) in regard to improving agronomic practices and upgrading genetic potential. Likewise, little attention has been given to studies on their nutritional value and the bio-availability of nutrients contained in them. It seems as if there has recently emerged new interest amongst South African researchers in these crops. It is hoped that this publication will help to promote this interest further.

This is a story of Patricia Dzimbiri a Malawian who was groomed by the Agricultural Productivity Program for Southern Africa (APPSA) project through participating in farmer field trials for conservation agriculture and maize/legume intercropping systems. She has grown into a lead farmer supporting conservation farming in her district.

This article is a success story in the production of groundnut seed in Zambia. When groundnut seed production was introduced in Minga area in Petauke district, it relieved farmers of the pressure of having to rely on cotton as the only valuable cash crop.
Unit Seed Company in partnership with small-scale farmers in Minga area engaged in seed production of groundnut. The farmers were provided with groundnut basic seed by Unit Seed Company and produced certified seed, which the company buys and then sells to prospective markets

This resource is an APPSA success story of introducing high yielding rice varieties in Malawi.  As part of efforts to improve rice production and increase export volumes, the Agricultural Productivity Programme for Southern Africa (APPSA) introduced
three high yielding rice varieties with a yield potential of up to 6.5 T ha-1. These are Kayanjamalo (6.5 T ha-1), Katete (6.0 T ha-1) and Mpatsa (5.8 T ha-1). These varieties were released in 2014 under the Department of Agricultural Research Services (DARS) in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development. Since the release of the varieties, APPSA has been promoting these three varieties in Nkhotakota, Salima and Zomba districts targeting smallholder rice farmers. With desirable traits such as high yields and short height, the varieties gained popularity among the farming communities and within three years the number of adopters increased by more than 80%.