Curated Content

The impacts of climate change  are reducing the capacity of natural resources to sustain the demand of the increasing population.

Tanzania, an East African country, is endowed with important land and water resources that have a high agricultural potential. Agriculture is a key sector of Tanzania’s economy, as it accounts for 24.1 percent of GDP and is the source of livelihoods for more than three-quarters of the population. Majority of the population still live in rural areas although urbanization has increased in the last three decades to reach 38 percent.

The United Republic of Tanzania which comprises of the Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar islands is located south of the Equator in East Africa between latitudes 1o – 12o South and longitude 30o – 40o east. It is bounded to the North by Uganda and Kenya, on the East by the Indian Ocean, to the South by Mozambique and Malawi, to the South West by Zambia, and to the West by the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda. Tanzania is mainly an agrarian society with agriculture, the mainstay of its economy, employing more than 80 percent of the total rural population  and accounting for 26.5 percent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with over 21% contributed by the crop’s sector. In recent years, Tanzania has attained self sufficiency in food production with annual surpluses, probably a reflection of enhanced capacity for the sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) situated in the context of a series of functioning farming systems.

Madagascar, the world’s fourth largest island, is home to an astonishing range of life forms found nowhere else on the planet. Much of this biodiversity is highly vulnerable to climate change. So too are the rainfed agriculture, fishing, and forestry that sustain the island’s 20 mil­lion people.

This study assesses the role of the farmer organizations in policy formulation and reform. It aims to strengthen farmer organisations‚ activities and the role and impact of economic and agricultural policies in the region integration process. Farmer organizations are not yet strong enough to effectively influence policy formulation, implementations and review in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda.

This report presents the final technical report that draw lessons on best practices for climate smart small-scale  agriculture  (C3SA) to be shared with stakeholders for the purpose of influencing policy and policy practices at all levels. The report is based on literature review and filed visits to Kilosa and Chamwino Districts in Tanzania.

A farmer in Kilolo explains why he practices burning and what he observes after burning. Photo: Kelvin Shikuku and Caroline Mwongera.

It is a moral outcry that almost 1 billion people go hungry to bed every night. At the same time climate change has devastating effects on our food production woldwide. The only solution is to double our food production in a climate smart way.

Namibia needs 4% agricultural growth per year to meet the food requirements for the growing population

Global food demand requires that soils be used intensively for agriculture, but how these soils are managed greatly impacts soil fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2). Soil management practices can cause carbon to be either sequestered or emitted, with corresponding uncertain influence on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The situation is further complicated by the lack of CO2 flux measurements for African subsistence farms. For widespread application in remote areas, a simple experimental methodology is desired. As a first step, the present study investigated the use of Bowen Ratio Energy Balance (BREB) instrumentation to measure the energy balance and CO2 fluxes of two contrasting crop management systems, till and no-till, in the lowlands within the mountains of Lesotho. Two BREB micrometeorological systems were established on 100-m by 100-m sites, both planted with maize (Zea mays) but under either conventional (plow, disk-disk) or no-till soil management systems. The results demonstrate that with careful maintenance of the instruments by appropriately trained local personnel, the BREB approach offers substantial benefits in measuring real time changes in agroecosystem CO2 flux. The periods where the two treatments could be compared indicated greater CO2 sequestration over the no-till treatments during both the growing and non-growing seasons.