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APPSA Impact in onservation Farming

Impact story 

Dr. Baitsi Podisi from CCARDESA sat for an interview on the weekely radio programme Farmers Diary, on Gabz FM. The interview was originally aired on Thursday 18 April 2019. For more on Farmers Diary please visit: http://www.gabzfm.com/index.php/gabzfm-show-details/id/15/farmers-diary/  

Malawi is a landlocked country with a population of 18 million people. About 90% of the population are smallholder subsistence farmers who own less than a hectare of land each in rural communities.Agriculture isthe most important sector of the Malawi economy. The sector includes crops, livestock and fisheries sub-sectors. It is dominated by the rain-fed smallholder farming system and is the major source of livelihoods for rural communities, contributing significantly to the household and national food security. It provides 64% of the total income of the rural population. Most farmers primarily rely on rain-fed agricultural systems, which are highly vulnerable to climate change. The negative impacts of climate change on agriculture have resulted in food insecurity at the local community level as well as at the national levels.

Many of the smallholder farmers in Malawi practice soil disturbing practices of ridging and burning of crop residues, which were advocatedby the agricultural extension system in the past (National Conservation Agriculture Task Force(NCATF), 2016). However, there is evidence that these practices over time result in reduced crop yields; lead to increased use of inorganic fertilisers to produce enough food; and ultimately are a major cause of current high levels of hunger and poverty in the rural resource-poor farming communities.

Climate change threatens agricultural productivity and poses challenges to the stability of agricultural sector in Malawi (Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development(MoAIWD), 2016). Therefore, it is important to invest in climate resilience in the farming systems and promote approaches such as climate smart agriculture(CSA)that are designed to reduce the impact of climate change on livelihoods of the resource-poor smallholder farmers.

Deficiency in vitamin A is one of the most prevalent problems in Sub-Saharan African countries including Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. The consequences of deficiency of vitamin A is high fatality rate (60%) but even sub-clinical deficiency is associated with a 23% increase in preschooler mortality in areas with endemic Vitamin A deficiency”. An array of solutions have been proposed to combat Vitamin A deficiency. These have included Vitamin A capsule administration campaigns in pre-schools and primary schools unfortunately this has left behind others.

Agriculture as the backbone of Namibia’s economy has a major role to play in achieving vision 2030. however, to be able to make a significant contribution towards the growth of the economy and thus wealth creation, agricultural production/output has to increase manifold. For the realisation of such an increase the following crucial issues have to be addressed. subsistence farming should become commercialised, e.g. landownership in some form or other should be allocated to individuals, under-utilised areas should be developed and put into production and the problem of bush encroachment should be addressed and solved at national level.

—In Zimbabwe, KRG is grown in rotation with tobacco and irish potato to control the root knot nematode (Meloidogyne javanica). It is a good seed producer and the seed exported to mostly Arab countries that can hardly produce their own seed due to unfavourable climatic conditions.

This brochure describes the new CCARDESA ICKM System.

The topics assessed in this chapter were last assessed by the IPCC in 2007, principally in WGII AR4 Chapters 3 (Kundzewicz et al., 2007) and 4 (Fischlin et al., 2007), but also in WGII AR4 Sections 1.3.4 and 1.3.5 (Rosenzweig et al., 2007). The WGII AR4 SPM stated “Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases,” though they noted that documentation of observed changes in tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere was sparse (Rosenzweig et al., 2007). Fischlin et al. (2007) found that 20 to 30% of the plant and animal species that had been assessed to that time were considered to be at increased risk of extinction if the global average temperature increase exceeds 2°C to 3°C above the preindustrial level with medium confidence, and that substantial changes in structure and functioning of terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems are very likely under that degree of warming and associated atmospheric CO2 concentration. No time scale was associated with these findings. The carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems were considered to be at high risk from climate change and land use change. The report warned that the capacity of ecosystems to adapt naturally to the combined effect of climate change and other stressors is likely to be exceeded if greenhouse gas (GHG) emission continued at or above the then-current rate.

Changes in the hydrological cycle due to climate change can lead to diverse impacts and risks, and they are conditioned by and interact with non-climatic drivers of change and water management responses (Figure 3-1). Water is the agent that delivers many of the impacts of climate change to society, for example, to the energy, agriculture, and transport sectors. Even though water moves through the hydrological cycle, it is a locally variable resource, and vulnerabilities to water-related hazards such as floods and droughts differ between regions. Anthropogenic climate change is one of many stressors of water resources. Nonclimatic drivers such as population increase, economic development, urbanization, and land use or natural geomorphic changes also challenge the sustainability of resources by decreasing water supply or increasing demand. In this context, adaptation to climate change in the water sector can contribute to improving the availability of water.