Africa Climate Summit and crop resiliency: Adapting to modern food and nutrition security threats

15 Sep 2023 --- According to the recent Africa Climate Summit, climate change is severely affecting agriculture and food security in Africa, as rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns and extreme weather events are damaging crops and livestock. Moreover, the summit states that pests and diseases are spreading, causing food insecurity and malnutrition for millions.

Nutrition Insight continues its conversation with representatives at CGIAR, Care International and Oxfam International about what can be done to help the continent adapt to the crisis, including climate-smart farming practices, investments and policy changes to boost resilience and ensure food availability.

“Africans are disproportionately employed in climate-exposed sectors: 55–62% of the sub-Saharan workforce is employed in agriculture and 95% of cropland is rainfed. In rural Africa, poor and female-headed households face greater livelihood risks from climate hazards,” says Dr. Aditi Mukherji, director at CGIAR Climate Change Impact Platform. 

She explains that climate change substantially affects food and nutrition security in Africa. At a time when food production needs to increase in the continent, productivity stagnates. 

She further states that climate change destroys and damages standing crops due to climatic hazards like droughts and floods and prevents farmers from planting crops on time due to untimely rainfall or prolonged droughts. It also leads to increased market prices of crops when production plummets and prices go up. 

“Livestock is very important for the smallholder farmers in Africa. Livestock production is also getting affected by droughts and diseases that come from prolonged and unseasonal rainfall. It is the smallholder farmers who are most affected.”

“The only way to stop the tide of climate change is to reduce emissions,” urges Mukherji. “And because Africa has not been responsible for emissions (only 4% of cumulative emissions since the 1850s can be attributed to Africa), Africa cannot by itself change the tide of climate change.” 

The organization holds that, to reverse climate change, high-income countries and historically “high emitters” must stop emissions immediately, reaching net zero emissions in the near future. 

Effects on agriculture and food security
Oxfam’s “Unfair Share” report highlights that drought and floods claimed the lives of nearly 13 million animals and decimated hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops, leaving 31 million people facing a hunger crisis. 

Drought and other climate effects are significantly affecting Africa’s crops and livestock.“Climate change has significant effects on agriculture and food security in Africa. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events impact crop yields and productivity,” underscores Elise Nalbandian, regional advocacy manager for Oxfam in Africa 

“Pests like the Desert Locust and diseases are spreading, posing risks to crops and livestock. Water scarcity and irrigation challenges arise due to altered rainfall patterns. Shifts in agroecological zones can affect the suitability of crops. Livestock productivity and availability of pastureland are impacted. These factors contribute to food insecurity and malnutrition.”

Obed Koringo, climate policy advisor at Care International, adds that hunger affects an estimated 240 million Africans. 

He explains that the World Food Programme’s Global Report on Food Crisis from 2022 mentioned that over 258 million people in 58 countries around the world experienced a level of acute food insecurity that required urgent food, nutrition and livelihood assistance, a “34% increase from the previous figure of 193 million people in 2021.”

“Besides drought, climate change has led to devastating cyclones in Southern Africa and torrential rains in Nigeria, Niger and Sudan, which have created havoc and destroyed agricultural fields. In Malawi, for instance, as a result of Cyclone Freddy, over 204,800 hectares of crops were flooded just as farmers were about to harvest, which led to food security concerns.”

Addressing climate change
Adapting to climate change requires climate-smart agricultural practices, investments and policy interventions to enhance resilience and ensure food security, highlights Nalbandian. 

“Funding and effort need to go into improving water management, promoting resilient crops and livestock breeds, enhancing early warning systems for weather risks and diversifying livelihoods.” 

Additionally, she sees international cooperation, investments and policy interventions as crucial to supporting African countries in building climate resilience and ensuring food security in the face of climatic changes. 

“This includes financial support for climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives, technology transfer to enhance agricultural practices, capacity-building programs for small-scale farmers and the mainstreaming of climate change considerations into national policies and strategies,” she explains.

“There is an urgent need for more climate finance and in the form of grants as well as debt reduction initiatives. All of this with the hope that African leaders invest more in agriculture in particular, to help small-scale farmers cope with the impacts of climate change.” 

According to Mukherji, Africa needs to grow more food, more nutritious and local food which are well adapted to local agro-ecologies.

“Given the wider availability and affordability of low emissions technologies in agriculture (e.g., low emissions fertilizers, or better feed for livestock), African farmers need technical and financial support to adopt those technologies so that African agriculture does not become ecologically unsustainable.” 

“African farmers also need irrigation and access to fertilizer to be able to improve their crop productivity,” continues Mukherji. “African farmers have some of the lowest access to affordable irrigation and fertilizers in the world. Here, small-scale irrigation systems like local water harvesting structures and localized groundwater irrigation using solar pumps are promising options.” 

Agricultural innovations for nutrition security
Mukherji shares several examples of CGIAR innovations that create a real impact in Africa. 

“Biofortified orange-fleshed sweet potato, as developed by CGIAR researchers at the International Potato Center, has proven to be a highly effective tool for tackling vitamin A deficiency in children and women of reproductive age.” 

“Rigorous biomedical research has demonstrated that just 125 g of most varieties of this sweet potato can meet the daily vitamin A requirements of a preschool-aged child,” she highlights.Several organizations have cited that climate finance is essential for creating resilient agro-ecologies.

She adds that insufficient iron in diets is a leading cause of anemia. This condition mainly affects pregnant women, breastfeeding women and children under five.

“Through collaborative plant breeding efforts with farmers and other partners, CGIAR scientists, in partnership with Pan Africa Bean Research Alliance, have developed and scaled up dozens of varieties of iron-biofortified beans in an effort to address the problem.” 

Challenges to change the tide
Nalbandian sees several challenges that hinder efforts to change the tide of climate change in Africa. These include a vulnerability to extreme weather events, limited financial resources, limited access to appropriate technologies, limited data and information systems, socioeconomic factors and poverty.

“Particularly in rural areas, limited access to appropriate technologies hinders the adoption of climate-smart practices and renewable energy solutions. Poor infrastructure, inadequate technical skills and the high cost of technology transfer further exacerbate the technological capacity gap,” she details. 

“Insufficient data and information on climate change impacts, vulnerability assessments and monitoring systems pose challenges for evidence-based decision-making. Accurate and reliable data is crucial for planning and implementing effective climate change strategies.”

“High levels of poverty, inequality and social vulnerability in many African countries exacerbate the impacts of climate change,” continues Nalbandian. “Limited resources and lack of capacity to adapt to changing conditions make it challenging to address climate change effectively.” 

Increasing accessible climate finance
To change the tide of climate change in Africa, climate finance needs to be better accessible at the local level to support locally-led climate adaptation actions or solutions, highlights Koringo. 

“Climate finance is the biggest challenge to changing the tide of climate change in Africa.

According to the UNEP 2022 Adaptation Gap report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that adaptation costs in Africa will reach up to US$86.5 billion annually by 2030.” 

He explains that at COP26, developed country parties promised to double their adaptation finance to US$40 Billion, which he says is a “drop in the ocean” compared to the amount of adaptation finance required. 

Koringo laments that wealthy countries don’t have plans in place to double adaptation finance by 2025, nor fulfill their commitments to deliver the target of US$100 billion annually, which was promised at Copenhagen Conference 2009. 

“Current and projected costs to address loss and damage are enormous, with some sources projecting economic costs in developing countries to be between US$290 billion and US$580 billion annually by 2030.” 

The current financial and institutional arrangements are not sufficient to enable African and other developing countries to address such losses and damages fully and effectively, Koringo concludes.

By Jolanda van Hal