scholarly journals Uptake of Climate Smart Agriculture in Peri-Urban Areas of South Africa's Economic Hub Requires Up-Scaling

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munyaradzi Chitakira ◽  
Nombuso Z. P. Ngcobo

Climate variability and change impact significantly on food security and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers making it necessary for the farmers to prioritize investment in adaptation and mitigation approaches, such as climate smart agriculture, to enhance resilience. Climate smart agriculture approaches have been adopted in many countries around the world to address the adverse impacts of climate change on agricultural production. There is limited information about climate smart agriculture adoption by peri-urban farmers in developing countries. The present study aimed to assess the extent to which agricultural activities by smallholder crop farmers in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng province of South Africa are climate smart, and to establish the sustainable measures to be put in place to enhance the adoption of climate smart agriculture. The study made use of a mixed method design combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. A combination of simple random and non-probability sampling techniques was employed to select the study locations and identify respondents. A sample of thirty-six farmers were selected for the study. The main findings revealed overwhelming awareness of climate change and the impacts thereof on crop productivity and yields. However, the respondents' level of awareness of climate smart agriculture technologies was generally low. Despite the lack of knowledge of climate smart agriculture practices, the farmers were, to an extent, utilizing adaptation mechanisms acquired from indigenous systems or scientific knowledge. Examples of these practices include mulching, cover cropping, crop rotation and use of crop varieties. The study concludes that much more can be done to scale up the uptake of climate smart agriculture in the Gauteng province. The study recommends formal and informal strategies including one-on-one extension programs to raise the awareness of climate smart agriculture technologies appropriate to the unique conditions of the farmers.

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Rivandi Pranandita Putra ◽  
Nindya Arini ◽  
Muhammad Rasyid Ridla Ranomahera

<p>Sugar is one of Indonesia’s strategic commodities, but its production fluctuates over time and is still unable to comply with the national sugar demand. This condition may even get worst with climate change. Although climate-smart agriculture is a promising thing, it is basically a genuine concept for many farmers in Indonesia, including sugarcane growers. The paper briefly reviews and argues agronomic practices as a climate-smart agriculture approach adapted by sugarcane growers in Indonesia to increase its production under the changing climate. Some agronomic practices can be adopted by the Indonesian sugarcane growers as climate-smart agriculture, i.e., efficient irrigation, improved drainage of sugarcane plantations, the use of suitable sugarcane cultivars, green cane harvesting-trash blanketing, the amendment of soil organic matter, crop diversification, precision agriculture, and integrated pest management. From the Indonesian government’s side, research should be propped as there is limited information about the effectiveness of each aforementioned agronomic intervention to alleviating the adverse effect of climate change and to improving sugarcane growth. Practically, to ensure the success of climate-smart agriculture implementation in the Indonesian sugar industry, multistakeholders, i.e., sugarcane growers, researchers, civil society, and policymakers, should be involved, and the government needs to link these stakeholders.</p><p>Keywords: Sugarcane, productivity, climate-smart agriculture, agronomic management, precision agriculture</p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstrak</strong></p><p><strong>Implementasi Pertanian Cerdas Iklim untuk Meningkatkan Produktivitas Tebu di Indonesia</strong></p><p>Gula merupakan salah satu komoditas strategis Indonesia, namun produksinya mengalami fluktuasi dan belum dapat memenuhi kebutuhan gula nasional. Kondisi ini diperburuk oleh perubahan iklim. Pertanian cerdas iklim memberikan peluang besar bagi tanaman tebu untuk dapat beradaptasi dan memitigasi dampak perubahan iklim. Meskipun pertanian cerdas iklim menjanjikan, namun merupakan hal baru bagi banyak petani di Indonesia, termasuk petani tebu. Tulisan ini menelaah dan mengemukakan praktek agronomi sebagai pendekatan pertanian cerdas iklim yang dapat diterapkan petani tebu di Indonesia dengan tujuan meningkatkan produksi tebu di bawah kondisi perubahan iklim. Terdapat beberapa praktik agronomis sebagai bagian dari pertanian cerdas iklim yang dapat diadopsi petani tebu di Indonesia, seperti efisiensi irigasi, perbaikan sistem drainase, pemilihan kultivar tebu yang sesuai, pemanfaatan residu serasah tebu, peningkatan bahan organik tanah, diversifikasi tanaman, pertanian presisi, dan pengelolaan hama terpadu. Dari perspektif pemerintah Indonesia, penelitian harus didukung karena terbatasnya informasi efektivitas masing-masing intervensi agronomi tersebut untuk mengurangi dampak buruk perubahan iklim dan untuk meningkatkan pertumbuhan tebu. Secara praktis, untuk memastikan keberhasilan penerapan pertanian cerdas iklim pada industri gula Indonesia, multi-stakeholder yang terdiri atas petani tebu, peneliti, masyarakat sipil, dan pembuat kebijakan harus saling terlibat dan pemerintah perlu menghubungkan para pemangku kepentingan ini.</p><p>Kata kunci: Tebu, produktivitas, pertanian cerdas iklim, manajemen agronomis, pertanian presisi</p>


Author(s):  
Caroline Mwongera ◽  
Chris M. Mwungu ◽  
Mercy Lungaho ◽  
Steve Twomlow

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) focuses on productivity, climate-change adaptation, and mitigation, and the potential for developing resilient food production systems that lead to food and income security. Lately, several frameworks and tools have been developed to prioritize context-specific CSA technologies and assess the potential impacts of selected options. This study applied a mixed-method approach, the climate-smart agriculture rapid appraisal (CSA-RA) tool, to evaluate farmers’ preferred CSA technologies and to show how they link to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The chapter examines prioritized CSA options across diverse study sites. The authors find that the prioritized options align with the food security and livelihood needs of smallholder farmers, and relate to multiple sustainable development goals. Specifically, CSA technologies contribute to SDG1 (end poverty), SDG2 (end hunger and promote sustainable agriculture), SDG13 (combating climate change), and SDG15 (life on land). Limited awareness on the benefits of agriculture technologies and the diversity of outcomes desired by stakeholders’ present challenges and trade-offs for achieving the SDGs. The CSA-RA provides a methodological approach linking locally relevant indicators to the SDG targets.


2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 741-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Bertrand ◽  
B Jefferson ◽  
P Jeffrey

With the growth of urban areas and climate change, decisions need to be taken to improve water management. This paper reports an assessment of the impact of greywater recycling systems on catchment scale hydrological flows. A simulation model developed in InfoWorks CS (Wallingford Software Ltd) was used to evaluate how river flows, sewer flows, surface runoff and flooding events may be influenced when grey water recycling systems of different number and scale are implemented in a representative catchment. The simulations show the effectiveness of greywater recycling systems in reducing total wastewater volume and flood volume. However, no hydraulic impacts due to implementation of greywater was identified by the model.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Phyllis Opare ◽  
Johnson O. Akintonde ◽  
Daniel Obeng-Ofori ◽  
Valerie Nelson

Background: The phenomenon of climate change (CC) and its attendant challenges in agriculture have been widely document. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) focuses on sustainable agriculture intensification for food sovereignty through the adoption of mitigation and adaptation practices. Agriculture provides the livelihood for 70% of rural poor in the developing world, so building farmer capacity in CSA is imperative for food security. Studies show that transformative change must be bottom-up – integrating scientific and ethical dimensions, using participatory research approaches that employ simple comprehensive tools for building participants’ capacity to adapt. Methods: The study uses the “Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security” (CCAFS) climate analogue and weather forecasting tools. These participatory learning tools allow participants to interrogate and explore their own geographical and climatic histories and to draw conclusions on climate variability. This study examined smallholder farmers’ understanding of CC and their resilience to it. The study consisted of 5 stages – selection of tools, planning and training of teams, meetings with community leaders and community members to select participants, focus group discussions, modelling sessions and community dissemination meetings.   Results: Participants showed awareness of CC, explained in terms of rainfall variability, decreasing rainforest, increasing temperature and excessively long hot days.  Farmers illustrated gendered perception of past and present landscapes, time use, past seasonal trends, vulnerabilities and access to key resources. They also observed that natural resources were declining, while population and social infrastructure increased. Participants modelled the shift in seasons and projected possible future scenarios. Finally, participants were willing to adopt climate smart agronomic practices. Conclusions: After establishing that farmers are aware of CC, follow-on-studies addressing the impediments to adaptation and provision of necessary tools and resources to facilitate adaptation must be carried out. This study can also be replicated among a larger smallholder population for increased capacity to practice CSA.


2022 ◽  
pp. 270-283
Author(s):  
Christian Thierfelder ◽  
Peter Steward

Abstract Climate change and soil fertility decline are threatening food security in southern Africa and efforts have been made to adapt current cropping systems to the needs of smallholder farmers. Conservation Agriculture (CA) based on minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and crop diversification has been proposed as a strategy to address the challenges smallholder farmers face. Here we analyse the potential contributions of CA towards adaptation to the effects of climate change by summarizing data on infiltration, soil moisture dynamics and crop productivity under heat and drought stress. The data were taken in the main from CIMMYT's on-farm and on-station trial network. Data show that CA systems maintain 0.7-7.9 times higher water infiltration than the conventional tilled system depending on soil type, which increases soil moisture during the cropping season by 11%-31% between CA treatments and the conventional control treatment. This leads to greater adaptive capacity of CA systems during in-season dry spells and under heat stress. A supporting regional maize productivity assessment, analysing the results of numerous on-farm and on-station experiments, showed that CA systems will outperform conventional tillage practices (CP), especially on light-textured soils, under heat and drought stress. With higher rainfall and low heat stress, this relation was more positive towards CP and on clay soil there was no benefit of practising CA when rainfall was high. The long dry season and limited biomass production of CA systems in southern Africa require complementary good agricultural practices to increase other soil quality parameters (e.g. increased soil carbon) to maintain higher productivity and sustainability over time. This can be addressed by combinations of improved stress-tolerant seed, targeted fertilization, inclusion of tree-based components or green manure cover crops in the farming system, scale-appropriate mechanization and improved weed control strategies.


Author(s):  
Ransford Teng-viel Karbo ◽  
Aba Obrumah Crentsil

Climate-Change is real and has daunting effects on various economic sectors. Agriculture is one of the hardest hit. The sector is the main source of livelihood for rural areas and risk being endangered. Concrete steps are needed to adapt to the situation. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices are robust coping mechanisms against climate change and the effects on agriculture. Farmers in Lawra Municipal are encouraged to employ CSA practices in farming. The CSA adaptation strategies of farmers in Lawra against climate change are unclear. Specifically, the objective of the study is to identify CSA adaptation strategies of farmers in Lawra. The importance of this study is to strengthen the adaptation capacity of farmers towards protecting their primary livelihood source (agricultural) from the impact of climate change. Employing a qualitative approach and using a semi-structured questionnaire, the study conducted in-depth interviews with farmers, and a key informant each from the Municipal Agriculture Department and one local radio station. Quota, snowballing and purposive non-probability sampling techniques were employed to select 20 farmers with knowledge and experiences on CSA practices. Findings from the study suggest that, farmers’ CSA adaptation strategies included advice on crop management, new or improved crop varieties, climate change education and awareness, and the organization of field trips to demonstration sites. To improve farmers’ adaptation strategies, the study recommends intensification of routine visits and monitoring by agriculture extension agents, encouraging farmers to frequently visit the Municipal Agriculture Department for assistance, and governments and the private sector must support farmers with logistics and credit pertaining to CSA practices.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-640
Author(s):  
MN Islam ◽  
MS Rahman ◽  
MS Alom ◽  
M Akhteruzzaman

Charland that are emerged as islands within the river channel or as attached land to the riverbanks as a result of erosion and accretion. In crop production systems, screening of adaptable crop varieties for charland is necessary to address the climate change issues. Hence, five separate experiments were conducted at charland of the Padma River in Kushtia district during November 2012 to May 2013 to select suitable varieties of lentil, hybrid maize, soybean, potato and mustard for increasing crop productivity. The experiment comprised of four lentil varieties viz. BARI Masur-4, BARI Masur-5, BARI Masur-6 and a local cultivar; four hybrid maize varieties namely BARI Hybrid maize-5, BARI Hybrid maize-7, BARI Hybrid maize-9 and Pacific-11; three soybean varieties like BARI Soybean-5, BARI Soybean-6 and Shohag; four potato varieties viz., BARI Alu-7, BARI Alu-8, BARI Alu-31 and Belgium; and five mustard varieties viz., BARI Sarisha-11, BARI Sarisha-13, BARI Sarisha-14, BARI Sarisha-15 and BARI Sarisha-16 were evaluated separately in five trials for their adaptation in charland. Among the studied crops, lentil var. BARI Masur-6, maize var. BARI Hybrid maize-9, soybean var. BARI Soybean-6, potato var. BARI Alu-7 and mustard var. BARI Sarisha-11performed better in the charland under climate change situation in Bangladesh.Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 40(4): 629-640, December 2015


Author(s):  
Behailu Legesse Kaptymer ◽  
Jemal Abdulkerim Ute ◽  
Musa Negeso Hule

The changing climate is hitting smallholder farmers hard. It is doing so especial in the African continent which is regularly pronounced as most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.  Climate change brings droughts and floods, pests and diseases; it means poorer crops, less food, and lower incomes. Agriculture in Africa must undergo a major transformation in the coming decades in order to meet the intertwined challenges of achieving food security, reducing poverty and responding to climate change without depletion of the natural resource base. Climate-smart agriculture seeks to increase productivity in an environmentally and socially sustainable way, strengthen farmers’ resilience to climate change, and reduce agriculture’s contri­bution to climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon storage on farmland. Climate-smart agriculture includes practical techniques including mulch­ing, conservation agriculture, integrated crop-livestock management, crop rotation, intercropping, agro forestry, improved grazing, and improved of water management system. In spite of the potential of Climate Smart Agriculture to improve resilience and to enhance agricultural production and rural livelihoods, systematic response to climate change through adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture practices and technologies is still very limited in Africa for a host of reasons. some of the challenges facing Climate-smart agriculture in Africa includes, Lack of practical understanding of the approach; Lack of data and information and appropriate analytical tools at local and national levels; Inadequate coordinated, supportive and enabling policy frameworks; Lack of adequate and innovative financing mechanisms and effective risk-sharing schemes; Limited credit and finance and Poor physical and social infrastructure to mention few.  To support the implementation of climate-smart agriculture and resolve the challenges in Africa, it is necessary to improve the coordination of policies and strengthen local, national and regional institutions.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 2431
Author(s):  
Vieri Tarchiani ◽  
Hamidou Coulibaly ◽  
Grégoire Baki ◽  
Cyriaque Sia ◽  
Sara Burrone ◽  
...  

Agrometeorological services, as part of weather and climate services, are expected to play a key role in supporting sub-Saharan agriculture facing climate change and variability. In the Sahel, smallholder farmers relying on rainfed crop production systems are particularly vulnerable to climate change and variability because of low resilience and coping capacity. The provision of agrometeorological services is growing across Africa, but they often remain inaccessible for the majority of smallholder farmers or are not very relevant to support on-the-ground decision-making. Our work aims to demonstrate the hypothesis that agrometeorological services can effectively improve agricultural productivity and sustainability provided that appropriate mechanisms are put in place to ensure access, uptake and action. The paper illustrates the case study of Burkina Faso, where the National Meteorological Service, with the support of the World Meteorological Organization, engaged in the provision of accessible, reliable and relevant agrometeorological services for farmers. The study demonstrates that farmers, even in remote rural areas, are willing to profit from weather and climate services for strategic and tactical decisions in agricultural management because of relevant economic benefit. These benefits can be summarized as a 40% reduction in production costs and a 41% increase in income. Results also highlight environmental positive impacts such as the reduction by 50% in the use of fertilizers. Nevertheless, the study concludes that in order to scale-up weather and climate services in West Africa, a new business model released from the development projects approach should be explored.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document