An Ecosystem-Based Approach to Climate-Smart Agriculture with Some Considerations for Social Equity

Although the transition to industrial agriculture in the 20th century resulted in increased agricultural productivity and efficiency, the attainment of global food security continues to be elusive. Current and anticipated impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector are likely to exacerbate the incidence of food insecurity. In recent years, climate-smart agriculture has gained recognition as a mechanism that has the potential to contribute to the attainment of food security and also enhance climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, several conceptual and implementation shortfalls have limited the widespread adoption of this innovative agricultural system at the landscape scale. This manuscript argues for the use of ecosystem management as an overarching framework for the conceptualization and implementation of climate-smart agriculture. The manuscript focuses on clarifying the foundational assumptions and management goals, as well as the knowledge and institutional requirements of climate-smart agriculture using the principles of ecosystem management. Potential challenges that may be faced by the application of an ecosystem management approach to climate-smart agriculture are also discussed. Furthermore, the manuscript calls for a heightened focus on social equity in the transition toward an ecosystem-based approach to climate-smart agriculture. The US farm bill is used as an illustrative case study along with other examples drawn mostly from sub-Saharan Africa.

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Climate Smart Agriculture: A New Approach for Sustainable Intensification

Current Journal of Applied Science and Technology ◽

10.9734/cjast/2020/v39i2330862 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 138-147

Author(s):

Gayatri Sahu ◽

Pragyan Paramita Rout ◽

Suchismita Mohapatra ◽

Sai Parasar Das ◽

Poonam Preeti Pradhan

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

Sustainable Intensification ◽

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Agricultural System ◽

World Population ◽

Resource Degradation ◽

Security Challenge ◽

Smart Agriculture

World population is increasing day by day and at the same time agriculture is threatened due to natural resource degradation and climate change. A growing global population and changing diets are driving up the demand for food. The food security challenge will only become more difficult, as the world will need to produce about 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion people. Production stability, agricultural productivity, income and food security is negatively affected by changing climate. Therefore, agriculture must change according to present situation for meeting the need of food security and also withstanding under changing climatic situation. Agriculture is a prominent source as well as a sink of greenhouse gases (GHGs). So, there is a need to modify agricultural practices in a sustainable way to overcome these problems. Developing climate smart agriculture is thus crucial to achieving future food security and climate change goals. It helps the agricultural system to resist damage and recover quickly by adaptation and mitigation strategies. Sustainable Intensification is an essential means of adapting to climate change, also resulting in lower emissions per unit of output. With its emphasis on improving risk management, information flows and local institutions to support adaptive capacity, CSA provides the foundations for incentivizing and enabling intensification. Since climate smart agriculture is defined along three pillars (productivity increases, building resilience and adapting, and GHG emission reduction), key concepts such as productivity, resilience, vulnerability and carbon sequestration provide indicators for future empirical measurements of the climate smart agriculture concept.

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Assessing the Potential Contribution of Pfumvudza Towards Climate Smart Agriculture in Zimbabwe: A Review

10.20944/preprints202101.0619.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Never Mujere

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Nitrous Oxide ◽

Food Security ◽

Nitrous Oxide Emissions ◽

Household Food Security ◽

Potential Contribution ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Household Food ◽

Smart Agriculture ◽

The Impact

Concerns of food and environmental security have increased enormously in recent years due to the vagaries of climate change and variability. Efforts to promote food security and environmental sustainability often reinforce each other and enable farmers to adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change and other stresses. Some of these efforts are based on appropriate technologies and practices that restore natural ecosystems and improve the resilience of farming systems, thus enhancing food security. Climate smart agriculture (CSA) principles, for example, translate into a number of locally-devised and applied practices that work simultaneously through contextualised crop-soil-water-nutrient-pest-ecosystem management at a variety of scales. The purpose of this paper is to review concisely the current state-of-the-art literature and ascertain the potential of the Pfumvudza concept to enhance household food security, climate change mitigation and adaptation as it is promoted in Zimbabwe. The study relied heavily on data from print and electronic media. Datasets pertaining to carbon, nitrous oxide and methane storage in soils and crop yield under zero tillage and conventional tillage were compiled. Findings show that, compared to conventional farming, Pfumvudza has great potential to contribute towards household food security and reducing carbon emissions if implemented following the stipulated recommendations. These include among others, adequate land preparation and timely planting and acquiring inputs. However, nitrous oxide emissions tend to increase with reduced tillage and, the use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides is environmentally unfriendly.

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Using climate analogue tools to explore and build smallholder farmer capacity for climate smart agriculture

AAS Open Research ◽

10.12688/aasopenres.12822.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 24

Author(s):

Phyllis Opare ◽

Johnson O. Akintonde ◽

Daniel Obeng-Ofori ◽

Valerie Nelson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Weather Forecasting ◽

Food Sovereignty ◽

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Rainfall Variability ◽

Transformative Change ◽

Social Infrastructure ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Smart Agriculture

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.

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Climate Change: Threat to Agricultural System and Food Security in Africa

10.53902/gsres.2021.01.000518 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Victor Adjei

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Weather Conditions ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Agricultural System ◽

Unfavourable Weather ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Agriculture And Food ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

Climate change is unequivocal and nothing hides itself from its negative repercussions. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa will continue to be impacted due to their low adaptive capacities and geographic position. Unfavourable weather trends coupled with climatic variations will have adverse effect on agricultural sector which is the main source of livelihood to rural households on the continent. This literature review article assessed the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security in Africa. The lives of several in Africa cling on agriculture as it supports majority of the population. However, since over 90 percent of agriculture system in the region depends on rainfall, livelihoods of the citizens on the continent have been hit hard due to rising temperature, erratic rainfall and extreme weather conditions.

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Climate Smart Agriculture as Final Goal: Use of Improved Cereals Varieties in Cinzana, Mali.

Journal of Agricultural Studies ◽

10.5296/jas.v5i1.10582 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 50

Author(s):

Kalifa TRAORE ◽

Daouda SIDIBE ◽

Harouna COULIBALY

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Water Conservation ◽

Crop Production ◽

Heavy Rain ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Improved Varieties ◽

Farmer Organizations ◽

Conservation Technology ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Smart Agriculture

Climate variability and change are recognized as the greatest challenge to crop production and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. This work assesses farmers’ perception on the contribution of improved varieties of sorghum and millet in the search for food security in Cinzana rural commune of Mali in the current context of climate change.The methodology was based on focus group surveys with both, the decentralized technical services, administrative and municipal authorities, NGOs, farmer organizations and producers but also farmer exchanges visits on improved varieties tested in farmer’s field.The result shows that climate change is described by the majority of farmers (87%) as decrease in rainfall amount and length of rainy seasons, high increases in temperature and high deforestation and water scarcity. Unpredictability of climate, (80%), drought (70%) and heavy rain (65%) occurrence were identified as major perception of farmers on risks in climate for crop production and soil degradation. After farmers’ study tour, 80% of the participants mentioned a better growth of plants and increase of soil moisture with the use of contour ridges tillage as a water conservation technology. Adapted cycle (55%) and higher yield (37%) of improved varieties were farmer’s main drivers for adoption of improved millet and sorghum varieties.The study revealed that local farmers have substantial knowledge on climate variabilities and risks and also are aware of some adaptation strategies. However, for wide scale adoption of effective strategies, capacity strengthening appeared a prerequisite.

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Reflections on Climate Change and Public Health in Africa in an Era of Global Pandemic

10.5772/intechopen.97201 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Edlyne Eze Anugwom

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Climate Change ◽

Health Planning ◽

Full Range ◽

Good Health ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Health Security ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Global Pandemic ◽

Sub Saharan

The study examined the impact of climate change on public health provisioning in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to recognising the multifarious influence of climate change on health, it argues that the quest for global health security can only be achieved against the backdrop of concerted mainstreaming of climate change response into public heath provisioning, especially in the developing world. Adapting to climate change and mitigating its impact would logically require integrating it into public health planning, programming and interventions. Therefore, if health security entails provisioning and catering to the full range of health needs of people, climate change given its undoubted implications for health should be in the forefront of health security globally. Despite the global discourse of climate change and health security, tangible actions and programmes at different levels are needed to achieve the goals of good health and effective health security. This is no less the case now that the pandemic has challenged and stretched health institutions and provisions. However, the complex and intertwining effects of climate change and its manifold nexus with public health and health security can easily be apprehended through the systems perspective. There is the need for both radicalization of the public health system in Sub-Saharan Africa and concerted efforts across disciplines and actors to achieve effective climate change mitigation and adaptation and thus further strengthen health security.

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