By Laura Tuck &\nHafez Ghanem,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Climate change is already\nputting huge stress on Africa\u2019s food production systems. And, according to\nprojections, worse is coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Ministers for Agriculture from across the continent gather in\nKigali (on August 5-6, 2019) for the Africa Food Security Leadership Dialogue,\nensuring a secure and sustainable food supply must be at the center of their\nminds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past 20 years, Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s farming sector has\ngrown faster than anywhere else in the world, with an average 4.6 per cent\nagricultural GDP growth rate from 2000 to 2018 \u2013 that\u2019s 1.4 percentage points\nhigher than any other region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks to infrastructure advances, such as roads and\ntelecommunications and an increase in farm sizes, farmers are becoming better\nconnected to markets to sell their crops and livestock at better prices and to\nobtain inputs and services such as seeds and insurance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these gains in agricultural growth are being eroded by climate\nchange-induced production shocks that push countries backward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 2007, Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced four major\nreductions in annual per capita food production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of these declines coincided with severe droughts and floods.\nThe frequency of large weather-related production losses has increased from\nonce every 12.5 years (the average for 1982-2006) to once every 2.5 years (the\naverage for 2007-2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The large drop in food production during 2015-16 coincided with\nsevere drought in East and Southern Africa and contributed to a rise in the\nprevalence of hunger across all of Africa – from 18.2 percent in 2014 to 19.9\npercent in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What can government leaders, regional institutions, the private\nsector and development partners do to ramp up climate adaptation for Africa\u2019s\nfood systems? We see two major courses of action: unleashing the power of\nscience and technology; and improving financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More research and development in climate-smart crops, livestock\nand farming practices are urgently needed to increase and sustain yields.\nWithout this, areas of farm production will keep expanding, further degrading\nthe soils, forested watersheds and landscapes on which food production depends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also need to facilitate greater adoption of existing and proven\nclimate-smart technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In places where climate-smart agriculture is practiced today,\nfarmers are seeing increased food security and resilience. In Rwanda, for\nexample, the Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation project\nhas helped control erosion, intensify yields on existing land and provide\ngreater protection from droughts. Maize yields increased 2.6 times between 2009\nand 2018, with even larger increases for beans, wheat and potatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Senegal, the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program has\ndeveloped new high-yielding, early-maturing, drought resistant varieties of\ncereals such as sorghum, millet, groundnuts, and cowpeas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These varieties are being widely diffused to farmers and have\nraised yields by an average of 30 percent, even with less and more erratic\nrainfall. In 2014, despite the late onset of rains and with only half the\naverage total rainfall, yields for farmers of improved sorghum and millet\nvarieties increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second course of action is financing. We\u2019re excited by the\nsteps many countries are taking to optimize their expenditures and generate\nmore public goods for each public dollar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In several countries, governments have switched from subsidizing\nfertilizer inputs for all farmers, to targeting smallholder farmers with\nelectronic vouchers delivered by mobile phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This allows governments to focus on priority groups and save\nmillions of dollars. In Nigeria, introduction of the e-wallet program for\nsubsidized fertilizer lowered the cost of subsidies from US$180 million to\nUS$96 million between 2011 and 2013 and increased the number of farmers\nbenefiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A similar approach could be\napplied to promoting the adoption of improved seeds, or incentivizing a shift\nto higher-value, more water-efficient and more nutritious crops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Investing in climate-smart, well-connected agriculture can help\naccelerate poverty reduction across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We want to invite all policy makers, entrepreneurs, scientists and\nfinanciers to embrace the challenge of climate-adaptation of Africa\u2019s food\nsystems and contribute to this win-win agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By pooling ideas, technology and resources, we can tackle this most fundamental of development challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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