Climate
Change
Diversification
and
Crop
BY NARYAN BRANCH
239 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were undernourished in 2010.
This figure is expected to rise in future because of climate change.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND FARMING
Global temperatures are rising and this can impact on the amount of
crops that can be produced in Africa. It is expected that Africa will
get drier in future and there will be worse drought periods and flash
flooding events. As a result, farmers need to find solutions to help
them be able to make enough crops for them to consume or even sell.
One possible solution is crop diversification.
CROP DIVERSIFICATION
‘Crop Diversification’ means that farmers grow many different types of
crops instead of just one type. This is particularly important in case
the weather is particularly bad in growing or harvest season. For
example, droughts in Ethiopia in the 1980s led to widespread famine
and death because crops could not survive. Having said this, if many
different types of crops were grown by individual farmers (like
millet, maize, and rice), then the chances of at least one crop
surviving is higher. This means that farmers will always produce some
crops, even if the weather is bad.
Also, if the climate is good, farmers can grow many different crops
and they can sell them to lots of buyers. This can mean that incomes
for farmers will be higher. In fact, the Kenyan government encourage
farmers to diversify crop production and offers land to farmers so
that they can do this. Clearly this is a solution which many people
see as having many advantages.
ISSUES
Crop diversification is not always easy to do because farmers need a
lot of land to do it. In Africa, where the population is growing
quickly, there is less space for farming as people need places to live
and cities grow. Also, the climate is getting drier so desert regions
are slowly expanding – which means there is less fertile land for
crops to grow in regions such as Chad, Niger, and Mali.
OTHER SOLUTIONS
As well as growing different types of crops, scientists are now
experimenting with GM crops. These are ‘genetically modified’ crops
which means that genes from one plant can be transferred to another to
help it grow. For example, banana trees in Uganda have been
genetically modified which makes them survive better when there is a
long drought period. This method has proven to be successful in many
countries and has much promise for the future. In general, climate
change will mean that less crops can be grown. However, by using crop
diversification and GM crops, farmers in Africa should be able to cope
with future challenges.