Adapt African agriculture to climate change

Climate change is already a huge burden on Africa's food production systems. And, according to projections, the worst is yet to come. As agriculture ministers from across the continent gather in Kigali for dialogue on leadership in food security in Africa, ensuring a safe and sustainable food supply must be at the center of their agenda. concerns.

Over the last 20 years, sub-Saharan Africa's agricultural sector has grown faster than anywhere else in the world, with an average growth rate of agricultural GDP from 2000 to 2018, 1.4 percentage points more than any other region. Thanks to advances in infrastructure, such as roads and telecommunications, and the increase in farm size, farmers are better connected to markets to sell their crops and livestock at better prices and to save money. obtain inputs and services such as seeds and insurance.

But these gains in agricultural growth are eroded by production shocks induced by climate change, which push back the countries. Since 2007, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced four major reductions in per capita annual food production. All of these declines coincided with severe droughts and floods. The frequency of significant weather-related production losses increased from once every 12.5 years (average from 1982 to 2006) to once every two and a half years (average from 2007 to 2016). The sharp decline in food production in 2015-2016 coincided with a severe drought in eastern and southern Africa and contributed to an increase in the prevalence of hunger throughout Africa – rising from 18.2% in 2014 to 19.9% ​​in 2018.

What can government leaders, regional institutions, the private sector and development partners do to strengthen climate change adaptation of Africa's food systems? We see two major actions: unleashing the power of science and technology; and improve funding. There is an urgent need to continue research and development on crops, livestock and climate-smart farming practices to increase and maintain yields. Without this, agricultural production areas will continue to expand, further degrading the soils, wooded catchments and landscapes upon which food production depends.

We also need to facilitate greater adoption of existing and proven climate smart technologies. In places where climate-smart agriculture is practiced today, farmers are seeing increased food security and resilience. In Rwanda, for example, the Soil Management, Water Reclamation and Hill Irrigation project has helped control erosion and intensify yields on existing land. and better protect against drought. Maize yields increased 2.6 times between 2009 and 2018, with beans, wheat and potatoes even increasing more. In Senegal, the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program has developed new varieties of high-yielding, early-maturing, drought-tolerant cereals such as sorghum, millet, groundnuts and cowpeas. These varieties are widely distributed to farmers and have increased yields by 30% on average, even with less abundant and more irregular rainfall. In 2014, despite the late arrival of the rains and with only half of the average total rainfall, yields of producers of improved varieties of sorghum and millet increased.

The second action plan is funding. We are excited by the steps taken by many countries to optimize their spending and generate more public goods for every public dollar. In a number of countries, governments have stopped subsidizing fertilizer inputs for all farmers and have shifted to smallholders with mobile phone e-vouchers. This allows governments to focus on priority groups and save millions of dollars. In Nigeria, the introduction of the electronic purse program for subsidized fertilizers reduced the cost of subsidies from $ 180 million to $ 96 million between 2011 and 2013 and increased the number of farmer beneficiaries. A similar approach could be applied to promote the adoption of improved seeds or to encourage the shift to higher value, more water efficient and more nutritious crops.

Investing in climate-smart agriculture can help accelerate poverty reduction across the continent. We want to invite all decision makers, entrepreneurs, scientists and financiers to take up the challenge of climate adaptation of African food systems and contribute to this win-win program. By pooling ideas, technologies and resources, we can meet this fundamental development challenge.

Laura Tuck is vice president of sustainable development and Hafez Ghanem, vice president of the World Bank for the Africa region, ahead of the Kigali summit on August 5-6.