Climate change disastrous for farmers

What you need to know:

  • In Kenya, it is obvious that unless concerted efforts are made to reduce the crippling uncertainty of rain-fed agriculture through irrigation, many farmers will fight a losing battle with a hostile climate
  • Nothing underlines our ill-preparedness in supporting farmers than the current mess which is subsidised fertiliser distribution through the National Cereals and Produce Board

Last week, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its most comprehensive assessment of the impact of climate change, warned that the yields of maize, rice and wheat will decline by 25 per cent by 2050, when the world population will have hit the nine billion mark.

Due to the extreme weather wreaking havoc around the world, researchers are warning that increasingly erratic rainfall related to climate change will pose a major threat to food security especially in Africa and Asia, requiring increased investment in mitigation interventions.

Add this to our fatalistic approach to inputs supply and it is not difficult to see why this phenomenon will become quite disruptive. (EDITORIAL: Climate change is real)

Scientists have pointed out that southern Africa could lose more than 30 per cent of its maize crop by 2030 due to climate change. Kenya’s continued reliance on maize from the traditional North Rift counties of Nandi, Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia will soon become unsustainable.

Indeed, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had way back in 2001, through its Third Assessment Report, concluded that the poorest countries would be hardest hit, with reductions in crop yields due to decreased water levels and new or mutant pests.

In Africa and Latin America, it warned, many rain-fed crops are near their maximum temperature tolerance, so that yields are likely to fall sharply with even small climate changes.

Falls in agricultural productivity of up to 30 per cent this century were projected. But our governments have done little to prepare farmers to adapt to the grim situation.

LOSING BATTLE

In Kenya, it is obvious that unless concerted efforts are made to reduce the crippling uncertainty of rain-fed agriculture through irrigation, many farmers will fight a losing battle with a hostile climate. (READ: Global warming: New law on the way)

As a developing country, we are vulnerable to climate change because we heavily depend on agriculture, tend to be relatively warm already, lack infrastructure to respond well to increased variability and lack capital to invest in innovative adaptations.

We are confronted with the starkest of dilemmas in having to produce more food efficiently, under more volatile conditions, and we have to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Already, unprecedented climate change-linked phenomena have resulted in the waters of Lake Baringo and Lake Bogoria submerging farms under the Perkerra and Eldume irrigation schemes, spelling doom for an already food insecure Baringo County.

Agriculture being a devolved function, counties, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, should adopt technologies that reduce the vulnerability of poor rural communities to climate change.

A variety of policies to counter the effects of climate change on agriculture such as greater investment in research and extension work, deepening access to inputs such as seeds and fertiliser, expanded irrigation and improved infrastructure, should be pursued.

But nothing underlines our ill-preparedness in supporting farmers than the current mess which is subsidised fertiliser distribution through the National Cereals and Produce Board.

Ironically, measures aimed at “locking out” cartels have frustrated the majority of smallholder farmers from accessing the inputs, thus compounding the inefficiencies choking the sector.

Mr Cheboi is a mass communication postgraduate candidate at JKUAT. Twitter: @Cheboiksam