MITIGATION MEASURES AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

By HAPPY MULOLANI Climate change is a phenomenon which continues to ravage productive sectors in many countries. In Zambia, agriculture is a key sector which generates 22 percent of gross domestic product and provides livelihoods for over 50% of the country’s population. The sector has been prioritised through the Seventh National Development (7NDP) to increase food production by increasing productivity and nutrition at household level in order to foster the country’s economic growth. The major concern lies in the fact that this year’s drought is the worst ever experienced in 35years as it has affected over 11million people in nine countries including Zambia, which now require food support. What is worrisome is that climate change is not a problem for the future but now. Presently, it is putting a strain on households and rural farmers level of food security and incomes. Clearly, climate change requires an immediate panacea to mitigate its effects particularly of rural farmers and households. Government through one of its agribusiness intervention programme which is assisting rural farmers in building capacity and developing their business acumen is the Enhanced Smallholder Agribusiness Promotion Programme (E-SAPP). The programme is co-financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), partnered with the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in assessing climatic vulnerability with specific focus on the historic and present trends of the country. CIAT works to increase prosperity and improve human nutrition through research based interventions in agriculture and the environment. This positions CIAT at an advantage as it works towards assisting in investment planning for resilient agriculture and leveraging of markets through improved productivity and competitiveness (CIAT Africa Factsheet, 2019). CIAT and E-SAPP partnership will ultimately strengthen the agribusiness intervention, given that E-SAPP supports 61,000 smallholder farmers in all ten provinces, focusing on four commodities of focus which include livestock, rice, crops and aquaculture. E-SAPP Acting Programme Coordinator Emmanuel Mulenga emphasizes that the programme’s first component is to promote growth for beneficiary farmers to effectively participate in the value chain, under the National Development Agribusiness intervention for the country. Mr Mulenga says given the agribusiness acumen the farmers are suppose to develop through the programme’s interventions, efforts in assessment of climate change becomes relevant to deal with in order to avoid farmers losing their investment. In this way, the target farmers will be appropriately supported in their commodities of focus. CIAT Scientist Caroline Mwongera explains the need to re-think ways in which farmers situated in different contexts require suitable interventions peculiar to their area, particularly assess the risk level of farmers’ agriculture production. This presents an opportunity for key players and experts to come up with adaptive measures once the most prone areas are identified. Ms Mwongera says to come up with appropriate adaptive measures to assist rural farmers, for a programme like E-SAPP, it becomes apparent to look at value chains for different crops the programme is supporting. This is because every commodity of focus within the value chain has varying advantages amidst climate change. And CIAT Country Representative Joseph Mulambu highlights that cultural barriers is one of the concerns which tends to pose difficulties in communities progressing in their enterprises. In view of this, looking at the vulnerability map becomes key because it provides a basis where, and what type of support is required in specific areas. Recently, IFAD released US$12million to assist rural small-scale farmers in adapting to climate change and reduce green house gas emissions. IFAD President Gilbert Houngbo explained that the Swedish government, which is one of the cooperating partners of IFAD, availed the funds to effectively implement and contribute towards reducing climatic changes. Mr Houngbo explained the severe climatic conditions triggered the release of the funds as the point of realization is that fighting the effects of climate change of households and incomes of rural farmers requires finance and concerted efforts to come up with adaptive measures. “Investment is needed to enable rural people to take adaptation actions and also to realize their potential contribution to mitigating impacts of climate change,” says Mr Houngbo. More importantly, financing towards climate change is a milestone given that it is impacting on poverty and hunger of rural households and farmers. Clearly, finance is one of the catalysts needed to combat climate change, as it will also enable farmers to adapt and become resilient to climatic shocks. A pragmatic approach towards supporting rural farmers in the different categories the programme is supporting is required. In particular, support and expertise needs to be directed towards devising mechanisms aimed at improving productivity within a competitive environment.