It is that time of the year when climate change brings the world together. On September 23rd, world leaders will gather in New York, and in December the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place in Lima, Peru.
In both summits, policy makers, political leaders, the business community, NGOs and civil society will meet to discuss challenges, opportunities and best ways to cope with climate change.
The New York summit is convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, aimed at catalyzing and galvanizing climate actions and decisions.
Of the sectors that are experiencing the adverse effects of climate change, agriculture is doubly affected due to its sensitivity to various climate aspects.
In the past few years, millions of small scale farmers with limited resources available to adapt have felt the heat in different parts of the world.Within East Africa alone, there have been severe droughts in The, erratic weather patterns and outbreaks of crop diseases in Kenya, and floods in Tanzania, just to mention a few.
A farmer tills his land so as to plant drought resistant crops. Photo: Elijah Mumo
This year has not been an exemption in Kenya, as far as these adverse events are concerned. A severe shortage of rain hit Kenya between the months of March and June. During this period, farmers normally expect rain so they can plant maize and a variety of other crops.
Further worsening the situation, maize lethal necrosis has in recent years struck crops in normally high-yielding regions. The disease causes maize plants to wilt and die during their flowering stage.
According to Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), small scale farmers produce about half of food for the Sub-Sahara region. Small holders who own 2 hectares of land or less are the least likely to be resilient to these shocks.
The alliance published the “2014 African Agriculture Status Report” on September 3, in which it argues that these small holder farmers run the risk of experiencing the effects of climate change in severe ways, particularly because about 90% of them rely almost entirely on rain fed agriculture.
The report underscores the importance of addressing climate change to increase African agricultural productivity, improve food security and enhance the resilience of farmers to climate change. The report could not have come at a better time. With the unfolding climate trends, the need for innovative agricultural practices to adapt to the changing climate has never been more urgent.
Moving Onwards
During the last year’s UNFCCC conference in Poland, participants committed an additional 72 million dollars to the Adaptation Fund to finance national projects in developing countries.
The parties also noted that UNFCCC member governments had completed work on the Climate Technology Center and Network, a channel through which developing nations could forward requests for advice and assistance on the transfer of technology. The need for the transfer of technology cannot be overemphasized, and it cannot happen without cooperation between developed and developing countries. Ensuring that these funds and technologies can reach small scale farmers is another critical step, and a challenge that should be addressed.
Food producers in the developing world need to be given a platform in the upcoming climate change conferences to address influential policymakers, financiers and in political leaders. The small scale farmers who have limited capacity to adapt to climate change should have a voice in New York and in Lima to share their experiences: coping with erratic rains, floods, insects, diseases, a lack of technology access and education and other challenges. They should push political leaders to honour their pledges in capping emissions and funding mitigation and adaptation. Farmers should be given a platform to present their case: that hungry populations cannot alleviate poverty.
Major discussions about greenhouse gas emissions and the shape of the post-2015 climate road map will take place in New York and Lima. But we can only hope that participants will see the need to listen and reach out to vulnerable farmers and ensure a clear mechanism to ensure access to the most feasible adaptation actions.
