Climate-Smart Agriculture profiles to guide investments in three more African countries
The Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Country Profile (CP) initiative is a series of publications containing a brief yet comprehensive overview of the agricultural context and challenges in each country through a climate-smart agriculture lens, and provides a snapshot of the key issues, climate impacts, CSA practices, relevant policies, and financing opportunities for scaling up the promotion and adoption of CSA interventions along specific value chains and in different agro ecological regions. Three new profiles for Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique have just been published.
The Profiles are a product of the collaborative effort by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), the World Bank, the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) as well as the national governments and local partner organisations in the respective countries.
In Zambia, national food security is reliant on a few staple crops, particularly maize. These crops are produced mostly by smallholders under rainfed conditions, making household and national food security vulnerable to weather variability and climate change related hazards such as temperature increases, changes in rainfall patterns and drought. The profile, developed partly through a series of consultative workshops including a Government workshop on Climate Finance Investment in Climate-Smart Agriculture; indicates that the establishment of the National Climate Change Fund (NCCF), development of a National Climate Change Strategy and mainstreaming of CSA into national development plans, policies and strategies represent positive steps towards ensuring an enabling institutional and policy environment supportive of CSA.
In addition, although conservation agriculture (CA) and agroforestry are the most widely promoted CSA practices in Zambia, current efforts need to be expanded to incorporate other CSA practices related to manure management, integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), pasture and forage management, fodder production, and manure management. A case study on integrated crop-livestock systems for climate-smart agriculture is therefore highlighted. To build on the CSA Profile, and further identify opportunities for CSA investments, the Government of Zambia will also be developing a Climate Smart Investment Plan (CSIP) for the country
In Tanzania, the profile development process was bolstered by exceptional government ownership of and involvement in the process and product, to the point where it created a dedicated CSA Profile Task Force; as well as holding a government-led high-level forum which included an endorsement of the CSA Profile process by the Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock (MALF), the Vice President’s Office, World Bank and DFID among other partners. The role played by the CSA Profile Task Force and leadership by MALF has enabled the positioning of the Tanzania CSA Country Profile as one of the key resource documents to be used by The Government of Tanzania to inform the scale up of climate-smart practices in the country; culminating in the launch of the Tanzania CSA Profile concurrently with the Tanzania CSA Guideline at a government event held in May 2017.
The profile highlights that despite Tanzania’s agriculture sector being an important catalyst for economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security; the economic losses from climate change impacts on agriculture are estimated at US$200 million every year. The scaling up of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices present an opportunity to reduce such losses, build resilience in the agriculture sector, and improve productivity and farmer incomes, while contributing to climate change mitigation. The existence of a Tanzania Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance presents an opportunity to facilitate a coordinated, coherent and effective response to challenges that climate change presents
The Republic of Mozambique has abundance of water resources offering great irrigation potential for agricultural production especially in the large river basins of the Limpopo, Zambezi and Lurio. However, the country ranks among the most vulnerable countries in the world to weather variability, climate hazards (such as droughts, floods and cyclones), and climate change. The profile, developed in consultation with local institutions, indicates that to cope with these threats, farmers have been taking up various low-input and cost-effective CSA measures, such as: small livestock rearing, crop residue management/mulching, intercropping, and manure management.
However, investments that have used an integrated approach to tackle climate challenges in the agriculture, forestry and energy sectors, have shown success in creating synergies between actions and bringing additional benefits to smallholders, compared to plot-level interventions. The adoption of these and other CSA practices and technologies by smallholder farmers is generally hindered by low access to knowledge and technology, high investment costs (especially for water related investments), as well as limited access to credit and insurance. In addition, women are heavily involved in agriculture, contributing 61 percent of the agricultural labor force; a compelling reason for ensuring that CSA initiatives take consideration of the needs and constraints faced by women farmers.
Common issues emerging from the profiles include: the need for strengthening of the national agricultural extension system and extension partners on matters related to CSA; the generation and sharing of evidence to support the promotion and adoption of climate-smart practices at local level – including through sub-national climate risk profiling; ensuring financing is available for CSA practices from public, private and international climate-financing instruments; the engagement and involvement of the private sector in CSA including microfinance, input supply, value addition and marketing; and the need to integrate gender and other crosscutting issues in CSA programming.