Agricultural adaptation to climate change is critical for food security and economic development; if it is to be truly ‘climate-smart’ for smallholder farmers, it must be inclusive and protect the natural resource base upon which agricultural livelihoods depend. This paper uses Technology Justice as a lens to discuss the climate resilience of smallholder agriculture systems. It argues for user-centred technological innovation and supports agroecological approaches as a powerful way to promote the inclusion of marginalized farmer groups, increase adaptive capacity, and realize food security and economic development in the context of climate change.
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume shares new data relating to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), with emphasis on experiences in Eastern and Southern Africa. The book is a collection of research by authors from over 30 institutions, spanning the public and private sectors, with specific knowledge on agricultural development in the region discussed. The material is assembled to answer key questions on the following five topic areas: (1) Climate impacts: What are the most significant current and near future climate risks undermining smallholder livelihoods? (2) Varieties: How can climate-smart varieties be delivered quickly and cost-effectively to smallholders? (3) Farm management: What are key lessons on the contributions from soil and water management to climate risk reduction and how should interventions be prioritized? (4) Value chains: How can climate risks to supply and value chains be reduced? and (5) Scaling up: How can most promising climate risks reduction strategies be quickly scaled up and what are critical success factors? Readers who will be interested in this book include students, policy makers, and researchers studying climate change impacts on agriculture and agricultural sustainability.
This publication describes climate-smart agriculture (CSA) case studies from around the world, showing how the approach is implemented to address challenges related to climate change and agriculture. The case studies operationalize the five action points for CSA implementation: expanding the evidence base for CSA, supporting enabling policy frameworks, strengthening national and local institutions, enhancing funding and financing options, and implementing CSA practices at field level. The publication provides examples of the innovative roles that farmers, researchers, government officials, private sector agents and civil society actors can play to transform food systems and help meet the Sustainable Development Goals; it also demonstrates how these actors can collaborate. The case studies discuss context-specific activities that sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes, adapt and build resilience of people and food systems to climate change, and reduce and/or remove greenhouse gas emissions where possible.
"Climate-smart agriculture, forestry and fisheries (CSA), contributes to the achievement of sustainable development goals. It integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges. It is composed of three main pillars: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to climate change; reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases emissions, where possible. The purpose of the sourcebook is to further elaborate the concept of CSA and demonstrate its potential, as well as limitations. It aims to help decision makers at a number of levels (including political administrators and natural resource managers) to understand the different options that are available for planning, policies and investments and the practices that are suitable for making different agricultural sectors, landscapes and food systems more climate-smart. This sourcebook is a reference tool for planners, practitioners and policy makers working in agriculture, forestry and fisheries at national and subnational levels." -- Back cover.
Tillage agriculture has led to widespread soil and ecosystem degradation globally, and more particularly in the developing regions. This is especially so in Africa where traditional agricultural practices have become unsustainable due to severe exploitation of natural resources with negative impacts on the environment and food system. In addition, agricultural land use in Africa today faces major challenges including increased costs, climate change and a need to transform to more sustainable production intensification systems. Conservation Agriculture has emerged as a major alternative sustainable climate smart agriculture approach in Africa and has spread to many African countries in the past decade as more development and research, including in sustainable mechanization, has enabled its extension and uptake. It is key to transforming Africa's agriculture and food system given its ability to restore soil health, biodiversity and productivity of millions of smallholder farms as well as larger-scale farms. This book is aimed at all agricultural stakeholders in the public, private and civil sectors in Africa engaged in supporting the transformation of conventional tillage agriculture to Conservation Agriculture. The book will be of interest to: researchers, academics, students, development stakeholders, public and private sector investors and policy makers as well as institutional libraries across the world.
Climate change poses a threat to smallholder farmers worldwide, impacting livelihoods and agricultural pro duction. At the same time, agrifood systems account for about one-third of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) offers synergistic practices that boost productivity, aid farmers in adapting to cli mate change, and have the potential to mitigate GHG emissions. This note reviews the extent to which a set of practices identified by smallholder farmers in India, Kenya, and Uganda for inclusion in a participatory video-based extension intervention meet the CSA criteria. The findings suggest that the practices hold triple-win potential but often several need to be applied as a package; they also need to be adapted to local conditions.
The books deals with the critical issues of climate change and its impact on agriculture and proposes climate smart agriculture as the probable solution to this issue. It discusses the impact of climate change and greenhouse gases emission on agriculture. It covers the strategies and management options of climate smart agriculture by including crop, water, soil, and energy management with examples and case studies. The subject matter has been presented in a very lucid language, containing real-time case studies, questions and few solved problems in specific chapters. The text is further enriched with simple line diagram and figures, chart, flow charts and tables. The book is primarily intended for researchers and professionals in the research areas of environmental science, agriculture, soil science, etc.
SubSaharan Africa is one of the poorest regions of the world. Because most Africans work in agriculture, escaping such dire poverty depends on increased agricultural productivity to raise rural incomes, lower food prices, and stimulate growth in other economic sectors. Per capita agricultural production in subSaharan Africa has fallen, however, for much of the past halfcentury. Successes in African Agriculture investigates how to reverse this decline. Instead of cataloging failures, as many past studies have done, this book identifies episodes of successful agricultural growth in Africa and identifies processes, practices, and policies for accelerated growth in the future. The individual studies follow developments in, among other areas, the farming of maize in East and Southern Africa, cassava across the middle belt of Africa, cotton in West Africa, horticulture in Kenya, and dairying in East Africa. Drawing on these case studies and on consultations with agricultural specialists and politicians from across subSaharan Africa -- undertaken in collaboration with the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development -- the contributors identify two key determinants of positive agricultural performance: agricultural research to provide more productive and sustainable technologies to farmers and a policy framework that fosters market incentives for increasing production. The contributors discuss how the public and private sectors can best coordinate the convergence of both factors. Given current concerns about global food security, this book provides timely and important resources to policymakers and development specialists concerned with reversing the negative trends in food insecurity and poverty in Africa.
