Africa remains very vulnerable to effects of climate change. Mitigation and adaptation actions are needed and will be crucial because Africa will be facing intensely repeated droughts, floods, desertification, and change in rainfall patterns that will affect the continent’s agricultural calendar, productivity of crop and livestock systems, food security and thereby the livelihoods of millions of farmers particularly in Africa south of the Sahara.

In light of the growing intensity and frequency of climate change effects, the 2016 ATOR takes an in-depth look at the role of climate-smart agriculture in helping to meet Malabo Declaration goals, including enhancing the resilience of livelihoods and production systems to climate variability.

In the years leading up to 2050, African countries will continue to grow, and many will reach middle-income status. As the agricultural sector grows, it will need to become technologically more sophisticated to withstand the vagaries of climate and market conditions.

Widespread adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices has a positive effect on production and total agricultural output, with a consequent reduction in prices and decrease in the number of people at risk of hunger and the number of children younger than five at risk of malnutrition.

Mixed crop-livestock systems, in which crops and livestock are raised on the same farm, are the backbone of smallholder production in most of Africa south of the Sahara. They have considerable potential for increasing agricultural production for food security, helping farmers adapt to a changing climate, and providing mitigation benefits.

In three regional economic communities–the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)–agroclimatic changes will not only impact agriculture but also countries ability to fully benefit from regional and international trade, especially when rainfed-based agricultural commodities dominate trade flow.

Although the potential for innovative insurance mechanisms is real, additional work to understand their effectiveness and substantial scale-up efforts will be needed to achieve a sustainable expansion of efficient agricultural insurance markets in Africa.

“Blind farming,” that is, farming without precision agriculture (PA), is highly inefficient and exacerbates the challenges of addressing climate change. As in the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, other African governments should promote PA as a way of optimizing the use of limited resources while mitigating the effects of climate change.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adoption
requires significant farmer market
participation to buy inputs and sell
outputs. Unfortunately, current policies
and investments remain focused on
production, and efforts to improve the
food value chain are limited. This situation
will need to change to support widespread
CSA adoption.