Case-study /

Exploring On-Farm Adaptation Options Under Climate Change in Southern Africa

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The 9th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA9) took place in Nairobi, Kenya, from April 24-30 2015. The CBA series of conferences focus on the latest developments in community-based adaptation to climate change. The theme of this year’s event was “Measuring and enhancing effective adaptation”, and all the posters presented at the conference were summaries of projects related to the conference theme. This poster is one of the posters featured at the conferance. For more information about CBA9, visit: www.cba9.org. If you want to learn more about community based adaptation, please visit the GICBA platform on weADAPT.

Introduction

Climate change will impact crops in southern Africa strongly. While impacts are uncertain in the early 21st century, they are negative in the mid 21st century (-18%) and more severe in late 21st century (-30%). There is need to adapt crop production to climate change so a to preserve or promote food security in the region, especially for the more vulnerable smallholder dryland farmers

Objectives and Methodology

The project aims to investigate the question: Can on-farm tactical adjustments help resource poor smallholder farmers in southern Africa to adapt to climate change?

It does this by testing the usefulness of on-farm adjustments for adapting maize to climate change via modelling:

• Fertiliser amounts (F) • Planting dates (S), and • Planting density (D), a total of 294 combinations

Conclusion

• Opportunities for adaptation through on-farm adjustments exist and vary by location. • Communities located in cool and wet areas (e.g. Mohale’s Hoek) and moderate and wet areas (e.g. Lilongwe) have a wider range of opportunities to adapt to climate change through on-farm adjustments than those in hotter and drier areas (e.g. Big Bend).

Authors

This poster was produced and designed by Nkulumo Zinyengere, Olivier Crespo, Mark Tadross, and Bruce Hewitson.

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