Roots, Tubers and Bananas: Planning and research for climate resilience (original) (raw)
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The Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers
Throughout the humid African tropics, root, tuber and banana (RTB) crops are the most important food staple. Approximately 300 million people in developing countries depend on RTB value chains (namely cassava, potato, sweetpotato, bananas and yams) for food security and income (Thiele et al. 2017). Indeed, foods derived from RTB crops contribute significantly to caloric needs, from nearly 25% in Nigeria to close to 60% in the Democratic Republic of Congo (RTB 2016). Being bulky and perishable, RTB crops are commonly grown for local consumption (Bentley et al. 2016). The potential of RTB production to contribute to food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has not yet been realized due to low productivity. Underdeveloped seed systems have been unable to disseminate clean seed of climate-smart varieties of RTB crops. Potato yields in most of SSA have stagnated at 8-15 t/ha, largely as a consequence of limited access to quality seed (Demo et al. 2015). In Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, nearly 75% of the potato fields are contaminated with
Assessing the impact of climate change on sweet potato in Uganda
2020
Sweet potato is a mainstay of household food security and a major source of vitamin A across sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in Uganda. Understanding how climate change is likely to impact on sweet potato would be useful for policymakers in Uganda making decisions to improve food security and increase resilience to climate shocks. However, sweet potato is an under-researched crop and the impacts of climate change have not been systematically analysed. The Sweet Potato Catalyst Project aims to assess the impacts of climate change on sweet potato in Uganda and develop ways for local stakeholders to access and assess this information to strengthen governance. This policy briefing note provides an overview of the research, the approach being taken and anticipated outcomes that will feed into the UNFCCC Koronovia Joint Work on Agriculture.
2014
Genetic mitigation needs require a species-by-species and regionby-region analysis of projected environmental issues. This may be done through close interactions among breeders, farmers, and climate change scientists. Although adaptation is highly site specific, sets of sites may exist across the globe that face similar adaptation issues or where the current environment may represent projected future environment for some other regions. Such locations may be extensively utilized to screen available germplasm resources and also for raising crops continuously and naturally, developing crop populations as germplasm conduits for global plant breeding efforts. Comparing adaptation experiences between each of the world's geoclimatic groupings and promoting cross-learning is desirable. Participatory breeding and participatory varietal selection may help fast track the development of climate-resilient crop varieties and cropping systems aimed at multiple breeding targets. Such efforts may further be optimized by knowledge consolidation relative to CO 2 assimilation, nutrient dynamics, mixed cropping, vectors, pests, diseases, intercropping, water use, temperature responses, gene pools, and genomic resources in plants. Amalgamation of conservation genetics and genomics with breeding is essential to involve the whole adaptation process from bio-reserves to genes to cultivars. It is also advantageous to look for ways to create a balance between requirements of intellectual property rights, access and benefit sharing, and equitable access for farmers to breeding materials. Development of decision-support tools to help prioritize actionable strategies, technologies, and practices and to manage trade-offs is imperative. In addition, in biodiversity hotspots, both incentives and institutional support must be provided to empower indigenous farmers and conservators, particularly women. Present crop management and germplasm improvement strategies need to be integrated with new results and best practices from related knowledge domains. Increased investments in climate change research (adaptation and mitigation) are needed.
Climatic Change
Crop breeding for resilience to changing climates is a key area of investment in African agricultural development, but proactively breeding for uncertain future climates is challenging. In this paper, we characterise efforts to breed new varieties of crops for climate resilience in southern Africa and evaluate the extent to which climate model projections currently inform crop breeding activity. Based on a survey of seed system actors, we find that the prioritisation of crops and traits is only informed to a limited extent by modelled projections. We use an ensemble of CORDEX models for mid and end of century for southern Africa to test some of the assumptions that underpin current breeding activity, particularly associated with breeding for reduced durations and drought tolerance in maize, and demonstrate some of the ways in which such projections can help to inform breeding priorities and agenda setting (e.g. through the case of assessing cassava toxicity risk). Based on these exa...
Toward Climate Resilient African Indigenous Vegetable Production in Kenya
Handbook of Climate Change Resilience, 2018
Climate change presents a global environmental threat to all economic sectors and particularly to the agricultural sector. Kenya is one of the countries negatively affected by climate change due to its high exposure to extreme events and the low adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers. Farmers are facing water scarcity, unpredictable weather patterns, dry spells, droughts, and rising temperatures. The effects of high temperatures, drought, and dry spells lead to serious losses in vegetable yields. Smallholder farmers involved in vegetable production are most at risk due to the sensitivities of vegetable production and their high vulnerability. Drought and water stress have been identified as important limiting factors in vegetable production. This paper examines the climate change adaptation strategies of farmers of African indigenous vegetable (AIV) in three agroclimatic zones (ACZs) in Kenya. Data from 18 focus group discussions (FGDs) and 269 interviews with farmers were analyzed. This study showed that AIV farmers have responded to climate change with a wide range of farm-level adaptation measures and all of the respondents use a combination of these strategies. Farm production practices, such as the application of manure, frequent weeding, and watering of vegetables, were most widespread, while migration to urban areas and buying insurance were the strategies adopted least across all zones. The results revealed a significant association between particular adaptation strategies and ACZs, particularly in soil and water management practices and land-use adjustments. This study offers policy recommendations for accelerating AIV farmers' resilience by supporting opportunities for livelihood diversification.
African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation, 2021
Agricultural intensification worldwide is increasingly relying on a narrow range of crops such as rice, wheat, and maize. The reliability on this relatively small numbers of food diversities raises a very serious concern about the sustainability managing our nutrition today and in the future. We conducted a scoping review using online databases to identify various agricultural interventions that can be utilized for enhancement of underutilized root and tuber crops adaptability under the current observable effects of climate change. This is because reports of underutilized crops’ adaptability to climate change continues to remain anecdotal with limited research capacity to support them. The results mooted a wide range of crop production techniques that can be utilized in production of root and tuber crops. They includes biofertilizers, tied ridging method, improved seed varieties, management of community seed banks, cropping systems, irrigation methods, exploiting abandoned lands, ag...
2020
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) delivers research-based solutions that address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. The Alliance focuses on the nexus of agriculture, nutrition and environment. We work with local, national, and multinational partners across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, and with the public and private sectors and civil society. With novel partnerships, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations to transform food systems and landscapes so that they sustain the planet, drive prosperity, and nourish people in a climate crisis. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, the world's largest agricultural research and innovation partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.
2016
evaluation of resilient potato varieties in climate-smart villages of Lushoto in Tanzania. CCAFS Working Paper no 192. Copenhagen, Denmark: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Available online at: www.ccafs.cgiar.org Titles in this Working Paper series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community.
2015
2 P. O. Box 3057, Mekelle,Tigray, Ethiopia Abstract: Despite Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is regarded as a high potential food security crop, its production in Ethiopia is much less than the average world potato production. Potato is sensitive to high temperature and moisture deficits. For this reason, potato production is said to be vulnerable to the anticipated climate change. The objective of this study was to assess the impacts of projected future climate on potato yield taking into account baseline climate (1992- 2010) as benchmark. Potato experiment was carried out during the cropping season in 2012 at two sites (Mekelle University (MU) and Mekelle Agricultural Research Center (MARC) in Mekelle areas with the objectives of calibrating and validating AquaCrop model, which was subsequently used for simulating potato yield under both baseline and future climate. There were three treatments of water: Full Supplementary (FSI), Deficit Irrigation (DI) and Rainfed (RF) treatments la...