Adaptation Strategies

To protect her crops against drought, a farmer in Benin (in the Sahel) uses a solar-powered drip irrigation system [16]

Although crop prices are predicted to increase substantially in the near future, that’s not the end of the story. In fact, there is an enormous potential for sub-Saharan farmers to increase yields by embracing low-cost climate adaptation strategies, thereby enhancing their food security. These strategies include:

• planting short cycle and drought resistant crops to work around periods of heat and water scarcity
• planting trees on farms to prevent erosion, increase water and soil quality, and provide alternative sources of food and income
• alternating different crops on the same plot to improve soil quality
• using manure and compost as fertilizer
• storing water for later use

The first three strategies are already being widely embraced in some parts of Africa, and a recent study found that smallholder farm households that utilize adaptation strategies like these are less likely to experience hunger [3].

As climate change increases pace, international seed banks will become increasingly important tools for adaptation. Unfortunately, African crops are underrepresented in seed banks, but efforts are being made to determine which regions of Africa hold the most important crop genetic resources so that protecting those resources is of high priority [1]. For many farmers, the solution may be to plant crops that perform well in hot climates, such as cowpeas and sorghum, instead of heat-sensitive crops like maize [15].

Finally, it’s important to develop other methods of climate adaptation in crops, such as using formal breeding programs to develop varieties tolerant of increased temperatures and heat-induced water stress [6]. Crops that have been rain-fed may need eventually to be irrigated as soil moisture declines. Efforts have been made recently to map African aquifers and to develop low-cost, efficient drip-irrigation systems [8]. Currently, such irrigation systems are probably too expensive for wide implementation (the solar-powered system pictured above was donated by a nonprofit), but encouragingly, the payback period for solar-pumped irrigation may be as little as two years [16].