Assessment of sustainable land management and food security among climatic shocks’ exposed to African farmers

Abstract

Climate change is one of the major challenges of agricultural production in many developing countries. It complements some other development challenges like civil unrests, environmental degradation and HIV&AIDS as one of the major obstacles to Africa’s socioeconomic development. African policy makers have now realized the enormity of economic consequences of climate change, and are coming up with mechanisms for reducing vulnerability through adaptive mechanisms. These would reduce the problem of food insecurity since agriculture is the dominant sector in many African countries. Similarly, these efforts are justifiable given that high proportion of the labor force is found in agriculture and other related activities. This paper analysed the impact of sustainable land use on monthly food shortages among farmers in selected African countries. Data used for this study were collected by the CGIAR’s Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) as baseline survey between late 2010 to early 2011. Five sites were randomly selected from East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), while in West Africa, five sites were each selected from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal. A total of 1398 farm households were sampled from the two sub-regions using structured questionnaire. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics and Negative Binomial (NB) regression model. The results showed that majority of the farmers from Senegal had no formal education, while average numbers of months when farm households were unable to meet households’ food needs were highest in Ethiopia (6.55), Tanzania (5.36) and Ghana (4.44). The results from Negative binomial regression showed that monthly food shortages significantly increased (p<0.05) with exposure to climatic shocks, introduction of new crops, late planting, use of mulching and stopping irrigation. It however reduced significantly (p<0.05) with food cropland owned, vegetable cultivation, fish production, remittance income, access to formal and informal loans, income from renting land, stop planting a variety, improved irrigation and use of integrated crop management. It was concluded that the farmers were adjusting their farming systems in response to climate change and efforts at promoting sustainable farming system will enhance their adaptive capacity and food security given the current climatic changes.