Climate change resilience: lessons from local climate-smart agricultural practices in Ghana

Abstract

The need to adapt to the changing climate is one of the important concerns of our time. However, the use of local ecological knowledge (LEK), which farmers have built up over the years to adopt climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices, has been less explored by researchers and policy scientists. Leveraging on LEK, this study explores various local CSA practices, their benefits and management constraints and suggests ways to improve local CSA practices to enhance farmers’ resilience to climate change (CC). We conducted eight focus group discussions (FGD) in eight farming communities in the Western region of Ghana. The data from the FGD was complemented by secondary data from sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles, organisational websites, and quarterly reports. The study found that farmers used LEK to identify key local CSA practices, including agroforestry, cover cropping, crop rotation, mulching, and mixed cropping. However, some of their farming practices are not consistent with sustainable agricultural practices. Key issues that need immediate attention include (i) limited access to agricultural inputs prevented farmers from adopting CSA, (ii) land tenure issues adversely affected access to arable land for farming, (iii) inadequate agricultural training for farmers on CSA practices, (iv) limited access to agricultural information on CSA options, and (v) high labour-intensive activities for some CSA practices. We maintain that governmental efforts to improve local CSA, and in the context of increasing resilience of farmers and local communities, need to engage relevant stakeholders and communities to formulate and develop an effective climate-smart agricultural action plan. The policy implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are also discussed and documented.