Impact of climate change on primary agriculture, water sources and food security in Western Cape, South Africa.

Elliot M Zwane

doi:10.4102/jamba.v11i1.562

Abstract

Climate change is undoubtedly one of the biggest crises that humanity is facing today. There is a robust scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is occurring not only in the Western Cape but around the world. The objective of this research was to assess the impact of climate change on primary agriculture and food security. The paper is based on a literature review. A variety of literature reviews, for example, 11 government reports and 21 journal articles including experience outside Western Cape, were consulted to enrich the local experience regarding the impact of climate change on agriculture. The results indicated that many dams had low water levels (40%) during 2016/2017, which reduced crop yields including grapes. Droughts, which affected both smallholder and commercial farmers, are now a common phenomenon. Livestock production has declined over time, with small stock, the beef and dairy industry being the most affected. The paper concludes by highlighting climate adaptation and mitigation interventions and strategies for both crops and livestock production in the Western Cape. The major recommendations included scaling up on the use of organic matter to avoid burning and creating gas emissions to the atmosphere, the effective use of livestock manure and the use of appropriate and adaptable seed varieties, managing the manure of the livestock to assist in mulching to reduce water loss through evaporation and using adaptable seeds.Keywords: climate change; impact; mitigation; primary agriculture; adaptation; drought.

Highlights

Introduction and backgroundClimate change is considered to be one of the biggest challenges that communities are facing locally and internationally (IPCC 2006)
It is evident that climate change is one of the biggest challenges that humanity is facing both in the Western Cape Province and internationally
The findings indicated that humans cause climate change; it is important that humans should be made aware of the concept of climate change and its impacts so that they can adopt climate smart farming techniques and practices

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is considered to be one of the biggest challenges that communities are facing locally and internationally (IPCC 2006). The reason why climate change is interpreted as a crisis is that it affects the very sources of human livelihood that are agriculture and the environment. Any disturbance in either agriculture or the environment affects the sources of livelihood of communities. The estimated population growth of 1.5 billion in the sub-Saharan countries will expect agriculture to feed them by 2050 (FAO 2007). The projected situation of sub-Saharan countries is that they will experience challenges of climate change (Cohen et al 2008). Evidence suggests that the climate change is already affecting the sub-Saharan countries. In a study documented by 350 Africa.org (n.d.), it showed eight ways in which the impact of climate change affects Africa and the sub-Saharan countries.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion