Southern Africa 2018/19 Rainfall Amount Lowest In 38 Years

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region recorded the lowest rainfall in nearly four decades in the 2018-2019 cropping season, sparking fears of increased food insecurity and water shortages. A SADC Food Security Early Warning System Agromet update for the 2018-2019 cropping season indicates that a strong drought affected central and western parts of the region during the just-ended rainfall season.

Only a few areas in the SADC region received good rainfall for much of the season.These include northern Malawi, northern Mozambique, parts of Tanzania, and north-eastern Zambia. Three SADC countries had to declare a state of drought disaster due to the low rainfall. Namibia, which has been hit by successive droughts since 2013, has declared a state of emergency over the situation which has left more than 500 000 people without access to enough food and water. The country has lost more than 60 000 domestic animals over the past six months.

South Africa too has declared the current drought affecting some parts of its provinces a disaster. Tropical Cyclone Idai brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe between March 5 and 19, 2019, causing severe flooding which led to loss of lives, destruction of infrastructure, disruption of livelihoods and destruction of crops.

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Poor rain, access to inputs and finance may slow Zimbabwe agriculture recovery in 2012

The poor rains that have affected most of southern Africa in the 2011/12 cropping season have resulted in reduced farmland put under cultivation, lowering the expected yield of maize and other key crops. Chronic poor availability of fertilizer and other inputs have contributed to the problems, as well as weak farmer access to credit.

The government’s Agricultural Extension Services (Agritex) said Zimbabwe planted

247 000 hectares of maize from November to January, down from 379 993

hectares in the same period the year before because of late rains, according to the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper in late January.

Farmers planted 130 944 hectares of sorghum and other small grains, compared with 136 131 hectares, Agritex said. Cotton planting also decreased from last season. A total of 45 000 hectares were planted compared to 107 727 hectares last season. Farmers planted soybeans on 5,079 hectares compared to 13 674 hectares, and tobacco on 39 393 hectares compared to 43 545 hectares to last season.

Zimbabwe has both a number of fertilizer manufacturing companies and a well developed hybrid seed development and marketing system. However, a variety of operational difficulties over several years, including high power costs and power cuts, have prevented them from being able to fully utilize their installed production capacity. Fertilizer exports were suspended by the government in December 2011 to try and steer all production to the local market.

The government runs a coupon-based seed and fertilizer subsidy scheme through the State-owned Grain Marketing Board, but it has been plagued by late deliveries of the inputs to farmers. In early February a number of GMB officials were arrested for corruption in the distribution of the inputs. There has also been outrage that the subsidized inputs are first snapped up by the political elite before the poor farmers for whom they are intended have access to them. In any case, the US$45 million subsidy programme, targeted to benefit 500, 000 farmers, is a small proportion of farmers’ needs.

The GMB is in charge of buying maize, the country’s main staple crop, from farmers, but takes as long as six months to pay for deliveries, which severely hampers farmers’ operations and preparations for the following season. This has caused some maize farmers to shift to the currently more lucrative tobacco, an export crop sold at auction and for which farmers are paid on delivery. 

At the start of the 2011/2012 season, in October 2011, the GMB had reportedly paid farmers a total of $27 million for delivered maize from the 2012/11 season, but owed them $40 million more.

However, the up-front costs of farming tobacco are much higher than those of maize. The per hectare costs of maize is about US$1200, while tobacco costs are between $9500 and $10000 a hectare. Particularly where agricultural finance is so hard to come by, this presents a significant barrier to entry into large scale tobacco farming.   

The government mandated maize producer price is US$285 per tonne for 2012, a slight increase on 2011’s US$275 per metric tonne. The highest tobacco auction price in 2011 was about $2.75 per kg.

The tobacco marketing season for 2012 has just began (February), with Monica Chinamasa, chairwoman of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board saying the sector was ‘targeting 150 million kg.’ The total crop auctioned in 2011 was 132 million kg. Her estimate might not be realizable given the reduction in hectarage planted.

Finance minister Tendai Biti, in his budget presentation for 2012, said, “The financial requirements for adequate support to agriculture are large, translating to around US $2, 5 billion per annum for grain, cash crops as well as livestock production. Of this amount, grain requirements amount to US $702 million.” The total budget for agriculture in 2012 was US$227 million.

Zimbabwe’s agricultural production had been forecast to grow by 11 percent in 2012, compared to an expansion of seven percent in 2011. Key sectors in which increases are expected are tobacco, maize, cotton, soya beans and poultry. After decline in most sectors of agriculture from the year 2000 as a result of poorly planned land reform, steady improvements have been noted in several sectors since 2008.

How the actual yields will compare to earlier forecasts will only become clear towards the end of the current rain season, in April/May.

African Agriculture

Bad rains in 2012 further expose the dangerous unsuitability of maize as the basis of African food security

by Chido Makunike

Across southern Africa, February is normally about halfway into the rain season. But in many countries, rains that were expected in October only significantly began in  December. There have been reports of long in-season dry spells in addition to the late rains.

Even if those rains are now heavy from now on until the end of the season in April/May, these conditions represent a potential food security disaster for the entire region. All of central/southern Africa defines ‘food security’ mainly by how much maize is harvested every year.

Optimum maize yields depend on quite precise cultivation requirements, including most favorable planting dates, nutrient amounts and water distribution. The current season’s weather conditions mean that none of these optimal conditions exist.

Unusually but necessarily early, there is alarm being raised about the huge implications of this. Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are just some of the countries that have already begun to significantly revise downwards their maize yield forecasts. In recent years the good maize performance of Malawi and Zambia has helped plug the gap in neighboring countries, but this year the whole region will likely be suffering a maize deficit.

Good rains between now and May could salvage the situation somewhat, but the reality is that the likelihood of the maize harvest forecast becoming worse seems stronger than the chances of conditions getting better, for several reasons.

Malawi has been lauded for its inputs subsidy programme, which has helped it achieve maize self-sufficiency and surplus in recent years. Several other countries in the region have less well-known and perhaps less extensive than Malawi’s subsidy programmes of their own. All of them are based on supplying farmers seed and fertilizer for an October/early November planting. Farmers proceed to plant on the basis of a mixture of watching the weather, meteorological and historical data; with the first signs of the soil-soaking rain from mid-October being sign as the go-ahead to plant. In previous decades of much greater climate predictability than now, some farmers would even plant by date rather than by watching the skies; so taken for granted could be the first rains.

In 2011, the subsequent long dry spells that followed these early rains have led to many farmers having to dig up their wilting or wilted maize plans in December. Many replanted when the rains eventually ‘properly’ came, but under obviously very different conditions from those of October. The farmer who planted with subsidized fertilizer and hybrid seed in October will not again have access to them in December/January. That means much of the replanting will be without fertilizer, and with previously saved seed, rather than with fresh hybrid seed. Particularly where soils are poor and hoped-for subsidy fertilizer access has been the exclusive soil fertility ‘strategy,’ these factors alone mean a vastly reduced yield is almost certain.

Add to this the fact that there is no guarantee that the rest of the rain season is going to be ‘normal.’ It could continue to be characterized by low rainfall and long dry spells, depressing expected yields even further.   

It remains to be seen whether the rest of the season will be such as to ‘merely’ mean greatly lowered maize yields (Zimbabwe has already forecast a stunning 35% reduction in the expected harvest) or a disastrous regional famine.

Reliance on rain fed maize for food security means that if next season’s climate conditions are similar to this season’s, a food calamity similar to that in parts of East Africa is not alarmist to contemplate. Even in what can be considered ‘normal’ rain seasons, there are perennially dry parts of many of the countries of southern Africa that are almost always quietly in maize famine anyway.

None of the climate change mitigation strategies that are talked about (or perhaps more cynically but accurately, ‘talked at’) envision a changed farming scenario so immediate and so drastic. What has been talked about/at as something needing solutions at some time in the future is here right now.  

The coping strategies being half-heartedly discussed are totally inadequate to the scale and immediacy of the problem. In fairness, there are simply no easy answers. However, the potential African maize famine of 2012 is another pointer at what many refuse to wrap their minds around accepting: the increasing unsuitability of maize as the basis of African food security.

A fertilizer subsidy is of little help when there is no rainfall. It would be interesting to know to what extent applied fertilizer that was not then followed by sufficient rain actually scorched developing maize plants. The much hyped Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project will no doubt get more publicity in the coming weeks and months. Perhaps it will play some role in extending maize cultivation in areas whose ability to support this crop is clearly falling. However, strategies like WEMA only address the symptoms of Africa’s now unsustainable maize dependence, not the basic problem itself.

But there seems no escaping the fact that there are many and increasing signs that the fundamental problem is no longer how to grow maize in Africa’s increasingly maize-unsuitable conditions. Instead, the fundamental problem is one of mind set: refusing to accept that this iconic food crop should simply no longer be the basis on which hundreds of millions of African define their food security. It has long been obvious that it is time to concentrate minds, resources and efforts on alternatives, new or old, to maize.

Apart from the huge difficulty of such a mindset change, there is a humongous local and international multi-sector, multi-linked ‘maize cartel’ whose interests would obviously suffer from any decrease in the importance of maize in Africa: researchers, traders, governments, politicians, the aid ‘industry,’ farmers, and countless others. Yet their combined power and interests are simply not going to enough to change the fact that maize dependence is one of the greatest threats to Africa’s security. If anything good is to come out of the great African maize potential famine of 2012, it is to make it clearer than ever before how Africa’s ‘love’ for carbohydrate/starch that comes from maize is a form of tyranny even worse than the most autocratic government.

All the issues that will be discussed are now pretty standard and well known. However, as long as the next low-rainfall famine does not spur more discussion about why there continues to be so much focus on maize, a crop there is now clearly much evidence of no longer being suitable for cultivation in large parts of Africa, much of the weeping and wailing will merely be hypocritical crocodile tears.

It’s time to topple the tyranny of Africa’s dependence on maize for food security with a fundamental mindset change. The answers may still not be easy, but they are likely to not be forthcoming at all as long as so many remain stuck in the un-necessary linkage of food security in Africa to maize. There is nothing particularly special about maize as a source of starch, while much of Africa’s climate and soils are screaming out the message that maize is an increasingly inappropriate crop. At least part of the reason for famine is that no one is listening to this very clear message. The impending maize harvest disaster that the current farming season’s rainfall pattern suggests will hopefully make that message clearer.

 

African Agriculture

Erratic rains threaten southern Africa food output

by Olivia Kumwenda

Rainfall patterns in southern Africa are becoming erratic as climate change takes its toll, threatening long-term production of staple and cash crops in the region.

Countries like South Africa, Zambia and Malawi have enjoyed bumper harvests of their staple maize crop in recent years, ensuring food security in a region which has often known hunger.

But farmers, who for centuries have known when to expect summer rains, are now finding planning difficult.
"The rain patterns are just mixed up. You plant with the early rains then all of a sudden there is drought or floods. Sometimes the rains come earlier than expected," said Felix Jumbe, president of the Farmers Union of Malawi.

"Farmers are failing to plan when to plant and it is becoming a big challenge on the farming system," he added.
Malawi is expected to harvest 3.8 million tonnes of maize for the 2010/11 season from 3.5 million tonnes in the previous season and the country has potential to harvest even more.

But the country's 2011/12 maize harvest is seen increasingly under threat given the likelihood of a drought in the first crucial phase of planting, which started in October.

Experts have said as weather patterns change, the outlook for rain-fed agriculture was particularly bleak in southern Africa's Limpopo river basin, which covers parts of Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Farmers in South Africa, the continent's biggest maize producer, suffered a set back during the harvesting of the 2010/11 season crop after unusually wet conditions made it difficult to access farms.

In Zambia, farmers lost close to one million tonnes of the 2010/11 maize harvest after rains came earlier than expected.

"We are talking about a bumper harvest of 3.1 million tonnes but close to a million tonnes has gone to waste because farmers did not anticipate the rains coming early," Calvin Kaleyi, Zambia National Farmers Union spokesman, said.

Early rain is causing problems again and catching Zambia's farmers -- most of whom are peasants -- off guard.

"The first week of October we had very heavy rains, which destroyed the harvest kept in open areas," Kaleyi said.

"Predictability of seasons using indigenous knowledge has become problematic," said Johnson Irungu, director of crops at Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture.

According to aid group Oxfam, which has engaged with farmers in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi, small-scale farmers are particularly vulnerable and less resilient to climate change.
"They consistently report hotter conditions year round and changes in the rainy seasons, notably later onset and earlier cessation as well as rain falling in more intense bursts," said Rashmi Mistry, Oxfam's climate change advocacy coordinator.

"These changes shorten growing seasons. Rains during the rainy season are also unpredictable."

Mistry said an Oxfam analysis suggested that climate change could see maize productivity in southern Africa fall by 35 percent in the long term. It also points to reduced yields of sweet potatoes and yams by 13 percent, cassava by 8 percent, and wheat by 22 percent across Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) plans to take the farmers' weather concerns to a United Nations Climate change summit in Durban, which starts on November 28.

SACAU, which was granted observer status at the summit, wants the 190-nation gathering to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work program outlining necessary responses for the sector.

To keep pace with the changing weather patterns, some farmers in the region are migrating to areas they think are cushioned from the effects of climate change, at least for now.

"In Zambia, we have seen farmers shifting from the Southern province to the Central province," said Kaleyi.
He added: "If the farming practices do not change, we are going to see a similar situation that took place in Southern province where trees were cut and the land was exposed to climate change effects."

With the majority of the rural population relying on wood for fuel and others desperate to clear new land for cultivation, deforestation was likely to continue.

Globally, tree felling is also a contributor to climate change because forests are major storing houses of carbon.

"More needs to be done because the trees we plant annually, they end up being burned at the end of the year," Jumbe said.

Mistry said in addition to planting in new locations, other modifications to agricultural practices include changing planting dates, intercropping and diversifying crops.

Forestry experts and climate change negotiators are expected to discuss issues on deforestation and how to help communities adapt to the changing environment on the sidelines of the Durban summit, the South Africa's department of agriculture said.

Reuters

Irrigation helps Mozambican farmers survive unreliable rains

by Fidelis Zvomuya

It’s mid-morning in Cunze village in Mozambique’s Gaza province, and farmer Antonio Alfonso Chibuto stands in a muddy field by a roaring irrigation stream, trying to work out how soon he dares plant again this season.

Water spills down a hand-hewn dirt canal, bubbling and pooling until it arrives at a deep pond that distributes it to rows of healthy, organically grown crops.

The 87-year-old farmer’s green fields contrast starkly with the surrounding dry landscape, criss-crossed by bumpy dirt roads, and barefoot women and children carrying water jugs and firewood.

Cunze’s inhabitants are highly dependent on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. Over the past two decades, farming families have gone from growing everything to buying everything as increasingly unpredictable weather patterns have left half the fertile fields barren.

“We have been clinging to life on an unforgiving terrain,” says Chibuto. “The past decade has been a lot more difficult than usual because the rains have failed.”

But despite the region’s fourth con­secutive year of alternating drought and heavy floods, Chibuto is enjoying a good harvest for the first time in more than 20 years, thanks to two initiatives to protect local people from weather disasters: an irrigation scheme and a community-led early warning programme.

The irrigation technology, installed as part of the development of Parque Nacional do Limpopo (Limpopo National Park), where Cunze village is located, pumps water from the Olifants River, using a diesel-powered engine, to a reservoir from where a gravity system distributes it to farms.

Thanks to this project, Chibuto and other farmers in Massingir district are finally starting to cope with the worsening weather variability that was damaging their livelihoods.

“If you had been here a year ago, this was a dust bowl,” says Chibuto, gesturing towards his fields. “I am happy now. I have so far had my first harvest and am still calculating the profits.”

A complementary early warning system, introduced by the southeast African nation’s government in 2002, aims to prevent loss of life, homes and crops to flooding and storms. It relies on local people who measure precipitation and river levels, and broadcast radio warnings when key benchmarks are reached.

“Easy-to-read gauges of the river's level are checked regularly. If it rises above a certain point, trained assistants from the local population immediately send a radio message,” explains Parque Nacional do Limpopo administrator Baldeu Chande.

The system proved its effectiveness in 2007, when Cyclone Favio caused severe damage in central Mozambique but did not claim any lives, according to Chande.

The early warning system currently covers 9,500 families in Massingir, and is gradually being expanded. District hazard maps have also been created.

Chande says climate change is likely to be a major contributor to the erratic weather patterns, droughts and storms that have brought growing suffering to Gaza province.

The resulting decrease in the productivity of small-scale farmers has caused a spike in food prices and higher malnutrition rates among children, according to experts.

Short dry spells and unpredictable rainy seasons have destroyed crops and reduced the quality of grazing for livestock. At times, flash floods have caused the region’s spongy peat soils to disintegrate, destabilising homes and wrecking fields.

“Houses and schools are washed away, enormous gullies appear on slopes, and roads simply disappear in the deluge,” Chande says.

In recent years, farmer Chibuto can recall floods sweeping away cattle and goats, and sending mud houses collapsing back into the earth. “We used to lose so much,” he says.

The rains are also coming later, shortening growing seasons, and arriving at unexpected times.

“Such untimely rains are especially bad for us, because most of our crops do not tolerate rain at inappropriate times. And when it does rain, the intensity is higher than we are used to. The soils are not able to take up all of the water and a major amount is lost due to run-off,” says Chibuto.

Farmers who depend on rain-fed agriculture, and have few other options, are struggling to adapt to the weather shifts, according to park administrator Chande.

“Sometimes the only coping strategy available is to temporarily abandon fields and look for employment in nearby cities,” he says.

Even under normal rainfall conditions, local soil nutrients have been so depleted that yields of crops such as maize reach only about half a tonne per acre, around one-third of their historical level.

In response, the Parque Nacional do Limpopo began working on the farm irrigation project in 2005 with the German government’s international cooperation agency, GIZ, providing funding as well as training in technical skills such as sharing water resources sustainably.

It now covers three districts - Massingir, Mabalane and Chicualacuala - and benefits some 1,400 people from 165 families.

YEAR-ROUND FOOD SECURITY

Wibke Thies, coordinator of a forest management project run by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which supports the management of shared water resources in the region, says the irrigation scheme is boosting food security and will help rural communities adapt to climate change.

Participating families have seen their once dry and dusty fields transformed into carpets of lush green. Most now enjoy a secure food supply all year round, and are even able to sell excess produce on local markets, according to Thies.

Previously they could only provide their own food for six months of the year, after which time they had to sell their cattle or depend on money sent by relatives working in South Africa.

Before the installation of his irrigation system, Chibuto had been experimenting with other ways to deal with the changing climate. He started off by constructing bunds around his fields to stop water and topsoil being swept away.

“I also had to shift my cropping patterns to more heat-adapted and less water-demanding varieties such as groundnuts, maize, mil­lets and vegetables,” he says.

Then in 2010, when he was offered the chance to join the irrigation scheme, he quickly agreed, receiving hoses and a huge bucket - a rudimentary but effective crop sprinkler system for his plot. That developed into the more complex and less laborious set-up he uses today.

The farmer is now looking forward to a whole year of green fields, irrespective of the vagaries of the local climate - and to a life changed for the better.

“I am now raising in the region of around $30 per day - sometimes as much as $50 - from the sale of my vegetables. I also provide some to elderly people who cannot afford to buy fresh produce,” he says. “That is something I could not do previously.”

Alertnet

Will climate change bring East Africa more drought or more rain?

by Dann Okoth

East African environmental specialists have questioned new research that concludes that that climate change will bring increased drought, rather than more rain, to the region.

The new research, published in Climate Dynamics, predicts that the droughts common in eastern Africa over the past 20 years are likely to continue if global temperatures rise further.

But the prediction contradicts the scenario of increased rainfall projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The researchers, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, studied temperature, wind speed and precipitation data over the last 20–30 years to determine what was driving climate variations in the tropical Indian and Pacific Ocean regions.

They found that the Indian Ocean has warmed particularly fast, increasing rainfall over the ocean and the westward movement of dry air over Eastern Africa — hence decreasing rainfall.

The severe food shortages experienced by millions of people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia will be exacerbated by increased drought in the future, said the researchers.

Their work supports efforts by the US Geological Survey and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to better target food aid by pinpointing areas of potential drought, and informing agricultural, environmental and water resources projects.

But the conclusions were dismissed by some East African climate researchers.

Richard Odingo of the University of Nairobi and former vice chair of the IPCC said the research was "half-baked" and served only US relief interests in the region. He said it was erroneous to say the IPCC was wrong as the organisation used data going back 300 years from many different sources, as well as taking into account links between weather systems high in the Earth's atmosphere.

Benson Ochieng', an environment lawyer with the Institute for Law and Environmental Governance agreed. "The bottom-line in arriving at a conclusive result is to rely on many facets of the weather because climate is controlled by many atmospheric facets," he said.

But Park Williams, co-author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said global models [such as those produced by the IPCC] have a notoriously difficult time accurately simulating rainfall patterns over tropical land masses.

"Global models are tending to forecast a global trend toward a more El Niño-like climate which would, for example, generally mean more rainfall for Ethiopia and Kenya during the March to June period. It would be unwise just to look at the [rainfall] maps produced by the IPCC and take them at face value," he said.

"We did not set out to debunk the IPCC report. Our role was to examine the data and the science behind it. People put a lot of confidence in the IPCC reports but there are a lot of caveats. There is still a lot of uncertainty in their models. We are quite comfortable using other models to come to other conclusions."

SciDevNet

Namibian farmers worry as rain becomes more unpredictable

Namibia: When every drop counts

The Omusati Region of northern Namibia is on the margins of what any farmer would consider arable land, with temperatures routinely hitting 40 degrees Celsius or more and rainfall seldom exceeding a pitiful 270 millimeters per year. To make matters worse 83 per cent of the little rain that does fall evaporates as soon as it hits the ground.

The people living here have no alternative to subsistence farming. Skills and opportunities are scarce, so whoever doesn’t leave scrapes a living herding goats or planting crops such as millet. In a report to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change, the government of Namibia has predicted global warming will cause a temperature rise of between 2 to 6 degrees Celsius in Namibia, while annual rainfall could diminish up to a further staggering 200mm.

In a country where 70 per cent of the population practices some form of agriculture this is a problem.

Hifekepunye, who like many of her generation doesn’t know her age, has 14 mouths to feed in her homestead. But now, at the beginning of the rainy season, her land still lies barren, the dust so thick you can taste it in the air.

In mid-November the rains that normally fall from October to May were already more than a month late. All over the region farmers tell the same story: the growing season is getting shorter and shorter and the rains more and more unpredictable, putting stress on animals and people alike.

An alien feature

Even for simple things like drinking and cooking water the women have to walk for hours to the nearest water point. "As a little girl, every day my sisters and I had to walk several kilometres, carrying heavy buckets of water for the household. The soil was so hot it would burn the underside of our feet," Hifekepunye recalls.

She tells the story sitting in front of a large plastic rainwater-harvesting tank. It seems incongruous in the traditional kraal, which mostly consists of clay huts, mixed with a few brick buildings with iron corrugated roofs. Alien as it looks, the tank has dramatically changed life in the rural community.

"Harvesting the water right here in the village has made my life as a woman much easier," Hifekepunye says. "I don’t have to travel long distances anymore."

As an experiment to help families adapt to ever drier conditions, the Country Pilot Partnership (CPP), supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), distributed 70 water tanks ranging from 2,500 to 5,000 litres to households, schools and hospitals.

Hifekepunye’s homestead received the water tank for free but had to finance a cement base and gutters linking it with the roofs out of their own pocket.

She thinks it’s a fair deal. "The advantage is significant, especially during the rainy season when the authorities close the tap at the water supply point two kilometers away as a cost-saving measure. Because of this tank we have clean drinking water right here."

Travelling miles for water




No such luck for 16-year-old Maria Eelu from the Omulai settlement. This morning she has travelled several kilometres to the Calueque canal to fetch water.




She filled 19 25-litre drums with water. Now she is supervising a group of small children as they lift the drums onto a donkey cart, careful not to spill a drop. "This is about a two-day supply for several households," Maria explains. "Our village is three kilometres away and doesn’t have running water." The donkeys patiently gaze into the mud at their feet waiting for the slow journey home.




The Calueque canal, which diverts water from the Calueque dam in nearby Angola, is a mere two metres wide but is one of the main water supplies for an area where a million people – half of Namibia’s population – live.




For famers Calueque is of major importance. Although banned by Namwater, Namibia’s only water company, which maintains the canal, the farmers covertly use the canal to irrigate their crops when there is not enough rain.

Drip lines




Paulus Amutenya is one of the farmers that uses the canal and a nearby lake, also fed from downpour from Angola, to irrigate his crops. Unlike the traditional method of flood furrow irrigation, where farmers flow water down small trenches running through their crops, he now uses drip lines supplied by the CPP programme to cultivate his crops.




"Without rainfall we have to irrigate more," he says. "With the drip lines that the project gave us we can efficiently distribute the scarce water when and where we need it."




The adaptation measures that the CPP put in place are hardly high-tech or unique, concedes programme manager Andreas Shilomboleni, but they work and they are cheap.




"Through the climate change adaptation programme we have introduced simple and cheap methods such as irrigation lines, water pumps, drought resistant livestock and plant breeds, or basic water harvesting technology," he says.




A few kilometres down the road, deep in the Mopane woodlands of the border area, Andreas lifts a water pump from the back of his Landcruiser. Immanuel Hambiya’s face breaks into a smile.




"We need the pump to bring water from the nearby lake," says the subsistence farmer who grows green peppers, cabbage, sweet corn and many other fruits and vegetables on his 2.5 hectare plot.




"These years the rains come late and are not enough," explains Hambiya. "So the water level in the lake drops and we have to pump it from further and further, or migrate to where the water is, or simply plant less crops."




Before he had a pump and drip lines Hambiya also relied on traditional flood furrow irrigation, one of the oldest methods of irrigation. "It’s a method that is hard to control," he explains. "If there is a lot of water at once, the crops will drown and become vulnerable to pests and fungi. It was also a very wasteful and labourious way of watering the plants. With the drip lines we are much more efficient."




According to Hambiya, after introducing the water-saving irrigation method he saw his yield increase by 10 per cent, while using much less of the valuable water.




As water becomes an even scarcer commodity in arid Namibia, small but vital efficiency gains like these can make difference between survival and starvation.




Servaas van den Bosch is a Panos Climate Change Media Partnership fellow.




Source: Panos






http://www.worldandmedia.com/climate-change/namibia-when-every-drop-counts-012270.html

Rain showers slash tomato harvest in South Africa's Limpopo province

by Chester Makana


Tomato farmers in South Africa's Limpopo province say they have lost between R10million and R50million as heavy rains continue to wreak havoc on their crops.

Tomato Growers Association chairperson Walter Moketle said on May 4 that most of the tomatoes had failed to survive the hail, rain and cold showers as they were sensitive to excessive water.

“We are dealing with water that we need for the day-to- day running of our farming,” Moketle said.

Farmers were initially relieved “but we are now faced with losses that have become too much.”

Moketle said a study had shown that more than three- quarters of the tomato crop would not make it to market.

The tomato farmers currently supply countries like Botswana and Mozambique and companies like Tiger Brands. According to the association, few farmers will manage to harvest their crops. Experts have warned that some crops may experience difficulties as the rate of climate change increases.

Moketle said seasonal workers, who were hired during harvesting, would also suffer losses. 

Joe Gondo of the National African Farmers Union said a shortage and possible price increases could occur.

Sowetan

Poor rains dash farmers' hopes in Zimbabwe

Garai Hokonya, 53, a smallholder farmer in Chivhu district, about 120km southwest of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, has resigned himself to the unpalatable truth that the 12 hectares of maize he planted by hand are being devastated by an unseasonal and prolonged dry spell.

"I have written off the crop and am driving the cattle and goats to graze in the fields," Hokonya said. "This is painful, because my family used zero tillage [no ploughing] to prepare part of the land due to a shortage of draught-power," he said.

A decade of food insecurity - which reached its zenith in the first quarter of 2009 when nearly 7 million people, or well over half the population, needed emergency food assistance - has taken a heavy toll on livestock. Working animals were sacrificed for food in the lean times, decimating the draught-power that small-scale farmers need to plough their fields.

In response to the shortage of animals, "and on the advice of agricultural extension workers who told us that [manual planting] was going to boost our yields", small-scale farmers dug shallow holes and planted seeds manually as a substitute for ploughing. This method was seen as ideal, as fields that have lain fallow retain nutrients and so do not require large amounts of fertilizer.

Hokonya was filled with optimism. "When we started planting, the weather was good because the rains were coming steadily [in October 2009] and there was no reason to think the situation could turn as bad as it has done." But by late December he and the neighbouring farmers were anxiously scanning the blue skies for clouds, and hope turned sour.

Zimbabwe's Meteorological Services Department has forecast the chance of good rains in the coming weeks, but Hokonya is sceptical about replanting because "these forecasts are mostly wrong, and it is now too late to think about planting a new crop."

However, even before the adverse weather, relief agencies were forecasting that about 2.2 million Zimbabweans would require food aid between January and March 2011.

The latest weather hazards assessment for Africa by USAID/Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) indicated that Zimbabwe was among several other southern African countries experiencing poor rainfall.

"Since December, below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures continue to help strengthen seasonal moisture deficits across central Mozambique, southern Malawi, southern Madagascar and southern Zimbabwe," FEWS NET said in its assessment.

Renson Gasela, a farming specialist and the former agriculture secretary of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said: "The crop situation across the country is very bad and food security is under great threat." The provinces of Manicaland, Masvingo, Matabeleland South and Midlands are also being affected by adverse weather patterns.

"We had hoped that food imports this year would be minimal, but the weather has dealt the country a big blow and yields are going to be worse than the last main farming season," Gasela predicted. "We would say we have lost about half of what we could have harvested, even though there is need to wait a little longer to get a fuller picture of the damage done."

The Crop and Food Assessment Mission of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and UN World Food Programme projected a cereal harvest of 1.3 million tons in 2009, compared to 690,000 tons in 2008.

It was too late to replant in most parts of the country, "and even in areas where it is possible, there is no guarantee that the rains will last for long," Gasela said.

Denford Chimbwanda, president of the Grain and Cereal Producers Association (GCPA) sad, "We are heading for disaster if we don't start receiving rains within a week. It is very unfortunate, because most farmers had done their best to prepare their farms and plots."

He said most farmers got fertilizers too late, at a stage when they could not apply it because of low soil moisture. "Because of the little rain that has fallen so far, farmers cannot top-dress their crops, yet this is vital."

Innocent Makwiramiti, a Harare-based economist, said the spectre of another poor harvest was already being seen in the maize price. "Traders have already started speculating and are responding to the looming drought by increasing the price of maize [the staple food]."

He said, "A 50kg bag ... that used to cost around US$9 is now selling for US$15; this could also push up the price of mealie-meal [maize-meal] in shops, regardless of whether it is locally produced or imported." 

IRIN

Late rains have delayed the growing season in most of Niger

Low rainfall has disrupted the planting season throughout Niger as farmers who sowed seeds in May are forced to replant when their first crops died, according to the national association of farmers.

"There are real concerns with the planting season this year," said the association's coordinator, Djibo Bagna.

Idrissa Halidou in the semi-arid village of Torodi near the border with Burkina Faso said he lost his first planting. "We had planted in May, but lack of rains forced us to plant again." He said he was tapping into his cereal stock to face the lean season.

The period between plantings and harvests typically lasts from June to September. Nationwide, almost 8,000 out of 11,000 villages had reported to the government first plantings by 30 June.

In 2009 late rains have resulted in plants withering in dry pocketsin certain localities, especially during the first 20 days in May, according to the government's 30 June inter-ministerial report on rain and agriculture, which characterized rainfall in most parts of Niger as 'weak to moderate.'

The national farmer association's Bagna said in some regions at this time last year, crops had already begun to grow.

Farmers in Diffa, a commune in the southeast, said the first rain of the season arrived on 14 July, a month later than in 2008.

Delayed rains have resulted in pastures that are progressively degrading in quality, causing pastoralists to seek rain-fed pastures elsewherefor their animals. The most affected areas are Diffa and Maradi in the south, according to the government’s 10 July rain report.

Late rains coincide with rising food prices, according to the government's weekly system of information on agricultural markets (SIMA), which reported that as of the first week of July, the prices of millet and maize were three percent higher than the previous week, while sorghum was five percent more expensive, costing up to US$42 for 100kg.

Prices for millet, sorghum, rice and maize are up to six percent higher than this time last year, according to the government's price index.

IRIN

Senegal launches artificial rain

Senegal was due to launch an artificial rain programme July 16 to make up for inadequate rainfall in the West African nation.

Director of Senegal's National Meteorology Agency (ANAMS), Matar Ndiaye, said the programme was being launched with the support of Morocco.

The programme targets the country's rainfall-deficit areas, namely the South-eastern and Central parts where sufficient rainfall has not been recorded since the beginning of the current rainy season in May.

He however disclosed that the Northern part of Senegal had recorded a normal rainfall pattern this year.

Afriquejet

Zimbabwe's projected maize harvest revised downwards

Weather experts have revised downwards Zimbabwe’s projected maize output for the 2008/09 season, raising the spectre of another long year of biting hunger and begging bowls in what was once one of Africa’s bread-basket.

Remote sensing experts at Netherlands-based weather forecasting body EARS said Zimbabwe is one of a few southern African countries likely to record poor maize harvests this year due to uneven rainfall patterns. They said dry conditions experienced in parts of Zimbabwe such as Manicaland and Masvingo would severely constrain the country’s harvest for this year.

According to the weather forecasters, while yields were above average in Mashonaland and Matabeleland North, total output was expected to be drastically lower than the national five-year average.

“National average yield is expected to be lower (minus nine percent) than the historical average,” the experts said.An initial projection by EARS last month had put the decline in Zimbabwe’s maize output at minus three percent of the historical average while the 2008/09 yield was forecast to be four percent lower than the previous season’s harvest of 836 000 tonnes.

Agricultural experts, including those from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have said lack of or the untimely availability of inputs was to blame for the continuous decline in Zimbabwe’s maize production.The United Nations and other humanitarian agencies have launched a massive international appeal for food aid to assist millions of Zimbabweans facing starvation this year.

ZimOnline

Heavy rain threatens crop yields in Namibia

by Petronella Sibeene

The Namibian government’s pre-harvest crop assessment estimates promise good yields this year, although the heavy rains pouring in most crop producing areas might jeopardise the food security situation in the country.

A six-member delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry has since the first week of February been carrying out crop assessments in Namibia’s crop producing regions of Caprivi, Kavango, Oshana, Ohangwena, Omusati and Oshikoto.

Assessments have already been conducted in five regions. “So far, the harvest prospects are promising except for the heavy rains,” said Head of the Assessment Team, Matthew Ndjodhi.
Although Ndjodhi could not divulge more details on the assessment, indicating that his team still needed to bring together all the collected data that would give a clearer picture, he said the yields are likely to be better than last year.

While the rains at the onset seemed to benefit crop production, the heavy downpours in northern and north-eastern parts of the country have farmers and government worried.

R
The predictions of continuing heavy rain come at a time when the flood-prone areas are on alert of possible floods.

Chief Agriculture Extension Officer in the Caprivi Region, Matthews Mushabati, said the region, which is regarded as the country’s “breadbasket”, anticipates a reduction in crop yields this year. He said the region depends on the Liambezi Lake for most of its maize harvest. However, the lake is flooded and crops are submerged, he said.

Other maize producing areas in the region such as the Ibbu, Mutikitila and Ngala also face the same predicament. The same problem is prevalent at Linyanti, Chinchimani, Kanono and Masokotwani. The region’s situation is worsened by dry spells in the eastern parts.

“Although I can not say it loud, we anticipate reduction in yields by 60 percent,” commented Mushabati.

While too much rain is as bad as too little, Namibia during the 2007/8 farming season faced its own challenges that resulted in poor harvests and hunger.

The previous agricultural season was delayed in most crop-producing regions, due to “inadequate and sporadic rainfall, coupled with prolonged dry spells in the north central regions during October to December 2007”.

That resulted in the Government setting aside millions of dollars to procure food aid for distribution to over 500 000 hungry Namibians.

New Era

Poor 2008/9 rain season feared in Southern Africa

At least six countries in Southern Africa could receive poor rainfall during the critical planting season starting next month, says an early forecast for the 2008/09 agricultural season.

Lesotho, Swaziland, most of Namibia, parts of Angola, Madagascar and South Africa are likely to receive "normal to below-normal" rain in the first half of the season from October to December, said the forecast by the Drought Monitoring Centre of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

This could have significant implications for the start of the growing season, meaning that rains could be delayed or erratic. "[If this happens] the situation is likely to be critical in those areas that also had a poor season or poor harvest last year and are trying to recover," said an analysis of the forecast by Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) directorate of SADC (SADC-FANR).

Lesotho and Swaziland are still recovering from one of their worst ever droughts in 2007, which left several hundred thousand in need of food aid. Southern Angola recorded poor harvests in 2007 and production in Namibia was down by four percent last season.

SADC-FANR warned that the situation was more critical in areas where poor rainfall in the first half of the season was likely to be followed by a "normal to below normal rainfall" in the second half of the season, from January 2009 to the end of March 2009.

The report predicts that the six countries which could receive poor rains in the next three months could end up in this critical category.

In these areas, the forecast indicated that the second half of the season might be characterised by erratic rains that were insufficient to bring crops to maturity. "In such a scenario, farmers might opt for short-maturing crop varieties that might mature before any early cessation of the rains," SADC-FANR suggested.

"But we must be cautious about the forecast, as this is an early prediction - a clearer picture will emerge closer to the start of the season in October," said Kennedy Masamvu, a senior SADC-FANR agro-meteorologist.

The impact of climate change is clearly felt - it is a fact that it is only going to get drier, and we have to opt for more sustainable agriculture practices and opt for short-cycle, high-yielding varieties Meteorologists say the climate outlook for SADC region seems to be in a neutral phase, emerging from a La Niña cycle, which has had a "wet impact", perhaps towards a drier phase. La Niña is characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, recorded every three to four years, which have a ripple effect across the globe, making wet regions wetter and dry ones drier.

Jennifer Moetie, a meteorologist at the Namibian Meteorological Service, said: "If the temperature of the Pacific Ocean should rise by one degree Celsius by next month [October] then we could be moving towards a drier phase; it is still very neutral at this stage."

High fertiliser and fuel prices have already made most farmers in the region consider planting less. "The cost of fertiliser has shot by more than 150 percent since last year," said John Weatherson, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's former emergency coordinator in Swaziland.

"I have seen 30 maize seasons in Swaziland; the planting season has been pushed back from September to November as the rains have become more unpredictable over the years," he commented. "The impact of climate change is clearly felt - it is a fact that it is only going to get drier, and we have to opt for more sustainable agriculture practices and opt for short-cycle, high-yielding varieties."

The SADC's report said normal to above-normal rains forecast for Zambia could result in flooding in some parts of the Zambezi River Basin.

IRIN