Climate change worsening farming’s trade-related woes

Numerous research institutes and international organisations agree that climate change will in the short and medium term worsen Africa’s agriculture and food production capabilities, unless greenhouse gases emissions (GHE) are substantially reduced and adequate trade and investment policies put in place.

Fresh studies on the effects of climate change on agriculture predict that, without proper mitigation and adaptation policies, sub-Saharan African countries will suffer the most in the form of increased malnutrition, unemployment and reduced export earnings.

In its “Climate Change Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation” report, published on September 29, the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) warned that “the negative effects of climate change on crop production are especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, as the agriculture sector accounts for a large share of GDP (gross domestic product), export earnings and employment in most African countries.”

The report indicates that by 2050 in sub-Saharan Africa, average rice, wheat and maize yields will decline by up to 14 per cent, 22 per cent and five percent, respectively, as a result of climate change.

This decline will lead to more malnutrition, especially of children.

Without adequate climate change mitigation and adaptation, and in the absence of proper investment and trade policies, “food availability in the (sub-Saharan African) region will average 500 calories less per person in 2050, a 21 per cent decline”.

Due to climate change, the number of malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa could jump from 33 million in the year 2000 to 52 million in 2050.

Gerald Nelson, leading author of the report, told IPS that, globally, some seven billion dollars per year must be additionally invested in climate change adaptation programmes such as “research, rural infrastructure and irrigation in the developing world to offset the negative effects of climate change on human well-being.

“Sub-Saharan Africa requires the greatest overall investment —some 40 percent of the additional amount estimated –and a greater share of investments in roads,” Nelson added.

In a new discussion paper titled “The special challenge for sub-Saharan Africa”, the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) warns too that “the food crisis trap that threatens the African continent is primarily the result of lack of investment in the agricultural sector”.

The FAO paper recalls that African agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate change.

“Farming in Africa is largely done under rain-fed conditions, and Africa’s reliance on agriculture and its very low levels of irrigation make it singularly vulnerable to the vagaries of its highly variable and changing climate,” the paper says.

Further, it says that subsidies and foreign trade policies promoted by industrialised countries harm African farming production.

“Many of the least developed countries in Africa have become increasingly dependent on imported food in recent decades (due to) farm subsidies” in the industrialised countries, represented by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the paper says.

This dependency on OECD agricultural products is likely to increase in Africa during the next 40 years, unless new trade policies are put in place, the FAO points out.