No good news for African crops under climate change

Climate change came into global focus again as the world, without the United States of America, affirm their readiness to combat it's effect on planet earth.   The effect of climate change will be felt in different dimensions across different countries.  It is going to affect tourism, communication, agriculture, health and economy.  World leaders considered the effect of climate change far greater than any singular economy or cross border politics.  Differences were put aside as all signed the agreement.  I am glad Nigeria signed that agreement.

The effect of climate change has been discussed on this blog under the topic "Climate change and maize shortages in Africa by 2050".   There is the need to revisit this issue as a new research by Challinor and his team has again brought to fore the dangers climate change poses to our agricultural production.  In their research, Challinor et al (2016) examined the implication of global warming on the breeding, delivery and adoption of new maize varieties using five different climate forecast over Africa.  The authors investigated the point at which the time from germination to maturity become significantly different from what we have currently now.  From their results, the impact of heat stress was significant.  From Figure 1, the RCP 8.5 data predicts that the effect is upon us faster than we think.

Time at which the climate change signal for crop duration is detected. The specified year refers to the midpoint of the 20-year period in which the median crop duration falls below the 25th quantile of the baseline period (1995–2014). Grey cells indicate that the crop duration remains within the 25th–75th quantile until at least 2038—the latest possible delivery date for a BDA cycle beginning in 2004 (see Table 1).

Our focus as an agrarian nation has to move from the challenges of bad roads, access to markets, fertilizers, irrigation that has been plaguing us for ages into developing seeds and methods that will beat the effect of climate change. Any strategic plan for sustainable agriculture in Nigeria that does not consider climate adaptation strategies such as novel seeds cannot stand the test of time.  The best time to start the process is now!

References

[1] A. J. Challinor, A.-K. Koehler, J. Ramirez-Villegas, S. Whitfield, and B. Das, “Current warming will reduce yields unless maize breeding and seed systems adapt immediately,” Nat. Clim. Chang., vol. 6, no. 10, pp. 954–958, 2016.

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Climate change and maize shortages in Africa by 2050

From your observations of the December-January weather over the years, do you think the harmattan is getting stronger, weaker or just the same?  If you can give an answer, then you have witnessed climate change!   According to IPCC, climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.   Monitoring climate change over time helps us measure its impacts on our life, however, we need to predict the possible future effects on our lives for proper planning and adaptation.  If our weather is chaotic and difficult to predict as reported by Fuwape and her team, how do we know tomorrow's weather?

Models are abstract representation of real life events.  Using past weather records, scientists have developed models to predict future weather conditions for different regions of the world.  These models use previous patterns and other factors affecting weather to predict future weather conditions.  Predicting future climates will help in quantifying the effect of tomorrow's weather on different aspects of our lives.   Burke and his colleagues tried to determine how future weather conditions will affect agriculture, specifically cereals production, in West Africa using a model developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).   The authors concluded that "the majority of African countries will have novel climates over at least half of their current crop area by 2050."  This means that by 2050, many parts of Africa will have climatic conditions that is different from what they have now and the future climate will not support half what is grown now.   Specifically, only 14% of temperature in African countries that grow maize will be similar to what we are experiencing now.  This is expected to reduce to 3% by the year 2075.  The temperature will be hot such that maize will not be able to grow.   Similar results was obtained for millet and sorghum over Africa.  This portends a problem for agriculture in Africa especially Nigeria where cities have been eating into agricultural farmlands (see report here).

Several attempts have been made by organizations and bodies within Nigeria to draw a plan or strategy for climate change.  Elias and Omojola after examining the plan of Lagos state towards climate change concluded that "these efforts are haphazard, largely top-down, uncoordinated and fragmented."  There is a recent plan by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture towards mitigating climate change which i currently do not have access to.  The authors concluded that "increased understanding of the substantial threat climate change poses to agriculture has not been met with a similarly improved understanding of how best to respond."  There is the need for Federal and State governments to work with Agricultural Scientists, meteorologists and other relevant researchers in academics to work towards a plan.  The plan should include development of a genebank for suitable crops.

References

Burke, M. B., Lobell, D. B., & Guarino, L. (2009). Shifts in African crop climates by 2050, and the implications for crop improvement and genetic resources conservation. Global Environmental Change, 19(3), 317–325. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.04.003

Peter Elias, Ademola Omojola (2015) Case study:  The challenges of climate change for Lagos, Nigeria,  Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 13, April 2015, 74 - 78, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.02.008

 

Fuwape, I. A., Ogunjo,  S T., Oluyamo,  S S., Rabiu,  A B (2016). Spatial variation of deterministic chaos in mean daily temperature and rainfall over Nigeria. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, In Press. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1867-x