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Increasingly erratic rainfall and unreliable cropping seasons in southern Africa, combined with high food prices, heighten vulnerability of rural people to food insecurity. To understand what actions are needed to expand adaptive capacity to climate change and its consequences for food security, it is useful to learn from existing agricultural practices in semi-arid areas that exploit positive opportunities of rainfall variability. To determine how residents attain food self-sufficiency...

Many studies detail constraints deemed responsible for the limited adoption of new technologies among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. By contrast, here we study the conditions that led to the remarkably fast spread of improved chickpea varieties in Ethiopia. Within just seven years, the adoption rate rose from 30 to 80% of the farmers. A combination of factors explains the rapid uptake. Their attraction lay in superior returns and disease resistance. Chickpea was already an...

The large uncertainty in yield response to fertilizer application within smallholder cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) limits efforts aimed at intensifying crop production based on increased fertilizer application. We assessed the key field-scale cause of variability in maize (Zea mays) grain yield response to fertilizer nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in the Sidindi area of Western Kenya based on past manure application, distance from the homestead, and clay and...

Emerging trends of a changing and increasingly variable climate have introduced new livelihood challenges in rain-fed smallholder agricultural systems that predominate in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The capacity of local farming communities and their institutions to respond to the new and emerging impacts of climate change is often constrained by lack of access to information and improved technologies, as well as poor support mechanisms to promote assimilation of new knowledge. This threatens...

Climate change will affect the livelihoods of pastoralists in arid and semi-arid lands. We use new data from Samburu District, northern Kenya, to explore whether migration of household members affects adoption of adaptive measures. Specifically, we seek to test whether migra-tion and adaptation are complementary mechanisms to protect the household against adverse shocks, or whether they are substitutes. Do remittances relax capital market constraints and facilitate the uptake of adaptive...

In West Africa predictions of future changes in climate and especially rainfall are highly uncertain, and up to now no long-term analyses are available of the effects of climate on crop production. This study analyses long-term trends in climate variability at N’Tarla and Sikasso in southern Mali using a weather dataset from 1965 to 2005. Climatic variables and crop productivity were analysed using data from an experiment conducted from 1965 to 1993 at N’Tarla and from a crop yield database...

Livestock production is very risky due to climate variability in semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data collected from 400 households in the Borena zone of the Oromia Region, we explored what drives adoption of agricultural practices that can decrease the vulnerability of agro-pastoralists to climate change. Households with more adaptive capacity adopted a larger number of practices. The households’ adaptive capacity was stronger when the quality of local institutions was high. However,...

In semi-arid areas drought results in cattle death making people vulnerable to poverty. Drought conditions are set to increase as climate change is increasingly becoming an important threat to food security. In southern Africa, people recently discovered Neorautanenia brachypus (Harms) C.A.Sm., as an important medicinal feed that they now use to help cattle survive drought. N. brachypus was evaluated with the aim of providing scientific substantiation of peoples’ claims by determining...

Climate-related variability in crop production and market price variability affect food and income security of Uganda’s rural households. We used household surveys from two contrasting sites in Uganda to quantify the relationships between crop production variability, adaptation strategies and household resource characteristics. Variability of production was large for all crops with almost doubling of yields under good conditions and halving of yields in bad years. Ex-post adaptation...

Climate variability and change are affecting rural livelihoods in Mali today and present a growing challenge in the region, as in many other parts of the African continent. We used a database of long-term (from 1965 to 2005) weather records and crop yields of a field experiment conducted from 1965 to 1993 at the N'Tarla in southern Mali to quantify possible historical changes of climate and their impact on yields of cotton, sorghum, and groundnut. Series of future climate data coupled with...

We explore households coping and adaptation strategies to climate change and variability in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) using data collected from 500 households across Samburu District; Kenya. We hypothesised that as we move from wet to dry areas, households’ accumulate livestock wealth, structural and cognitive social capital as insurance against risks and shocks associated with climate change and variability. In testing the hypotheses, for robustness we used two approaches: simple...

We explore households coping and adaptation strategies to climate change and variability in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) using data collected from 500 households across Samburu District; Kenya. We hypothesised that as we move from wet to dry areas, households’ accumulate livestock wealth, structural and cognitive social capital as insurance against risks and shocks associated with climate change and variability. In testing the hypotheses, for robustness we used two approaches: simple...

There is concern that food insecurity will increase in southern Africa due to climate change. We quantified the response of maize yield to projected climate change and to three key management options - planting date, fertilizer use and cultivar choice - using the crop simulation model, agricultural production systems simulator (APSIM), at two contrasting sites in Zimbabwe. Three climate periods up to 2100 were selected to cover both near- and long-term climates. Future climate data under two...

SUMMARY Agricultural production in the Sudano–Sahelian zone of west Africa is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and climate change. The present study aimed to understand farmers’ perceptions of climate variability and change and to evaluate adaptation options together with farmers, including tactical management of planting date in combination with the use of mineral fertilizer. Farmers perceived an increase in annual rainfall variability, an increase in the occurrence...

Rural households in sub-Saharan Africa earn a substantial part of their living from rain-fed smallholder agriculture, which is highly sensitive to climate change. There is a growing number of multi-level assessments on impacts and adaptation options for African smallholder systems under climate change, yet few studies translate impacts at the individual crop level to vulnerability at the household level, at which other livelihood activities need to be considered. Further, these assessments...

Climate change will affect the livelihoods of pastoralists in arid and semi-arid lands. Using data on agro-pastoral households from northern Kenya, we explore whether migration of household members enhances adoption of agricultural innovations that aim to provide protection against weather shocks. Specifically, we seek to test whether migration and adaptation are complementary mechanisms to protect the household against adverse shocks, or whether they are substitutes. Do remittances relax...