adminCharles Dhewa
To a large extent, climate issues remain a domain for scientists. A visibly changing climate indicates a need to fill these knowledge gaps. Keeping farmers constantly informed about climate change requires going beyond workshops and high profile conferences attended by scientists alone.
Organisations that are promoting climate change projects seem to know a few nitty-gritties at national and global levels. On the other hand, farmers who see the climate change effects at grassroots are not able to link these to climate change but attribute them to just another bad year.
This season it has been predicted that Zimbabwe is likely to get less than average rainfall coming over a short period.
Due to fragmentation and unreliable sources of knowledge, even if farmers are told such important information, they take chances each time rains start falling and start planting any crop.
When communities understand climate change they will participate fully in mitigation measures. They can also be able to adjust to calamities such as floods or droughts so as to plan and direct their resources appropriately.
From geography to reality
Most people in Africa including farmers have studied weather and climate in geography at secondary school but they have never practised it in their communities. At community level, farmers do not know much about humidity, evaporation, evapotranspiration, amount of rainfall received, dam levels, local borehole level, aquifer levels, types of clouds, types of rainfall, the amount of water required by a particular plant or animal to reach maturity, wind speed and direction, cold and frost management, etc.
As if this is not bad enough, communities lack basic instruments and tools for monitoring climate change, for instance, tools to measure rainfall patterns, stream flows during dry seasons, evaporation from reservoirs, temperatures, loss of pastures and specific types of veldt, etc. In addition, unlike formal research stations, communities do not have comparative data for the past three to ten seasons. Much of their knowledge is memory-based. Given that human beings are not good at monitoring their own behaviour, memory alone cannot be relied upon in managing climate change.
Communities should be empowered to monitor changes in their own environment. This task cannot be outsourced because no one has a monopoly on climate knowledge and truth. With technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) coming into the fold, communities should be able to understand and manipulate weather and climate patterns to their advantage using a rich blend of their own knowledge and formal science.
Community Knowledge Centres can be established to not only hold some of this longitudinal knowledge but also enable a platform where farmers are assisted to interpret climate indicators. Such knowledge cannot remain in the heads of scientists.
Seed and animal breeding companies can be informed by communities about appropriate crop varieties and breeds that do well in particular communities based on information shared at community knowledge centres. Exchanging local knowledge between community knowledge centres and local schools will see this knowledge being codified into environmental science and geography textbooks.
Limitations of current awareness
programmes
Changing people’s mind sets around climate change will take more than current awareness programmes based on radio and television programmes, pamphlets and road shows. Law enforcement strategies such as penalising those found cutting down trees are also not adequate if not coupled with correcting the situation through activities that restore the environment.
Some projects meant to address climate change are implemented in a few isolated wards and districts. Diverse ecological regions should have specific interventions that speak to their context.
Translating these interventions into climate change strategies remains a big problem because they generate general and surface information. Communities have different understandings of the dangers of veld fires and may not link this knowledge to climate change. Some mountain tops have been known to burn for generations, before climate change became mainstream discourse.
Perhaps what farmers have learnt from previous climate-related hazards can be a good source of wisdom than general messages. Listening to different sources of information can shed more darkness than light for farmers thus they end up resorting to what they know.
Some communities like Chivi have become used to be called dry areas for more than 20 years. To these communities things may look normal such that they fail to link what is going on in their areas to climate change. Communities need to know climate change indicators according to their ecological areas.
Chimanimani, Gwanda and Guruve districts may have different climate change indicators. What is below normal rainfall in Chimanimani district may be above normal in Chivi district.
Adaptation of crops and livestock to climate change
There has been so much talk about small grains being suitable for a changing climate. However, not much has been asked regarding reasons why farmers have shunned and continue to shun these crops.
Awareness campaigns are linking small grains to climate change yet these crops were traditionally grown in areas like Chivi before climate change became visible. In fact, rapoko, millet and sorghum were produced in large quantities during heavy rainfall seasons as opposed to low rainfall seasons.
Bumper harvests in small grains had much more to do with type of soils, existence of a market and favourable eating habits than drought tolerance alone.
Lack of processing technology has also negatively influenced the production of small grains together with urbanisation of consumer tastes. We can’t therefore link small grains to poor rainfall seasons, ignoring other factors.
Small stock like goats and sheep can withstand drought more than cattle. A changing climate is likely to see an increase in small animals husbandry. Where you keep one cow you can keep 10 goats.
Increased horticulture activities in some dry areas
Over the past few years, we have seen horticulture production increasing in dry areas with surplus produce flowing to the market. We have seen tomatoes, potatoes and tubers like sweet potatoes coming from Chivi, dry parts of Buhera and Mwenezi.
Farmers in these areas have taken advantage of surface and underground water to produce for both cash income and food security.
This means promoting small grains as monocultures in these areas actually goes against people’s coping mechanisms. An increase in horticulture production suggests that water harvesting is by far the best climate change adaptation option than promoting small grains.
Since small grains are mostly rain-fed, promoting them means communities become food insecure three quarters of the season.
In addition, talking only about small grains promotes monoculture whereas we need to think and talk in terms of a food basket comprising different types of commodities which complement each other.
We should preach climate change while promoting water harvesting. The unpredictability of rainfall in a changing climate means even if farmers plant short season varieties, rains can go before the short season is up. Captured water will enable controlled agriculture where farmers can apply water as needed by a particular plant.
Harvesting water will ensure planning and correct use of resources that are becoming scarce and scarce. Communities can store water in village tanks so that when surface water reservoirs run out they use what is stored in tanks. In most cases, communities can build this infrastructure for themselves.
They can store enough water for both crops and livestock. Each household can be able to plant an acre and irrigate crops.
How agriculture markets tell us something about climate change
Changes in supply patterns of fruits, particular field crops, eggs, wild fruits and horticulture commodities can indicate changes happening in communities where these commodities come from. A decrease in masawu from Muzarabani for an extended period indicates change in weather patterns which may indicate a changing climate.
Other commodities become extinct on the market due to climate change. Longitudinal market studies on supplies can tell us a great deal on how climate change is threatening food security. When scientists say it takes at least 30 years for a consistent weather pattern to be considered climate change, do communities also classify climate change that way or they have their own patterns?
Naturally some crops and livestock adapt to climate change than others. If properly engaged, farmers can share knowledge on adaptations they have observed over time.
If farming is to be taken as a business, measuring rainfall, temperatures, humidity, soil pH, moisture and other variables at local level is going to be more important for farmers than acquiring all other inputs like seed, fertiliser, semen and dairy cows when all these become useless due to failure to mirror climate change.
Charles Dhewa is a proactive knowledge management specialist and chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (Pvt) (www.knowledgetransafrica.com) whose flagship eMKambo (www.emkambo.co.zw ) has a presence in more than 20 agricultural markets in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on: [email protected] ; Mobile: +263 774 430 309 / 772 137 717/ 712 737 430
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