Impact of Climate Change on Smallholder Dairy Production and Coping Mechanism in Sub-Saharan Africa - Review

Abstract

The current problems in the world are variation/declining of rainfall, shortage of feed and water, incidence of disease and rising of temperature, these are come about because of climate change. So, the objective of this review is to appraisal the impact of climate change on smallholder dairy production and coping mechanism in sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change is a long-term and significant change in the expected patterns of a specific region's average weather for an appropriately significant period of time caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases (gases facilitate for climate change are CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O) in the atmosphere which leads to global warming. Africa has been identified as one of the parts of the world most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Though climate change affect livestock production directly and indirectly, can be mitigate through adaptation measures involve production and management system modifications, breeding strategies, institutional and policy changes, science and technology advances, and changing farmers' perception, manure management, shifting dietary and reducing enteric methane production.

Effect of Socio-Demographic Characteristics on Kenyan Smallholder Dairy Farmers’ Adaptive Strategies to Climate Change Effects

“…Climate change in Africa has presented new challenges likely to erode much of the gains so far made with respect to food security, hampering rural development and livestock production [11]. Climate change will most likely lead to increased problems of water scarcity, shortage of pastureland and disease dynamics for smallholder dairy system [12]. These effects have forced most of the smallholder dairy farmers in several parts of the tropical world to resort to use of by-products or other wastes as feed, diversify production objectives to incorporate draught and meat production and increase levels of intensification [1].…”

“…In Kenya, global warming and the associated climate change is expected to exacerbate the challenge smallholder dairy farmers face, as there will be declining pasture and feed varieties, as well as decreased natural water sources with diminishing water quality [6]. The effects are expected to get even worse if business as usual scenario is maintained [8] [13], and would imply most of the Kenyan smallholder dairy farmers having challenges adapting and maintaining profitability [2] [12]. To cope with these effects, the Kenyan smallholder dairy farmers make efforts to increase levels of intensification, but which contributes further to global warming due to increased production of methane (CH 4 ), itself a greenhouse gas [2].…”

Effects of Season Variation on Water, Feed, Milk Yield and Reproductive Performance of Dairy Cows in Smallholder Farms in Eastern Africa

“…However, temperatures frequently rise above this thermal comfort zone in most dairy production environments, due to seasonal changes in climate [50]. Seasonal fluctuations in milk yield and reproductive performance in SDFs are, therefore, often seen to be most marked during the dry season period, characterized also by low or no rainfall [50,77,78]. SDFs face feed resources constraints during the dry season period, which also worsens with frequent droughts and flooding associated with the changing climate, witnessed recently throughout Eastern Africa [11,18,20].…”

Attentiveness to Early Warning Drought Information: Implications for Policy Support and Climate Risk Reduction in Ghana

“…Climate change around the world is manifesting in increasing frequencies of droughts, floods, heat waves, dry spells, and extreme rises in temperature, and these have aggravated the vulnerabilities of social and biophysical systems (Burchfield and Gilligan 2016;Radeva et al 2018). Drought is seen as the worst of the climate hazards because it is insidious in nature, large scale, and generates cumulative effects (Wilhite 2006;Burchfield and Gilligan 2016;Tadesse and Dejere 2018). To prepare for, anticipate, and handle the damaging effects of climate events, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 recommends that the actions for early warning systems (EWSs) should include access to data and information, identifying views from the frontline, considering political threats and vulnerabilities, and finding ways to talk about disaster risk creation processes at a larger scale (Marchezini 2020).…”