Navigating complexities towards sustainable food crops production: local practices for climate change adaptation in rural Ghana

Abstract

Globally, food crops production has been challenged by the impacts of climate change. Climate change scholars have argued that rural dwellers, particularly smallholder farmers who engage in food crops production, suffer the most due to their low capacity to adapt. A growing body of knowledge also suggests that local practices serve as safeguards, that enable smallholder farmers to lessen their vulnerability in food crops production. However, limited scholarly insight has been advanced about sustainable food production via the use of local practices. Through the mixed research approach, the study contributes to local practices and climate adaptation debates by examining the various local practices of smallholder farmers, the challenges they encounter with the use of such practices and the possibility for sustainable food crops production in the future in Ghana. The findings suggest that smallholders encounter multiple drawbacks in attempt to utilize local practices to adapt food crops production to climate change including the advent of modern farming inputs/practices. Even when multiple local practices (the planting of multiple crops’ varieties, switching between crops and livestock rearing, reducing cultivatable land size) are utilized, only the increment in farm size, the use of income/remittances of rural–urban migrants to support food crops production, and early cultivation offered some possibilities of sustaining improvement in food crops production for the future. Therefore, the study concluded that local practices are not necessarily panaceas for sustaining food crops production under climate change. The study recommended that further studies pay attention to the sustainability of local practices under climate change.

Agro-ecological intensification for climate change adaptation: Tales on soil and water management practices of smallholder farmers in rural Ghana

“…Over the years, farmers have engaged in self-initiated agriculture production and practices drawing on indigenous skills and production systems [60,59]. Even though, food crop farmers drawing largely on local practices such as the cultivation of multiple crop varieties, alternating between crops and animal rearing to adapt to climate change and variability but reliance on increase farm size and remittance make farmers more adaptive [14]. These are often shaped by the past experiences of farmers [2].…”

“…With already signi cant losses of soil moisture in the Sahel and Saharan areas due to the erratic rainfall pattern and increasing temperature, some climate change scholars have articulated the need to pay attention to soil and water conservation practices as climaate change adapation strategy through AE [I7]. In Ghana, historical recount of soil and water conservation of farmers shown how farmers have over the years engaged in food crop production drawing largely on local and indigenous practices [14]. However, scanty knowledge exists on soil and water conservation practices of smallholders, and how they relate with AEI towards adapting food crops productions to climate change.…”

Eliciting indigenous knowledge to predict climate events for the food security of agro-pastoral households in North Benin

“…Agriculture is highly dependent on rainfall, making it very vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. These climatic changes are manifested by the scarcity of rainfall, the recurrence of pockets of drought, the early or late cessation of rainfall, the early or late onset of rains, violent winds, heat waves, and temperature increases (Dambeebo et al, 2022). In Benin, studies have shown an increasing temperature trend of 1.0 ± 0.1 • C and decreasing rainfall between 1950 and 2005 (Akponikpè et al, 2019).…”

“…Indigenous knowledge in this study means knowledge accumulated over many years through experiences, including daily practices, learning, and lessons during the interaction of human societies with their environments for forecasting the climatic events (Dambeebo et al, 2022). In the climatic events forecasted, four pillars of indigenous knowledge could be taken account (Leal Filho et al, 2022).…”

“…Some studies have been carried out on indigenous knowledge for predicting climate events. These studies have revealed that people rely on the behavior of animals, plants, and nature to predict climate events (Chimi et al, 2022;Dambeebo et al, 2022;Varah and Varah, 2022). These studies show that adaptation and resilience strategies are based on the indigenous knowledge that plays an important role in local communities (Kijazi et al, 2013;Leal Filho et al, 2022).…”