Towards Climate-Smart Agricultural Approach: Prospect for Smallholder Farmers in Semi-Arid Regions

Abstract

Climate change has become a major threat to human developmental sectors in recent times. Agriculture is particularly vulnerable sector because it is highly dependent on climate variables. General decrease in total seasonal rainfall, accompanied by more frequent in-season dry spells are pervasive to sub-Saharan Africa, and significantly impact on crop and livestock production, and hence hamper food security in the region. The hardest hit by climate change is the rural smallholder farmers in the drier areas, owing to adaptive capacity and limited resources. As to carter the adaption needs of smallholder farmers to climate change, climate-smart agricultural approach provides much needed potential. However, to efficiently achieve climate-smart agriculture, evidence-base, and location specific framework that unpack complexity and define precise implementation pathway is urgently needed. This paper therefore, reviewed prospect of present and future climates change implications to smallholder farmers in developing countries. Thereafter, it drew upon a variety of current adaptation strategies within concept of climate smart agriculture, and assess the required support to increase the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers' in semi-arid regions

Understanding land reform and the associated consequences for land use and livelihoods

“…Maintained production is the most likely future for better-off farms with extensive or intensive activities, as better-off farmers in these farms might have enough physical and financial capital to counter the envisaged adverse climatic conditions by adopting of climate-smart agricultural practices. These better-off farmers could adopt the climate-smart agricultural practices, which include among others the use of (a) drought tolerant varieties, rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, integrated pest management and intercropping with legumes, in farms with crop plus horticulture, and (b) improved livestock feeding, climate-smart housing and drought tolerant animal species like goats, in farms with livestock (Murage et al 2015;Managa and Nkobole-Mhlongo 2016;Khatri-Chhetri et al 2017;Shikuku et al 2017;Lopez-Ridaura et al 2018;Rust 2019). Goats are mixed feeding ruminants (i.e.…”