Reuters, Planet Ark, the Huffington Post, China Post and Gulf News are among the news agencies to report on a study that has found 50 percent of households surveyed in East Africa are planting trees on their farms to combat erosion, increase water and soil quality and provide farm diversity.
The results of the study, undertaken by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) – of which the World Agroforestry Centre is a partner - have been published in the Journal of Food Security.
The researchers sought to understand the relationship between changes in agricultural practices and food security at the household level; are households that are more innovative, i.e. in terms of changing their farming practices to cope with (or better exploit) their changing circumstances, more likely to be food secure than less innovative farming households?
In surveying 700 households in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania, they found that African farmers are already adapting their farming practices to cope with droughts, erosion and other ravages of climate change. It is these adaptations which are going to become all the more important with increasing future climate variability.
Changes in agricultural practices that farmers in Africa are adopting include improved crop, soil, land, water and livestock management systems, such as introducing crop cover, micro-catchments, ridges, rotations, improved pastures, planting trees, and new technologies such as improved seeds, shorter cycle varieties, and planting drought tolerant crop varieties.
Patti Kristjanson, who led the study, says that while there are encouraging signs of many farmers’ willingness to adapt, much more needs to be done if these farmers are to thrive in an increasing uncertain environment. For example, there has been limited uptake of existing improved soil, water and land management practices.
Encouragingly, the results show that the least food secure households are making few farming practice changes.
The survey will now serve as a baseline study that provides a wide range of indicators of activities and behaviours that can be monitored over time.
Read more on the World Agroforestry Centre website: Smallholders in East Africa are embracing climate-resilient farming
Download the pdf of the full article in Springer’s open access Journal of Food Security
Visit the CCAFS media page: Landmark survey finds adaptation to climate change on smallholder farms taking roothttp://ccafs.cgiar.org/news/media-centre/farmersadapt
Read the article in Reuters: African farmers must do more to beat climate change: study
