The food systems in Nigeria and Africa in particular are facing legion challenges in meeting their food security benchmarks. Each year, there are projections on what needs to be produced to feed an ever-growing population, inclusive of quarterly, bi-annual, or annual evaluations of these projections. These projections are not always met due largely to several factors of which climate change plays a pivotal role amongst the other factors. With agricultural productivity in view, climate change affects factors that encourage/boost productivity; weather (temperature, rainfall, sunshine, relative humidity, etc.). For instance, most farmers who actively engage in rain-fed agricultural production would have to wait, in most cases, for the first sets of rains before planting. In some cases, these rains are either delayed, inadequate or scanty, making the farmers wait much longer to get enough assurances from the rains. Most times, this could take weeks and months unending for the rains to come, thereby delaying the production cycle and leaving a gap in expected output and a hole in the food system cycle of the crop. Therefore, a quarterly projected maize cultivation cycle per annum may be cut to a bi-annual production cycle as a result of the delayed rains — climate change.
“Climate” according to the Oxford dictionary definition, is the prevailing weather condition of a particular place over a prolonged period. The prevailing climate is expressed in temperature, wind conditions, rainfall, and relative humidity. Whereas food production needs stable and favorable weather conditions, when these prevailing weather conditions are unfavorable for production, expected yields or returns on crop cultivation are hampered. On the other hand, “climate change” is a regional or global change in climatic patterns over a period of time.
Causes of Climate Change
Climate change is both natural and human-induced. The earth naturally experiences warmer periods and excessively colder periods occasioned by higher sea levels as a result of glaciers covering part of the earth. Although these periods (the Holocene periods) have had effects on both man and agricultural productivity, these effects are not as adverse as what is experienced with human-induced climate change. “Anthropogenic climate change” or human-induced climate change is a result of human activities ranging from fossil fuel burning (natural gas, coal, and oil burning) used to generate power for automobiles or generate electricity, uncontrolled cultivation of livestock that releases greenhouse gases, felling of forest trees to process timber, paper, and other products without replanting, burning of forest or farms for the purpose of crop or animal cultivation among others releases carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, halocarbons and other carbon depleting substances into the atmosphere. Once these harmful substances get to the atmosphere through human activities, they accumulate for a while and allow the sun’s rays to reach the earth through them, but in the process, houses or trap some of the sun’s heat/rays from reaching the earth causing “The Greenhouse Effect” when so much heat is trapped by these substances/gases, the resultant effect is global warming. With global warming, the earth’s projected average temperature increases and in turn affects every element (weather) associated with it. The heat waves, excessive rainfalls that cause flooding, scanty and irregular rainfalls when needed, drought due to prolonged absence of rainfall, volcanoes, landslides, and storms among others. All these irregularities in weather patterns affect agricultural productivity and sustainability.
Possible Solutions
There are a number of approaches posited by many scientists, authors, and researchers but some of these approaches are difficult to adhere to or achieve because anthropogenic climate change is entrenched in the natural societal lifestyle. For instance, livestock production that emits methane gas also provides red meat/protein for human consumption and income for farmers in such agribusiness value chains. Human mobility/exercise/breathing produces carbon dioxide, a global warming casual gas. Likewise, heating or cooling of our homes to stay alive or comfortable equally contributes to producing and circulating heat in the atmosphere. Additionally, wealthier countries emit more greenhouse gas per individual compared to poorer or developing countries.
Nevertheless, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in adopting the Kyoto Protocol, posited that adaptation and mitigation as published in their summaries and assessment reports are the responses identified by climate scientists which can help tackle climate change. Their report sees mitigation as measures that are or should be put in place to reduce human emission of greenhouse gas to reduce the degree of climate change. According to the reports from UNFCCC and IPCC, global warming has to be reduced to an average of about two degrees Celsius (maximum safe level for climate change). This means that certain agronomic practices; bush burning has to be reduced or extinguished completely, deforestation has to be curbed or accompanied by afforestation, combustion of fossil fuel have to be substituted for use of renewable forms of energy; the use of solar-driven automobiles/devices on farmlands. On the other hand, the body equally identified adaptation approaches as accommodation and or regulation approaches where humans take the needed actions in remedying the effect of climate change; breeding crops that flourish in a modified climate, protecting the sea level rises through the building of needed coastal defenses, cultivation in greenhouses to control atmospheric effects in crops and practicing irrigation to mitigate scanty and irregular rainfall, especially in naturally low rainfall regions. Although these measures are costly to implement especially in many developing countries, efforts can, however, be put in place to mitigate the impending dangers of food crisis occasioned by climate change.
A change in rainfall pattern as stated earlier is one among many other climate change factors that affect the food system. However, this can be mitigated if a proper irrigation system is put in place. The importance of irrigation cannot be overemphasized as a basic need to ensure continuous agricultural production. Even in the south and eastern part of Nigeria which has a bi-modal rainfall pattern that can favor bi-annual crops like maize, irrigation is still needed to ensure quarterly and cyclical maize cultivation is achieved. This is because there are periods within the year where these crops may need water supply but the much-needed water supply cannot be provided by rainfall since the rains are seasonal. In the northern part of Nigeria where in most cases the rainfall is unimodal, irrigation is a must for most crops to thrive. In most cases, rainfalls are excessive, leading to water lodging, leaching of soil nutrients beyond the reach of crops, a saturation of the soil which closes soil pores and eliminates soil-air needed for crop growth, and destruction of natural soil flora and fauna that ensure soil nutrient circulation. Even a water-loving crop like rice needs the water regulated and controlled. This is difficult to achieve when there is excessive rainfall. This is why irrigation is key not just in ensuring continuous crop production all year round but also in ensuring that water is provided in the right amount and when needed by the crop.
There are legions of small-medium and large-scale irrigation schemes that can be adopted by farmers depending on the scale of the farmer’s production. Some of them may include drip irrigation systems, surface irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, sub-irrigation, and manual irrigation.
Irrigation Systems
Drip Irrigation conveys water directly into the Crop root system (Source: Default Store View, 2020)
Sprinkler Irrigation supplies water to crops in a manner similar to rainfall (Source: Daily Civil, 2018)
Surface Irrigation System supplies water through furrows (Source: Wikipedia, 2022)
There are other forms of irrigation systems that can be adopted for the purpose of sustainable crop cultivation. These forms of irrigation ensure that water is available all year round for the purpose of cultivation and can be regulated based on crop needs or requirements.
To cap it all, human activities; the burning of fossil fuels, livestock cultivation deforestation, setting of bushfires for crop cultivation, etc and natural occurrences increase in sea levels, and earth warming is constantly emitting gases and other substances into the atmosphere. When these gases are trapped by the sun’s rays, the earth is heated beyond what is expected resulting in global warming of the earth and or climate change which in turn affects agricultural productivity and humans as well.
One of the many effects of climate change is drought and inadequate, irregular rainfall which in turn affects agricultural production and the food system. While we need to make use of renewable energy as a mitigation means, we also need to irrigate as an adaptation measure to improve farming or increase agricultural productivity.
Post: Ikpi Eteng, Growth & Partnerships Manager at Agricvendor
Other Sources: IPCC. 2007. Fourth Assessment Report. Intergovernmental, Panel on Climate, Change Secretariat. Geneva, Switzerland. UNFCCC. 2007f. Synthesis of outcomes of the regional workshops and expert meeting on adaptation under decision 1/CP.10. FCCC/SBI/2007/14. UN Office at Geneva, Switzerland. 14 pp. <http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2007/sbi/eng/14.pdf>
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