Sustainable Food Security Under Land and Water Stresses

Nnyaladzi Batisani Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation

Gaborone, Botswana

African European Residential School4 August 2014

University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

Africa's food security challenges unmanageable

without addressing climate change, land tenure

(Braimoh Ademola, 2012)

• Africa's need to increase productivity for about 750 million people in

Africa by 2050 • the lack of resilience in the agricultural sector to cope with climate

change • impact is likely to decrease crop yields to as low as 20-30 per cent. 

• Africa deal with green house gas emissions

Climate Smart Agriculture

Resource depletion and land degradation

• Land tenure a big factor decimating food production in Africa– how farmers can be assured that if they plant crops this year, the next year they

will not be driven away from the same plot of land

• Governments, through partnerships with institutions such as the

World Bank, ensure that there is access to farming land both for

men and women

• Agriculture is a risky businessgovernments and partners have failed to address the risks involved

Local Dimensions of Global Change

• All global change is local

• Causes occur in local places

• Effects occur in local places

• Responses implemented in local places

Location of weather stations used in the analysis

Drought dynamics and severity

a b

c d

Spatial distribution of severe drought in Botswana For (a) 3-month SPI, (b) 6-month SPI, (c) 9-month SPI, and (d) 12-month SPI

3-month SPI 6 month SPI

9 month SPI 12 month SPI

Percentage drought occurrence at corresponding drought categories and

drought duration

Climate variability and change

Rainfall spatial stability

Stations Annual Rainfall Trend p-value

Francistown -2.36 0.02a

Gantsi -2.24 0.03a

Kasane 0.21 0.83

Lobatse -2.16 0.03a

Maun -1.17 0.02a

Molepolole -1.51 0.01a

Serowe -0.10 0.09b

Tsabong -1.72 0.09b

a Significant at p<0.05b Significant at p<0.10

Station Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Francis-town NE

-0.36 -0.65 0.70 -1.35 -1.27 1.41b -0.17 -2.49b -1.92a -1.96b 0.37 0.52

Gantsi W -1.52 0.13 -0.18 -0.63 -0.69 1.59 0.38 -1.13 -1.69 -1.80 0.37 -1.23

Kasane N -0.58 -0.13 -1.04 0.79 -0.69 1.14 0.00 1.35 1.03 -1.1 0.42 -1.07

Lobatse SE -2.45b -0.02 -1.25 -0.80 -0.10 -0.68 -1.81 -2.66b -2.01a -0.28 -1.01 1.33

Maun N -0.71 -0.91 -1.17 -0.02 -0.97 0.28 0.38 -0.85 -1.44 -1.54 -0.06 0.91

Molepolole SE

-2.27a -0.06 -1.38 -0.15 0.69 0.57 -0.81 -2.48b -2.52b -0.37 0.59 0.97

Serowe E -0.47a -0.73 -0.81 -0.48 0.31 2.04 -0.60a -1.21 -2.07a -0.41 0.66 0.11

Tsabong S -0.94 -1.90a -1.01 -0.15 0.90 -0.77 -1.47 -2.19a -1.18 -0.13 -0.84 0.91

Trends of monthly rainfall

a Significant at p<0.05b Significant at p<0.10 decline

sign. decline

increase

sign. increase

Stations Mean number of rainy days/year

Trend rainy days/year

Sign. level trendsp-value

Rainy days/year vs AnnualRainfall R2

Gantsi 33 -1.04 0.03* 0.10

Maun 37 -1.43 0.15 0.85

Mochudi 24 -1.04 0.30 0.26

Serowe 22 -1.04 0.30 0.41

Shakawe 35 -1.14 0.26 0.69

Tsabong 24 -2.18 0.02* 0.06

* Significant at p<0.05

Linking rainfall variability and dry land crop yield

(a) Rainfall stability withyield stability of (b) maize and (c) sorghum

(a)(b) (c)

Holistic Approach to Climate Change Holistic Approach to Climate Change AdaptationAdaptation

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

food inflation

-2000

-1000

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

quaters

quat

erly

bal

ance

of p

aym

ents

(m

illio

n B

W P

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The global food price in 2007–08 (von Braun, 2008)

Food price inflation dynamics in Botswana (CSO, 2009)

Botswana quarterly real GDP growth ( CSO, 2009)

Botswana quarterly balance of payments (BoB, 2009)

Adaptation toolboxAdaptation toolbox

Development of Decision Development of Decision support systemssupport systems

Determination of on set of the planting season

Yield gap analysisYield gap analysis

Real-time rainfall measurement Real-time rainfall measurement

Cell phone towers Cell phone towers

Achieving food security in the midst of climate change and socioeconomic perturbations

• Mainstreaming climate change in the broader economic agenda, rather

than taking a narrow agricultural perspective

• Climate smart agriculture:

– crop and livestock insurance,

– social safety nets,

– research on and dissemination of heat, and drought-resistant crops,

– conservation of traditional plant varieties with those characteristics.

– new irrigation schemes combined with and better market access for high-value products

– design of new irrigation schemes and the retrofitting of existing ones to cater for the

expected increase in rainfall variability and stream flows

– better climate information such as provision of long-term weather forecast

THANK YOU