Decadal climate information, decision-making and risk management in sub-Saharan African

agricultural and food systems: Lessons from southern and eastern Africa

Admire Mutsa Nyamwanza (PhD)

African Climate and Development Initiative (University of Cape Town)

PRE-CCDA-V EVENT ON STRENGTHENING REGIONAL CAPACITY FOR CLIMATE SERVICES IN AFRICA OCT 2015, VICTORIA FALLS

CCAFS Project: Emerging climate risks, agriculture and food security

• 2011 – 2015

• Contributing to Research Theme 4.2 entitled ‘CCAFS Near-term Climate’

• Focus on the utility of decadal climate information (up to 10 years)

• Team comprised of 2 research streams – (a) Decision information research and (b) Physical climate science

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Background and Rationale • Gap – Much focus given to the utility of information on the

seasonal timescale and several decades into the future, less attention to info on the decadal timescale (up to 10 years)

• Key policy question for both food security and the agric economy – is

current info sufficient to make decisions that accelerate adaptation and allow food systems to keep pace with growing demands in the face of climate & other drivers of change within this period?

• Challenge for climate science – this is period within which traditional

seasonal skill diminishes and the climate change signal becomes difficult to detect against natural variability

Decadal climate prediction o A relatively new endeavor in climate science and currently highly experimental (Goddard et al, 2012) o Lies between seasonal/interannual forecasting and longer-term climate change projections

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Overarching research questions 3

What is the current end-user understanding of climate change and variability on 1-10 year time

scales What are the climate (and non-climatic stressors) on agricultural output? How would their

cumulative impact require different practice or shifts in practice?

What agricultural decisions take place on different timescales (1-5 years; 5-10 years) and how might these decisions be sensitive to climate information?

What is the potential of decadal climate information and how should it be communicated?

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Case studies 4

Case studies (cont) 5

Country Research location Targeted farmers

South Africa Elgin, Western Cape Province Large-scale commercial apple farmers

Central Maize Growing Region Large-scale commercial maize farmers

Malawi Namwera, Southern Region Large-scale commercial seed-maize farmers

Namwera, Southern Region Small-scale maize farmers

Zimbabwe Mbire, Mid-Zambezi Valley Region Small-scale cotton and maize farmers

Tanzania Lower Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region Small-scale irrigation paddy rice, maize and beans

farmers

Summary of results 6

Major risks across case studies Climatic Interannual rainfall variability

Adverse temperature patterns (e.g. warm winters and summer heat waves)

Increasing frequency of hailstorms (esp SA and Malawi)

Non-climatic Diseases, birds and insects on crops

High input costs and low output market prices

Unavailability of labour (esp for small scale farmers)

Summary of results (cont) 7

Potential role of decadal climate information (acc to farmers)

o Informing such critical (medium to long-term) farming projects as improving

irrigation systems, investing in dam construction, and adopting conservation agriculture at a wider scale

o Informing the timely selection of appropriate crops and varieties

o Informing resource allocation on longer timeframes

o Planning appropriate advance on-farm management and off-farm diversification activities

Issues/Concerns raised across cases o Credibility / Reliability / Legitimacy / Spatial resolution

8 The promise of decadal climate info

Facilitating scenario planning and anticipatory adaptation

o Scenarios - a highly effective tool for exploring future uncertainties and decision spaces with stakeholders (Thornton and Herrero, 2015) - allow people to think outside the historical or most obvious trends towards incorporating uncertainty in dealing with risk

o Reducing chances of maladaptation (instigates a forward-thinking approach)

o Complementing local knowledge widely used esp by small-scale farmers Effective response to cumulative risk and impacts on multiple temporal scales

o Decadal climate info inherently deals with climate variability and related risk at multiple temporal scales (e.g. @ 1, 5 and 10 year time scales) – making it easier to deal with cumulative risk whilst taking advantage of favorable conditions

o Affords ample space and opportunity for farmers to reflect, innovate, experiment and be flexible in decision-making and planning in line with projected dynamics

9 Some lessons…

Providing farmers with as full probabilistic and honest projections as possible – making sure that users are aware of the uncertainties

Presenting the new climate information and interpreting it in terms of local dynamics, agricultural impacts & farm-level mgt and planning implications - (with clear actionable points of entry into local agricultural and livelihood systems)

Presenting the information in a language and in terms that target users understand, e.g. in conjunction with local (knowledge) indicators in the case of small-scale farmers, and utilising sources and channels that users trust

10 Outputs from the research/project so far

Project Report • Nyamwanza A, Fujisawa M, New M and Johnston P. Can climate information be relevant to decision-making for agriculture and food security on the 1-10 year time scale? (Under review) Masters Student Thesis • Hajat, A. 2014. The potential for utilisation of decadal climate information by farmers in Malawi, Masters Thesis in Climate and Development, University of Cape Town, retrievable at http://acdi.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/HJTAKE001_2013_ACDI_%20Dissertation.pdf Journal Articles • Fujisawa M, Kobayashi K., Johnston P., New M. (2015): What Drives Farmers to Make Top-Down or Bottom-Up Adaptation to Climate Change and Fluctuations? A Comparative Study on 3 Cases of Apple Farming in Japan and South Africa. PLOS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120563

11 Outputs from the research/project (cont)

Journal Articles (cont) • Nyamwanza A and New M. Anticipatory adaptation and the role of decadal climate information in rural African livelihood systems: Lessons from the Mid-Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe, International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management (Accepted for publication) •Nyamwanza A, New M and Johnston P., Decadal climate information for improved decision-making and resilience in small scale African agricultural systems: Lessons from the Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania, Climate and Development (Under review)

Conference/Seminar presentations • Fujisawa M, 2013, Is agricultural sector listening to us? Paper presented at the Africa Climate Conference, Arusha, 15-18 October, retrievable @ http://africaclimateconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/B5-12_Fujisawa.pdf • Nyamwanza A, 2014, Anticipatory adaptation and the role of decadal climate information in rural African farming and livelihood systems, Paper presented at the Society of South African Geographers 10th Conference, University of Fort Hare, South Africa, 22-27 June

admire.nyamwanza@uct.ac.za

http://www.acdi.uct.ac.za/core-team/dr-admire-nyamwanza