CIMMYT is combating the effects of El Niño and climate change by fostering climate-smart agriculture, including drought-tolerant crops and conservation practices, to bolster smallholder farmer resilience and productivity. Through partnerships and sustainable farming innovations, CIMMYT aims to improve food security and adapt to environmental challenges, ensuring that advanced technologies benefit those most in need.
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From the densely lush landscape of Zambia’s northern province to the arid terrain of the south, a stark reality unfolds, intensified by El Niño. Zambia’s agriculture faces contrasting realities yet potential lies in adaptive strategies, a diversified crop basket, and collaborative initiatives which prioritize farmers. Despite persistent challenges with climate variability and uneven resource distribution, the country navigates unpredictable weather patterns, emphasizing the intricate interplay between environmental factors and adaptation strategies.
Unpacking El Niño’s impact in Zambia
El Niño presents a common challenge to both southern and northern Zambia, albeit with varying degrees of intensity and duration. The 2022/2023 season had above normal rainfall amounts, with extreme weather events, from episodes of flash floods and flooding to prolonged dry spells, especially over areas in the south. In the 2023/2024 season, the southern region has already experienced irregular weather patterns, including prolonged droughts and extreme temperatures, leading to water scarcity, crop failures, and significant agricultural losses. Although the growing season is nearing its end, the region has only received less than one-third of the annual average rainfall (just about 250 mm). Dry spells of more than 30 days have been experienced and, in most cases, coincide with the critical growth stages of flowering and grain-filling. A glance at farmers’ fields paints a gloomy picture of the anticipated yield, but all hope is not lost.
In contrast, the northern province stands out receiving above-average rainfalls beyond 2,000 mm, providing a different set of challenges for crop production. In this region, incidences of waterlogging are prominent although the effects are not as detrimental as the drought in the southern province. In general, crops in the northern province promise a considerable harvest as compared to the ones in the southern province.
Maize stover and its competing use
The scarcity of resources in southern Zambia extends beyond water availability, with the competition for maize stover, a valuable byproduct used for animal feed which can also be retained on the soil surface for fertility improvement and soil moisture conservation. With limited access to alternative fodder sources, farmers face challenges in meeting the nutritional needs of their livestock while maintaining soil fertility and conserving moisture. The struggle to balance the competing demands for maize stover underscores the complex dynamics of resource management in the region. This is further worsened by the low maize stover yield expected due to the dry conditions.
Implementing fodder trials, which include cultivating fodder crops like mucuna and lablab, intercropped or rotated with maize, offers a lifeline to farmers. While maize crops may wilt under the stress of El Niño-induced droughts, leguminous crops such as mucuna, lablab, cowpea, and groundnuts exhibit resilience, thriving in adverse conditions and providing a crucial source of food, feed, soil cover, and income for farmers. The ability of legumes to withstand environmental stressors highlights the importance of crop diversification in building resilience to climate change and ensuring food security in vulnerable regions.
Conversely, in northern Zambia, the abundance of agricultural resources allows for a more sustainable utilization of maize stover. Farmers have greater access to fodder alternatives and can implement integrated farming practices to optimize the use of crop residues. This enables them to mitigate the adverse effects of soil degradation and enhance livestock productivity, contributing to the resilience of their agricultural systems.
Use of more climate-smart crops
In southern Zambia, maize stands as the main crop, often supplemented with the integration of some leguminous crops integrated to some extent, to diversify the agricultural landscape. However, the relentless and longevity grip of El Niño has taken a negative toll on maize production, despite efforts to cultivate drought-tolerant varieties. As the dry spell persists, maize plants at the critical tasseling and silking stage face an uphill battle, as the dry and hot air has adversely impacted pollen and silk development.
The dissimilarity with the northern province, where cassava thrives from abundant water, is striking. This resilient crop, known for its drought tolerance, presents a promising alternative for farmers in the southern province grappling with erratic rainfall patterns. As climate change continues to challenge traditional agricultural practices, exploring resilient crops like cassava may offer a lifeline for communities striving to adapt and thrive amidst adversity.
In response to these radically different realities, the Sustainable Intensification of Farming Systems (SIFAZ) project, a collaborative effort of CIMMYT with FAO, the Ministry of Agriculture in Zambia, and the CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa, also known as Ukama Ustawi, have jointly promoted sustainable intensification practices to enhance the resilience of smallholder farmers.
The SIFAZ project is designed around the idea that strip crops and intercrops can add nutritional and economic value to Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems for smallholder farmers in Zambia. While traditional yield metrics provide some insight across the several intercropping treatments being tested on-farm, the true benefits of these cropping systems extend beyond mere output. SIFAZ recognizes the diversification synergy, emphasizing that “two crops are better than one.”
However, the outcomes of the SIFAZ project and the CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa have varied over the years between the two regions, reflecting the discrepancy in their agricultural landscapes.
Notably, regional differences in the adoption and success of these cropping systems have become apparent. In the northern province, crop-centric approaches prevail, leading to a higher concentration of successful crop farmers. Meanwhile, in the southern province, mixed systems that incorporate mixed crop-livestock systems achieve desirable effects. These findings highlight the importance of tailoring agricultural interventions to suit the specific needs and conditions of diverse farming communities.
Navigating the complex challenges of climate change requires a multifaceted approach that acknowledges the unique realities of different regions. By embracing adaptive strategies, harnessing indigenous knowledge, and fostering collaborative partnerships, Zambia can forge a path towards a more resilient and sustainable agricultural future, where farmers thrive despite the uncertainties of a changing climate.
With the ever-changing climate conditions, including the unpredictable El Niño, and dynamic changes in government policies, understanding farmers’ preferences and market segmentation has become crucial for implementing impactful breeding programs. Market segmentation is a strategic process which divides a market into distinct group of consumers with similar needs, preferences, and behaviors. This allows organizations to tailor their products and services to specific customer segments, thus ensuring maximum value and impact.
In today’s fast-paced and evolving agricultural landscape, market segmentation plays a vital role in helping organizations navigate the complexities of a dynamic market. CIMMYT’s maize breeding program has a successful track record in developing and delivering improved varieties that are climate-resilient, high-yielding and suited to the rainfed tropical conditions in Africa. To further strengthen the impact, it is important to have a clear understanding of the evolving needs of farmers in different agroecological regions and the emerging market scenario so that breeding processes can be tailored based on market needs and client requirements.
Questions arise on how to refine the breeding programs relative to country-specific market segments, what efforts are underway to target these markets, and how do these markets transition. Recognizing the importance of market segmentation in refining breeding programs at the country and regional levels, CIMMYT hosted two workshops on maize market intelligence in Kenya and Zimbabwe, under the CGIAR Market Intelligence Initiative for eastern and southern Africa.
“Market intelligence in breeding programs is critical to understand the evolving needs of key stakeholders, including farmers, consumers, and the seed industry. It helps continuously improve the breeding pipelines to develop and deliver impactful products in targeted market segments. The workshops brought together relevant experts from the national programs and seed companies for focused discussions to develop a harmonized breeding strategy. This would help to address the needs of smallholder maize farmers in eastern and southern Africa,” said Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize program and One CGIAR Global Maize Breeding Lead, B.M. Prasanna.
The workshops constituted a strategic continuation of the Product Design Team (PDT) meetings under CGIAR Market Intelligence, with a focus on the refinement of gender-intentional target product profile design. Guided by the expertise of CIMMYT’s Global Maize program, Market Intelligence, and ABI-Maize Transform teams, the sessions saw active participation from key stakeholders including lead breeders, seed systems experts, and market specialists from the National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES), alongside collaborative engagement with seed company partners. The workshops underscored the commitment to incorporate diverse perspectives, aligning with the evolving maize market landscape in eastern and southern Africa.
“The workshop provided critical insights on opportunities to improve market penetration of improved maize varieties. There is a need to strike a balance between the needs of the farmers, seed industry, and consumers in variety development; actively involve farmers and consumers in variety selection and understanding their preferences; and focus on emerging needs of the market such as yellow maize for feed and food,” said James Karanja, maize breeding lead at the Kenya Agriculture & Livestock Research Organization, Kenya.
Insights from both workshops underscored the importance of providing breeders with pertinent information and comprehensive training. The discussions illustrated the necessity for breeders to define their objectives with a 360-degree outlook, aligning breeding programs with market segments and interfacing with CIMMYT’s regional vision.
“The market intelligence workshop is an excellent initiative for the breeding programs. It shows how traits can be identified and prioritized, based on farmers’ requirements. The maize value chain is broad, and the synergy between the developer of the product (breeder), the producer (farmer), and the consumer needs to be effective. Hence, streamlining of the market segments and eventually the target product profiles is key in ensuring that the breeders develop improved products/varieties with relevant traits that address the needs of farmers, consumers, and the seed industry,” said Lubasi Sinyinda, breeder from the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute, Zambia.
Another participant, Lucia Ndlala, a maize breeder at the Agricultural Research Council, South Africa, echoed similar enthusiasm. “The workshop was exceptionally informative, providing valuable insights into target product profiles and market segments. This knowledge will undoubtedly prove instrumental in shaping future breeding strategies,” she said.
When applied through a breeding lens, market segmentation is a vital tool in refining breeding programs at both country and regional levels, enabling breeders to better understand and address the diverse needs of the farmers, and ensuring that the improved varieties are tailored to market segments.
The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and CIMMYT call on policymakers and research-for-development organizations to stay informed about the evolving El Niño event and its potential implications in the Limpopo Basin. El Niño is considered the biggest climate oscillation on Earth. IWMI and CIMMYT have utilized various methodologies and climate models to project and assess the potential impacts of the El Niño event.
What are the crucial practices, especially under the changing climatic conditions about the evolving El Niño event?
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It is official: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced the beginning of the global climate heating event El Niño on July 4, which means that extreme weather events will affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people on all continents from now until midyear 2024. El Niño is considered the biggest climate oscillation on Earth. It occurs when winds and water temperatures change periodically in the Pacific Ocean. The last occurrence was in 2016, which according to the WMO remains the hottest year on record.
What can we do to mitigate El Niño’s effects in the food systems that sustain livelihoods in the Global South?
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NAIROBI, Kenya (CIMMYT) — To mitigate the impact of the current drought affecting millions of farmers living in Kenya and other areas of eastern and southern Africa, agriculture experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) call for intensively scaling up climate-resilient seeds and climate-smart innovations, including drought-tolerant seeds and soil and water conservation practices.
The U.S. National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has just warned that abnormally dry conditions are affecting Kenya and other areas of eastern and southern Africa. This year’s El Niño, the second in a period of three years, has led to large pockets of drought across eastern and southern Africa, whose economies still rely heavily on rainfed smallholder farming. These recurrent climate shocks impede growth prospects in the region, as the World Bank recently announced.
In Kenya, farmers are eager to plant their maize seeds for the next cropping season. However, mid-April is already here, and farmers are still waiting for the long rains, which usually arrive by mid-March. The very late onset of the rainy season could lead to a poor cropping season and significantly reduced maize yields for farmers.
To avoid this, Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT’s regional representative for Africa, recommends that farmers shift to planting stress-resilient varieties, like early maturing maize varieties that just need 90 to 95 days to mature, instead of over four months for late maturing varieties. Seeds of such early maturing varieties are available from seed companies and agrodealers operating in maize growing areas.
“If more small farmers in Africa’s drought-prone regions grow drought-tolerant varieties of maize and other staple crops, the farming communities will be better prepared for prolonged dry spells and inadequate rainfall,” said Mugo.
Crop diversification and more sustainable soil and water conservation practices are also recommended to improve soil fertility and structure and avoid soil compaction. When the rains finally come, run-off will be less, and soils will have more capacity to retain moisture.
“Our research shows that conservation agriculture, combined with a package of good agronomic practices, offers several benefits that contribute to yield increases of up to 38 percent,” Mugo said.
To ensure large-scale adoption of sustainable and climate-resilient technologies and practices, farmers should have access to drought-tolerant seeds, as well as information and incentives to shift to climate-smart agricultural practices.
CIMMYT is engaged in many ways to help facilitate this agricultural transformation. The institute works with the African seed sector and national partners to develop and deploy stress resilient maize and wheat varieties through initiatives like Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa and the Wheat rust resistant seed scaling in Ethiopia.
Because late planting may expose maize crops to stronger attacks of pests like the fall armyworm, the research-for-development efforts initiated by the FAW R4D consortium against this invasive pest should be sustained.
More information about CIMMYT’s research on drought-tolerant seed and conservation agriculture can be found on the website of the Sustainable Intensification of Maize Legumes Systems in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) project.
For more information or for media interviews, please contact
Jerome Bossuet, Communications Officer, CIMMYT.
J.Bossuet@cgiar.org
ABOUT CIMMYT
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat, and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies.
HARARE (CIMMYT) — In southern Africa close to 50 million people are projected to be affected by droughts caused by the current El Niño, a climate phenomenon that develops in the tropical Pacific Ocean causing extreme weather worldwide — this year, one of the strongest on record. Many of those millions are expected to be on the brink of starvation and dependent on emergency food aid and relief.
However, severe droughts are nothing new to the region. Between 1900 and 2013 droughts have killed close to 1 million people in Africa, with economic damages of about $3 billion affecting over 360 million people. Over the past 50 years, 24 droughts have been caused by El Niño events, according to research by Ilyas Masih. If droughts are so recurrent and known to be a major cause of yield variability and food insecurity in southern Africa, why are we still reacting to this as a one-time emergency instead of a calculated threat?
Over the past 50 years, donors have focused on the “poorest of the poor” in agriculture – areas where farming is difficult due to low and erratic rainfalls, poor sandy soils and high risk of crop failure. Investments were made in these areas to change farmers’ livelihoods – and yet the numbers of food insecure people are the same or rising in many southern African countries. Once drought hits, most farmers are left with no crops and are forced to sell their available livestock. Due to many farmers flooding the market with poor meat at once, prices for both livestock and meat hit rock bottom. Only when the situation becomes unbearable does the development community act, calling for emergency aid, which kicks in with a stuttering start. Abject poverty and food aid dependency is the inevitable consequence.
Short-term relief can help millions of farmer families in this current crisis, and emergency solutions will likely be necessary this year. However, emergency relief is not the solution to saving lives and money in a world where extreme weather events are only going to become more frequent.
We know that the next drought will come within the next two to three years.
Proactive, strategic and sustainable response strategies are needed to increase farming system resilience and reduce dependency on food aid during extreme weather events like El Niño. This starts with improving the capacity of local, regional and national governments to make fully informed decisions on how to prepare for these events. Interventions must reach beyond poor performing areas, but also support higher productivity areas and emerging commercial farmers, who have greater potential to produce enough grain on a national scale to support areas hardest hit by droughts and dry-spells.
Climate-smart agriculture technologies, drought-tolerant maize, and such techniques as conservation agriculture, agroforestry and improved soil fertility management are approaches to farming that seek to increase food and nutrition security, alleviate poverty, conserve biodiversity and safeguard ecosystem services.
They need to be scaled out to increase resilience to climate variability. This strategy of improved foresight and targeting coupled with adoption of climate-smart agriculture and improved outscaling can lead to increased resilience of smallholder farming systems in southern Africa, reducing year-to-year variability and the need for emergency response.
Learn more about the impacts of El Niño and building resilience in the priority briefing “Combating drought in southern Africa: from relief to resilience” here, and view the special report from FEWS Net illustrating the extent and severity of the 2015-16 drought in southern Africa.