Stories tagged: climate change

How Europe-Africa Research Collaboration Can Uncover Climate Solutions for Farmers

Dorine Odongo, Communications Manager, African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), explores how collaboration can lead to a more resilient and equitable future.

Scientific innovation plays a key role in equipping Africa’s smallholder farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. But before African researchers can develop the solutions and innovations that farmers need, they must first be scientists of uncompromising quality.

Supporting African agricultural scientists, particularly women, to develop their research skills is essential, not only for African food security but also for global food security. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to a quarter of the world’s arable land but to date, produces just 10 per cent of its agricultural output, leaving an enormous source of potential untapped. Continue reading →

Closing the Adaptation Gap: Harnessing the power of possibilities

Leanne Zeppenfeldt, Knowledge & Partnerships Officer and Bruce Campbell, Chief Innovation Strategist at Clim-Eat discuss how Earth Overshoot Day highlights the need to not only mitigate climate change but adapt to its effects.

By July 28th – Earth Overshoot Day – humans will have used more ecological resources and services this year than what our planet can regenerate.

The rate at which we are emitting greenhouse gases and using our clean water, healthy soil, oil reserves, and carbon-storing forests exceeds the Earth’s capacity. Despite the important role it plays to our lives and livelihoods, agriculture is also one of the largest drivers of planetary overshoot, and mitigation action to reduce our natural resource use and emissions is essential to #MoveTheDate of Earth Overshoot Day in the coming years.  Continue reading →

Food Security High on G7 Agenda as Impacts from Climate, COVID-19 and Conflict Grow

G7 Leaders meet in Germany, 26-28 June.

Leaders gathered at the G7 Summit from 26 to 28 June in Germany, where food security was high on the agenda. The G7 Leaders said they “will spare no effort to increase global food and nutrition security and to protect the most vulnerable, whom the food crisis threatens to hit the hardest.”  Continue reading →

Solutions to Climate Change’s Impact on Soil Health

Micael Beun and Wilson Leonardo, IFDC project leads in Burundi and Mozambique, outline on-the-ground solutions for helping African smallholders adapt to climate change and improve soil health.

As climate change threatens agriculture and food systems around the world, its effects reach down to the ground beneath our feet. Soil health across Central and Southern Africa could suffer greatly from the increasing number of extreme climatic events – as sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Continue reading →

Seed Giants Must Collaborate or Be Dwarfed By Threat of Climate Change

Matthew Reynolds, Jeffrey L. Rosichan and Leon Broers write that failure to collaborate will ultimately result in unsustainable food systems, which not only renders seed companies obsolete but threatens a prerequisite of civilization: food security.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vast inequalities when it comes to food security. But there is an even larger and more concerning crisis waiting for us: global food shortages caused by climate change.

Nobody knows when or how hard it will hit, but we inch closer each year with new temperature records, the spread of pests, and emerging crop diseases. We are already seeing the beginning of this future crisis. Continue reading →