How climate change is weighing down farmers

It is no longer in doubt that climate change is already upon us. The temperatures are rising and the globe is heating up. “The earth’s average surface temperature has warmed between 0.3 and 0.6 Celsius in the past 100 years. It may rise by two degrees in the next 100 years if we continue producing greenhouse gases at the present rate,” says a PANOS publication (www.panos.org.uk).

We are experiencing extreme weather events, including unpredictable weather conditions, long droughts, heavy rainstorms, and devastating floods that have washed away bridges and buildings. As the temperatures rise, it is getting harder for some plants to grow, including species of valuable fodder grass.

Rising temperatures

There is also a gradual eruption of pests whose origins are not clearly understood and for which there is no known chemical solution.

The rising temperatures are also said to facilitate the spread of some animal diseases as parasites formerly known to naturally exist only in warm regions migrate to originally cold zones now heated up by the risen temperatures. This is the big farming challenge that we face today, resulting in low food production rates against a rapidly increasing population.

The uncontrolled population rise has led to people cutting down forests and invading wetlands to settle and grow food.

Implications of agriculture

Yet forests are needed to absorb carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas, and the wetlands are crucial water resources needed for climate change mitigation. PANOS further warns that the steady warming of the earth’s surface temperatures has enormous implications for agricultural productivity and food security.

“Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that even a small increase in temperature will mean a decrease in agricultural production in many developing countries, with sub-Saharan Africa the most vulnerable,” it says in a publication titled: ‘Food for all – Can hunger be halved?’

According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 89 percent of the population in Uganda is food secure. “This population still has normal access to food from own production and in the market following average harvests from first harvest 2014,” says a FAO document titled: ‘Uganda at a Glance’ (www.fao.org). “Food prices in the market are affordable. They have acceptable food consumption scores; can afford at least three meals per day of a diversified diet.”

FAO is also known to work with the National Agricultural Research Organisation (Naro) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (Maaif) in various ways to promote the multiplication and diffusion of quick-maturing, drought-tolerant, disease-free seeds, and vegetative propagated planting materials to improve farm yields.

Unpredictable rainfall patterns

However, this position could change because it has to be borne in mind that Uganda’s farming is mainly rain-dependent. Water is perhaps the most important resource for agricultural production yet the unpredictable rainfall patterns, rapid destruction of wetlands, and cutting down of natural forests don’t help to preserve the resource. 

The new climate change conditions tend to provide too much rain in some months and too little of it in other months. Sometimes we suffer heavy rainstorms and floods, other times we experience long spells of extremely dry weather.

In addition to water stress and flood challenges, scientists have observed the arrival of new crop pests that appear set to destroy our main food crops --- cassava, maize, banana, Irish potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Coffee and cotton, traditionally known as cash crops, are also under attack by recently arrived pests.

The scientists believe that the new pests can most effectively be overcome through the use of biotechnology. Besides reducing disease and vulnerability to drought the same technology can also be used to increase crop yields and to improve nutrition to address the big food demand for our ever-increasing population. 

It is further believed that the technology can significantly reduce dependency on pesticide application on food crops. In a document produced by the Uganda Biotechnology and Biosafety Consortium (UBBC), the scientists are however quick to state that the technology should also be used along with good agronomical practices like fertiliser application, and irrigation, as well as sustaining conventional breeding.

Agro-chemicals

Dr Peter Wasswa, senior lecturer at the department of agricultural production, Makerere University, believes that too many of our farmers, due to lack of proper guidance, don’t use agro-chemicals properly, which is a big health risk to the food consumers and a danger to the environment and biodiversity.

“The rainwater polluted with the chemicals ends up in swamps where it poisons living organisms,” he says. 

Dr Wasswa believes that if farmers grew crops that are modified to resist pests and diseases, there would not be any need for them to use pesticides which are poisonous and a big public health risk.

He is disappointed that up to now Uganda does not have a law to regulate biotechnology usage despite the many successes that Uganda has achieved in developing high-yielding, disease resistant, and drought-tolerant crop varieties through biotechnology in its agricultural research institutes and universities. Some of the research breakthroughs have been ignored by our policy makers.

The slow progress or the apparent refusal to pass the biosafety Bill in Uganda is a big hindrance to the adoption of biotech crops. Many other developing countries in Africa and overseas including Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Sudan, Egypt, India, Brazil and a whole range of others are already growing biotech crops.

According to Uganda Biosciences In- formation Centre (UBIC), maize is now under attack by the maize stem bor/er, which accounts for 30 percent yield loss. Drought accounts for an estimated loss of $19.4 million. Some 86 percent of farmers grow maize. Yet in Uganda, the total economic benefit of adopting drought-tolerant and insect-resistant maize is estimated to be $25.4 million. Farmer's average yield is 2.7 tonnes per hectare compared with biotechnolo- gy-produced maize estimated yields of nine tonnes per hectare.

In 2015 demand for Irish potatoes was up to 1,000,000 metric tonnes. The crop is grown by more than 300,000 smallholder farmers, producing a total of 800,000 tonnes on 112,000 hectares.

Late blight of potatoes is one of the most devastating diseases, causing up to 60 percent yield loss. Uganda loses up to $128 million annually due to late blight. Breeders have identified biotechnology as a feasible option for developing resistance to late blight. Scientists have developed late blight-resistant Irish potatoes, but due to lack of a regulatory law, farmers cannot be given the disease-resistant potato variety to grow.

Uganda is also the said to be the leading producer of both sweet potatoes and bananas in Africa. But the crops are under attack by sweet potato weevils and banana bacterial wilt disease,
respectively, which can be overcome by adopting biotechnology researched varieties. But since the country has not signed the Biotechnology and Biosafety Bill, the farmers continue to struggle to buy pesticides and other prevention practices.

The slow pace of our acceptance of science and innovation in farming is bound to slow down agricultural production in today’s times of climate change.