COMESA aiding climate smart agriculture

Climate change has affected almost everyone
VIOLET MENGO – Lusaka
LILLIAN Malambo, 36, is an HIV- positive woman in Zambia’s Southern Province. She tested positive to the virus that causes AIDS during her last pregnancy in 2010.
Ms Malambo’s HIV positive status meant that she had to make changes to her lifestyle and this included improving her nutrition. But she could not manage to do so due to lack of funds. She as such ventured into agriculture with the intention of growing enough crops for consumption and the surplus for sale.
“I did venture into farming but my yields were usually low. Nature was mostly to blame. Most times, the rains were erratic and sometimes we experienced drought. And this had an impact on my health as well as providing for my family’s dietary needs,” Ms Malambo said.
Fortunately for her, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), through the Golden Valley Agricultural Trust (GART), has a programme specifically targeted at farmers like Ms Malambo. The programme trains farmers in climate smart agriculture.
Climate smart agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, is the integration of three dimensions of sustainable development.
These are: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes, adapting and building resilience to climate change as well as reducing or removing greenhouse gas emissions.
It is an approach to developing the technical, policy and investment conditions aimed at achieving sustainable agricultural development for enhanced food security.
“I was privileged to be part of the team of farmers that received training from GART in 2013 in Monze on climate smart agriculture. The training changed my life and how I do my farming now,” Ms Malambo said.
She said the training was the turning point in her life and that of the family in terms of food security and provision of school requirements for her children.
Climate smart agriculture, Ms Malambo said, does not affect the environment because it is dependent on digging the basins once the land is cleared.
“There is no burning of residue, all we do is slash, prepare the basin and plant while ensuring soil fertility,” she said.
Today, Ms Malambo produces maize for consumption and sale. She also rears chickens. This has helped enhance her family’s nutritional status.
“With the support of GART, today I can support my children in school and also ensure that they have nutritious food,” she said.
Her aim is to buy cows and venture into other income- generating activities.
“I am so happy that the [COMESA] programme has empowered and also given me reason to still continue living,” she said.
Ms Malambo is one of the many people who have benefited from climate smart agriculture, the programme that has been helping vulnerable communities in Zambia engage in productive agricultural ventures.
With the support of COMESA, rural communities are slowly fighting poverty in their households and becoming food secure.
Climate change has affected almost everyone and has had a huge negative impact on farming communities in Africa in general and East and Southern Africa in particular where over 80 percent of people depend on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihood.
These climate change challenges have adversely impacted on many rural communities, especially children and women like Ms Malambo.
It is against this backgro   und that COMESA embarked on the implementation of the climate change adaptation initiative and identified climate smart agriculture as one of the major areas of focus in addressing the effects of climate change.
COMESA Secretary General Sindiso Ngwenya says due to global warming caused by the depletion of the ozone layer, the world is experiencing dramatic weather changes resulting in unexpected floods and drought.
“As a result of the climatic changes being experienced, climate smart agriculture has been proved to be one of the best ways of withstanding the changes,” Mr Ngwenya said.
He said when farmers practise climate smart agriculture, the yield is four to five times more than the produce from traditional farming practices.
The innovation, which is being supported by the Norwegian government, European Union and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), has in the past few years implemented aggressive adaptation and mitigation programmes in many countries in East and Southern Africa.
To ensure that adaptation programmes benefits reach the most vulnerable at the local level, COMESA has gone into partnerships with relevant government ministries, regional, local NGOs and international organisations.
In Zambia, Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana, COMESA works with organisations with facilities on the ground such as GART to promote climate smart agriculture.
GART director Steven Muliokela says climate change scenarios are real as has been seen in the changes in frequency, onset of the rain and its quantity.
He says GART is working in four countries that are implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation programmes.
“We need to find a way of managing climatic changes because despite these changes, people’s livelihoods have not changed. Adaptation is an immediate activity allowing people to cope with the changes as a result of climate change,” Dr Mulyokela says.
Under the GART programme, COMESA has offered support to rural communities such as those in Monze where Ms Malambo lives.
The support to communities in the COMESA region is helping eradicate extreme poverty and hunger in line with the Millennium Development Goals.
If nothing is done to mitigate the effects of climate change, famine and disease can be at their worst.
And this is the reason why COMESA has realised the need to have climate smart agriculture practices imparted in rural communities which are the most vulnerable.