By Stella Nyangulu
Agriculture is an important sector in Zambia, contributing an average of about 19 percent to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs about three quarters of the population.
However, the current food system and the livelihood of people is facing a hard time due to the advent effects of climate change whereby calling for a strong transformation in both food production and consumption patterns in a sustainable way.
Further, strengthening climate resilience of agricultural livelihoods calls for farmers to adapt and build resilience to the increasing challenges of climate change where nutritious food is available for all.
It is against this backdrop that agricultural experts are calling for farmers to develop an efficient, competitive and sustainable agricultural sector which assures food and nutrition security, increased employment opportunities and incomes.
And one of the ways to build resiliency in agriculture is for farmers to adapt the agro ecological approach which strengthens the capacity for farmers to plan for climate risks that threaten to derail development gains, promote climate resilient agricultural production and diversification.
Agro ecology is a holistic approach that seeks to reconcile agriculture and local communities with natural processes for the common benefit of nature and livelihoods.
The farmer’s traditional knowledge combined with innovations in practices and the sustainable use of technologies is at the core of an agro ecological farming system.
Joseph Ngenda Mwitumwa from the Community Technology Development Trust says agro ecological approach is naturally designed to mitigate the effects of climate change as it is a natural way of farming.
He said that the approach is a holistic way of farming which promotes planting of trees, the use of manure and indigenous crop varieties.
“As Community Technology Development Trust, we are promoting a number of agro ecological practices and among them is promoting the utilisation of bokashi and the use of indigenous seeds because they are resilient to climate change, considering the environmental challenges caused by climate shocks,” he said.
He said indigenous seed varieties that are late maturing perform better than hybrid crops adding that indigenous seeds easily adapt to the local environment which makes them perform well compared to hybrid seeds.
He further stated that despite the high cost of fertilizer, farmers are able to produce with the utilisation of manure which is less costly when using indigenous crops.
Mr Mwitumwa however said they face challenges when implementing the agro ecological approach due to the knowledge gap when it comes to the use of manure that can help preserve other traits found in indigenous seeds.
“There is significant knowledge gap on the benefits of agroecology approaches and most farmers especially smallholder farmers are not aware of indigenous seeds which promotes diversification of farming practice,” he said.
He said diversification can help farmers to become food secure and households will have different types of sources of nutrition from different crops produced.
Mr Mwitumwa however commended government’s efforts in recognizing and improving agro-ecological practices through the introduction of the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) which seeks to promote the adoption of the approach.
“Government has changed the policy on plant variety and seeds act while breeders act is being changed and we are optimistic that these approaches will be included in the new seed loans,” Mr Mwitumwa said.
Indeed, building an effective agricultural adaptation strategy is imperative to ensure food security in a country challenged by climate change constraints.
Government and the private sector in the country should work together to adopt short and long- term response strategies to cope up with erratic climate change impacts. -NAIS