Climate Change and Local Farming Conditions

PCA’s experience illustrates the importance of understanding local growing conditions, something that is becoming more challenging in many parts of Africa as shifting—and often less predictable—weather  patterns mean many time-tested farming techniques are no longer applicable.

Instead, and in the face of more erratic rainfall, longer dry spells, and disruptive weather events like floods, droughts, and cyclones, Africa’s farmers and agribusinesses must quickly adapt to maintain or increase their production in a sector where just one failed crop can mean disaster.

The stakes are high. Already in Africa, an estimated 140 million people face acute food insecurity. If the size of Africa’s harvests is clipped by climate change, that number could grow even higher.

“Increasing temperature and weather variability results in more invasive crops, pests, and extreme weather events, and will also increase input costs,” says Yosuke Kotsuji, IFC Regional Industry Manager co-heading Africa Agribusiness. “These challenges are already affecting farmers’ productivity and yields, so thinking about climate is a key driver to sustaining the business.”

Training Farmers on Climate-Smart Techniques

In response to these challenges, development finance institutions, non-profit organizations, investors, and other stakeholders are helping Africa’s farmers and large agribusinesses adapt and modernize their approaches.

Take AgDevCo, for example, an impact investment organization supporting commercial agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.

Alongside the company’s current agri-investment portfolio of $280 million spanning nine African countries, it helps fund training for smallholder farmers on climate-smart farming techniques.

In Sierra Leone, AgDevCo partnered with cocoa exporter Tradin SL to train 36,000 small-scale farmers on agricultural practices for climate resilience. This includes the use of organic compost, which sequesters carbon and promotes better soil structure, enabling greater water and nutrient retention. It’s a simple practice that AgDevCo describes as “climate change adaptation and mitigation in one.”  

Commenting about the project, Chris Isaac, AgDevCo’s chief investment officer said, “Climate resilience means poverty reduction. We need to get farmers technical support for better agricultural techniques. The private sector can be a highly effective mechanism for delivering that support — responsible companies whose own financial performance depends on improving the yields and quality of small-scale suppliers in a sustainable way.”

IFC is incorporating climate-smart agricultural techniques into the agri-sector projects it supports.

Overcoming Soil Erosion and Improving Soil Fertility

In Côte d’Ivoire, IFC is working with cotton producer Compagnie Ivoirienne pour le Développement des Textiles (CIDT) to help smallholder cotton and crop farmers in adopting techniques designed to improve soil fertility and manage soil erosion in the face of changing climate patterns.

Through the program, which is supported by the Private Sector Window of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), more than 2,800 farmers have adopted improved practices to date – outstripping the project target of 2,435.

“We are using local inputs such as cow dung to increase the organic make-up of the soil, which reduces evaporation and increases the soil’s water retention,” says Traoré Soleymane, a lead trainer on the program. “We also teach the farmers to build a simple construction over the eroded land to reduce the flow of water so it stays in the soil.”

For Soro Wanzeliwe, who farms cotton, rice, and maize in the village of Sirikikaha, the training has helped her better understand the importance of climate resilience—and increase her production and earnings.

Her crop yield, which fell by about 20 percent due to fluctuating rainfall, eroded land, and the increase of pests which flourish in the longer dry season, has now risen again thanks to the erosion management techniques she has learned. This past season, she harvested 2,6 tons of rice; 1,9 tons of maize and 3,5 tons of cotton – representing a yield increase of about 40 percent from before she received the training.   

“The training has made a huge difference,” she says. “I used to take loans to buy fertilizer for my soil every year, but now that I have learned how to make compost, the soil quality on my land is better, the soil stays moist for longer and I don’t have to spend money buying fertilizer.”