Erratic rainfall and increasing temperature is rapidly emerging as one of the most serious global problems affecting many sectors in the world. It is considered to be one of the most serious threats to sustainable development with adverse impact on environment, human health, food security, economic activities, natural resources and physical infrastructure. Southern Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the world, particularly because of widespread poverty, recurrent droughts, inequitable land distribution, over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture and low adaptive capacity. Yet rural farmers in southern Africa have managed to survive the vagaries of climate change over the years. This review reveals that these rural farmers can use indigenous knowledge to cope and adapt to climate change. Availability and access to scientific weather information to make cropping and other decisions at the local level remain key issues to usage of climatic data by rural farmers. On the other hand, indigenous knowledge is what rural farmers have been using but is also becoming unreliable due to climate change and variability. Integration of indigenous knowledge and scientific seasonal forecast seems to be a key possible thrust to reduce vulnerability, enhance resilience of rural farmers and increase their adaptive capacity.

Purpose: This study aimed to determine factors that increase resilience and cause smallholder farmers to adapt better to climate change and vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach: In this study, the authors used the vulnerability to resilience model and binary logit model to analyse the factors influencing household decisions to adapt. Findings: Households with increased access to climate information through extension services were likely to have better adaptation abilities. It was also shown that younger farmers were likely to adapt to climate change given their flexibility to adopt new techniques and their access and use of modern information and technology. Larger households were found to have higher probability of adapting as most adaptation strategies are labour intensive. Household’s possession of livestock and access to credit significantly enhanced adaptation. However, households with higher farm income have lesser incentives to adapt to because their current farming practices might already be optimum. Research limitations/implications: Given that most of the smallholder farmers are vulnerable, such as women-headed households and the elderly, who are labour constrained, there is need for research and development of labour saving technologies to increase resilience to climate change and vulnerability. Originality/value: These findings underscore the importance of enabling farmer access to information and better technologies which enable them to increase adaptive capacity and resilience.

Renewed interest in the nexus between sustainability and food security has led to growing discussions on the use of food sovereignty principles in agricultural practice. As a result of the transfiguration of the urban and socioeconomic landscape in the global South, urban and peri-urban agriculture has been touted as a potential response to increasing food insecurity in cities. Yet, both urban and peri-urban agriculture and food sovereignty have attracted cursory scholarship and programming in Zimbabwe due to fixation on more dominant rural and conventional agriculture. Beyond the rudimentary idea that the urban landscape is unfit for food production, literature has demonstrated that urban households have ingrained urban and peri-urban agriculture into their livelihoods. Regardless, institutional arrangements governing the practice remain ambivalent towards the practice, bringing to question the ability of households to fully exploit the benefits of the practice. This review underscores that failure to involve of all stakeholders undermines urban and peri-urban agriculture, consequently leading to heightened food insecurity and use of unsustainable practices. By delving into the political economy of food, we hope to stimulate discussion centered on food sovereignty within and urban spaces and beyond.

Climate change and variability have direct negative impacts on rural smallholder farmers. These impacts involve extreme climatic events such as excessive temperatures, prolonged droughts and floods which affect people’s livelihoods. This study was conducted in Nkomazi Local Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa. The main objective of the study was to investigate indigenous weather and climate indicators used by smallholder farmers and the role of indigenous knowledge in their farming systems. The research used qualitative methods, including focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The findings indicated that farmers observed animal behaviour, plants, atmospheric indicators and human ailments to predict weather.

The frequency of El Niño occurrences in southern Africa surpasses the norm, resulting in erratic weather patterns that significantly impact food security, particularly in Zimbabwe. The effects of these weather patterns posit that El Niño occurrences have contributed to the diminished maize yields. The objective is to give guidelines to policymakers, researchers, and agricultural stakeholders for taking proactive actions to address the immediate and lasting impacts of El Niño and enhance the resilience of the agricultural industry. This brief paper provides prospective strategies for farmers to anticipate and counteract the El Niño-influenced dry season projected for 2023/24 and beyond. The coefficient of determination R² between yield and ENSO was low; 11 of the 13 El Niño seasons had a negative detrended yield anomaly, indicating the strong association between El Nino’s effects and the reduced maize yields in Zimbabwe. The R² between the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) and rainfall (43%) and between rainfall and yield (39%) indirectly affects the association between ONI and yield. To safeguard farmers’ livelihoods and improve their preparedness for droughts in future agricultural seasons, this paper proposes a set of strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making guidelines that the agriculture industry should follow. The importance of equipping farmers with weather and climate information and guidance on drought and heat stress was underscored, encompassing strategies such as planting resilient crop varieties, choosing resilient livestock, and implementing adequate fire safety measures.