Measurement of the likely magnitude of the economic impact of climate change on African agriculture has been a challenge. Using data from a survey of more than 9,000 farmers across 11 African countries, a cross-sectional approach estimates how farm net revenues are affected by climate change compared with current mean temperature. Revenues fall with warming for dryland crops (temperature elasticity of −1.9) and livestock (−5.4), whereas revenues rise for irrigated crops (elasticity of 0.5), which are located in relatively cool parts of Africa and are buffered by irrigation from the effects of warming. At first, warming has little net aggregate effect as the gains for irrigated crops offset the losses for dryland crops and livestock. Warming, however, will likely reduce dryland farm income immedia-tely. The final effects will also depend on changes in precipitation, because revenues from all farm types increase with precipitation. Because irrigated farms are less sensitive to climate, where water is available, irrigation is a practical adaptation to climate change in Africa.

Aggarwal, P. K., A. Jarvis, B. M. Campbell, R. B. Zougmoré, A. Khatri-Chhetri, S. J. Vermeulen, A. Loboguerrero, L. S. Sebastian, J. Kinyangi, O. Bonilla-Findji, M. Radeny, J. Recha, D. Martinez-Baron, J. Ramirez-Villegas, S. Huyer, P. Thornton, E. Wollenberg, J. Hansen, P. Alvarez-Toro, A. Aguilar-Ariza, D. Arango-Londoño, V. Patiño-Bravo, O. Rivera, M. Ouedraogo and B. Tan Yen. 2018. The climate-smart village approach: framework of an integrative strategy for scaling up adaptation options in agriculture. Ecology and Society 23(1):14. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09844-230114

Many projections of the impact of climate change on the crop, livestock and fishery production sectors of African agriculture are reported in the literature. However, they may be arguably too general to understand the magnitude of impact and to inform adaptation strategies and policy development efforts that are tailored to promoting climate-smart agriculture in the West African region alone. This paper was synthesized from several scholarly literature and aimed at providing up-to-date information on climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, policies and institutional mechanisms that each agriculture subsector had put in place in dealing with climate change and its related issues in West Africa. For each subsector (crop, fishery and livestock), the current status, climate change impacts, mitigation and adaption strategies have been analyzed. In addition, we reviewed recent policy initiatives in the region that foster the development and adoption of climate-smart agricultural options to improve resilience of farming systems and livelihoods of smallholder farmers to climate change risks. From community to national and regional levels, various strategies and policies are also being taken to guide actions and investment for climate-smart agriculture in West Africa.

The gender perspective of climate information use is not well studied although necessary for developing gender-responsive climate information services (CIS). This study determined how CIS use by men and women farmers may be influenced by their perceptions about climate change (CC), farm activities, and demography. The study was carried out at the Lawra-Jirapa Districts of the Upper West Region of Ghana where downscaled seasonal forecast information through mobile phone technologies (Esoko platform) had been disseminated to farmers since 2011. Data was collected from semi-structured questionnaire interviews involving 900 farmers (50.2% women and 49.8% men) and four 20-member focus group discussions. The study confirmed 85.2% (representing 767) farmers were aware of climate change and its implications for their agriculture and other livelihood activities. Men and women had similar perceptions about climate change, perceived by the majority as increased strong winds, higher temperatures, increased frequency of drought, increased rainfall variability and increased flooding. Among other factors, it was evident that use of CIS may be influenced by gender. Men were found to be particularly responsive in adopting CIS use for climate risk mitigation. This was attributed to their ability to easily access and use telephone devices compared with women. The study revealed that unlike women, men were able to access more financial resources and had control of household income which allowed them to purchase mobile phones. Women generally accessed their husbands’ mobile phones. Despite differences in access to CIS, the study showed both men and women found it beneficial for strategic farm decision-making such as when to begin land preparation, when to plant, and which crop to select. In addition, both men and women were found to face similar constrains (such as poor network connectivity and limited of training), to accessing and using CIS through the Esoko platform. The study recommends the need to explore different CIS dissemination channels and design CIS that meet gender-specific needs.

In the literature, a lot of information is available about climate change perceptions and impacts in sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is limited attention in the region to emerging initiatives, technologies and policies that are tailored to building the adaptive capacity of agricultural systems to climate change and variability. In this paper, we discuss the prospects for climate-smart agriculture technologies and enabling policies in dealing with climate change and variability at different sub-regional levels of sub-Saharan Africa to sustain farm productivity and livelihoods of agrarian communities. The review provides substantial information suggesting that without appropriate interventions, climate change and variability will affect agricultural yields, food security and add to the presently unaceptable levels of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Although some of them were already existing, the past decades have seen the development and promotion of climate-smart agriculture innovations such as the use of high yielding drought tolerant crop varieties, climate information services, agricultural insurance, agroforestry, water harvesting techniques, integrated soil fertility management practices, etc. In the context of climate change, this appears as a stepping up approach to sustainably improving farm productivity, rural livelihoods and adaptive capacity of farmers and production systems while contributing to mitigation. The development of regional, sub-regional and national climate change policies and plans targeted at mitigating climate change and improving adaptive capacity of the African people have also been developed to enable mainstreaming of climate-smart agriculture into agricultural development plans. Financial commitments from governments and development agencies will be crucial for improving large scale adoption of climate-smart agriculture.