Climate change impacts on small scale farmers

This Day Live: Climate change is exacting a heavy price on worldwide agricultural production and smallholder farmers in developing countries are one of the most vulnerable groups, since the ecosystems they depend upon to grow food are at risk, and many lack the adaptive capacities to cope with more extreme weather events, the International Fund for Agricultural Development IFAD has said.

The international agriculture organisation also noted that smallholder farmers were most in need of an ambitious deal on mitigating and adapting to climate change at the 19th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

According to IFAD, such a deal would attempt to stabilise average temperature increases at no more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels and commit additional finance for climate-change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. The climate negotiations, also known as COP19, are taking place November 11-22 in Warsaw, Poland.

New scientific evidence from the from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that by the end of this century, smallholder farmers are likely to be threatened with: An increase in intensity and duration of heat waves and drought in dryland regions, putting more strain on agricultural productivity and water security, and an increase in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall over many land areas.

Others include increases in more severe storms and global tropical cyclone activity, mostly in the North Pacific, but also in the North Atlantic and South Indian Basins; sea level rise between 26 and 82 centimetres, causing salinity intrusion and threatening agricultural lands and fresh water supplies in coastal regions....

USAID photo of a poultry farm in Ethiopia

African Development Bank approves US$ 96 million loan and grant to Kenya for Thwake Multi-Purpose Water Development Program

EIN News via PR Newswire Africa: The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) approved on Wednesday, 30 October 2013 in Tunis, a US$ 94.37 million (UA 61.68 million) ADF loan and US$ 1.85 million (UA 1.21 million) ADF grant to the Government of Kenya to finance phase one of the Thwake Multi-purpose Water Development Program (TMWDP).

The objective of the project is to increase water storage for rural and urban human consumption, for irrigation and livestock and for hydropower, with a principal focus on the semi-arid counties of Kitui and Makueni, and the ICT city of Konza.

The Thwake Multi-purpose Water Development Program (TMWDP) comprises a multi-purpose dam for water supply, hydropower generation and irrigation development. It will also provide regulation of flows on Athi River downstream of the dam for flood and drought mitigation.

It targets broad improvement in productivity and livelihoods over a ten-year period (2013-2023). The Program recognizes the symbiotic relationship between Kenya's water secure and water insecure regions by spanning both the lower and higher levels of the economy to ensure that national economic growth is both inclusive and sustainable....

Zimbabwe's climate change policies need an urban focus

IRIN: In spite of the political and financial turmoil that Zimbabwe faces, the country seems to be on the right track in adopting strategies to address the effects of climate change. But these strategies tend to have a strong rural bias, overlooking the fact that almost half of the country now lives in urban areas, according to a joint review of the country's climate change response by a think tank and leading NGO.

Zimbabwe, like many other African countries, has begun to develop a national framework to respond to climate change, including efforts to identify authorities to process donor funds for mitigating and adapting to climate change, said one of the authors of the review, Shepard Zvigadza of ZERO Regional Environment Organization. 

However, as in most other African countries, policymakers and researchers "ignore longstanding urbanization trends and continue to overstate the proportion of Zimbabwe's population living in rural areas."

The ruling ZANU-PF party, which has dominated politics in Zimbabwe for decades, has been accused of appeasing their voters, who are largely rural, by developing policies that cater to them while disregarding urban residents.

Taking into account UN statistics, the authors suggested that almost 38 percent of Zimbabwe's population lives in urban areas, but the number could be as high as 50 percent if national assessments are considered....

Eastgate shopping mall in Harare, Zimbabwe, shot by Gary Bembridge, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Rural demand for better water driving mobile water treatment growth in Asia Pacific

Space Daily via SPX: Rapid urbanization in the Asia Pacific [region] is prompting the rural population to intensify its demands for a better quality of life, which includes access to cleaner and purer water. This, coupled with demand for high quality water from water-intensive industries, makes a robust case for mobile water treatment in the region.

New analysis from Frost and Sullivan, Asia-Pacific Mobile Water Treatment Market, finds that the market earned revenues of $48.2 million in 2011 and is expected to reach $298.3 million by 2017. As the costs of addressing the water needs are high, mobile water treatment systems are fast emerging as the most viable option in countries with budgetary constraints.

Water quality and type varies from location to location, depending on the source and geography, and this has a direct impact on costs. To keep their systems affordable, the biggest players are leveraging their strengths in different technologies to put together the best combination of technologies, which can treat a vast variance of water influents.

"Mobile systems' ease of transport and quality of output are popularizing them at the consumer level; while the increase in investments and the number of water-intensive industries is driving the market at the commercial and industrial level," said Frost and Sullivan Research Associate Prashanth Kay....

An irrigation well in Bhaun, Pakistan, shot by Syed Usman Ali, public domain

For Ecuadorian village, a struggle to adapt to changing climate

Annika Mcginnis in the Kansas City Star via McClatchy:  Frosts aren't on time for the 960 people living in [Ayaloma, a] tiny, remote village, hidden on a chilly, windswept mountain ridge in South America. A minor problem? Maybe for some. But in the Andean community, 8,800 feet above sea level, frosts - and their impact on crop cycles - are kind of a big deal.

In this agricultural community, crops are planted during the full moon, a tradition meant to help ensure a full harvest. But these days, the harvests aren't as full. Village residents say it's the mark of climate change descending upon the Ayaloman people.

"In Ecuador, we've really experienced a sudden change in our climate," said Ana Loja, a professor at the University of Cuenca, in the Andes of southern Ecuador. "We cannot say, 'Maybe this is not happening,' but I think everyone is aware it is a real problem."

...In Latin America and the Caribbean, development experts say climate change is slowly but surely showing its effects. By 2050, the world's expected temperature rise of about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit will cost the region more than $100 billion annually, according to a recent report by the Inter-American Development Bank, which finances research and development efforts in the region.

Because of its location and dependence on natural resources, Latin America is especially vulnerable to climatic effects, the report said. By 2050, it predicted widespread flooding and coastal damage; the loss of Andean glaciers, Amazon rainforest and much of the Caribbean's coral region; a $32 billion to $54 billion annual decrease in agricultural exports; and increased tropical diseases and severe weather...

A vicuna near the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador, a phenomenal shot by Dabit100 / David Torres Costales@DavoTC, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Climate could kill you, Outback towns are told

Kathy Marks in the Independent (UK): Climate change could transform the Australian outback, wiping dozens of small towns off the map, according to a new report commissioned by the federal government.

With many rural towns struggling to survive, climate change – expected to make much of inland Australia hotter and drier – could be the final straw, warns the report by the government's National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

Not only will the changes affect quality of life, with summer temperatures becoming insufferable, but they could make agriculture a marginal activity, thanks to more frequent and prolonged droughts.

The report's author, Andrew Beer, of the University of Adelaide's Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning, believes that entire towns could be depopulated unless locals take decisive steps. "If communities recognise climate change is on their doorstep and take action, they can adapt," he said. "The places that adapt and try to adapt will survive. The places that don't will simply disappear."

In the next 20 years, "you could easily see the loss of 10 per cent [of outback towns]", Professor Beer told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio, with another 10 per cent disappearing by 2050....

An aerial view of Alice Springs, from Tourism NT