Embracing Innovations and Technology Among Ways Farmers Can Overcome Climate Change
Over the last year, an intense drought in Southern Africa - the worst to hit the region in at least 35 years - has left tens of millions of people in need of food aid. And the problem could actually get worse before it gets better. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) warns that without the means to produce enough food to feed themselves, 40 million people in Southern Africa will be struggling with some level of food insecurity by early 2017.
Unfortunately, this situation could become a preview of things to come across sub-Saharan Africa.
The build-up of greenhouse gases caused by human activity is altering weather patterns around the world. But Africa may be hit especially hard. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that a failure to limit greenhouse emissions today could cause global temperatures to increase by 2.6 to 4.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. In much of Africa, the IPCC fears that temperatures will climb even faster, rising by at least 2 degrees by 2050, with the region’s arid zones especially feeling the additional heat. IPCC experts also worry that if emissions continue to rise, average rainfall will steadily decline in Southern Africa. They further warn that weather extremes - heat, drought and flooding - all could become more common across the continent.
ICT4D