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Africa: link between crop failure and climate change often missed
Climate change has a profound effect on food security in Africa, as increasing temperatures and shifting rain patterns reduce access to food across the continent.
This transpired at a conference on global warming and climate change that started in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 21 and ends today.
The discussion was organised by South Africa’s Fynbos Foundation, which aims to realise investment in the media, publishing, arts and culture sectors, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in the United States.
The relationship between climate change and food security is complex. Many factors influence food security, which means that often ‘‘the link is not even made between failed crops and changing weather patterns,’’ Dr Gina Ziervogel, senior researcher at the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town, told the conference.
Over the past decade Ziervogel has conducted extensive research on people and the environment in southern Africa.
Climate change affects African food systems in the broadest sense of the word: ‘‘It affects the availability of, access to and utilisation of food,’’ she explained.
‘‘Changing weather patterns or extreme weather events, such as floods or droughts, can have negative consequences for agricultural production. As a result people have less access to food, which forces them to buy food products. This affects their financial situation.
‘‘It also influences their health as people often buy cheaper food which is frequently less nutritious. Especially for those who need a nutritious diet -- the chronically ill, for instance -- this poses a problem,’’ Ziervogel indicated.
Increasing temperatures and the change in precipitation and frequency of extreme weather spells also threaten African food systems, Ziervogel continued.
Changes in precipitation ‘‘are not merely about increasing or decreasing rainfall. Rainy seasons that begin later or earlier than normal or sudden rain spells hitting a region when it is supposed to be dry, have a greater impact on crops failing than a wetter rainy season that starts on time’’.
Another scenario where the effects of climate change on the vulnerability of food systems become visible is where arable land is lost. This happens as a result of declining ground water levels and rising sea levels. It can lead to aridity of the soil or increasing levels of saline.
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So instead of governments dealing with climate change, they would rather give multi nationals free reign over the food supplies of their country to peddle GM foods as if that is the answer. GM foods is then not the answer to the food crisis in Africa. Dealing with and adapting to climate change is. Conservation of water is. More efficient agricultural methods is. Dealing with lack of access to food by dealing with corrupt governments is. Educating and empowering people is. Climate change has a profound effect on food security in Africa, as increasing temperatures and shifting rain patterns reduce access t... more -
Destroying African Agriculture
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.
Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets. .
African agriculture is a case study of how doctrinaire economics serving corporate interests can destroy a whole continent’s productive base.
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So this so called "secret" report by the World bank stating that "biofuels" are to blame for the world food shortage is in part propaganda to cover up their own participation in it. It is not 'biofuel' production in total that has caused it, but 'ethanol' production and mostly subsidized imports brought about by the destabilization of local economies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that are raising prices. Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to bi... more -
Trapped Somali Populations Need Immediate Life-Saving Assistance/Doctors Without B...
The people of Somalia are currently facing a massive humanitarian crisis with unmet critical medical needs. In May alone, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams working in the Mogadishu suburbs of Hawa Abdi and Afgooye treated more than 2,500 children suffering from acute malnutrition, with admissions to MSF nutritional programs doubling in April and doubling again in May. Malnutrition rates have exceeded emergency thresholds for a year. The number of new cases is drastically increasing while external assistance is dwindling in quality and quantity due to high insecurity and increased targeting of humanitarian workers. Somalis attempting to flee the violence have few options for escape, as the main border crossings are closed.
“Somalia is no longer on the verge of a catastrophe, the disaster is happening now,” said Bruno Jochum, MSF director of operations in Geneva. “Last week alone, over 500 severely malnourished children were admitted to our nutritional programs. One out of six of these children needed to be hospitalized due to medical complications. If this trend continues, malnutrition may soon affect more of the general population such as children over five-years-old and vulnerable adults. The situation is tragic and we are unable to provide the aid necessary to prevent further deterioration of the situation.”
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And governments of the world continue to use their force in these regions to gain control over resources while the people continue to die. The people of Somalia are currently facing a massive humanitarian crisis with unmet critical medical needs. In May alone, Doctors With... more -
Solar power takes off in Kenya
The expense and unreliability of electricity supply is fuelling East African interest in solar energy.
In rural Kenya, where there is no electricity, solar systems have proven popular with small-scale businesses and farms, where it is used to power water pumps and lighting.
Solar energy is cheap compared to electricity because, once the necessary equipment has been installed, there is no additional monthly charge.
Additionally solar systems require little maintenance, owing to the lack of moving parts, and solar energy offers "a stable grid quality output without power fluctuations".
Private company Solar World East Africa is set to launch "solar kits" that provide enough power for lighting, charging a mobile phone and operating an FM radio. These packs will cost 3,000 Kenyan shillings each (around US$47).
Another company, Jua Moto Systems, is planning to introduce solar-powered cookers and water heating systems.
But despite this growing interest, "solar power has not been as thoroughly explored as hydroelectric and geothermal power in Kenya … the use of wind and solar energy has remained low, just like in the rest of Africa".
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Solar power is peace.
Solar power is hope.
Solar power is self sufficiency. The expense and unreliability of electricity supply is fuelling East African interest in solar energy. ... more -
Africa's Congo Basin forest aided by satellite tree felling survey
A project to map every place in the world's second-largest tropical forest where trees have been cut down will be announced today.
A purpose-built camera will be sent into space to record every clearing and logger's track in the Congo Basin in Africa to determine how much of the forest is left.
The camera will be fixed to a satellite and should be operational by the end of 2010 as part of an initiative to save the Central African tropical forest from being chopped down.
At twice the size of France, the Congo Basin forest is exceeded in extent only by the Amazon but it is estimated that loggers, many of them illegal, destroy an area the size of 25,000 football pitches every week.
Forests absorb huge quantities of carbon but it is released when they are cut down and their preservation is regarded as one of the biggest challenges by those trying to slow the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.
Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, will announce extra funding to save the forest today when he explains the camera project. It will record the forest in more detail than before. A project to map every place in the world's second-largest tropical forest where trees have been cut down will be announced today... more -
Africa's deforestation twice world rate
Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world rate and the continent's few glaciers are shrinking fast, according to a U.N. atlas on Tuesday.
Satellite pictures, often taken three decades apart, showed expanding cities, pollution, deforestation and climate change were damaging the African environment despite glimmers of improvement in some areas.
"Africa is losing more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of forest every year -- twice the world's average deforestation rate," according to a statement by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) about the 400-page atlas, prepared for a meeting of African environment ministers in Johannesburg.
Four million hectares is roughly the size of Switzerland or slightly bigger than the U.S. state of Maryland.
Photographs showed recent scars in forests in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Nigeria and Rwanda. It said forest loss was a major concern in 35 countries in Africa.
And it showed that environmental change extended beyond the well-known shrinking of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa's highest peak at 5,895 meters (19,340 ft), or the drying up of Lake Chad.
On the Ugandan border with Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, glaciers on the Rwenzori Mountains where the highest peak is 5,109 meters shrank by half between 1987 and 2003, it said.
But the atlas said there were signs of hope.
"There are many places across Africa where people have taken action -- where there are more trees than 30 years ago, where wetlands have sprung back and where land degradation has been countered," Steiner said.
Among examples, the report showed that action to prevent over-grazing had helped a national park in south-eastern Tunisia. A project to expand wetlands in Mauritania was also helping to control flooding and improve livelihoods. Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world rate and the continent's few glaciers are shrinking fast, according to a U.N... more -
Nature laid waste: The destruction of Africa
The massive scale of environmental devastation across the continent has been fully revealed for the first time in an atlas compiled by UN geographers. Michael McCarthy reports
It was long shrouded in mystery, called "the Dark Continent" by Europeans in awe of its massive size and impenetrable depths. Then its wondrous natural riches were revealed to the world. Now a third image of Africa and its environment is being laid before us – one of destruction on a vast and disturbing scale.
Using "before and after" satellite photos, taken in all 53 countries, UN geographers have constructed an African atlas of environmental change over the past four decades – the vast majority of it for the worse.
In nearly 400 pages of dramatic pictures, disappearing forests, shrinking lakes, vanishing glaciers and degraded landscapes are brought together for the first time, providing a deeply disturbing portfolio of devastation.
The atlas, compiled by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the request of African environment ministers, and launched yesterday simultaneously in Johannesburg and London, underlines how extensively development choices, population growth, regional conflicts and climate change are impacting on the natural world and the nature-based assets of the continent.
The satellite photos, some of them spanning a 35-year period, offer striking snapshots of environmental transformation in every country.
The purpose of the atlas is to inspire African governments to improve their records as environmental custodians, and as such, its language and tone are studiously neutral, generally referring to environmental "change" rather than destruction. But although there are some examples given of change for the better, the vast majority of the case studies are of large-scale environmental degradation, and the atlas compilers freely accept that this represents the true picture.
They write of "the swell of grey-coloured cities over a once-green countryside; protected areas shrinking as farms encroach upon their boundaries; the tracks of road networks through forests; pollutants that drift over borders of neighbouring countries; the erosion of deltas; refugee settlements scattered across the continent causing further pressure on the environment; and shrinking mountain glaciers."
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This is a human tragedy. The massive scale of environmental devastation across the continent has been fully revealed for the first time in an atlas compiled by... more
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