Climate smart agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa: Review of the potentials

Introduction

Climate change refers to the increase in greenhousegas emissions (GHGs) in the atmosphere causingirregularity (Abegunde et al., 2020; Akrofi-Atitianti etal., 2018; Mizik, 2021; Republic, 2016; Thierfelder etal., 2017), variability and unpredictability weatherpatterns and conditions which results into biotic (pestand diseases) and abiotic (floods and drought)stresses (Bukhari et al., 2019; Kapoor et al., 2020;Zandalinas et al., 2018). These effects likely to be"severe, pervasive, and irreversible" in sub- SaharanAfrica (SSA), agriculture productivity in SSA hasalready been negatively impacted to varied degrees(Kapoor et al., 2020). The IPCC provided a warningthat a rise in climatic variables, such as temperatureand rainfall variability, results in intensification ofnatural hazards (IPCC, 2021). The climate changehaving effects on crop productivity in the SSA, it isclearly increasing the risk of food crisis forsmallholder farmer with low-incomes (Adimassu etal., 2021; Volk et al., 2021). Various studies haveshown the vulnerability of SSA countries to climatechange in crop production particularly maize andcommon beans (Volk et al., 2021). The challenge ofSSA farming is primarily based on smallholderfarming systems where farmers produce forsubsistence, with limited or no access to improvedclimate resilient seed genotypes, improper land useand soil infertility (Imoro et al., 2021).

The role of climate-smart- agriculture (CSA)technologies in climate change adaptation of maizeand common beans production in semi-arid areas isnot fully understood (Mittal, 2016; Nkumulwa andPauline, 2021; Ogunyiola et al., 2022, 2022; Umar,2021; Zougmoré et al., 2021). There is limitedinformation on specific CSA technologies withgreatest suitability and potential to contribute tomaize and common beans production of smallholderfarmers in semi-arid areas in SSA (Dougill et al.,2021). However, the smallholder farmers have beenemploying various doable tactics to build intrinsicresilience of their farming systems (Dougill et al.,2021; Zougmoré et al., 2021). The CSA as shownresilience and adaptive to ash environment, it has thecapacity to absorb climate shocks and eventuallyadapt to changing environment (Kokwe, 2022). 

The CSA technologies focused on reducing risksthrough enhanced agricultural ecosystem's ability foradaptation, enabling farmers to meet present andfuture food needs while coping with uncertainty(Kokwe, 2022). The highly dynamic farming systemsof using CSA help smallholder farmers to bestrespond to climate change and contribute toproducing sufficient food (Musafiri et al., 2022).The CSA has been identified as an important tool thatcan be used to overcome the climate changechallenges to agricultural systems (Hussein, 2024;Kirina et al., 2022). 

The CSA assist smallholderfarmers in mitigating climate change and increasingresilience (Hussein, 2024; Ogunyiola et al., 2022) bymeans of adaptation and effectively respond to longterm climate change risks (Agarwal et al., 2022;Mizik, 2021; Zougmoré et al., 2021). According to theFAO (Akrofi-Atitianti et al., 2018; Republic, 2016),defined CSA as agricultural practices that improvesresilience, increases productivity in a sustainable way,reduces or removes greenhouse gases and boosts foodsecurity (Bhattacharyya et al., 2021; CIMMYT, 2005).The CSA technologies with a variety of integratedoptions include agro-ecological approaches,sustainable natural resource management andecosystem management that are central to climatechange adaptation (van Zonneveld et al., 2020). TheCSA strategies could contribute significantly to socialequity and local economies, especially, in SSAcountries (Azadi et al., 2021; van Zonneveld et al.,2020). A lot of interest has been shown in CSA inrecent years and a number of actors such as local nongovernment and international governmentorganizations, farmers, the private sector and theresearch community have initiated differentinterventions in CSA (Dougill et al., 2021; vanZonneveld et al., 2020).

In this review paper, the assumption made thatclimate-smart agriculture technologies have beenused in sub-Saharan African countries (Dougill etal., 2021; Kurgat et al., 2020; Zerssa et al., 2021).However, the current status of the prioritization ofclimate change in the government agenda variesfrom one country to another, that their impact hasbeen noted by smallholder farmers in variousdegrees, for example, in Tanzania, the climatesmart agriculture (Dougill et al., 2021; Kirina et al.,2022; Nyasimi et al., 2017). In some Africacountries, climate change are not prioritized as themain agenda such countries in EasternMediterranean like Algeria and Lesotho (Lange,2019). In Tanzania, climate change presents asignificant challenge; hence the country hasprioritized adaptation actions into developmentplanning (Rasmussen, 2020).