Climate change is the defining agricultural challenge across the Sahel and East African highlands. Rainfall variability has increased, average temperatures are 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels across sub-Saharan Africa, and extreme weather events including droughts and floods have become more frequent and severe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a 2-6 percent annual decline in African crop yields by 2050 without adaptation investment. Agricultural productivity and food security hang on whether farmers can access and adopt climate-smart technologies.
Key Technologies
Drought-tolerant maize varieties developed by CIMMYT and distributed through national seed systems have been adopted by over 5 million smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, with yield advantages of 20-30 percent in stress years. IFAD's ASAP programme has invested $360 million in climate-smart agriculture across 40 countries. Digital weather and agronomy advisory services from Apollo Agriculture, Twiga Foods, and OCP Africa's FertileGroGo are reaching farmers via mobile phone. Agribusinesses and development finance institutions investing in African climate adaptation can find project contacts on intra-africa.com.
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