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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Farming

Rain-fed agriculture: risk or opportunity

By DOREEN NAWA
A COUPLE of weeks into this New Year, Zambian farmers have one main wish: rain. This is because their crops have not reached the harvest stage.
The rainy season normally starts beginning of November lasting at the end March or beginning April. It is the main planting season for all farmers without irrigation, with planting starting middle of November to Christmas. The main crop is maize.
However, the rain pattern in the 2012/13 rainy season has been unfavourable, posing a threat to the country’s staple crop, and consequently, to food security.
Only about two months ago, heavy rains pounded Zambia with intensity and in some places even caused flooding.
Floods swept away homes, crops and temporarily displaced hundreds of people in low altitude areas. There were even five or so deaths reported to have occurred as a result of floods in Lusaka, Southern and North western provinces.
That was between December and January. Suddenly, the rains have stopped just as farmers get down to do some work and their crops showing signs of a good harvest.
Some officials of the Metrology Department say forecasts show that there is no more serious rain expected this season. This means that the dry season has come earlier than expected. Yet the first rains in the season came late.
But deputy director in the metrology department Oversease Mwangase maintains that the country is expecting widespread rains.
“We are expecting widespread rainfall in most parts of the country,” Mr Mwangase says.
Most parts in Eastern, Southern, Northern, Western, Lusaka and Northern provinces have experienced a dry spell for close to a month.
“I am surprised that rains are gone just too soon. I remember in the past like two decades ago, rain season used to start in October. Every year we used to celebrate the Independence Day on October 24 in rains but it is no longer the case.
I wish government can come to our rescue by giving us farming inputs earlier so that we can plant by October before the rains,” says Mbangweta Munyama, a small scale farmer in Kafue’s Lukolongo area.
In Chiawa area in Chirundu, Southern province, the situation is pathetic both maize and natural vegetation is drying up because of no rainfall.
“It is clear that this year too we will need assistance (relief food) from Government. We have not had rains here in more than a month and I can say that the dry season has started early.
We had planted early but because of the Army worms we had to replant in the hope that the rains will not go early. Looking at what is happening, even the fish ban is also affected because people have resorted to fishing,” says Greyford Chuundu, a Chiawa small scale famer on the lower Zambezi.
But what does this mean to rain-fed agriculture and food security in general? Indeed Zambia agriculture is wholly dependent on rainfall and a change in the rain partner is a huge challenge to agriculture and food security in the country.
First of all, the brief rains came late, the farming inputs not delivered on time and for those that had planted before the onset of the rains, their maize grew without fertiliser as they waited for the government subsidised fertiliser.
And MMD Kasenengwa member of Parliament Victoria Kalima says climate change introduces numerous uncertainties over the livelihoods of farming communities that depend heavily on weather and climate.
According to Ms Kalima, early planting is the only solution in addressing the changes in weather pattern adding that government must ensure that the subsidised fertiliser and farming inputs is delivered on time.
Rain-fed farmers in Zambia are among the most vulnerable communities. However, climate risks are not new to farmers. Coping with ‘natural variability’ of climate has been a constant challenge faced by farmers and a solution would be a great relief.
Global warming presents two extreme weather conditions–very wet and extremely hot which call for careful planning in order to strike a balance.
According to a researcher at Mount Makulu Research station, one such solution is investing in research and development of early maturing crops. If rains come and go in just two months, it is a waste of time and energy to plant maize varieties that mature after 90 days unless other contingency measures such as irrigation are put in place.
It is equally time wasting to let farmers continue planting traditional crops grown by their fore fathers decades ago when the land was still virgin and rainfall still reliable and predictable.
“We must also consider investing more in irrigation and water harvesting technology. Just two months ago, as this year’s belated main rain season started seasonal rivers in some parts of the country sprung to life. We watched while that water kept flowing all over while some evaporated into the atmosphere. Yet farmers are now faced with the possibility of real crop failure just a few weeks to mature. It is no longer acceptable in this age and era for farmers to watch their maize dying when it (maize) needed only two more weeks of rain (water) to dry  and a yet  a month earlier there was plenty of  water flowing around,” a researcher at mount Makulu says.
There has been a lot of talk about global warming and how to mitigate its effects. Several international conferences have been convened but no concrete action has been taken to deal with this phenomenon. The real challenge, as things appear now, is in striking a balance between these two extreme weather conditions–plenty of water and severe drought.
Countrywide, there has been a lot of talk about transforming the country’s agriculture sector from peasant to modern and commercial farming. This is rightly so considering that farming is the source of livelihood for a majority of Zambians.
But it is doubtful if those who depend on farming as well policy makers fully appreciate the core aspects of modern farming. Often, modernization of agriculture has been viewed within the lens of use of modern tools of cultivating the land and harvesting; planting improved seeds and appropriation of large chunks of land for large-scale production.
And scientists have indeed done a wonderful job of producing improved varieties of cereal such as rice and maize, roots crops such as cassava and potatoes as well as fruits and vegetables.
Despite these innovations, productivity remains low and famine looms large because the most important component of modern farming–provision of adequate water has not yet been tackled. Zambia’s agriculture almost entirely remains rain-fed.
In the 2012/13 budget estimates presented to parliament last year, the minister of finance, Alexander Chikwanda emphasised the need to strengthen agriculture sector and link it to other sectors of the domestic economy, so as to exploit its full development potential.
In his address to parliament in October last year, Mr Chikwanda said, “agriculture is the life blood for the majority of our people and its development is not merely an aspiration, but an imperative.”
Yet no specific allocation was given to boost irrigation countrywide.
“We will scale up investment in extension services, irrigation, training institutions and research and development in order to improve crop yields,” Mr Chikwanda said in his address last year.
It is only when farmers are able to produce throughout the year, without having to depend on rain, that we can guarantee food security for all.

Published on March 12, 2013

Monday, March 4, 2013

Water

Report documents dangers of business as usual approach on the Zambezi River
Author NAWA, DOREEN
Date of paper 03-10-2012
Paper Number Vol.16 No.232
ACROSS the continent, African leaders are under pressure to grow their national economies and to raise the standards of living for their people, which translate into increased demands for energy. And for Africa, hydropower is the easiest. Hydropower is being promoted as a source of large-scale energy capacity for the continent. However, southern Africa of which Zambia is a part and home to the Zambezi River is already 60 percent dependent on hydropower for its power supply thereby putting the Zambezi River under pressure. A report released recently presents an evaluation of the hydrological risk of hydro-dependent power system in the face of climate change, using the Zambezi Basin as a case study. According to the report, the future of the Zambezi Basin exemplifies the challenges faced by decision-makers weighing potential benefits of hydropower developments against the risks of hydrological change. The report released titled, "Hydrological Risk and Large Hydropower in Southern Africa", says the result could be uneconomic dams that under-perform in the face of more extreme drought, and more dangerous dams that have not been designed to handle increasingly damaging floods. The report, by Dr Richard Beilfuss, is aimed at assessing risks, uncertainty, and consequences of Zambezi River Basin hydro-dependent power systems. The Zambezi Basin is the largest in southern Africa, with a total drainage area of 1.4 kilometre squares. The report points out that the basin currently has approximately 5, 000 megawatts of installed hydropower generation capacity, including the massive Kariba (whose reservoir is, by volume, the largest in the world) and Cahora Bassa dams. An additional 13, 000 megawatts of hydropower potential has been identified. None of these projects, current or proposed, has seriously incorporated considerations of climate change into project design or operation. The report discusses hydrological variability and uncertainty in the Zambezi Basin, the impact of climate change on basin hydrology and hydropower, and the risks for current and future hydropower developments. The in-depth report warns that new and proposed dams on southern Africa's largest river (Zambezi) are ill-prepared to withstand the shocks of a changing climate. The result could be uneconomic dams that under-perform in the face of more extreme drought, and more dangerous dams that have not been designed to handle increasingly damaging floods. Dr Beilfuss, a noted hydrologist with extensive experience on the Zambezi, evaluated the hydrological risks to hydropower dams in the basin. Overall, Africa's fourth-largest river will experience worse droughts and more extreme floods. According to Dr Beilfuss, dams being proposed and built now will be negatively affected, yet energy planning in the basin is not taking serious steps to address these huge hydrological uncertainties. "Ensuring energy and water security in the Zambezi River basin for the future will require new ways of thinking about river basin development," notes Dr. Beilfuss. "We must avoid investing billions of dollars into projects that could become white elephants." Findings The study found that existing and proposed hydropower dams are not being properly evaluated for the risks from natural hydrological variability (which is extremely high in the Zambezi), much less the risks posed by climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has categorised the Zambezi as the river basin exhibiting the 'worst' potential effects of climate change among 11 major African basins, due to the resonating effect of increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall. Multiple studies by IPCC estimate that rainfall across the basin will decrease by 10-15 percent. The Zambezi runoff is highly sensitive to the variations in climate, as small changes in rainfall produce large changes in runoff. Over the next century, climate change is expected to increase this variability, and the vulnerability of the basin and its hydropower dams to these changes. Under future climate scenarios, a hydropower dam based on the past century's record of flows is unlikely to deliver the expected services over its lifetime. The future picture of southern Africa's climate is increasingly clear, based on the observed trends over the past century and increasing confidence in the range of climate change scenarios developed. Overall, the Zambezi will experience drier and more prolonged drought periods, and more extreme floods. The report highlights the following risks predicted for the Zambezi Basin over the next century; the basin is expected to experience a significant warming trend of 0.3 to 0.6 degrees Celsius. The increase in temperatures across the basin will result in an increase in open-water evaporation. The report further predicts that all Zambezi Basin countries will experience a significant reduction in the average annual stream flow. It (report) estimates that Zambezi runoff will decrease by 26 to 40 percent by 2050. The report says because large reservoirs evaporate more water than natural rivers, big dams could worsen local water deficits (and reduces water for hydropower). "Already, more than 11 percent of the Zambezi's mean annual flow is lost to evaporation from large hydropower dams' reservoirs. These water losses increase the risk of shortfalls in power generation, and significantly impact downstream ecosystem functions. "The designs for two of the larger dam projects proposed for the Zambezi, Batoka Gorge and Mphanda Nkuwa dams, are based on historical hydrological records and have not been evaluated for the risks associated with reduced mean annual flows and more extreme flood and drought cycles. Under future climate scenarios, these hydropower stations, which are being based on the past century's record of flows, are unlikely to deliver the expected services over their lifetimes," the report read in parts. According to Dr Beilfuss, the Zambezi River is already highly modified by large hydropower dams, which have profoundly altered the hydrological conditions that are most important for downstream livelihoods and preserving biodiversity. "The ecological goods and services provided by the Zambezi, which are key to enabling societies to adapt to climate change, are under grave threat," Dr Beilfuss says. "The region's energy planners and governments must acknowledge these hydrological risks, and take steps to improve planning and management of large dams in the basin," notes Dr Beilfuss. "At minimum, existing and future dams should undergo a thorough analysis of climate risks." And Rudo Sanyanga, Africa programme director for International Rivers, says, "Large-dam hydro poses not just economic risks, but also adaptation risks. Africa has been called the continent 'most at risk' of climate change. Successful adaptation will require new ways of thinking about water resources. We need to act now to protect our rivers as sources of livelihoods and food security." International Rivers is an organisation working to halt destructive river infrastructure projects, address the legacies of existing projects and improve development policies and practices. The report further stresses that understanding rivers is essential to understanding the 21st century's planetary crises and the opportunities for unleashing the regenerative capacities of the Living Earth.