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| Mr Kelian Tembo, 45, of Kazika Village in Katete district cycles around residential areas of the district selling woven baskets. PICTURE BY DOREEN NAWA |
IT’S spring, and Mr Kelian Tembo, 45, of Kazika village in Katete district is not in a hurry to prepare the field.
Instead, he is busy with his woven basket enterprise which he says is now a more lucrative business than growing maize.
Every day, he wakes up early in the morning to gather material for his baskets from the nearby Mphangwe River.
Now, his interest in farming is slowly going down because of the low yields he has been getting despite putting in all his energy and resources.
Mr Tembo remembers well his farming yields 25 years ago.
“The rains were plenty. I grew local maize varieties every season and received a bumper harvest. Just growing maize alone was enough both as a food and a cash crop. Maize farming sustained my family throughout the year. But now that is not the case,” Mr Tembo says.
However, with changing climate, Mr Tembo notes that maize no matter the variety, gives him no better yields any more.
In these years, he struggled to feed his family of nine children and wife Janet until last year when he ventured into woven baskets for a living.
“If the music changes, you must change the dance steps. This should be a step that small -scale farmers in the country should take. As farmers, we are experiencing some of the worst impacts of climate change and hunger and poverty in homes is getting worse because we are no longer food secure,” Mr Tembo says.
Today, Mr Tembo is not the only one who has quit his maize farm and is running a flourishing business.
Initiatives like the one Mr Tembo is involved in are trying to turn the tide by creating a positive feedback circle in climate change adaptation in Eastern Province.
Mr Tembo says if small-scale farmers can have innovation buy-in, then the country will have an enhanced national economy, and farmers will be made more resilient and less vulnerable to the menace of climate change.
With innovation taking place, Mr Tembo says there is hope for small-scale farmers in adapting to climate change.
Another small-scale farmer in Chipata district, Lucy Lungu is aware of the climate change effects and says the only hope for small-scale farmers is through innovative enterprises like growing Moringa tree.
Ms Lungu says growing Moringa trees on a larger scale to replace maize is not common in Chipata district.
She has grown Moringa trees for three years now.
“You need to know where you are to know where you’re going. We need a sound management plan to increase our food output, combat food insecurity,” Ms Lungu says.
Farmers like Ms Lungu, who are using climate-smart practices, understand that trees do a lot on farms.
“But in the face of climate change, such trees act as windbreaks, reducing soil erosion, trees create habitat for wildlife and wildlife corridors—the list goes on,” Ms Lungu says.
Ms Lungu has half of the maize field for Moringa trees.
Several action is not going to stop climate change. The small scale farmers need to look harder at how to live with it.
Natural disasters such as droughts and floods have been thwarting development in the country and beyond.
Fluctuations in agricultural production due to climate variations along with inefficient agricultural systems cause food insecurity, one of the most obvious indicators of poverty.
The severe change in weather patterns in Zambia as charged by the effects of climate change, crippled rain-fed agricultural production and left the over 15 million people foods insecure.
Without urgent action to reduce global emissions, the occurrence of climate shocks and stresses in the country and beyond are expected to get much worse.
That is why innovation seem to be the way out on climate change adaptation. Innovation may not always be complicated or complex but simple ideas which can be sourced from individuals or groups.
Such ideas include bee keeping.
In Nyimba district in Eastern province, Catherine Daka is making a living through honey production.
Mrs Daka says after growing maize and sorghum for over two decades, the crop yields started reducing, making her opt for other income generating activities like bee keeping.
Mrs Daka has been in bee keeping for a year now. This is not the first time that she is involved in bee keeping.
In 2014, given the insufficient income and dangers of beekeeping, Mrs Daka had abandoned the activity.
However, the introduction of new beekeeping techniques that minimise risk and do not chase away bees has helped Mrs Daka jumpstart production.
She says production has increased rapidly and beekeeping is now a profitable enterprise because products can be readily sold immediately because it is clean.
Unlike the old practices that entailed the excessive use of straw fires to harvest honey, the new techniques have increased the population of bees because bees are not harmed.
Honey production has been a long-standing activity in Nyimba and other parts of Eastern Province.
However, the radical practices used by beekeepers had driven away scores of bees in recent years.
Now, new more ecologically friendly techniques that various partners brought to the areas like the plastic bee hives, the activity is generating considerable interest among community members and is gradually transforming the lives of small scale farmers who solely depended on maize production.
Experts say innovation in agriculture is clearly an important response for effective and equitable adaptation and mitigation, adding that concerted effort between partners and farmers are needed to rethink how to promote innovation to address the uncertainty of climate change impacts.
Agribusiness expert Cris Muyunda says climate change impacts on agriculture are varied and highly uncertain.
Not long from now, the evolution of agriculture will be shaped by its response to climate change. Farmers need to adapt their practices to accommodate climatic conditions.
PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL on November 4, 2018. link: http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/climate-change-fuelling-innovation-in-eastern-province/
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