Climate change and sub-Saharan Africa

How is climate change going to impact food security in sub-Saharan Africa? 

 

This week we are going to explore how climate change and its impact on water might affect food securities in sub-Saharan Africa. Anderson (1990) argues that food security occurs where individuals have the ability to obtain a sufficient amount of food on a daily basis, whereas Ziervogel (2009) argues that food security is not just about availability but also about the access and utilisation of this food. This blog post will therefore explore the relationships between water, climate change and food security relative to these 5 key concepts:

•       Food accessibility
•       Food availability
•       Food stability
•     Food utilisation
•       Food affordability 

 

The UN Development Report highlights that 25% of households in sub-Saharan Africa are unable to access sufficient food. However, literature written by Wlokas and the Food Agricultural Organisation foreshadow that this statistic will be worsened by climate change as global warming is likely to cause alterations in crop production patterns, rates and productivities (Wlokas, 2017). This is especially significant in Southern Africa as the IPCC have demonstrated that this region has a higher vulnerability to climate change. This report argues that rising temperatures of precipitation are likely to lead to a 50% reduction in the production of staple foods. This is further supported by Pedram et al (2011) who’s model has forecasted that a 2degree Celsius increase in temperature would have the following impacts on staple food products: 

-      A reduction in the average production of 

a)    maize by 13%

b)   sorghum by 8.8% 

c)    rice by 7.6%

 

How will climate change impact water?

 

Climate change in Africa will impact water in a number of ways as mentioned in last week’s post. Building on last week’s post further, Table 1 below will demonstrate some of the potential impacts of climate change on water and how these will in turn affect food production across sub-Saharan Africa.

 

The effects of climate change in Africa	Impacts on agriculture and therefore food production
Change in the volume of precipitation	A reduction in water availability for crops, particularly in Northern and Southern Africa.
Increases in drought severity	decreased crop yields
Warmer average temperature	A reduction in the quantity of reliable agricultural yield (increased volatility and uncertainty of food production)
A higher proportion of extreme rainfall events	Soil erosion – which leads to the destruction of fertile, arable land         More groundwater recharge – may not be favourable for large scale irrigation in areas of low bulk transmissivity

 

Table 1: Some of the potential impacts of climate change on food and water in Africa (Masipa, 2017).

 

It is also important to remember the 'domino effect' that just one of these changes can lead to as demonstrated in my illustration below:

 

 

It is important to remember that impacts of climate change will vary across Africa and its countries. The example of Sub-Saharan Africa given in this blog, although general, has demonstrated some of the wider reaching impacts that could occur across the region of Africa that is likely to be worse affected. To specialise further, next week I will use a far less general and more specific approach by exploring a specific case study of South Africa and the impacts that climate change may have on its food security.