Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture across Africa
Author(s): Laura PereiraLink to CST author(s): Dr. Laura Pereira
Publication: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science
Year: 2017
Full reference:
Download publication http://environmentalscience.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-292
Summary
Although African agricultural systems are highly reliant on their environment, their diversity, context specificity, and the existing generations of traditional knowledge offer elements of resilience in the face of climate change. The combination of climatic and nonclimatic drivers and stressors will likely exacerbate the vulnerability of Africa’s agricultural systems to climate change, but the impacts will not be universally felt. There remains a dearth of local-level understanding of impacts and communities’ capacity, willingness, and motivation to adapt, especially in remote areas of the continent. It is well understood that Africa is vulnerable to climate change, not only because of high exposure to specific changes in, for example, temperature and rainfall, but also because many African communities lack the capacity to cope with, or adapt to, the negative impacts of climate change. In this article, the current status of research on climate change impacts on agriculture in Africa has been outlined.