Global Warming will outstrip Africa's ability to feed itself: study
Pastor Dale Morgan
Global Warming will outstrip Africa's ability to feed itself: study*
Ethiopian PM foresees more economic woes for Africa
Africa is unlikely to see a let up in economic woes next year mainly due
to depressed commodity earnings and high energy costs, Ethiopian Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi warned on Tuesday. "We seem to be destined to face
all the negative consequences of 2008 and 2009 without any of their
limited benefits for the foreseeable future," Meles said. Meles told a
UN-organised pan-African conference of experts and government officials
from 45 countries examining the impact of global economic downturn that
the crisis would create "uniquely unfavourable" conditions. He said
"very high and growing oil prices" coupled with perhaps similar growth
in food prices combined with weak commodities prices would point to a
"generally depressed growth prospect". In May, the UN Economic
Commission for Africa (UNECA) said Africa's growth rate would slow to a
20-year low of two percent in 2009, in contrast to the 5.1 percent rate
achieved in 2008 and six percent the previous year. Climate change,
Meles warned, was likely to hit hard Africa's fragile agriculture sector
and further depress the prospects of growth. According to the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s official Helen Clark "no
continent is as dangerously vulnerable as Africa" to climate change.
Before the global crisis, the continent was home to some of the world's
fastest expanding economies. But the UNDP, which organised the Addis
Ababa gathering, said signs of hard times were already evident with
Africa's traditional export giants beginning to feel the pinch of
falling prices and lower demand. In the diamond-rich Katanga province of
the Democratic Republic of Congo, 60 percent of enterprises have shut
shop laying off more than 300,000 workers. In South Africa, over 5,000
workers lost their jobs in February this year alone. The continent's
economic powerhouse released figures last month that showed it had
entered its first recession since apartheid as the global crisis pounded
demand for its main exports. Liberia's rubber exports -- its main source
of revenue -- declined to 88,000 tonnes last year from 135,000 tonnes
the previous year due to slowing demand. UNDP predicts the west African
state could see a further decline in 2009 and 2010. Meles said the
international community was obliged to compensate Africa for the "damage
caused by global warming".
by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) June 17, 2009
By mid-century, climate change may have outrun the ability of Africa's
farmers to adapt to rising temperatures, threatening the continent's
precarious food security, warns a new study.
Growing seasons throughout nearly all of Africa in 2050 will likely be
"hotter than any year in historical experience," reports the study,
published in the current issue of the British-based journal Global
Environmental Change.
Six nations -- Senegal, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone
-- are especially at risk because they will face conditions that are
today unknown anywhere in Africa.
As a result, even the hardiest varieties of the continent's three main
crops -- maize, millet and sorghum -- currently under cultivation would
probably not tolerate the conditions forecast for these countries in
four decades.
A trio of researchers led by Marshall Burke, a professor at Stanford
University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, said urgent
measures must be taken to stock seed banks and develop new varieties to
stay a step ahead of Africa's shifting agricultural map.
"When we looked at where temperatures are headed, we found that for the
majority of Africa's farmers, global warming will rapidly change
conditions beyond the range of what occurs anywhere in their country,"
he said.
The study is based on a mid-range projection from the UN
Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) that forecasts an
increase in average global temperatures by 2100 of 2.8 degrees Celsius
(5.0 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
More recent research, however, suggests that the impact of global
warming could be even worse.
MIT climate modelers, averaging 400 possible scenarios, have calculated
that Earth's surface temperatures will jump 5.2 C (9.4 F) by century's
end in the absence of rapid and massive measures to slash greenhouse gas
emissions.
"This is not a situation like the failure of the banking system where we
can move in after the fact and provide something akin to a bailout,"
said co-author Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
"If we wait until it's too hot to grow maize in Chad and Mali, then it
will be too late to avoid a disaster that could easily destabilize an
entire region and beyond."
Over 40 percent of Africa's population lives on less than a dollar a
day, and 70 percent of these poor are located in rural areas and thus
largely dependent on agriculture for survival.
The authors note that "adverse shifts in climate can cause devastating
declines in human welfare, and have been implicated in everything from
famine to slow economic growth to heightened risk of civil conflict."
Burke and colleagues found that while most African nations will face
unprecedented climates by 2050, they could anticipate future needs by
stockpiling seeds from neighbouring countries with similar conditions today.
By mid-century, for example, local varieties of the staple maize in
Lesotho -- which has one of Africa's coolest climates -- will be wilting
in the heat.
Varieties that thrive in hotter climes grown in Mali today may well be
adapted to Lesotho's future needs, and so should be set aside.
But that still leaves the six most vulnerable countries without any
apparent solution.
"For these nations, there is a much smaller potential pool of foreign
genetic resources in which to seek heat tolerance, at least within
Africa," the authors caution.