How to make climate smart agriculture profitable for smallholder.

How to make climate smart agriculture profitable for smallholder.Globally, agriculture generates about 13 percent of the greenhouse gasses that are responsible for climate change. With the global population growing, however, we cannot afford to cut back on agricultural production in an effort to slow climate change. 

We have to grow more, and we have to grow it smarter. At the same time, farmers – and especially smallholder farmers – are among those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Changes in rainfall patterns, the expanding range of crop diseases and pests, and soil erosion conspire to drive down yields and farm incomes.

 However, smallholders often have difficulty adopting more environmentally friendly practices, either because they represent an extra expense –which the farmers cannot bear, as they already operate on very thin margins of profitability – or because the farmers don’t have access to the necessary materials and services. To encourage smallholders to adopt sustainable practices, it is therefore important to identify and promote approaches that are not just green, but are easy to adopt and provide an immediate financial benefit to the farmers. 

 Creating Win-Win Scenarios for Farmers and the Environment This is very important in India, which is the fourth-largest producer of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, and where most farmers already earn little, due to low yields and low prices. 

These farmers cannot afford costly new technologies or techniques to reduce their environmental impact or adapt to changing conditions. To address that challenge, a partnership between Kellogg and TechnoServe is helping more than 12,000 farmers in corn, wheat, soy and legume-growing regions of Madhya Pradesh adopt profitable, environmentally friendly and easily accessible techniques. For example, the project encourages farmers to plant trees on farm bunds – landscaping features designed to hold the flow of groundwater during the monsoon season – to help absorb carbon, combat soil erosion, and provide shade for crops, while also yielding potential income from the trees’ fruit and timber in the future. 

 Farmers are also supported in adopting traditional Indian soil-enhancement practices, such as use of amrit khadh and amrit pani (traditional Indian bio-fertilizers) and more sustainable pest management practices that reduce costs while improving soil quality and agricultural yields. At the same time, a group of village entrepreneurs ensures that low-cost supportive services are available to farmers at their doorstep, thus making it a sustainable model. more

Farmers embracing climate smart agriculture.

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is agriculture that increases productivity, resilience and adaptation, as well as contribute towards reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. 

 The overall objective therefore is food security and nutrition in the face of climate change. There must be training,education and interactive sessions especially for smallholder farmers ,the importance of building capacity at all levels cannot be overemphasized order to attain the goal of 25 million African farmers practicing climate-smart agriculture by 2025. 

 The challenge of climatic changes can be sidelined by using more resilient seeds, conservation of water, use of hybrid seeds that are ready for market earlier than the conventional seeds. Africa is affected dramatically by climatic changes of extreme weather patterns mechanisms ,hence there is the need to transform agriculture and ensure food security through adoption of innovative ways are gaining prominence fast.

 In Kenya, like most African countries, small-scale farmers who are the majority are opting for sustainable solutions. One such farmer is Albert Waweru, a retired police officer with 1.75-acre farm in Kasarani on the outskirts of Nairobi. He has 50 dairy cows that produce 290 liters of milk daily. He also rears poultry, dairy goats and has several green houses where vegetables are grown. 

 He practices smart agriculture as he harvests every drop of rainwater to counter the challenge of water, he embarked on harvesting rainwater from rooftops in his compound and store water flowing into his compound.

The water is preserved in a network of several underground concrete tanks about 12 meters deep. This ensures that he has enough water at any moment on his mixed farm, for his animals and plants as well. He has been sharing his method with other farmers to expose them to smart agriculture by way of provision of solution to water scarcity

. 44-year-old Rajiv Kumar from Sheikhpur district of Bihar is another farmer practicing smart agriculture; he does zero budget farming on his 4-acre farm. He learnt water conservation and methods to replace nutrients in the soil ,different crops are grown at the same time and cow dung and cow urine were used as fertilizers. 

This kept the cost of farming at a minimum with the farmer only investing in water and seeds. Rajiv dug pits every 30 feet, filled it with water, and sowed different types of flowers and fruits around it. This helped increase the ground water flow. As plants need moisture, and not water, cultivating near a pit of water provided better irrigation and prevented water wastage. He does not use chemical pesticides, he sows a Neem plant every 30 feet to keep pests away. see