We had a seminar on the 15th and 16th of September 2019 focusing on climate change and its impacts on the agriculture sector including the rice sub-sector. As participants from Zambia, I and my colleague shared a presentation on the status of climate change and its impacts on Zambia’s agriculture sector. Presentations were also shared by participants from 9 different African countries including Nigeria, Malawi, Burkina-Faso, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Madagascar, Cameroun, Sudan, and Mozambique. As a policy fellow under the African Climate change Leadership Program (AfriCLP) carrying out research on “Enhancing the promotional and implementation strategies of Climate Smart Agriculture in Zambia” I found this seminar very useful as I was able to learn from others and also share my experience through my research.
It was a rare occasion in which we were all able to share our various experiences, challenges, risks and some of the interventions being made to increase adaptation and resilience to climate change in our countries. One of the things I realized through this seminar is that we are all experiencing common problems and challenges considering that most of our economies are deeply rooted in rain-fed agriculture. Therefore, we need to identify areas in which we can work together as Africans through win-win partnerships to adapt to climate change. During the seminar we were all able to recognize that we need to take advantage of our abundant water resources and invest in water harvesting and irrigation technologies because even though we boast of having abundant water resources as a region, it is useless if it cannot be utilized efficiently to help us avoid disastrous outcomes such as food shortages due to droughts. Zambia for instance has high irrigation potential possessing approximately 40% of the underground and surface water resources in the SADC region (Zambia Second National Agricultural Policy, 2016). Climate change is here to stay and so we must take effective adaptation measures for our current and future generations to end the cycle of poverty.