Tools for Africa's Smallscale Farmers to Weather Drought and Floods

Michael Carter, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis, in the US, says crop insurance and improved varieties can help small-scale farmers mitigate climate change.

- By Michael Carter

Right now, countries in the Horn of Africa are in the midst of a multi-season drought. There have also been years in which the rain has come with such force that floods have washed out the season’s labour, sometimes along with homes, as happened in Mozambique just two years ago.

Climate change is making these disasters more common, and it is particularly hard for rural families whose livelihoods depend on the food they grow. A 2015 study by the World Bank estimated that climate change over the next 20 years would increase the number of desperately poor people by 122 million. While the drivers of deep-seated poverty in rural Africa are many and complex, climate shocks are one of the most important.

Research I’ve done with colleagues in the past showed how climate shocks affected rural households in Ethiopia and Honduras. We found that acute shocks (a devastating hurricane or prolonged drought) could push households into chronic poverty and hardship.

Climate shocks not only push families into poverty; they can keep them there.

The dreaded anticipation of shocks, or risk, discourages investments that could otherwise raise families’ living standards and reduce their vulnerability to poverty. From the Sahel to Central America, small-farm households keep their modest savings in the form of food stocks. While understandable, indeed optimal given the constraints they face, this behaviour closes the vicious circle of shocks, risk and poverty.