East Africa’s food security is threatened severely by climate change. Despite being home to a region that is considered the food basket of Africa, it grapples as the most food-insecure zone of Africa. Africa cannot feed itself if it has yet to administer practical innovative solutions to its local problems. With a population of over 502 million estimated to double by 2050, East Africa must embrace climate-smart practices to solve for food security.

In May 2024, weeks of heavy rainfall and flooding in the East Africa region triggered widespread displacement of people and their sources of livelihood across some countries. Within the same month, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, and other countries were hit twice by record-breaking Indian Ocean cyclones. The devastating flooding unveiled the harsh realities of climate change; claiming lives, displacing communities, and destroying farmlands, infrastructures, and territorial markets. Food security is one of the most hit with issues such as rising temperatures, irregular rainfall, and droughts becoming the new reality, leading to damaged crops, fewer harvests, and even higher food costs within the region.

Climate change is exacerbating existing challenges and vulnerabilities within food systems affecting regions of agrarian rural locations in Kenya where there is over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture, low levels of education, inadequate access to financial capital, high levels of poverty, and poor infrastructure. In such places, informal settlements and slums in urban areas are particularly at risk, as residents often rely on informal food markets and lack access to food protection mechanisms during times of food security crisis. To solve this pressing issue climate smart practices are encouraged to work around the devastation inflicted by climate change in East Africa.

What is Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA)?

Climate-smart agriculture is not a new production system. It is a means of identifying which production systems and enabling institutions are best suited to respond to the challenges of climate change for specific locations, to maintain and enhance the capacity of agriculture to support food security sustainably. The FAO posits that climate change agricultural practices should be addressed through adaptation and mitigation practices, that would lead to improved ecosystem management. To part ways with the old, changes will have to begin before production down to the post-harvest stage. Thus, includes mapping out water management, understanding the soil/land, using improved climate resistance seedlings, smart warehousing, and storage systems.

Climate-smart crop production and post-harvest practices

Prioritizing climate-resilient Input varieties

For regions experiencing long drought periods, shifting to less water-intensive crops, utilizing drought-resistant seeds, reducing soil erosion, and adopting efficient irrigation systems are among the suggested sustainable strategies to help mitigate food insecurity caused by climate change.

Growing crops more resistant to temperature and precipitation extremes can help farmers mitigate the impact of global warming on crop production.

Small- medium scale farmers in developing countries, secure seeds by saving from their harvests, purchasing seeds from local markets, and/or exchanging seeds with extended family members and neighbors. This way of obtaining seeds makes up the informal farmers’ seed system. The system recycles these seeds which are not of optimal quality. Restructuring Africa’s food production system requires an overhaul of these low-quality seeds and due to that, we must leverage structures already in place. Eg community-based channel for the distribution of quality and high-yielding seeds, fertilizers, and pest control procedures.

AFEX, through its input financing program, has over the years supplied smallholder farmers through existing farmers' cooperatives in Nigeria with quality inputs—seeds, fertilizers, and agrochemicals. Climate-smart agriculture practices, like selective breeding of crop varieties with features appropriate to the local environment, can improve yield stability and minimize susceptibility to climatic hazards.

Biodiversity management

Some grain crops in East Africa, such as maize, and wheat are often grown in monoculture systems that require substantial investments in pesticides and herbicides. Usually, this system upsets the farms’ biodiversity. In a cropping system, greater diversity of crops and other living organisms is an important criterion for ensuring farm resilience, economic stability, and profitability. This diversity is a climate-smart approach because it contributes to pest and disease management, which directly affects yields and revenues and can be very costly and labor-intensive if external inputs need to be used.

Innovative climate-smart storage solutions

Maize, a primary crop for many East African farmers, is threatened by Aflatoxins, a harmful fungal toxin that can destroy the crop when stored improperly. Investing in smart modern storage and drying facilities is crucial to reducing post-harvest losses and ensuring a stable supply of this staple grain, especially in the face of climate-related challenges like droughts.

Within Kenya and Uganda, AFEX's strategy involves building storage facilities near major staple grain growing regions to reduce transportation costs and improve farmers' access to storage. Since expanding operations to East Africa two years ago, AFEX has built 40 strategically located warehouses and is looking to build premium-quality grain drying and processing facilities. Storage remains key to fixing some of the gaps in the food East ecosystem in Africa as about 4.50 million tons of food was lost to post-harvest losses in 2023. Storage infrastructure is essential for reducing post-harvest losses, upholding quality requirements, and enabling farmers to access more structured markets, which increases their earning potential.

Ultimately, to better solve impending challenges, we must better understand how climate change will affect our immediate agricultural systems. Creating climate-resilient agriculture in East Africa requires a collaborative approach involving various stakeholders. Substantial public and private investment is essential for developing necessary infrastructure, conducting research on climate-smart technologies, and making these innovations available to smallholder farmers.