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Climate change and desertification will exacerbate the negative effects of conflict on food security for needy people [Sara Mohamed]
UN studies have shown that Sub-Saharan Africa will be severely affected by climate change and likely lose most of its arable land this century.
“Africa should embrace and promote sorghum, millet, cassava and indigenous vegetables because they could help the continent fight climate change because they are drought tolerant,” Wilson Ronno, Crops Officer at The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Kenya, told reporters during a site visit in Nairobi.
The UN is advising these African nations to refocus agricultural efforts on “traditional” crops that have been neglected in recent decades.
With globalization and the migration to cities, Africa’s agricultural norms have changed and moved away from indigenous crops, Ronno pointed out.
In November 2016, African nations and others around the world issued the Marrakesh Action Proclamation which called on UN members to boost funding for projects to cope with the effects of climate change.
These include millets and sorghum, while maize production is likely to suffer from elevated temperatures on the continent.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
