Climate Smart Agriculture
Many of the people we work with earn their living — and feed themselves and their families — through agriculture. But an increasingly erratic climate and other challenges leave many families struggling to cope.
Many of the people we work with earn their living — and feed themselves and their families — through agriculture. But an increasingly erratic climate and other challenges leave many families struggling to cope.
The majority of people Concern works with are involved in some way with farming and food production. In countries like Malawi and Afghanistan, it’s essentially everyone. Many of these communities are also on the frontlines of climate change. We work with rural communities to promote new growing techniques, source improved seeds, trial alternative crops, and implement soil protection practices.
We support communities to adopt Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices in order to become more resilient to a less-predictable climate. We also work to strengthen links with the private sector to facilitate access to supplies and equipment. We are committed to rolling out CSA to 600,000 farmers as part of our strategic plan, while also supporting the African Union to roll out CSA to 6 million farmers on the continent by 2021.
“Barley doesn’t really work well here,” Concern’s Mesafint Melak explains. “The yield is poor and it’s not very drought-resistant. Potatoes are much better.”
The growing season is short, winter is both long and harsh, and hunger is a constant. Concern has been helping farmers better manage the agricultural environment.
Almost everyone here relies on the land for survival, and traditionally almost everyone grows maize. But, as the weather has become more erratic over the years, that reliance has become a problem.
FDR’s response was to the Dust Bowl crisis was to put in place a massive soil conservation program and to plant 200 million trees. Today, across the “Drylands” of Africa, we’re echoing that response… on a somewhat smaller scale.