by Phil Philo Abessolo Ndong from CNOP-GABON

Description

Climate change has significant environmental, economic and social effects in Gabon. The following are the most important ones.

Environmental effects:

  • Extinction of species.
  • A decrease in water resources.
  • An increase in extreme weather events such as torrential rains, storms and prolonged droughts
  • An increase in forest fires during the dry seasons.
  • Outbreak of certain crop pests (locusts).

Economic effects:
The direct impacts of climate change on family farming relate to crop behaviour, soil changes and yield reductions. At the crop level, there are phenomena of shortened vegetative cycles and early flowering, due to the rise in temperature. Crop yields are severely affected. Predictions of agricultural productivity are completely distorted and the risk of food insecurity is high.

Indirectly, climate change also affects agricultural labour, agricultural commodity prices, the functioning of farmers’ organisations and the availability of arable land.  Rural youth, discouraged by the manifestations of repeated climatic hazards, will migrate to the cities in search of gainful employment.

Social impacts:
Climate change affects people’s basic health needs: fresh air, clean water, sufficient food and secure housing.
Lack of drinking water can jeopardise hygiene and increase the risk of water-borne diseases (cholera, diarrhoea) that already kill several people a year. Water scarcity leads to drought and famine.
This results in an increased rate of malnutrition and undernutrition, currently causing many deaths per year.

Farmers have accordingly adapted implementing the following solutions:

Crop relocation:
This involves relocating crops from one landscape unit to another within the same area. This strategy is developed by producers to manage water stress in crops. Thus, having noticed that celery suffers from lack of water on plots located on dry land, far from the watercourse or wetland,some producers in the DRC have had to move the crop to wetter landscape units close to the river to meet its water requirements.

Crop rotation:
Crop rotation is done according to different plant families. It goes from plants that consume the most nitrogen, to those that consume potassium, and then to those that consume phosphorus. This is the system of alternating crops in plots according to their needs. Producers also practice the use of kitchen scraps, burying the remains of the crops as natural fertilizers.

Crop association:
To minimize the devastating action of insects, producers have adopted techniques of combining crops in the same plot. For example, lettuce is usually grown with celery. Maize is grown with beans, cassava with groundnuts, etc. Combining these crops allows celery to grow quickly after the lettuce has been removed. Producers also combine nightshade, amaranth, cabbage, green beans, mint, leeks and chives. Producers also use scarecrow devices to chase birds away from the field by using soil on the terminal bud of the maize stalk to control caterpillars

Results

  • Better yields in manioc production are obtained in forest areas.
  • 1000 people have benefited from the implementation of these practices.

Climate smartness*

In the face of the socio-economic and environmental challenges related to extreme whether events in Gabon, this experience brings several exemplary climate-smart interventions. Crop rotation and association addressed are sustainable soil and water management options that allow crop and nutritional diversification, reducing yield gap without increasing the use of external inputs. An adaptive process of communities in different countries is to find analogue cultivation areas that present more favourable ecological parameters under changing climate conditions. In this sense, it is important to facilitate the engagement of the different regional stakeholders in the agricultural sector so that these movements can be carried out in a coordinated and planned manner so that any potential alterations on the agroecosystem or change in the agricultural frontier are avoided (Sloat et al., 2020) or compensated under the guidelines of local and national development or adaptation policy frameworks. Another key element is the awareness around the importance of diversifying agricultural production. This resonates with high quality and nutritious food supply for households, as well as the strengthening of the adaptive capacity of farmers and farms, by reducing the risk of pests and diseases outbreaks, and improving the efficient use of soil nutrients in both time and space. This avoids triggering rapid changes that could reduce soil fertility and health through erosive processes caused by water or wind. Intercropping and crop rotation are then pragmatic strategies for enhancing soil biological activity, which is interlinked to the process of mineralization and accumulation of soil organic matter and therefore soil carbon reserves, particularly when more and more producers are willing to adopt these practices as a standard on their farms.

*This is done in the framework of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach. Climate-smartness in agriculture means understanding impacts of climate change and variability along with the agricultural activity, which includes the planning of what crop to plant, when to plant, what variety to plant and what type of management practices are needed to reduce the impact on the environment (e.g. emissions reduction), maintain or increase productivity (e.g. yields) while increasing resilience and improving livelihoods.