Kulima and Oxfam have today released “Overcoming the barriers: How to ensure future food production under climate change in southern Africa“. The report is based on interviews with farmers in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, whose experiences with a changing climate are largely borne out by meteorological data, particularly on rising temperatures and changes to precipitation patterns. In response to these changes, farmers are already actively experimenting with changing agricultural practices, and looking for ways to diversify their livelihoods in response climate and other stresses, within their resource constraints. But where large-scale farmers, in the main, can access the resources needed to adapt, small-scale farmers face major obstacles. Policy makers need to identify the barriers for farmers, particularly smallholder farmers, as they attempt to adapt to the new climate and other environmental, economic and political pressures.
