Climate-smart actions to reduce crop loss in Africa

Across Sub-Saharan Africa, farmers are increasingly losing crops to shifting weather patterns, emerging pests and prolonged dry spells. 

Rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall are changing the conditions under which food is grown, while gaps in monitoring systems make it harder to track and respond to these threats.

In this episode of Africa Science Focus, we examine how climate change is accelerating crop loss and what stronger data and climate-informed interventions can offer.

Our reporter, Michael Kaloki, begins in Kenya, where cereals and other staple crops remain vital to national food security. Farmers describe how delayed rains, new pest pressures and erratic seasons are reducing yields and disrupting their livelihoods.

Komi Mensah Agboka, a researcher at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), explains how climate-linked disruptions in the wider One Health system are increasing losses in farmers’ fields. He tells us how emerging technologies can help detect risks earlier.

Cambria Finegold, global director of digital development at the agricultural research organisation CABI (the parent organisation of SciDev.Net), outlines how the Global Burden of Crop Loss project is mapping climate-related hotspots and identifying where yields are most at risk. She discusses how digital tools are helping countries build better decision-making support systems for farmers.

And Elfatih Abdel-Rahman, senior research scientist and interim head of the Data Management, Modelling and Geoinformation Unit at icipe, describes how rising temperatures are altering interactions between crops and insects, increasing the likelihood of outbreaks and further losses.

The episode also features George Waruraya, a farmer in Kiambu County, Kenya, who shares how shifting seasons and water shortages are affecting production and how local groups are mobilising to secure support for adaptation.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

This episode is supported by CABI’s Global Burden of Crop Loss (GBCL) project. GBCL is funded by UK International Development of the UK government and the Gates Foundation.

Do you have any comments, questions or feedback about our podcast episodes? Let us know at podcast@scidev.net

Africa Science Focus is produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk and distributed in association with your local radio station. 

Do you have any comments, questions or feedback about our podcast episodes? Let us know at podcast@scidev.net