By Fidelis Zvomuya
Fidelis Zvomuya, based in Pretoria, South Africa, is a writer specializing in environmental reporting.
NTSHONGWENI, South Africa (AlertNet) - Shading her eyes from the fierce glare of the mid-day sun, Nompilo Cele, gazes out in silence over her dry and dusty fields.
Cele, a 66-year-old KwaZulu Natal farmer, has seen a lot of changes for the worse in weather and climatic conditions while toiling on her land in Ntshongweni, north of Durban.
"I have over the years seen floods and drought ravaging my village which once was considered the provincial maize basket," she said.
In good years, her maize would be shoulder high by the end of the growing season. Even in bad years, her crop rustled around her waist she explained. But this year, only a few plants have survived and they are just knee-high, withering in the heat.
Maize production on her land has dropped from five tons per hectare to three tons. Experts now believe dry-land maize production could fail entirely in much of southern Africa by mid-century, necessitating a switch to alternative crops.
DRY-LAND MAIZE MAY DISAPPEAR
"We have experienced droughts in recent years but this is the worst I can remember," said Cele, who has been a farmer for more than 30 years. "The sun is so hot, and there is little hope now that we are going to survive."
Along with five other countries in southern Africa, South Africa has been struggling to cope with successive years of severe food shortages, which have left thousands of people in need of assistance.
The problems began as early as 2006 when total yields of maize, the staple crop in the region, fell short by 2.2 million metric tonnes, or about 10 percent of the needed total, due to droughts in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa.
But an effort to introduce more drought-tolerant traditional crops from other parts of Africa may improve the outlook for villages like Ntshongweni.
In recent years, the local eThekwini municipality has launched a pilot Municipal Climate Protection Program as part of a climate-smart communities project covering Ntshongweni, a rural village, and Ntuzuma, an urban settlement. Both areas had been identified as poor communities at high risk from climate change.
The effort is part of the local authority's broader adaptation initiative which is looking at climate change vulnerability, food security and water harvesting.
PUMPKINS, CASSAVA AMONG ALTERNATIVES
According to Debra Roberts, head of environmental planning and climate protection for eThekwini, a key part of the effort is looking at alternative staple crops for the area, including wheat, dry beans, pumpkins, madumbies (a type of yam), cassava and sorghum.
Roberts said dry-land maize productivity is expected to be so seriously hit by climate change that estimates suggest production will nearly disappear sometime between 2045 and 2065.
That prediction, combined with large population growth and low economic growth, threatens disaster for many southern African countries unless changes are made.
Efforts by farmers on their own to choose alternative crops or more suitable maize varieties are not always effective, Roberts said, and the dangers of hunger and food insecurity in the region are growing.
"Poor farmers often have to gamble when deciding what might be better crops to shift to," she said. "In this part of the world, where rainfall patterns and cyclical dry spells are becoming increasingly unpredictable and extreme, even the 'common farming sense' of swapping from one crop to another to find a successful one can backfire."
Crucially, the eThekwini project involves testing how well people like alternative staple crops, and then making recommendation for commercial production of those that are both drought-resistant and considered tasty.
In a November 2009 "Cook Off," residents were able to taste-test many of the newly introduced foods, including sweet potato soup, imfino (pumpkin leaves), sweet potato chips, pumpkin juice, cassava chips, pumpkin slices, cassava bread, roasted pumpkin seeds, fufu, sorghum bread and madumbe soup.
'FUFU TASTED TERRIBLE'
"We enjoyed the pumpkin juice the most and fufu tested terrible. Even when the food was later opened to community tasting, fufu remained the worst," said Helen Majola one of the project participants.
Fufu, a thick paste or porridge made by boiling starchy root vegetables such as cassava and then pounding them, is a staple food of west and central Africa, and generally served with a vegetable or meat sauce.
According to Cele, municipal agricultural extension agents have provided both hands-on training in producing the new crops and improving other farming techniques, and help in marketing the products to ensure farmers find the best outlets for their produce, which is largely organically produced.
"The bottom line is we recognised that, due to broad-ranging impacts of climate change, it was important for us to prepare ourselves to adapt to future increased risk," Cele said.
The project is designed to integrate with other municipal human development efforts, including poverty reduction and employment creation.
"We increasingly realise the importance of pursuing a social development course that helps communities adapt to changes in climate," Roberts said.
Durban, South Africa's third largest city and part of the eThekwini Municipality, is expected to struggle with an increase in daily maximum temperatures, increasing rainfall, floods, droughts and rising sea levels as climate change takes hold.
The consequences are likely to be decreased agricultural productivity, increased soil erosion from flooding, loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, and damage to social and physical infrastructure, experts say. That will likely affect tourism, a major source of income, and threaten residents, particularly those living in low-lying coastal and river-edge areas.
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