By Lucy Holt, CCAFS
It’s not often you hear the words good and climate change in one sentence. But some areas of Africa will actually become better for agriculture if climate change trends continue as expected. Of course, the key word in that sentence is some. Others will become worse.
One might think that the good and the bad will balance each other out. Not so, according to Timothy Thomas of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The good and the bad will create the ugly.
What are your options?
Imagine you are a farmer. You have always grown maize, your parents and grandparents before them grew maize. Gradually and then suddenly, you cannot grow maize anymore. What are you going to do?
Thomas foresees two options. One: you adapt. You find crops better suited to the new climate you find yourself in and learn how to farm them. Of course, these crops will require a significant investment of both time and money and might take years to come good. Two: you move. Maybe you abandon the countryside and migrate to urban areas looking for paid employment. Maybe you move to one of those areas where agriculture has benefited from climate change. Either way, there is potential for things to get ugly.
Read the rest of the story on the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) blog.
Read more: Learn about the African Agriculture and Climate Change series
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