A Review on the Role of Climate Smart Agriculture for Sustainable Crop Production

Abstract

Almost all sectors, especially agriculture are highly climate sensitive and thus climate change have both direct and indirect negative impacts on production systems. Changes in climate, increased frequency and intensity of climate shocks (such as drought, flooding and extreme temperatures) as well as changing distribution and timing of rainfall are major factors which negatively affect sustainable crop production. This needs the solution to feed rapidly increasing population in the world especially African countries due to their less ability to cope the climate change. Therefore, one of the proposed means is climate smart agriculture. CSA is defined by three objectives: firstly, increasing agricultural productivity to support increased incomes, food security and development; secondly, increasing adaptive capacity at multiple levels (from farm to nation) and thirdly, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing carbon sinks/sequestration. There are many agricultural practices which are important for this approach some of them include conservation agriculture, agro forestry, soil and water conservation techniques and irrigation practices. CSA integrates climate change into the planning and implementation of sustainable agriculture and informs priority-setting. Identifying appropriate ways to incentivize the uptake of climate smart alternatives is a key priority to improve productivity and reduce yield variability.

Keywords; Conservation Agriculture, Agro-forestry, Carbon Sequestration, Adaptive Capacity

DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/9-12-02

Publication date:June 30^th 2019