AS temperatures continue to rise, climate protection is one of the greatest environmental challenges currently facing mankind.
If unified counter-measures are not urgently taken, rising temperatures will continue to have grave consequences on the globe.
As climatic and vegetation zones shift and the distribution of precipitation changes, food security in all its dimensions will be affected – that is access, availability and utilisation.
Zimbabwe’s economy – including agriculture, water, energy, forestry, tourism and industry, among others ‑ is susceptible to abrupt climate variability and adversely impact Zimbabwe’s key economic sectors and livelihoods, pushing people into further poverty as a result.
Some of the geophysical impacts of climate change include flooding and drought, displacement of millions of people, poverty, hunger and denial of access to basic services, such as health and education.
Climate change also affects the social and environmental determinants of health, like clean air, sufficient food, secure shelter and safe drinking water.
In many regions, climate change creates considerable uncertainty about future water availability.
It will affect precipitation, runoff and snow/ice melt, with effects on hydrological systems, water quality and water temperature as well as on groundwater recharge. In many regions of the world, increased water scarcity under climate change will present a major challenge for climate adaptation.
Sea-level rise will affect the salinity of surface and groundwater in coastal areas.
By 2030, an estimated 700 million people will be at risk of displacement by drought alone.
Climate change is also the biggest threat to health facing humanity today.
Climate change will also increase socio-economic inequalities, stall economic growth and even cause conflict in many parts of the world.
For instance, conflicts may arise among States because rivers cross borders, leading to efforts to evolve governance of river basins.
Finally, climate change will impact food security and nutrition of people, including the people of Zimbabwe. Climate change will negatively affect Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)’s action to eradicate hunger and malnutrition and increasingly threaten the achievement of the UN goal to eradicate hunger.
These are reasons for governments to take ambitious action to tackle climate change in all sectors.
In 2020, concentrations of global greenhouse gases reached new highs and real-time data point to continued increases.
As these concentrations rise, so does the earth’s temperature.
In 2021, the global mean temperature was about 1.1°C above the pre-industrial level (from 1850 to 1900).
The years from 2015 to 2021 were the seven warmest years on record.
According to a UN report in 2023, the overall global temperature has already risen 1.1ºC above the pre-industrial level, with glaciers melting and the sea levels rising.
Past emissions have already made a certain level of global temperature rise and other changes to the climate inevitable.
To limit warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2025.
They must then decline by 43 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050.
Since COP 21, countries have been articulating climate action plans to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts through nationally determined contributions. However, current national commitments are not sufficient to meet the 1.5°C target.
Updated evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by the latest scientific findings and enriched by FAO’s knowledge and experiences on the ground, provided an overview of the cascading impacts of climate change on food security and nutrition, from physical impact on agro-ecosystems to livelihoods and food security.
Overall, findings indicate that climate change will also increase crop yield variability in many regions, while the potential impact on other crops than major cereals have not yet been fully studied.
The strong evidence base that links the use of maternal, infant as well as young child feeding and care practices to reductions in chronic malnutrition supports the utility of integrating nutrition, social and behaviour change (SBC) into agriculture development activities.
As such, food security and nutrition, as well as the agriculture sectors that support it, should be a priority area of intervention.
It also recalls the urgency to mitigate climate change in order to keep it at levels where it is still possible to ensure and safeguard everyone’s food security and nutrition.
Agricultural livelihoods affect nutrition of individual household members through multiple pathways and interactions.
It is thus important to understand how various agriculture investments or activities could improve access to food and health care; how they impact and are affected by the enabling environment; and how they ultimately affect the nutrition of individuals, especially women and children.
Improving women’s nutrition is critical to breaking the intergenerational cycle of under-nutrition and is essential to sustained economic growth, given the negative impact that chronic under-nutrition has on productivity, educational attainment and income generating potential.
Nutrition may be protected if agricultural livelihoods guarantee a reliable and sustainable income and if that income is used to purchase diverse, nutritious food as well as to obtain health care, education, shelter, fuel, and other basic necessities required for a healthy, productive life.
Agriculture has a unique role in ensuring access to, and availability of, diverse, nutritious food.
At the same time, agricultural development projects should avoid doing unintentional harm to public health, for example, by protecting potable water and maintaining a contaminant-free environment and support the care of children and families by reducing demands on women’s use of time and energy.
Addressing availability and access to food is critically important but may not have a measurable impact on nutritional status, especially if other factors limit child growth, such as poor sanitation, inadequate care practices or lack of access to quality health services. The strong evidence base that links the use of maternal, infant and young child feeding and care practices to reductions in chronic malnutrition across all socioe-conomic strata supports the utility of integrating nutrition social and behaviour change (SBC) into agriculture development activities.
However, the decisions farmers make about crop and livestock production are affected by many things, including potential market prices, relative costs and risks associated with each product, the assets and endowments of land the household possesses as well as family needs and preferences.
Zimbabwe’s nutritional status is strongly influenced by the health, water and sanitation, environment and access to health services.
Agricultural production interacts with the health, water and sanitation environment.
Thus, taking urgent action to combat climate change and its devastating impact is, therefore, an imperative to save lives and livelihood, and key to making the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Goals, the blueprint for a better future a reality.
Dr Tony Monda BSc, DVM, DPVM, is currently conducting veterinary epidemiology, and agro-economic research in Zimbabwe.
For views and comments, email: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com