The effects of El Nino cannot be over-emphasised. REMMY NWEKE writes that Africa must be proactive in managing the situation.
Introduction:
A new concern may be worrying
experts in the agriculture industry in the name of El Nino drought, especially
in Ethiopia, otherwise known as horn of Africa. For many observers in the
development world, this is coming at a time the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) have been invigorated.
What is El Nino
El Nino is
an irregularly occurring and complex series of climatic changes affecting the
equatorial Pacific region and beyond every few years, characterized by the
appearance of unusually warm, nutrient-poor water off northern Peru and
Ecuador, typically in late December.
But
investigations revealed that el Nino has since gone beyond the northern Peru
and Ecuador to other part of the world including the United States as Southern
California was reported recently to have a high-pressure mass in order to keep
brunt of El Nino away.
During an El
Nino, the physical relationships between wind, ocean currents, temperature, and
biosphere break down into destructive patterns, says Dr. John Kermond, the Communications
Director for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The United States-based National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) through its earth observatory department sees El Nino as
a climate change that occurs every three
to seven years during the months of December and January, culminating in fish
in the coastal waters off of these countries virtually vanishing and causing
the fishing business to come to a standstill.
South American fishermen, according to David Herring, one of
the earth observatory experts, have given this phenomenon the name El Niño,
which is Spanish for "the Boy Child," because it comes about the time
of the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child. He explained that during
an El Niño, the physical relationships between wind, ocean currents, oceanic
and atmospheric temperature, and biosphere break down into destructive patterns
that are second only to the march of the seasons in their impacts to weather
conditions around the world.
Cushioning
El Nino in Africa:
It was this concern that got the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) worried by the amount of drought witnessed at
the end of 2015 and cross over to 2016; voted the sum of $50m for emergency in
the drought-ridden Ethiopia, although this drought is not limited in Ethiopia
alone, just as the droughts were attributed to the strongest El Niño weather
episode in the last several decades, which has caused repeated crop failure,
decimated livestock herds and driven some 10.2 million people across Ethiopia into
food insecurity.
FAO also disclosed in its emergency response plan to urgently
protect livestock and rebuild crop production in the Horn of Africa nation.
According to the FAO Representative for Ethiopia, Mr. Amadou Allahoury, the
outlook for 2016 is very grim, stressing that after two consecutive seasons of
failed crops, the success of the main cropping season that starts now will be
critical to preventing conditions from worsening.
The continued drought throughout the beginning of 2016, he
said means pasture will become even more scarce which will negatively impact
livestock keepers that rely on those grazing lands and water points for their
food security. Asserting that overall, food will become harder to access if the
drought continues and prices rise, food stocks deplete and livestock become
weaker, less productive, and perish.
The El Niño phenomenon is associated with the abnormal
warming of sea surface temperature in parts of the Pacific Ocean that has
severe effects on global weather and climate patterns - leading to reduced
rainfall and drought in some regions and heavy rains and flooding in
others. Under the current El Niño, crop production in Ethiopia has dropped
by 50 to 90 per cent in some regions and failed completely in the east. The
drought resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of livestock.
El
Nino in Africa:
Of course, the African continent is not immune to El Niño as
it has lowered crop prospects in southern Africa countries and many countries
in the region are taking measures. South Africa has already declared drought
status for five provinces, its main cereal producing regions, while Lesotho has
issued a drought mitigation plan and Swaziland has implemented water
restrictions as reservoir levels have become low.
FAO, thus is implementing response plans in 20 high-priority
countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the South
Pacific, including Ethiopia. Another 21 countries are being monitored
closely.
What
the emergency plan portends:
NaijaAgroNet gathered that FAO in its emergency response
plan made budget for an estimated to 360,000 households, that is some 1.8
million people, as some households to receive assistance under more than one
activity.In addition, FAO says there is plan to reduce the food gap and enhance
nutrition through support to agricultural production through emergency seed
distribution to affected areas for the meher season, quality drought resilient
seed production at community level, reduce risk of malnutrition through
backyard vegetable production initiatives.
FAO equally plans to offer rapid response for irrigated food
production at household level, safeguard livestock-based livelihoods, provision
of cash to destock already weak animal through slaughter, protection of core
breeding animals through survival feed provision, voucher-based supplementary
feed support, increase fodder production at community level, support to animal
health interventions and vector control, restore livelihoods through restocking
with small ruminants, enhance resilience of households’ affected by El Niño.
Whereas they intend to work towards adoption of the approach
for better mitigation of future crises, cash-for-work initiatives to improve
critical infrastructure for water access, coordination for efficient and
effective response, and coordination of overall response.
According to the FAO latest assessments, access to pasture and water will
continue to deteriorate until the start of the next rainy season in March. As a
result, experts anticipate that livestock will become leaner, sicker and
produce less milk and many more will die.
Crop reserves are severely depleted, leaving farmers
vulnerable without means of production for the upcoming planting season that
starts in January -- in many cases, farmers lost valuable seeds through
recurrent crop failures, planting time and time again in the hopes of rains that
never came.
As a result, malnutrition rates have soared and the number
of admissions for severe acute malnutrition among children is now the highest
ever reported.
Response plan
The new FAO response plan aims to assist 1.8 million farmers
and livestock keepers in 2016 to reduce food gaps and restore agricultural
production and incomes.
The first critical phase of the $50 million will focus
on the meher season between January and June.
FAO plans to help 131 500 households plant with a focus
on the meher season. This intervention will include a mix of
emergency seed distribution, small-scale irrigation projects, and backyard
gardening initiatives targeted at empowering women's groups with tools,
knowledge and access to micro loans.
As the current drought has not only affected smallholder
farmers but also seed producers, it has aggravated already existing seed
shortages across the country and made it even harder for farmers to plant. For
this reason, FAO is also supporting 10 000 seed producers to produce high-quality
seeds and get the local market for seeds back on its feet.
Another 293 000 households will
benefit from livestock interventions, such as the distribution of
emergency animal feed, vaccination drives to protect some 3 million animals
against disease, and restocking of 100 000 goats and sheep to vulnerable
households.
As many animals have been severely weakened by lack of food
and water, FAO will also implement a cash-for-livestock exchange that will
reimburse farmers for bringing unproductive livestock to slaughter and support
community feed production.
A third leg of the response plan will focus on
strengthening livelihoods of more than 30 000 households and build
their resilience to future shocks. This will include cash-for-work programs
that will boost families' incomes and improve critical local infrastructure and
water access for livestock. This part of the plan will also target farmers' and
women's groups through integrated community projects that support community
savings-and-loan schemes, farmer field schools and other methods to help
families accumulate and diversify assets.
Rebuilding now
By focusing specifically on rebuilding the productive
capacity of farming and pastoralist families, FAO is supporting ongoing efforts
by the Government of Ethiopia, other UN agencies and NGO partners that are
tending to the immediate needs of at-risk families.
"In Ethiopia, El Niño is not just a food crisis -- it's
above all a livelihood crisis. And we need to intervene now to protect and
rebuild these livelihoods and people's capacity to produce, to prevent families
from becoming long-term dependent on food aid," said Dominique Burgeon,
Leader of FAO's Strategic Programme on Resilience and Director of FAO's
Emergencies and Rehabilitation Division.
FAO's appeal for $50 million to protect Ethiopian
livelihoods comes at a time when international donor funds are stretched thin
in light of a multitude of major human-induced crises.
But intervention to secure farming livelihoods now is the
best way to help the country bounce back and prevent a further slide into
chronic food insecurity, according to Burgeon.
"If response is delayed, recovery will be difficult and
the cost of interventions will only increase," he stressed.
Between FAO and El Niño
Agriculture
is one of the main sectors of the economy that could be severely affected by
the El Niño phenomenon. While drought is the main threat to food production, El
Niño can also cause heavy rains, flooding or extremely hot or cold weather.
This can lead to animal disease outbreaks, including zoonosis and food-borne
diseases, as well as plant pests and forest fires.
Previously
El Niño events have been lined up to create more awareness and share knowledge,
therefore, people whose livelihoods depend on fisheries have been heavily
affected in certain areas.
With
climatologists predicting that the 2015-16 El Niño
event
could become one of the strongest on record, FAO is moving forward with
specific plans for early interventions under its Early Warning - Early Action
System.
As
at the time of filing this report, 14 countries on the continent of Africa, the
South Pacific, Asia and Central America are being specifically targeted due to their
increased risk to extreme weather and a subsequent negative effect on
vulnerable people. Another 19 countries are classified as facing moderate risk,
of, which their future status will be proclaimed by FAO.
Whilst
waiting for the future of Africa and El Nino, the continent has to take
cautionary steps to ensure, first of all that El Nino does not expand beyond
its current state in order to be contained in and within the proposed FAO
lifeline in this regard, in which line the African Union (AU) via its CAADP
initiative.
