It is winter, a time when most irrigation farmers make a killing out of green maize and vegetables among other crops.<\/p>\n
But the impact of climate change has no geographical boundaries.<\/p>\n
It affects everyone, all over the world, and is particularly hard on those whose livelihoods depend directly on the natural environment.<\/p>\n
This is more the reason many farmers in Balaka hardly enjoy the wealth from irrigation. It is generally a dry district and mostly does not produce enough food due to poor weather conditions.<\/p>\n
Cecelia Chimenya of Kasonya Village, Traditional Authority (TA) Nsamala in the district says unfavourable climate is becoming worse with each passing year in the past five years, this year being the worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drought was too much this year. As far as I can remember, we had rains not more than five times. I harvested only one bag of maize on a piece of land where I normally harvest 10 to 12 bags in a farming year,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Chimenya says all rivers that are in her area have already dried up, hence cannot be used for irrigation, adding: \u201cThe only water source available is the Shire River, which is seven kilometres away. It is hard for one to be doing farming that side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unpredictable weather patterns in this area are mostly as a result of climate change due to environmental degradation.<\/p>\n
Chimenya explains that, last year, people in the area felt the devastating effects of floods and \u201cas if that was not enough, while we were finding the way out, this year, we are into hunger problems due to persistent drought\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services predicted that the 2015\/2016 farming year would experience delayed and little rains as compared to the previous one.<\/p>\n
And instead of having the first rains in late October or early November, in the 2015\/2016 farming year the rains came in early December and were not so consistent as they are supposed to be.<\/p>\n
According to the meteorological department, the prolonged dry spells were due to El Nino \u2013 the unusual warming of waters over the Eastern Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean which affects rainfall pattern over the world including southern Africa and Malawi.<\/p>\n
El Nino essentially led to dyer-than-average conditions which have contributed to drought in southern Africa countries.<\/p>\n
According to Irish Aid\u2019s climate action report of November 2015, Malawi is among the countries most prone to the adverse effects of climate change, ranked among 16 countries of \u2018extreme risks\u2019 to climate change impacts in the world.<\/p>\n
The country, therefore, is most likely to experience more devastating effects of climate change.<\/p>\n
And climate change around the world is creating new challenges for those involved in international development, since poor countries and population groups are much harder hit than prosperous ones.<\/p>\n
Climate change hampers development and jeopardises the progress that has already been achieved.<\/p>\n
For this reason, several organisations have embarked on climate change resilience projects in the country.<\/p>\n
Concern Universal is one of such organisations working in Chimenya\u2019s area.<\/p>\n
Concern Universal has Discover projects in T\/A Nsamala and sub-T\/As Nkaya and Chanthunya targeting 12,000 households in 15 group village heads.<\/p>\n
Discover Project was established with an aim of promoting communities to cope with disasters and climate change by, among others, encouraging them to grow other crops to be used as a staple apart from the customary maize.<\/p>\n
Chimenya testifies as one of the people who were taught modern farming techniques including irrigation but she has had no opportunity to practise it so as to be food secure.<\/p>\n
So what has worked for her? <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cDespite poor maize harvest, I\u2019m privileged to have been one of the recipients of sorghum seed, so I harvested lots of sorghum which will at least see me through to somewhere in the season,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Concern Universal also builds capacity of communities in disaster risk reduction and climate change resilience strategies.<\/p>\n Each village head in the project areas has a Village Civil Protection Committee (VCPC) that is trained in handling and prevention of damages during a disaster. Village Head Mpilisi says it is doubtful if the area will ever be food secure if it sticks to rain-fed agriculture.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have examples at our finger tips. If it were not for the sorghum seed that most people received from this organisation, people would really suffer. At least people are having sorghum nsima now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n One VCPC chairperson, Alick Jonathan, stresses the need for the locals to master the hunger mitigating techniques, saying non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will eventually phase out their aid.<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cIt\u2019s important that we depart from always being at the receiving end of such programmes and become a people who will find own solutions to our problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Concern Universal Discover Project Manager, Mcpherson Kapalamula, says communities now understand the importance of climate change adaptation programmes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s noticeable that the maize-only culture is departing as they are able to grow other crops such as sorghum, sweet potatoes and cassava among others,\u201d Kapalamula says.<\/p>\n \u201cOur plea is that they should continue with this when our project phases out.\u201d<\/p>\n Kapalamula says since climate change is a result of environmental degradation, the programme has incorporated afforestation, forest management and use of stoves that use less firewood initiatives.<\/p>\n Discover Project is supported by the United Kingdom through the Department for International Development (DfID), Irish Aid and Norwegian government and is managed by a consortium of stakeholders including Concern Universal.<\/p>\n The other organisations are implementing the project in Nsanje, Dedza, Salima and Karonga.<\/p>\n The project that started in 2011 will phase out in 2017, and hopefully Chimenya and the beneficiary communities will continue to use the skills acquired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is winter, a time when most irrigation farmers make a killing out of green maize and vegetables among other crops. But the impact of climate change has no geographical boundaries. It affects everyone, all over the world, and is particularly hard on those whose livelihoods depend directly on the natural environment. This is more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28369,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28364\/revisions\/28369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}