Climate Change Impacts on Sustainable Maize Production in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review

Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the commonly grown grain crops and remains a source of staple food and food security for most countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). But climate change threatens agricultural potential in SSA thereby risking food security especially that most maize production is rain-fed in these countries. Thus, numerous studies have examined impacts of climate change on maize production and productivity resulting in several adaption strategies being promoted to mitigate the negative effects of climate change. But to the best of our knowledge, there has not been any studies in literature that provide a review of impacts of climate change on maize production and productivity in SSA. This chapter therefore provides a review of empirical climate change impacts on maize production and its productivity in SSA. We chose SSA because most countries in SSA are underdeveloped and therefore more vulnerable to climate change effects. This is important because this review will provide an easier access of such results for both scholars and policy makers in search of empirical impacts of climate change on maize production and productivity in SSA

An Economic Analysis of Precision Application of Lime at Reduced Rates

Acidity is a growing concern for crop production in Zambia, affecting more than 300,000 smallholder farmers in all agro-ecological regions of the country. Unfortunately, evidence shows that lime applied at traditionally recommended rates of more than two metric tons per hectare are not only unattainable but also unprofitable in smallholder systems. This study uses data from on-station trials and demonstration plots to determine yield and financial gains from precisely applied lime at reduced rates. The results from marginal analysis show that lime applied at such reduced rates can be profitable in maize, soybean and groundnut production. When combined with compost, marginal returns can be as high as 150 percent. Keywords: Lime, reduced rate, marginal returns, Zambi

Three essays on weather shocks, nutrition and forests

2020 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Climate-related shocks, such as droughts and floods, can have particularly harmful effects for poor rural households in developing countries. In this dissertation, I determine how forests affect a household's ability to cope with shocks, estimate how agricultural input use changes after shocks, and explore a novel explanation for high rates of undernutrition within food-producing households. In the first essay, using data from Malawi, I find that households allocate labor away from agriculture to forests in the event of a weather shock and that access to forests offsets the negative effect of weather shocks on nutrition and food security. In the second essay, I use nationally representative data on smallholder households in Zambia and find that, after a weather shock, households are less likely to use a risky input and more likely to use a less risky input because they become more risk-averse. Access to credit can mitigate the negative impact of a shock on the likelihood of using fertilizer. In the last essay, I use household production and demographic data from a household survey that I conducted in Zambia to measure nutrition deficits created by insufficient food production or food sales that, if consumed at home, would have contributed to household nutrition. I find that nutrient deficits, from either insufficient production or selling output, are detrimental to nutrition and food security. High lean season food prices reduce the quantity of market-bought foods demanded and undermine the ability of households to use income from crop sales to purchase food. In summary, rural households respond to shocks in various ways. Both natural resource access and improved credit markets can offset the negative impacts from a shock while increasing food production and nutrition outcomes

Sources of Economic Growth in Zambia, 1970–2013: A Growth Accounting Approach

Most empirical work on sources of economic growth for different countries lack country-specific empirical evidence to guide policy choices in individual developing countries and previous studies of factor productivity tend to focus on the entire economy or a single sector. This provides fewer insights about a country’s structural evolution. Unlike previous studies, our study builds on this by taking a more comprehensive approach in estimating Zambia’s sources of economic growth by sectors—agriculture, industry, and service—in a systematic manner that yields insights into the country’s sources of structural transformation. We use recently developed growth accounting tools to explicitly determine sources of economic growth at both national and sectoral levels in Zambia between 1970 and 2013. We use data from World Development Indicators and Zambia’s Central Statistical Office. Results indicate that, on average, total factor productivity (TFP) contributes about 5.7% to economic growth. Sectoral analysis shows that agriculture contributes the least to GDP and that, within each sector, factors that contribute to growth differ. Structural transformation has been slow and contributed to the observed inefficiency. We outline the implications of the observed growth and provide recommendations

Effects of Weather Variability on Crop Abandonment

In Zambia, every year some parts of the maize fields are abandoned post-planting. Reasons for this are not clearly known. In this paper, we examine the influence of soil and climatic factors on crop abandonment using a six-year (2007–2012) panel data by modeling the planted-to-harvested ratio (a good indicator of crop abandonment) using a fractional and linear approach. Therefore, for the first time, our study appropriately (as supported by the model specification tests that favour fractional probit over linear) models the fractional nature of crop abandonment. Regression results, which are not very different between the two specifications, indicate that, more than anything, high rainfall immediately after planting and inadequate fertilizer are the leading determinants of crop abandonment. In the agro-ecological region where dry planting takes place, low temperature during planting months negatively affects the harvested area. The results have implications on the sustainability of farming systems in the face of a changing climate

Additional file 1 of Effectiveness of online counselling during COVID-19 in Zambia. A client and therapists perspective

Supplementary Material 1

An Economic Analysis of Precision Application of Climate at Reduced Rates

Acidity is among the problems that affect crop production in Zambia. The problem is no longer restricted to the traditional agro-ecological region III but has now become widespread in all parts of Zambia. The problem is exacerbated by continuous use of chemical fertilizers and mono cropping. More than 700,000 small scale farmers are troubled by acid soils. The only available and most common way of preventing and ameliorating the problem is through use of lime in the fields. At the recommended rates of about 2 tons, small scale farmers cannot afford. Using data from on-station and demonstration plots carried out by Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust (GART) and Conservation Farming Unit (CFU), the study determines the yield and financial gains smallholder farmers can achieve if lime was precisely applied at reduced rates in the agro-ecological zones I and II. The results from the marginal analysis show that at reduced rates, lime use is profitable in maize at Batoka research station and in soybeans and groundnuts at Chisamba GART research station. Compost and lime synergy in groundnuts at Chisamba GART research station was profitable with marginal returns of over 150%. Lime could therefore be recommended for use even at reduced rates as the yields are on average higher than where it is not used and the returns were positive