A fast-changing environment forces farmers to think differently.
After his first two sentences, I knew that Joel Yiri from Jirapa was the man I was looking for. I had asked Peter Kuupenne, an extension officer from Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture, to meet “a creative farmer”. And that is what I found: Joel was a man with a vision.
From that moment on, I just knew it was going to be an interesting testimonial as part of the series we were recording for the Adaptation and Mitigation Knowledge Network project.
Joel inherited his plot of land from his father, but the soil had become infertile. For years he was one of the many migrant workers who go south to farm on other people’s land. “But I realised I was wasting my energy. I work on someone else’s land to earn money and buy food. Why not farm my own plots?”.
Every year the rains have started later and stopped earlier. To make matters worse, the first rains are often followed by a drought, which sometimes lasts for a month. That’s why Joel is looking further ahead: “I want to take a micro-finance loan to dig a borehole on my land. If I have access to water I could grow vegetables even during the dry season. A borehole with a simple irrigation system would cost about US$7000.” It’s a considerable investment, but Joel is sure he could pay back the loan in two years.
“An NGO came to look at my plot. They found termite heaps and several indigenous scrubs indicating there is water nearby, so they won’t have to dig deep. My plot is ready. With my 65 pigs I have enough manure to treat that surface, so the only thing I now need is water. It would also benefit the other people on the nearby plots.
“Farmers should be thinking of the future,” Joel concludes, “We should farm differently from our grandfathers. They took to farming only as a way to survive – to eat. If a crop failed, the next year they would try the same thing again, and again.
The way ahead for researchers and smallholder farmers facing current and coming challenges posed by climate change lies in learning from each other while sharing knowledge and experiences.
The Adaptation and Mitigation Knowledge Network (AMKN) is a central place for accessing and sharing current agricultural adaptation and mitigation knowledge. It illustrates farmers’ realities on the ground and links them with promising scientific research outputs to inspire new ideas and highlight the current challenges that need to be tackled to improve climate change resilience and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.
The AMKN is an initiative of the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program.
First published online for the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Program (http://www.ccafs.cgiar.org) and the Adaptation and Mitigation Knowledge Network (http://amkn.org) projects of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Reproduced with permission.