Chapter 16. Increasing adaptation to climate stress by applying conservation agriculture in Southern Africa

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cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Maize and Wheat Improvement Centeren
cg.contributor.affiliationWorld Agroforestry Centreen
cg.contributor.crpMaize
cg.contributor.donorFederal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germanyen
cg.contributor.donorInternational Fund for Agricultural Developmenten
cg.contributor.donorUnited States Agency for International Developmenten
cg.contributor.donorDeutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeiten
cg.contributor.donorCGIAR Trust Funden
cg.contributor.initiativeDiversification in East and Southern Africa
cg.coverage.regionSouthern Africa
cg.creator.identifierChristian Thierfelder: 0000-0002-6306-7670en
cg.creator.identifierPeter Steward: 0000-0003-3985-4911en
cg.howPublishedFormally Publisheden
cg.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1079/9781789245745.0016en
cg.isbn978-1-78924-574-5en
cg.placeUnited Kingdomen
cg.subject.actionAreaResilient Agrifood Systems
cg.subject.impactAreaClimate adaptation and mitigation
dc.contributor.authorThierfelder, Christian L.en
dc.contributor.authorSteward, Peter R.en
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-08T20:09:36Zen
dc.date.available2023-05-08T20:09:36Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/130285
dc.titleChapter 16. Increasing adaptation to climate stress by applying conservation agriculture in Southern Africaen
dcterms.abstractClimate change and soil fertility decline are threatening food security in southern Africa and efforts have been made to adapt current cropping systems to the needs of smallholder farmers. Conservation Agriculture (CA) based on minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention and crop diversification has been proposed as a strategy to address the challenges smallholder farmers face. Here we analyse the potential contributions of CA towards adaptation to the effects of climate change by summarizing data on infiltration, soil moisture dynamics and crop productivity under heat and drought stress. The data were taken in the main from CIMMYT’s on-farm and on-station trial network. Data show that CA systems maintain 0.7-7.9 times higher water infiltration than the conventional tilled system depending on soil type, which increases soil moisture during the cropping season by 11%-31% between CA treatments and the conventional control treatment. This leads to greater adaptive capacity of CA systems during in-season dry spells and under heat stress. A supporting regional maize productivity assessment, analysing the results of numerous on-farm and on-station experiments, showed that CA systems will outperform conventional tillage practices (CP), especially on light-textured soils, under heat and drought stress. With higher rainfall and low heat stress, this relation was more positive towards CP and on clay soil there was no benefit of practising CA when rainfall was high. The long dry season and limited biomass production of CA systems in southern Africa require complementary good agricultural practices to increase other soil quality parameters (e.g. increased soil carbon) to maintain higher productivity and sustainability over time. This can be addressed by combinations of improved stress-tolerant seed, targeted fertilization, inclusion of tree-based components or green manure cover crops in the farming system, scale-appropriate mechanization and improved weed control strategies.en
dcterms.accessRightsLimited Access
dcterms.bibliographicCitationThierfelder, C., & Steward, P. (2022). Increasing adaptation to climate stress by applying conservation agriculture in Southern Africa. In S. Mkomwa & A. Kassam (Eds.), Conservation agriculture in Africa: Climate smart agricultural development (pp. 270–283). CABI.en
dcterms.extentp. 270-283en
dcterms.issued2022en
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.licenseCopyrighted; all rights reserved
dcterms.publisherCAB Internationalen
dcterms.subjectadaptationen
dcterms.subjectclimate-smart agricultureen
dcterms.subjectzero tillageen
dcterms.subjectresilienceen
dcterms.subjectsustainable intensificationen
dcterms.typeBook Chapter

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