KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli has called on the agricultural sector in the province to transition to climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in an effort to protect crops from severe weather patterns. KwaZulu-Natal’s vulnerability to extreme weather events, has in recent years, caused significant damage in the agricultural sector and loss of life.

A climate change symposium was held in Durban focusing on agriculture, gathering experts, policymakers, and stakeholders to address the complex relationship between climate change and food production.

Discussions centred on the recent floods in the province related to climate change and how to safeguard communities. Experts say the agricultural sector is the hardest hit during extreme weather patterns, like rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns which affect crop yields, livestock health, and water availability.

The goal of the symposium is to understand and quantify these threats to food security. The major theme of the gathering is how agriculture can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

This includes exploring methods for improving soil health, a more sustainable way of managing livestock and adopting energy-efficient farming practices.

The symposium also highlighted strategies for helping the agricultural sector adapt to unavoidable climate changes, which involves developing drought-resistant crops, implementing water-saving irrigation technologies, and creating policies that support resilient farming systems.

Senior researcher at the South African Sugar Cane Research Institute, Dr. Lawrence Malinga, explains:

“The importance of trying to put smart innovations are imperative. Some of those will include practices that should be involved in agricultural sectors that come to the issues of better smart mechanisms that will better include things of using drones and doing drone sensing, identifying pests and diseases using this kind of instruments and will be key to sort out the changing of the climate.”

Premier Ntuli urged delegates to come up with modern, innovative ways to support a transition to climate-smart agriculture.

“The symposium must come out with strategies that will enable our people to understand that the ways that were used in the past, to ensure that we survive. Floods were always there, despite not being as prone as they are now. They were there for the selection of land parcels to be used for growing crops. And there are other ways and means that the knowledge can be escalated to communities in agricultural activities.”

Delegates called on government to find ways of protecting vulnerable communities and small-scale farmers, who are disproportionately affected by climate change. They say this will ensure food security for the province’s population of approximately 12 million people.

Video: Transition to climate-smart agriculture