Better weather forecasts may give livestock farmers earlier warning of drought, but they will do little to protect farmers who cannot afford to act on the information.
By Maile Matsimela, digital editor at African Farming
As Southern Africa prepares for the possible arrival of a powerful El Niño event, researchers say that better climate forecasts alone will not be enough to protect many small-scale livestock farmers from devastating losses.
An international study led by the University of Sydney and Imperial College London found that forecasts are most effective when farmers also have access to practical measures that allow them to respond before drought takes hold.
These measures include supplementary livestock feed, drought insurance, targeted financial support and improved access to markets.
The research, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, examined how livestock farmers across Southern Africa respond to increasing climate variability and which interventions could help them adapt.
Also read: Streaky rains could lead to drought damage to crops
Knowing drought is coming is not enough
Lead author Dr Matthew Clark, a research associate in sustainability science at the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences, described increasing climate variability as an “inequity multiplier”.
“If the forecasts prove correct and we see a near-record El Niño develop, we expect this will amplify inequalities across Southern African rangelands,” Clark said.
The problem is not necessarily that poorer farmers lack climate information, but that many lack the financial resources to respond to it.
Wealthier livestock producers may be able to reduce their herds before a drought becomes severe, protecting some of their capital and allowing them to rebuild when conditions improve. Small-scale farmers often do not have the same financial buffer.
“The problem isn’t that poor farmers don’t have climate information,” Clark said. “The problem is they often cannot afford to act on it.”
That difference can become critical during drought. Millions of livestock farmers across Southern Africa depend on cattle, sheep and goats grazing rangelands in South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
For many households, livestock represent much more than agricultural production. Animals are a source of income and food security, and they serve as household wealth that can be passed from one generation to the next.
As rainfall becomes increasingly variable, poorer livestock farmers therefore can face difficult decisions. Those with sufficient resources may be able to sell animals early and rebuild their herds later. Farmers with fewer resources may be forced to keep livestock on deteriorating grazing for longer, increasing the risk of animal losses and placing further pressure on rangelands.
Also read: Study finds droughts devastate SA’s communal livestock owners
Farmers need the means to respond
Dr Gina Arena, science lead for Conservation International’s Herding for Health programme, said the challenge was not that livestock farmers were failing to think about adapting to climate change. Greater climate uncertainty also brings greater risk.
“We need to help people identify the best decisions and reduce the risk of implementation,” she said. “Research like this helps us do that.”
Using detailed modelling together with work conducted by non-governmental organisations in the field, the researchers found that climate forecasts became considerably more useful when accompanied by support that allowed households to respond before drought became severe.
Importantly, Clark said, the solution did not necessarily require entirely new technologies. “The encouraging finding is that this isn’t about inventing new technology; it is about applying existing knowledge in new ways.”
As weather forecasting improves, the challenge is ensuring that climate information is linked to practical interventions farmers can actually use.
The study fund that combining climate information with measures that reduce farmers’ financial risk could improve livelihoods, reduce inequality and protect grazing resources at the same time.
Also read: Talk to your bank sooner rather than later in times of drought
Testing drought responses
To investigate the problem, researchers developed a model representing pastoral communities across seven Southern African countries. The model combined projected rainfall patterns from European climate models with data on livestock, vegetation and household wealth.
The researchers then tested different scenarios. Under a business-as-usual scenario, greater rainfall variability reduced household wealth, increased livestock losses, degraded grasslands and widened inequality.
Providing farmers with forecasts alone produced only modest improvements because many households still lacked the financial capacity to respond to the warning.
Risk-reduction measures implemented without climate information could, meanwhile, create environmental trade-offs. The strongest results came when practical support was combined with climate information.
The researchers also examined how adaptation could spread between neighbouring communities. Drawing on conservation initiatives such as Herding for Health, the modelling indicated that when farmers received both climate information and practical support, communities could learn from one another and adoption could become self-reinforcing.
Although the research focused on Southern African pastoral systems, Clark said the approach could also be applied to livestock-producing regions elsewhere in the world facing increasingly variable rainfall.
The research involved scientists and organisations from the University of Sydney, Imperial College London, Conservation South Africa, the South African Environmental Observation Network, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of California Merced and the Santa Fe Institute.
Also read: Preparing your cattle herd for a potentially dry summer – Beefmaster Group
