Sahel Climate

Environmental factors are a factor that affect living and nonliving organisms and have participated in Ethiopia’s problem in food deficiency and food insecurity. A large environmental factor that can affect food deficiency and food insecurity is natural hazards and disasters. These can include droughts and floods which can upset agricultural production. For example, grain production and stocks are very low and droughts have hit harvests in grain-producing areas around the world. A more specific example for Ethiopia is that because of Ethiopia’s seasonal rainfall from mid-June to mid-September, soil erosion and

Sahel Region of Africa- A semiarid region of north-central Africa south of the Sahara Desert. That has been afflicted by prolonged periods of extensive

The main industry is the agricultural sector which completely depends on the climate. There are strong linkages between poverty and environmental degradation, particularly poor water management, soil erosion, declining soil fertility and land degradation. In addition, the effects of climate change are undermining an already fragile resource base and have contributed to declining agricultural yields over the past decades. In recent years, drought has become a perennial problem in parts of Kenya. Episodes in 2009 and 2011 generated food emergencies, while flooding in 2010 affected parts of the country severely.

In Ethiopia, there is usually plenty of rain, and the farmers do not have to irrigate their crops. On the other hand, Somalia is very hot and dry farmers can only grow crops near a river an oasis or where they can use irrigation. This makes it very difficult for the Ethiopians to grow food, and they have suffered severe drought several times since the 1980s Lack of rainfall also makes it very difficult for them to raise livestock. Ethiopia has suffered from famines, and many people have died from hunger there. One way farmers can try to overcome the effects of rainfall is to plant a large variety of crops some that need alot of rain and some that can survive with very little rain. This way hopefully they can grow enough crops to stay subsistent which means they and feed and nourish their

There is no doubt that climate is a considerable element for the agricultural production. However, along with the climate change, extreme weather tends to be more frequent and more intense that destructively affects framing. As a result, the drought occurred in sub-Saharan Africa became continual and long duration, which resulted in poor harvests. In addition,

The physical-environmental geography of Sub-Saharan Africa relates to the distribution of human and economic activities in several ways. First, Sub-Saharan Africa is a peripheral that supplies raw materials, food, and cheap labor to the main industrial countries. The physical geography makes survival had for those not working in agriculture. It is the most productive way for people to make a living and feed their large families. In recent years, there has been major movement from rural-to-urban environments. Migration to major cities has caused extreme overcrowding and poor living conditions.

Farming in Africa is inadequate and inefficient. The fertility of the soil is becoming depleted and severely reducing the amount of crops from each harvest (Ayieko). This problem is due to over farming the land and not allowing for crop rotation to replenish the nutrients in the soil. This is a practice that is used by most farmers around the globe. Continuing on this trend will risk the land becoming barren and unable to support plant life.

Arid environments are hostile for plants and animals to thrive and have very little precipitation. Arid places have very limited water because of exceptionally little precipitation. Egypt can vary from extreme heat during the day to frigid nights. Most of Egypt’s wildlife is nocturnal to escape the heat. Most arid places are nearby the equator.

Currently there is research on drought tolerant genes to be implemented in our crops. Imagine the impact that this type of crop would have to those communities left without food. Africa has seen the worst drought ever, with food losses of up to R10 billion. We are facing a situation where there will be food shortage, and our harbours are probably not equipped enough to handle the amount of food that is required to be imported. Would the situation be not as devasting if drought tolerant maize and other crops existed? This would mean a genetically modified crop would have been required. For example Bt maize by Monsanto in which maize plants are protected from insect damage. Certain GM foods can be “cold tolerant” as people introduce anti-freeze genes into foods such as potatoes that helps the plant to tolerate cold temperatures that would normally kill unmodified

Climate: Africa contains both the world’s largest desert (the Sahara) and the world 's longest river (the Nile).Temperatures are highest in desert areas, particularly the Sahara. They are cooler across the south and in mountainous areas and plateau highlands. Rainfall varies dramatically across Africa.Changing weather patterns, however patterns of weather are changing, both locally and across the continent. The Sahara is the world 's largest low-latitude hot desert. The area is located in the horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge, a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical, warm-core high pressure where the air from the upper levels of the troposphere tends to sink towards the ground. This steady descending airflow causes a warming and a drying effect in the upper troposphere. The sinking air prevents evaporating water from rising and, therefore, prevents the adiabatic cooling, which makes cloud formation extremely difficult to nearly impossible.

There are a variety of causes held responsible for the water crisis in Africa. These causes have been taken from African’s control and desperately need to be solved. Climate change is one of the countless reasons that there is a high demand for water in Africa. An article entitled “Africa’s Water Crisis Deepens” written for the 2006 News Scientist, states that Drought, famine and spreading deserts have plagued Africa for the past 30 years. With the expansion of desertification, the process in which land becomes increasingly dry with little to no water resources, areas of land have dried out and are useless to humans due to the lack of rainfall on the African continent over the past several years.

From there the people, land, and globally worldwide view of what can be done to stop the negative results of the drought:With so little resources East Africa uses what they have chicken blood is used as a treatment to a malnourished person (Stewart, 2011). Immunizations

Drought is another factor of climate change that causes severe damages to agriculture and livestock. The effects of drought on agricultural production and livestock holding can be a detrimental issue and result in quality dissatisfaction of products. The agricultural industry can be affected by drought both economically and environmentally. The economical effects of drought on crops and animals can lead to the loss of money and time. When droughts occur farmers lose money because they will have to spend more money earned from their

Agriculture is one of the major sector becoming vulnerable to climate-change. Increased incidences of abiotic and biotic stresses are likely to cause serious negative impact on crop production. Abiotic stress is defined as the negative impact of non-living factors on the living organisms in a specific environment. The non-living variable must influence the environment beyond its normal range of variation to adversely affect the performance or individual organism in a significant way. This leads to decrease in the productivity by more than 50% in major crop plants which are growing word wide (Bray et al., 2000). Increased water stress, reduction in rainfall and increased air temperature are the major reasons for yield decline in wheat and paddy crops in many parts of South Asia. The average increase in temperature per decade is measured to be 0.28 ºC over land and 0.12 ºC over ocean and predicted that it is likely to rise further to a maximum of 2.5 ºC by 2050 and 5.8 ºC by 2100 (Jones et al., 1999; Grover et al., 2011). The principal abiotic stresses in India are drought or soil moisture stress, high temperatures, soil salinity/alkalinity, low pH and metal toxicity stresses that affect nearly two-thirds area forming parts of the arid and semi arid eco systems (Grover et al., 2011).

Firstly, climate change has a big impact with world hunger. Climate change may affect food systems in several ways ranging from direct effects on crop production (e.g. changes in rainfall leading to drought or flooding, or warmer or cooler temperatures leading to changes in the length of growing season), to changes in markets, food prices and supply chain infrastructure (Gregory, Ingram & Brklacich, 2005, p.2139). It can trigger a natural disaster like drought and flood, which can have an extreme effect with the problems in the sources of food. In one hand, drought is a common scenario in farm lands in which