The Controversy Of East Africa's Cropping System

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

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

Africa has the majority of the poorest countries in the world. With that being said, the overall African income levels have been dropping moderately to the rest of the world. Statistics show that in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 15% of women are agriculture landowners.

Uganda is a hot year round country with an agricultural production, developing world rather than industrial. Africa’s climate change involves with some of the most frequent and severe challenges such as health resources are under heavy pressure. Three factors that deal with issues related to the food or agriculture in the developing world of Africa are poverty, environment, and health.

Both Eastern United States and Northern Africa were considered independent agricultural hearths. In the Eastern United States commercial farming is practiced, while in Northern Africa is more subsistence farming. The availability of technology is greater in the US than in Africa, therefore the US has access to machinery. The US will practice commercial farming because there are other ways to make a living and people are not dependent on agriculture as their only means of survival. However, in Northern Africa, access to other ways of living is limited and they must rely on agriculture to sustain them. In Northern Africa, they practice pastoral nomadism or pastoralism. This deals with herding and breeding animals in order to produce food.

There are now places where they have become extremely dried than they were before such as south africa. Not only have this places become more dry but they are now receiving half of their rainfall. For the following years in central Africa lake Chad has shrunk and seems to get smaller due to lack of rainfall. The lake depends on its waters for crop irrigation, livestock and specially for water drinking.

During the 90’s, Africa is one of the worst affected from water shortages. The rainfall in Africa comes in bursts; this means the water may not be collected because of how dry the land is. Therefore, Africa has had droughts that have affected the rainfall recently. As an outcome, Africa’s water supply is near scarcity, considering the facts stated.

In the face of climate change Sub-Saharan Africa is confronted by two main challenges of food security and water availability for human and agricultural use. These challenges are projected to increase in the coming years compounded by extreme droughts and extreme flooding in some areas. Rain-fed agriculture is the main livelihood for a majority of small scale farmers in SSA. Their main farming systems focus on the “ major crops”(maize, wheat, rice and beans) However, strategies to cultivate these crops in the region are no longer sustainable due to reliability on finite resources, high input load and vulnerability to climate change. A key alternative strategy to adapt to a changing climate is the development and promotion of Orphan crop species

Climate change is bringing tremendous difficulties to the worldwide economy and to social-economic development. Its effects will excessively influence sub-Saharan African nations, where their economies are highly depending on climate conditions such as rainfed agricultural practices. The Ethiopian agriculture is characterized by extreme dependence on the amount of annual rainfall (Tadesse, 2002). Arsi Zone farmers are facing erratic type of annual rainfall and variability in temporal and spatial distribution. In order to increase the availability of water for agricultural and related activities, implementing RWH technologies in suitable location is crucial.

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.

Nearly 1.2 billion people worldwide lack access to a safe water supply, almost 2.5 billion people cannot access basic sanitation which caused the deaths of More than five million people who die each year from water-related diseases that are mostly preventable (IHP,2005). Some areas of our world are more affected by the lack of fresh water supply than others, those are considered as Arid regions. Arid and semi-arid regions are characterized by low erratic rainfall of up to 700mm per year, repetitive droughts and different combinations of vegetative cover and soils which are not suitable for cultivation

Presently droughts occurring every two years and when it does rain only fractions of what the region is used to comes down because a rise in of this food prices, homelessness, diseases, social chaos is in full heat. One in every 3 people you see is dying from malnutrition.Feeding centers and medical supply demands are so high and the respond to get food and water there is not happening fast enough.If poor hygiene continues death will be the result.

Desertification is a dynamic process where viable soil becomes degraded land typically resulting from human activities such as deforestation, inappropriate agriculture, or simply due to due climatic variations like drought. Desertification occurs globally in a variety of regions, yet not all regions are alike, thus different forces that may be responsible for desertification. For example, in a region like Africa there are huge atmospheric cycles that occur near the equator that pushes dry air towards Africa. Other forms of desertification can be driven in this area by the extensive agriculture that sustains Africa's growing population. It may also be the lack of advanced technology that has gave first world countries a competitive edge in assessing soils, increasing agricultural production, and lowering pollution levels. In another region such as China, the result of desertification in places around the country derive from toxic levels of pollution, human alteration of the land, and natural causes. Though China may have advanced technology, they still have problems figuring out ways to mitigate this problem due to their gigantic population size. Even the United States has been through a drastic event that caused a huge economic impact and left thousands of landowners unable to farm and make revenue for many years. Although many of these regions have different factors contributing to desertification, many similar trends can be seen that ultimately point to desertification.

As food prices in the developed world rise, many corporations and governments look towards Africa as the solution to the impending crisis. Transnational land purchasing--commonly known as land-grabbing--occurs in Africa on a massive scale. Though numbers vary, some sources put the amount of land sold at over seven million hectares (Aryeetey 2010). However, concerns have been raised about the effects of such land-grabbing on both local populations and the environment. As the negative impact land-grabbing poses to both citizens and the environment of Africa becomes evermore clear, decisive national and international governmental policy must be implemented; in order for such policy to be effective, it must acknowledge the complex interconnected nature of the population, the government, and the environment (Giddings 2002).