Environmental research

The overall objective of the project was to minimize the impact of climate change on vulnerable households by increasing their adaptive capacity to climate change. The project is designed to facilitate the development of profitable alternative livelihoods through improved access to market and promotion of value adding technologies. The project will support participating households by providing them with basic crop and animal inputs, equipment which will facilitate the adoption of an integrated agriculture Many families remain vulnerable to food insecurity owing to a combination of factors including drought, floods and diseases such as HIV/AIDS. During the last three decades the impact of climate change has been more visible and severe. Extreme changes in the weather eroded the asset base of many smallholder farmers and yet they constitute more than 60% of the Zambian farming community responsible for the production of the larger proportion of maize which is the major staple food for the majority of Zambians. Crop failure or damage due to flooding or drought has become a common re-occurrence. Resilience among smallholder farmers is very low because they are not endowed with adequate knowledge and easy access to capital to invest into farming technologies which would enable them to adapt to climate change. Some adaptation is taking place but not sufficient to deal effectively with present and future climate change. As a consequence, rural families are exposed to hunger and its related malnutrition and death.

Zambia