The African continent is vulnerable to climate change due to a multitude of environmental stressors and low adaptive capacity. Climate change stresses agriculture though rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and many more factors. Affordable greenhouse solutions work on a small, sustainable scale to mitigate some of the effects of climate change and provide strategies for smallholder farmers to adapt to the changing environment. Greenhouses cannot reverse climate change, but they are well suited to increase the adaptive capacity of the agricultural sector in developing nations.
As the world’s population grows, the issue of food security is exacerbated, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where one in three people are malnourished. Additionally, crop yields in Africa are expected to drop over the next decade. Farmers need ways to counteract these challenges in order to improve food security and protect their livelihoods both now, and in the future. One accessible option is an affordable greenhouse, a structure covered in plastic or glass that lengthen growing seasons and increase food production. They allow for year round crop production and reduce growing time, increasing overall crop yields. In addition, water consumption is reduced. Low-cost greenhouses are particularly important because they are more accessible than other agricultural technologies to farmers who need them most. Large commercial greenhouses operate in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, but their cost makes them inaccessible to many small-scale farmers.
There are five major climate change stressors whose impact can be mitigated with affordable greenhouses: rising temperatures and increased climate variability, changing precipitation rates, soil vulnerability, increased pests and crop disease, and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. Greenhouses give farmers increased control over the growing environment. Farmers can actively maintain proper growing temperature by opening and closing the glazing. Reduced water consumption, and the ability to implement a drip irrigation system are invaluable to farmers in areas where drought is common, and the glazing also protects crops from heavy rains.
Greenhouses are designed to create a controlled climate for optimal agricultural productivity. As climate change stressors challenge small-scale agriculture, affordable greenhouses can empower farmers to control their evolving environment and remain productive in the face of a changing environment. Greenhouses can’t stop climate change or reverse the stressors, but they give smallholder farmers the tools and income to mitigate the effects of climate change on a community level. Affordable greenhouses are an appropriate agricultural technology for the Sub-Saharan African context because of their relatively low barriers to implementation and their potential benefits to farmers operating in a variety of Sub-Saharan African climates.
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