Why climate change mitigation is a farmers’ concern
Mr Michael J. Ssali
What you need to know:
- If a long drought takes place the coffee trees wilt and it results in bitter harvests for farmers. Drought negatively affected coffee production even in countries where we expected farmers to have easy access to irrigation such as Brazil and Vietnam.
Many international coffee reports attribute the high rise in the current coffee prices to hash weather conditions that took place in fellow coffee producing countries across the oceans.
They created a shortage in the number of coffee bags needed to meet the global coffee demand, which led to the sharp rise of the prices paid to the farmers as observed in the last coffee harvest period. If a long drought takes place the coffee trees wilt and it results in bitter harvests for farmers. Drought negatively affected coffee production even in countries where we expected farmers to have easy access to irrigation such as Brazil and Vietnam.
Much of last year and this year we have experienced abnormally heavy rains in most of the coffee growing regions of Uganda which explains the unusually bountiful harvest that we have had. However we must bear in mind that climate change, which is already upon us, is about unpredictable and extreme weather patterns and disasters like frequent storms and floods --- all of which don’t favour farming. If today farming in other countries is beset with weather disasters, tomorrow it could be our turn to suffer.
According to a Panos publication titled: “Just a lot of hot air?” the world is heating up --- fast. “Temperatures are rising more quickly than they have done for 10,000 years,” says the publication. “The earth’s average surface temperature has warmed between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees Celsius in the last 100 years. It may rise by two degrees in the next 100 years if we go on producing greenhouse gases at the present rate.” It further says, “Greenhouse gases are mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide is the most important, forming 80 percent of the industrialised world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 1990. It is principally produced by combustion of oil, coal and gas.” The book further says that after over 200 years of industrialisation powered by these carbon-based fossil fuels large quantities of gases have been released faster than natural processes can remove them from the atmosphere.
“As a result, concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen by one third more and faster than any time in history. The cutting down of forests that absorb carbon dioxide has added to the problem.” This is why we now need to plant more trees and to sustain all forests.
Mr Michael Ssali is a veteran journalist,
