More needed to mitigate climate change impact on agriculture, say sector players

It further emerged in the two-day regional meeting ending today (Tuesday 17), that climate change challenge is a cross-cutting issue, considering its effects and links to agriculture and trade, both key sectors of the regional economy. It should also be noted that majority of Ugandans and the East Africans in general largely derive their livelihoods from these two economic sectors whose link to climate change has since become crystal clear.

And given the dangers that climate change poses on agriculture and consequently trade and investment, participants drawn across the EAC Members States, attending the two-day regional meeting in Nairobi, Kenya did not only support the move to mitigate climate change but were also in favour of technology adoption as a way to deal with such and related challenges, going forward.

Speaking during the Fourth Regional Annual Meeting under Promoting–Agriculture-Climate –Trade Linkages in the EAC (PACT EAC2) Project, the Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Industry, Trade and Cooperatives, Peter Munya, in his speech delivered by Mr Jared Nyaundi, the Director of Internal Trade, said: “Climate change poses substantial risks to economic growth and development efforts across the world.”

He continued: “Already African ecosystems is being affected, with projected future impacts on food security concerns, and more importantly on balance of trade on economics that are reliant mostly on agriculture. As climate-related natural disasters grow in frequency and severity, the risks to families and to development overall will only intensify.”

In East Africa, agriculture is the most dominant sector with an estimate of 36 per cent of the region’s GDP and accounting for the livelihood of about 80 per cent of EAC citizens.

Further, through varied forms of agro-processing, agricultural value addition in the EAC region contributes to more than 80 per cent of the total manufacturing.