Challenges, opportunities and adaptation strategies of sorghum production under climate change in southern Ethiopia

Description

Food production for a rapidly growing population from a continually shrinking farm size is a prime developmental challenge, in Ethiopia. More importantly, this has to be accomplished under changing climate, which poses new risks and uncertainties for crop production. Rainfed crop production is at risk due to problems associated with climate change such as delay in onset of season, early cessation of rains and poor distribution of rainfall leading to increased intensity and occurrence of drought. Sorghum is an important drought tolerant indigenous crop only preceded by teff and maize in acreage and is one of the productive cereals with an average yield of 2.37 tone ha-1 in the country. In southern Ethiopia, it is also the third widely cultivated staple cereal crop. All sorghum production is based on rainfed agriculture and is derived from small subsistence farmers at both regional and country level. As a drought tolerant crop sorghum is expected to play an increasingly important role in addressing food security of humans under the expected climate change. On the other hand, sorghum is one of the crops that is vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change partly due to the niche it occupied currently. Expected changes in rainfall patterns, total annual rainfall amounts and rising temperature are going to impose direct and indirect effects on productivity of sorghum. Needless to say, these effects would be compounded to the consequences of the sub-optimal agronomic management strategies practiced by the majority of subsistence small farmers. Thus, it is greatly important to address location specific climate change impacts on productivity of sorghum and identify the challenges, opportunities and potential management options that could help sustain and enhance productivity. To this end, there is a need to distinguish key existing constraints, analyze the current yield gap, assess the possible impacts of climate change on productivity and consider effectiveness of alternative agronomic strategies towards addressing the impacts of climate change. Field experiments involving selected agronomic management options will be conducted in representative sites in southern Ethiopia. The data will be used as a basis to evaluate the impact of climate change on sorghum production by using appropriate models. It will also be used to test comparative agronomic strategies and identify the suitable ones as means to adapt to the consequences and to exploit possibilities under climate change. Moreover, survey and appropriate tools will be used to identify the key existing constraints and the current yield gap.

Involved persons

• Dr. Walelign Worku
• PhD Scholar Abera Habte Desta

Involved institutions

• School of Plant and Horticultural Sciences
• College of Agricultural Sciences
• Food Security Center (791)

Sponsors

Supported by the DAAD program Bilateral SDG Graduate Schools, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)