What is it about?
To what extent has the Maguga Dam on the Komati River, Swaziland enabled smallholders who adopted irrigation to survive the longest southern African drought for 100 years. What lessons may this experience have in the future as climate change impacts on the region?
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Why is it important?
Climate change is expected to increase the severity and frequency of droughts in the region. Can lessons be learned from the 2016 drought that will enable smallholder farmers to better survive them and maintain food security and the production of commercial crops in future?
Perspectives
This is the most recent publication in a series that started in 1995 which has tracked the impact of irrigated farming and commercialization on previously rain-fed subsistence farmers in the lowveld of Swaziland. The changes which have occurred in this small country have implications for many other semi-arid regions or those which may become so as climate change impacts on areas which are currently marginal to them. The assumptions made by planners in the 1990s tended to downlay the impact of climate change so that those currently facing raid changes will need to adapt quickly if they are to create a sustainable farming future.
Alan Terry
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The impact of the 2015-16 El Nino drought on the irrigated home gardens of the Komati downstream development project, Swaziland, South African Geographical Journal, May 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/03736245.2019.1614477.
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