East Africa will have to adopt capacity to modern farming methods to cushion itself from the effects of climate change, which has the potential of crippling the region’s economy.

Michael Waithaka, one of the authors of the report entitled East Africa and Climate Change, said it is important to help farmers improve farming practices, diversify crops and adopt new varieties to boost food production even  if growing conditions change.

Mr Waithaka told a climate change meeting in Kenya recently that it will also be important to help farmers find better crops to grow in their current locations, meaning that research  and  production of  better crop varieties will be increasingly important.

Exploit arid land

In their report, the scientists say climate predictions for maize show that farmers will in future need to shift to other crops, adopt drought-resistant varieties or simply move to new areas where maize can grow.

“As long as we offer farmers the right services and policies now, and more options in what they grow and where they grow it, Kenya and other countries can make a major transformation in their ability to cope with the changing climate,” said Timothy Thomas, a research fellow at IFPRI and co-author of the report.

However,  this will not be enough since the East African countries will be required to put more  land under irrigation where economically feasible to ensure food production continues to increase.

The director general of the  Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari), Dr Ephraim Mukisira, said it is imperative that East Africa put its arid and semi arid lands  into  better use to increase food production and strengthen the region’s food security.

Kenya, the Kari official lamented, only  exploits a quarter of its land for agriculture adding that there is a need to expanding the current irrigation schemes and construct new ones.

“In Kenya, we are currently producing only two tonnes per hectare when there is the potential to produce five tonnes or more of food crops per hectare with modern methods of farming,” he added.