African countries governments must take the lead both in designing and
funding climate smart agricultural (CSA) practices. This is according to an
article written by Dr. Esther Ngumbi, a researcher from The Aspen Institute
in the U.S.

Early this year, the World Bank launched one of its largest climate smart
agriculture initiatives to support over 25 million smallholder farmers in
Maharashtra, India. The project is expected to lead to the sustainable
development of agricultural productivity, water scarcity, soil health, and
improve farmer resilience in adapting to climate change. Climate change
continues to affect many countries around the world as manifested by
recurrent droughts, prolonged dry seasons, floods, increased crop pest
infestations, and emergence of new problems such as the fall armyworm in
Africa. The smallholder farmers are the most affected by these problems, and
many of them depend on agriculture as their primary source of income. This
shows that more CSA initiatives need to be rolled out and supported in many
of the climate change impacted countries including countries in the African
continent.

Dr. Ngumbi highlights that African governments need to identify the suitable
and appropriate CSA practices adapted for their countries and come up with
further plans on how these practices will be rolled out across their
respective countries. Dr. Ngumbi also recommends that the CSA initiative
must be inclusive, wherein African farmers and other beneficiaries should be
consulted and involved in defining and choosing the appropriate CSA
practices. Demonstration centers or on the ground model farms must also be
established so that farmers can learn and see the actual CSA practices.

[allafrica.com]