#GardensforClimate Part II: Climate Change and Smallholder Farmers
POST BY DANIELLE ALLYN // ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 2016
Rwanda emits greenhouse gases at a lower rate than almost any other country in the world. Despite these low emissions, Rwanda experienced a total rise in temperature of 1.4 degrees Celsius between 1971 and 2010, which is higher than the global average over the same period. Current climate models for Rwanda predict ongoing increases in temperature, as well as increases in annual levels of rainfall of up to 20% by the 2050s.[1]
The discrepancy between Rwanda’s low greenhouse gas emissions rates and the climate change impacts that Rwanda faces is evidence of the skewed international burden of anthropogenic[2] climate change. Developed nations place greater strain on the environment, but least developed countries shoulder the consequences.
“The [African] continent emits very little CO2, but has to bear the burden of the consequences of emissions elsewhere," said Langley DeWitt, Station Chief Scientist at the Rwanda Climate Observatory, a partnership between MIT and the Rwandan government.
Between 80 and 90 percent of Rwandan men and women depend on agriculture to sustain a livelihood.[3] The Rwanda Environmental Management Authority has cautioned that “Rwanda is currently highly vulnerable to climate change, as it is strongly reliant on rain-fed agriculture for rural livelihoods and exports of tea and coffee.[4]” In fact, rain-fed agriculture contributes to 35% of national GDP.[5]
Ange Imanishimwe is a Mandela-Washington Fellow and the founder of BIOCOOP Rwanda, which works with smallholder farmers to ensure that grassroots economic development includes climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. “Poor families are the first to be affected by climate change,” Imanishimwe said. “When a family is poor, they may need to cultivate to survive because they do not have any other alternative.”
Thus, Rwanda bears a disproportionate climate burden and within Rwanda, smallholder farmers bear the greatest disproportionate burden. Despite this burden, Rwanda recognizes “the opportunity to leapfrog old technologies and destructive development pathways and build a green economy.[6]” At the grassroots level, organizations like BIOCOOP and smallholder farmers themselves continue to mirror the institutional momentum to address climate impacts. Climate challenges impact all sectors of Rwandan society, from the intimate relationship between weather patterns and homestead agricultural productivity to links between temperature variation and vector-borne disease
In 2008, Rwandan President Paul Kagame made good on a promise to establish a Center for Climate Excellence in the region. Prior to the establishment of the Rwanda Climate Observatory in Musanze District, Rwanda’s access to comparable research alternatives was limited to institutions in Niger (continent-wide data) and Kenya (regional data for East Africa).[7] In a move that placed Rwanda at the forefront of African climate research, Kagame instituted a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, elevating Rwanda’s mountainous Musanze District as host to the newest observatory in the university’s 13-observatory network.[8] The center aims to bridge the data gap for equatorial Africa, providing access to regionally specific data necessary for Rwandan policymakers to make knowledge-based decisions.
In the southwest corner of Rwanda, Nyamagabe District surrounds Nyungwe Forest, a biodiversity hotspot and major generator of tourism-based foreign exchange.[9], Ange Imanishimwe’s BIOCOOP works with smallholder farmers In the eight administrative sectors bordering Nyungwe rainforest to promote biodiversity and climate stewardship alongside grassroots development. Ange educates farmers on the atmospheric benefits of agroforestry and climate-adaptive crop suitability, two priority solutions outlined in Rwanda’s national green growth strategy. [10] His research focuses on the impact of temperature and seasonal shifts on vector-borne tropical diseases such as malaria, and he has noted something unsettling: “When you compare the data 30 years ago and data now, you can see that malaria is increasing in Nyamagabe, and it is related to climate change.” Yet the implications are not simply clinical, but economic as well. “When you spend time going to a health center for treatment, you cannot work, so this poses consequences for the economy as well.[11]”
In their work in the Nyamagabe and Musanze Districts of Rwanda, respectively, scientists like Langley DeWitt and Ange Imanishimwe study the ways that climate uncertainty manifests in the lives of the Rwandan populace. In Bisate, Murandi, and Kinigi-three administrative sectors in Musanze District-Gardens for Health International partner families grapple with these climate consequences on a daily basis, adjusting agricultural patterns to the erratic and often excessive rains that define seasonal reality in much of northern Rwanda.
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One GHI partner in Bisate speaks from a lifetime of agricultural experience as she explains,
“Bisate is a rainy area. It does not matter whether it is in the summer or not. July is a sunny [dry] month, but sometimes it still rains here. In May, people think that it will be a sunny period, so they avoid planting potatoes. But sometimes it rains, and when it rains and you’ve saved [not planted] your seeds, it impacts your harvest. Then, in the last month of the year, you face hunger, because you did not plant on time. We cannot change the seasons, so if it rains and it was supposed to be sunny, we just accept it.”
She goes on to detail the ways that farmers in Bisate use agroforestry and raised beds to buffer against erosion, stating that in periods of weather-induced substandard harvest, community members are forcibly resigned to purchasing vegetables on the market for home consumption. In these situations, homes located great distances from the nearest market face additional challenges to household food security. In Murandi, Mediatrice Nyiramahirwe likewise testifies to the vulnerability that accompanies weather uncertainty:
"The weather changes unexpectedly. It is currently January. January and February are supposed to be sunny [dry] months, and yet it still rains. It is good for vegetables like carrots, as they are still growing, they can be harvested. But for things like beans, that need the sun, it creates problems. The weather keeps changing. I've been observing it from the time I began cultivating.”
Mediatrice echoes farmers in Bisate, in substantiating the link between weather and economic wellbeing in Murandi. Jeanette Nyirarukundo does the same for nearby Kinigi:
“During 2011, I worked and earned enough money to get a plot of land to cultivate potatoes to eat at home and sell on the market. Then floods came and caused erosion, which damaged my field and crops, as well as all of the fields in this area. This loss caused me to slide back economically.” (Jeanette Nyirarukundu, Kinigi, Musanze)
Rwanda’s rain-fed agricultural seasons have always been subject to some degree of variability, but current models suggest that this variability will only increase as global temperatures rise.[12] Farming communities such as those in Bisate, Murandi, and Kinigi remain uniquely positioned not only to unjustly bear the burdens of shifting climate realities, but also to spearhead adaptation. Jeanette says of her hometown in Rwanda’s “potato belt”:
“When weather is good, Kinigi is a fertile place. Many things are friendly to Kinigi’s weather, like maize, potatoes, sorghum, vegetables, beans, and pyrethrum. Everything grows here, and we experience the maximum harvest. If you own 1 hectare of land, you can harvest 15 tons of potatoes. Potatoes from Kinigi fetch a better price on the market. When weather is good and harvests are good, then people prosper. In 1994, there was no house standing. Now things are good here-there are many homes and many people have cars and even boats-and the only income-generating activity in Kinigi is farming.”
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[1] Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA). (2011, November). Green growth and climate resilience: national strategy for climate change and low-carbon development.
[2] “anthropogenic” refers to climate change driven by human actions (Imanishimwe, A. (2011, October). Malaria and respiratory infections and their relationship to the seasonal variations: case study of 8 sectors covered by Kigeme hospital).
[3] Imanishimwe, A. (2016, January 28). Interview. Garasenda, Nyamagabe, Rwanda.
[4] Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA). (2011, November). Green growth and climate resilience: national strategy for climate change and low-carbon development.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA). (2011, November). Green growth and climate resilience: national strategy for climate change and low-carbon development.
[7] Ibid.
[8] DeWitt, L. Interview. (2016, January 21). Kigali, Rwanda.
[9] Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA). (2011, November). Green growth and climate resilience: national strategy for climate change and low-carbon development.
[10] Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA). (2011, November). Green growth and climate resilience: national strategy for climate change and low-carbon development; Imanishimwe, A. (2016, January 28). Interview. Garasenda, Nyamagabe, Rwanda.
[11] Imanishimwe, A. (2016, January 28). Interview. Garasenda, Nyamagabe, Rwanda.
[12] Republic of Rwanda. Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA). (2011, November). Green growth and climate resilience: national strategy for climate change and low-carbon development.