This Alarming Southern Africa Agriculture Statistic Should Spring Regional Leaders Into Decisive Action

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There is a serious drought currently affecting a number of countries in southern Africa. Some reports say this is the worst drought in over 100 years. The problem is that these droughts are becoming too frequent and increasing in severity, it appears. I read an article this week from a local news organization which reported that the U.N. World Food Programme has faced challenges in raising $400 million for its southern Africa drought response. The agency has collected just one-fifth of what it needs to help seven countries in the region. That article also contained a very alarming statistic that should really be giving regional leaders sleepless nights.

The article said, “Southern Africa is experiencing its worst drought in decades, forcing Zambia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe to declare states of disaster. The drought resulted from the El Niño climate phenomenon, which can change world weather patterns, bring extreme seasonal temperatures, rainfall, or dry spells, and hurt crop yields.”

The reason for this massive shortfall and why it will keep getting worse is that close to 70% of the southern African population relies on rain-fed agriculture and had their harvests decimated by the lack of sufficient rainfall. 70% is incredibly high, especially in this changing climate environment where irregular rainfall patterns look like they will become the new normal. In Malawi, for example, only about 4% of cultivated land is under irrigation. This is not sustainable.

This should really be ringing alarm bells and programs should be formulated to tackle this food insecurity and implementation, and expedited. A deep look into sustainable irrigation programs tied to the local hydrology should really be a priority. A major barrier to this is of course the lack of access to electricity in most rural areas of the affected countries, which would be required to power all these irrigation schemes. However, technological advances over the last decade have led to the price of solar panels and associated balance of system to drop tremendously.

What all this means is that there has never been a better time to get good value from distributed solar PV systems. A lot of progress has been made in solar and stationary storage, with growing market shares in a lot of countries in the developed world. Consumers now have access to solar panels, batteries, and EVs at prices lower than ever. Solar panel prices are so low now that we now hear reports that it’s cheaper to buy solar panels and use them to construct fences in some places in Europe than to use traditional fencing material! A fence that also generates clean electricity — how cool is that? You know what would be even cooler? A lot of distributed solar powering vital irrigation projects to help increase food security!

There needs to be more urgency from regional leaders around this matter. With the right prioritization of resources, these countries could start to make good inroads into solving this issue even from local resources without necessarily having to look to external support from donor organizations. They could also partner with local private sector players and create an enabling environment that will assist private sector players in solving this issue.

Extreme weather patterns resulting in heavy flooding or serious droughts and heat waves are being experienced more frequently in more places around the world, not just in southern Africa, and it looks like these extremes could become a real long-term threat to livelihoods. There really needs to be urgent action from regional leaders in southern Africa on this dire situation where relying mostly on rain-fed agriculture puts the region in such a precarious food security situation.