Climate risk management in maize cropping systems

Daniel Rodriguez, Caspar Roxburgh, Claire Fansworth, Ariel Ferrante, Joseph Eyre, Stuart Irvine-Brown, James McLean, Martin Bielich

• Publisher: Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781838791254
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agriculture
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Climate variability affects the lives and livelihoods of farmers in many diverse ways, directly it affects farmers levels of food security, income and poverty; indirectly it affects farmers' behaviours and decisions, as well as prices and markets. On the one hand climate variability it presents farmers with risks and challenges; however during the better than average seasons it also offers opportunities for intensification and higher profits, particularly if seasonal conditions would be able to be somehow informed or predicted. Supporting farmers to identify and manage risks and opportunities has been the focus of farming systems research over decades. This requires the convergence of an improved understanding of the functioning of the climate-soil-crop system's and it's predictability, together with practice relevance i.e. farmers' needs and production of actionable information. In this chapter we present a trans-disciplinary analysis based on our up to date understanding of the biophysical, behavioural and socio-economic factors driving the alternative decisions and performance of rainfed maize based cropping systems both in high income large scale - commercial, and low income smallholder - subsistence farming.

Table of contents

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Sensitivity of rainfed maize cultivation
• 3 Assessing the risk of rainfall variability
• 4 Risk management in smallholder maize cropping
• 5 Climate risk at the whole farm level
• 6 A case study: the sustainable intensification of rainfed maize cropping in Mozambique
• 7 The way forward
• 8 Acknowledgements
• 9 Where to look for further information
• 10 References