Undoubtedly, Climate change is a contributory factor to the food price crisis, and its impact on agriculture and food security in developing countries. There are people who I know will be wondering why and how climate change affects food security in Africa. Climate change we know experts have said that will affect Africa most and these will be observed through:

Temperature increase. Higher temperatures lead to heat stress for plants, increasing sterility and lowering overall productivity. Higher temperatures also increase evaporation from plants and soils, increasing water requirements while lowering water availability.

Changing patterns. In many places, growing seasons are changing, ecological niches are shifting, and rainfall is becoming more unpredictable and unreliable both in its timing and its volume. This is leading to greater uncertainty and heightened risks for farmers, and potentially eroding the value of traditional agricultural knowledge such as when to plant particular crops.

Rising sea levels. Rising seas contaminate coastal freshwater aquifers with salt water. Several small island states are already having serious problems with water quality, which is affecting agricultural productivity. Higher seas also make communities more vulnerable to storm surges which can be 5-6 metres high. The storm surge from cyclone Nargis travelled 35 kilometres inland, killing 140,000 people and flooding around 14,400 km, an area one third the size of Switzerland.

Water. The interactions between climate change, water scarcity and declines in agricultural productivity could lead to regional tensions and even open conflict between states already struggling with inadequate water supplies due to rising populations and over-pumping of groundwater.

Nevertheless, Climate change will affect all four dimensions of food security: food availability, food accessibility, food utilization and food systems stability. It will have an impact on human health, livelihood assets, food production and distribution channels, as well as changing purchasing power and market flows. Its impacts will be both short term, resulting from more frequent and more intense extreme weather events, and long term, caused by changing temperatures and precipitation patterns. People who are already vulnerable and food insecure are likely to be the first affected. Agriculture-based livelihood systems that are already vulnerable to food insecurity face immediate risk of increased crop failure, new patterns of pests and diseases, lack of appropriate seeds and planting material, and loss of livestock. People living on the coasts and floodplains and in mountains, drylands and the Arctic are most at risk.

As an indirect effect, low-income people everywhere, but particularly in urban areas, will be at risk of food insecurity owing to loss of assets and lack of adequate insurance coverage.

This may also lead to shifting vulnerabilities in both developing and developed countries. Food systems will also be affected through possible internal and international migration, resource- based conflicts and civil unrest triggered by climate change and its impacts. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries will not only be affected by climate change, but also contribute to it through emitting greenhouse gases. They also hold part of the remedy, however; they can contribute to climate change mitigation through reducing greenhouse gas emissions by changing agricultural practices. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the resilience of rural people and to help them cope with this additional threat to food security.

The root cause of food insecurity in Africa is the inability of people to gain access to food due to poverty. While the rest of the world has made significant progress towards poverty alleviation, Africa, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag behind. Projections show that there will be an increase in this tendency unless preventive measures are taken. Many factors have contributed to this tendency including the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS; civil war, strive and poor governance; frequent drought and famine; and agricultural dependency on the climate and environment. Food security on the continent has worsened since 1970 and the proportion of the malnourished population has remained within the 33 to 35 percent range in Sub-Saharan Africa3. The prevalence of malnutrition within the continent varies by region. It is lowest in Northern Africa (4percent) and highest in Central Africa (40 percent).

Over seventy percent of the food insecure population in Africa lives in the rural areas. Ironically, smallholder farmers, the producers of over 90 percent of the continent? food supply, make up the majority (50 percent) of this population. The rest of the food insecure population consists of the landless poor in rural areas (30 percent) and the urban poor. Throughout the developing world, agriculture accounts for around 9 percent of the GDP and more than half of total employment. In countries where more than 34 percent of the population is undernourished, agriculture represents 30 percent of GDP and nearly 70 percent of the population relies on agriculture for their livelihood4. This fact has in the past been used in support of the argument as to why developing countries should move away from agriculture and invest in technology. Because over 70 percent of the poor live in rural areas, where also the largest proportion of the food insecure live, it is evident that we cannot significantly and sustainably reduce food insecurity without transforming the living conditions in these areas. The key lies in increasing the agricultural profitability of smallholder farmers and creating rural off-farm employment opportunities.

At this point, I will like to elaborate on what Africa can do to achieve food security. The solution lies in increasing food availability, food access and food adequacy for all. Because the food insecurity in Africa is directly correlated with poverty, it is necessary to not only alleviate poverty but also create wealth for the target population.

 I propose seven strategies that when implemented together would hold good prospects for substantially alleviating food security in Africa. These are nutritional interventions, facilitating market access, capacity building, gender sensitive development, building on coping strategies, creating off- farm opportunities and good governance.