Tropentag, October 5 - 7, 2011 in Bonn "Development on the margin"

Food Security in the Light of Climate Change and Bioenergy - Potentials to Stabilise Livelihoods for small-Scale Farming in Tanzania

¹Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF e.V.), Germany
²World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Tanzania
³Sokoine University of Agriculture, Dept. of Agric. Economics & Agribusiness, Tanzania
⁴Potsdam Inst. for Climate Impact Res., Climate Impacts & Vulnerabilities, Germany
⁵International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), United States of America
⁶Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany
⁷Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Germany

Abstract

During the past decades, Climate Change (CC) increasingly challenges research in manifold scientific disciplines. Evidence on the need for better adaptation strategies to CC caused growing efforts to tackles the new challenges in agriculture sciences. Ensuring threatened food security results in a key policy issue, which is even more considerable, when linked with issues on increased bioenergy demand. CC related to energy demands should be seen as a holistic system, which interrelations seek for new strategies focusing especially rural poor in small-scale agriculture. New in-depth methods on feasibilities, sustainable development and economic viability in mixed rainfed crop-livestock agriculture pose therefore a major future challenge.
Three GIZ-financed projects, coordinated by the International Food and Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF e.V.), enhanced the development of strategies related to CC adaptation and the use of bioenergy in Tanzania. The results of the three projects over a period of four years of intensive research are summarised in this presentation. All partners initiated diverse research activities in the frame of Impact Analysis, which are assembled to one integrated, interdisciplinary research overview to seek for new strategies at the science-policy interface.
The widespread application of these adaptation strategies and practices resulted in methods to design resilient “agro-landscapes” and livelihood systems with improved adaptive capacity to climate change and biofuel value chain management in the fields of energy, transport and agriculture in Tanzania.

Keywords: Agricultural systems, food security, household survey, livelihood

Contact Address: Stefan Sieber, Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF e.V.), Inst. for Socioeconomics, Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany, e-mail: sieberzalf.de