Future climate impacts on maize farming and food security in Malawi
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Published version
Author(s)
Stevens, T
Madani, K
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy and maize is the most important crop for food security. As a Least Developed Country (LDC), adverse effects of climate change (CC) on agriculture in Malawi are expected to be significant. We examined the impacts of CC on maize production and food security in Malawi’s dominant cereal producing region, Lilongwe District. We used five Global Circulation Models (GCMs) to make future (2011 to 2100) rainfall and temperature projections and simulated maize yields under these projections. Our future rainfall projections did not reveal a strong increasing or decreasing trend, but temperatures are expected to increase. Our crop modelling results, for the short-term future, suggest that maize farming might benefit from CC. However, faster crop growth could worsen Malawi’s soil fertility problem. Increasing temperature could drive lower maize yields in the medium to long-term future. Consequently, up to 12% of the population in Lilongwe District might be vulnerable to food insecurity by the end of the century. Measures to increase soil fertility and moisture must be developed to build resilience into Malawi’s agriculture sector.
Date Issued
2016-11-08
Date Acceptance
2016-10-12
Citation
Scientific Reports, 2016, 6
ISSN
2045-2322
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
6
Copyright Statement
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Nature Publishing Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license,
unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sponsor
European Institute of Innovation and Technology - EIT
Identifier
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27824092
PII: srep36241
Grant Number
KIC WINNERS
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
36241