African Climes

Agriculture is what feeds the world and ensures food security. For millennia, people have tilled the land and kept animals to support themselves and provide food. Agriculture is a big economic sector on its own, with returns amounting to billions of shillings and employing millions of people. Agriculture is dependent on water supply for crop growth of which majority of this is rainfed. Rain-fed agriculture implies reliance on rainfall. Some of the optimal growth conditions for food and cash crops are temperature, moisture and sunlight. Now climate change basically means that the greenhouse effect and global warming has completely thrown the hydrological cycle out of balance. This water cycle is what controls rainfall, snow, ice and so on. Effects of climate change are all effects of water. This includes droughts, heavy rain and flash floods, heatwaves, permafrost thaw, cyclones and glacier retreat and sea level rise as well. All of these have to do with water – either too much of i