BY OBERT SIAMILANDU THE Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality ministry has decried the worsening climate change vulnerabilities in the country, saying that this will affect food production and cause hunger.
In a speech read on his behalf by director of climate change management Washington Zhakata during a climate change mainstreaming district engagement programme in Kariba yesterday, Environment mnistry secretary Munesushe Munodawafa said over the years, government observed that with each dry season, agricultural production in the country goes down affecting exports.
“This calls for urgent climate action to de-couple the quality of the agricultural season from the attained yields through suitable adaptations and interventions so that we maintain or improve the agricultural sector contribution to gross domestic product (GDP),” Munodawafa said.
“This calls for collective and co-ordinated transformation of the traditional socio-economic approaches to factor in climate change considerations. The impact of climate change may not be overemphasised given the extreme weather events such as flooding, dry spells, heatwaves and droughts which are on the increase in recent years.
“Rainfall seasons are increasingly becoming uncertain, threatening livelihoods and economic performance of societies and the country at large,” he said. Munodawafa said some districts in the country are highly sensitive to climate change, which compromised their food insecurity.
“It results in water scarcity and loss of livestock, which has now become a major concern owing to prolonged mid-season dry spells and rainfall variability as a result of climate change. These impacts call for a paradigm shift to our planning and budgetary process at national as well as at the lowest level of planning.”
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