Impact of projected climate change on agricultural production in semi-arid areas of Tanzania: A case of same district

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions in the World to climate change because of widespread poverty and limited adaptive capacity. The future climate change is likely to present an additional challenge to the agricultural sector. Therefore, the effects of climate change on the current agronomic management practices were investigated using Same District, Tanzania as a case study area. APSIM software was used to investigate the response of maize (Zea mays L.) yield to different agronomic management practices using current and future (2046 - 2065) climate data. The climate change projections data from global climate models were downscaled using self-organising maps technique. Under the conventional practices, results show that during long rainy season (from March to May) there is yield decline of 13% for cultivar Situka, no change for cultivar Kito and increase of 10% and 15% for cultivars Sc401 and TMV1, respectively. Under the recommended practices, cultivars TMV1 and Sc401 are projected to register a 10% yield increase whereas cultivars Situka and Kito are projected to register a decrease of 10% and 45%, respectively. Also, under both conventional and recommended management practices, results showed that during short rainy season (from October to December/January) all cultivars are projected to register between 75% and 146% increase in maize yields. This implies that future
climate change is going to have positive effects on current management practices during short rainy seasons and it will have negligible impact during long rainy seasons.