FAO and MASA sign contract for a project to reduce vulnerability to climate change
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Mozambique Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MASA) on Friday (6/11) signed the contract for the project "Increasing the capacity of farmers to cope with climate change in order to obtain more food security through the Farmer Field School approach".
The project will support at least 80 000 farmers through an established network of 3 200 Farmer Field Schools (FFSs) to develop and implement new approaches and practices, including the provision of genetic material of plants to increase resilience to climate change. With the project, FAO and MASA aim to reduce vulnerability to the adverse impact of climate change, including increasing climate variability at local, regional, national and global levels. Another aim is to increase farmers' adaptation capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change and to promote the transfer and adoption of adaptation technology.
"For this", FAO Representative in Mozambique, Castro Camarada, said, "we will have to increase the awareness and knowledge of the managers and farmers at national, provincial and district levels in order to include best practices and climate change adaptation measures in rural development programmes". Moreover, Camarada added that "we will promote the adoption of improved climate change adaptation strategies and practices and a bigger selection of adapted genetic material, covering at least three production systems (staple crops, vegetables and mixed systems of tree/crops/animal production). This will be achieved through the FFS network supported by our "Accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goal 1c" (MDG1c) sub-programme and by the "Food Security and Nutrition Programme in Gaza", among others."
It is expected that there will be an increase in the institutional capacity and in the intersectoral coordination for development and the implementation of efficient extension approaches, strategies and mechanisms in support of the integration of climate change adaptation in the agrarian sector and animal production.
The project, which has a budget of $9 000 000, includes capacity building of 1 500 facilitators for the FFSs and at least 200 extension workers in order to assure climate change resilient strategies and practices. The project will be implemented over four years in 15 districts of the provinces of Sofala, Manica, Tete and Gaza.