**9. Indigenous food systems**

Communities have created and developed unique food systems over time in their specific local ecosystems. Communities have used these technologies for a long period of time and have perfected them to improve their livelihoods. Traditional knowledge in the management of agriculture and food production is important. Indigenous people in Sub-Sahara Africa have developed methods of surviving droughts and emergency. However, aid providers have ignored this vital knowledge inherent in the local people during their programme intervention. According to [16], one of the most important methods in combating desertification is the recognition of the value of traditional knowledge in drought management.

Severe changes in global climate are projected to affect livelihoods systems and consequently food security. Droughts and floods have become frequent, occasioning loss of livelihoods migration and insecurity. Compounding the vagaries of climate change is the upward trends of population increase. These are often marginalized, poverty stricken persons. Poverty poses a serious environmental threat as people exploit natural resources with inappropriate tech‐ nology in order to survive. Population increase occasions agricultural practice in marginal lands. This causes resource degradation and environmental degradation leading to poor harvest and food insecurity. Indigenous food system knowledge is required to reduce the effects of soil erosion leading to poor food production. Family and tribal structures and their autonomous traditional practices of resource management and land tenure have broken down. Therefore, traditional land tenure systems and agricultural practice of improved shifting cultivation should be incorporated into policy. This is because community elders control parcels of land to be used for food production and grazing. Grass stripes are used as a form of land management in Swaziland and grazing rotation by Lake Victoria communities thus, soil erosion and biodiversity loss is checked [17].

tivity improvements, water management, conflict prevention, reforestation, preventing

Other important practices for addressing food insecurity include changing consumption patterns and food preparation practices, efficient water use, improving soil quality, capacity to withstand extreme events and carbon sequestration. Others include promotion of agro biodiversity for local adaptation and resilience, reducing uncertainty by improving the information base and devising innovative schemes for insuring against climate change

People need to adopt practices that enable the vulnerable to protect their existing livelihood systems, diversify their sources of income, change their livelihood strategies or migrate. Sustainable livestock management practices for adaptation and associated mitigation should

**8. Integrating indigenous knowledge and science based technologies**

be effective as most traditional knowledge remains as tacit knowledge.

recognition of the value of traditional knowledge in drought management.

Integration of both indigenous knowledge and science based technologies is important in combating the effects of climate change on food security. Farmers need to combine the best of their traditional approaches with modern agro-science based technology. Towards this end documenting traditional knowledge of the world is paramount if an integrated approach is to

Communities have created and developed unique food systems over time in their specific local ecosystems. Communities have used these technologies for a long period of time and have perfected them to improve their livelihoods. Traditional knowledge in the management of agriculture and food production is important. Indigenous people in Sub-Sahara Africa have developed methods of surviving droughts and emergency. However, aid providers have ignored this vital knowledge inherent in the local people during their programme intervention. According to [16], one of the most important methods in combating desertification is the

Severe changes in global climate are projected to affect livelihoods systems and consequently food security. Droughts and floods have become frequent, occasioning loss of livelihoods migration and insecurity. Compounding the vagaries of climate change is the upward trends of population increase. These are often marginalized, poverty stricken persons. Poverty poses a serious environmental threat as people exploit natural resources with inappropriate tech‐ nology in order to survive. Population increase occasions agricultural practice in marginal lands. This causes resource degradation and environmental degradation leading to poor harvest and food insecurity. Indigenous food system knowledge is required to reduce the

deforestation and critical infrastructure would be most appropriate.

hazards.

also be given high priority.

244 Environmental Change and Sustainability

**9. Indigenous food systems**

Drought influences availability of water for crop production. This is projected to be a major constrain to food security, and economic development in the future. In Africa climate change is expected to intensify the continents critical food situation. Reduction of water quality and availability will increase food insecurity [18]. Governments must therefore fund research on crops that require less rain, are faster in maturity and pest resistant. These are the almost extinct traditional indigenous food crops. This is corroborated by the UN/ISDR 2007. Governments' agricultural policies must allow for diversification of food crops to cushion populations against loss of livelihoods in the face of climate variability. Increased production in traditional root crops and food legumes and lentils for sustainable agriculture and food security must be incorporated into agricultural policies. Production of food grain or root crops must be increased to decrease dependency on food export in Africa. Similarly, value chain actors that include suppliers, farmers, traders and processors must be strengthened in the sector of food production. This calls for the cultivation of more indigenous food crops to reduce aid depend‐ ency. Incorporating modern food production methods with indigenous food systems is ideal as people are better able to adopt new ideas when these can be seen in the context of existing practices.

Indigenous systems of crop protection against pests must be integrated into agricultural policy. This is cheap and more available system to the rural poor farmer. The wide spread use of indigenous material, such as agrochemical plants to combat pests that normally attack food crops has been reported. It is likely that climate change will alter the ecology of disease vectors and as such indigenous practices of pest management would be useful for adaptation strat‐ egies. Other indigenous systems that are adopted by local farmers include controlled bush clearing. Smoking of seeds to deter stock borers, use of green manure and green mulch spray as herbicide, all improve food production and reduces the vagaries of food insecurity. Pastoralists in Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASAL) in Africa use a multi-species composition of herds to survive climate extremes. Traditionally they forego large grazers for small browsers like goats and sheep since the feeding pattern of the latter is lower [19].

Men and women play different roles at the household and community levels, climate change affects women disproportionately than men. Women interact with nature more but have limited mitigating and adaptive capacities. Climate change and variability are therefore likely to amplify existing patterns of disadvantage. Women in Africa are custodians of culture and customs. This vast knowledge must be used to mitigate climate change and food insecurity. Women workload in rural Africa is always based on the maintenance of household food security particularly in hardship seasons [20]. It is through this role that while modernizing policies in food production, we must adjust male bias to avoid falling into the trap of food insecurity. Women must have access to land titles, inputs and credits and must be deliberately involved in agricultural extension [21]. Inclusive policy will design and implement pro‐ grammes that lead to gender equity and food security.

**Figure 3.** The photos depict impact of climate change and livelihood coping strategies. The photographs were taken the arid areas of Kerio Valley, Kenya May 2012.

Poverty driven environmental degradation has been exacerbated by the erosion of tradition knowledge by westernization. Traditionally, cultural norms and practices and taboos were used to regulate and ensure sustainable exploitation. Poverty drives communities to farm in marginal fragile ecosystems, using rudimentary technology leading to environmental degra‐ dation, poor yields and hence food insecurity. It is therefore considerable to conclude that the spiral events of poverty, poor technology, lack of inputs and land tenure culminate in unsus‐ tainable underdevelopment. Governments must therefore invest in their populations to eradicate poverty, thus providing a springboard to address food security for sustainable development. A healthy citizen is in a position to adapt new technology and address envi‐ ronmental challenges of climate change.
