**Acknowledgements**

*Climate Change and Agriculture*

resilience and sustainability options.

and surface water shortages.

regardless of climatic hazards.

**4.10 Recommendations**

All three minority communities (Venda, Suthu and Shangani) that populate Beitbridge are at the mercy of climate change and climate variability. Although they receive some assistance from government and non-governmental organisations, they all have considerable faith in their own indigenous coping strategies to fight the climate change scourge. There is need to recognise, respect and improve their indigenous knowledge systems. A deliberate effort must also be made to integrate this local traditional knowledge with modern technologies to build even stronger

The case of Beitbridge's minority farmer communities suffering from climate change and climate variability is one of lack of financial and technical resources and to some extent human resources because of an acute outmigration by the youth. Beitbridge is not a poor district from a natural resources' point of view. The district is a livestock region and all minority farmer communities generally have livestock like cattle, goats and sheep. The management of these in the face of climate change is, however, a serious issue as most of them, especially cattle, succumb in large numbers to climate-change-induced droughts and associated hazards like diseases

The study acknowledges efforts being initiated by both government and NGOs to reduce effects of climate change in Beitbridge. However, given the rich soils in parts of the district, the palatable pastures and browse, the diverse livestock varieties and abundant surface water potential for both damming and extraction through piping, the minority farmer communities of the district can significantly be better empowered for sustainability. Farmers should not be basket cases but should be helped to develop sustainable strategies and techniques to help them build resilience

The interplay of government and NGO assistance on the communities in Beitbridge District risk disorienting the minds of these communities from their traditional cultural beliefs as their political orientation may be influenced by those who feed them. Apart from simply being natural hazardous phenomena, climate change and climate variability may end up being tools of political and economic manipulation of such minority farmer communities by both the rich and humanitarian service providers like NGOs and government through food politics where

• Relevant government ministries and development partners should conduct workshops to conscientise the community in all 15 wards about climate change and its devastating impact on the environment and their livelihoods in general. This will enable council and the community to work together in coming up

• Beitbridge's comparative advantage in livestock production should be exploited by government through availing tax incentives for livestock-related industries in order to ameliorate climate change impact through employment creation for the locals. This would likely reduce the number of youths who migrate to South Africa. The young minds would thus be taped for the development of the

• Beitbridge has/is in the vicinity of perennial rivers like Limpopo, Shashe, Bubi and Runde Rivers which can be dammed to produce large water bodies which

assistance may only be given to those who comply with the status quo.

with mutually acceptable solutions to problems.

**4.9 Conclusion**

**52**

district.

The authors would like to thank all research participants for their generous contributions and also for allowing us to use their names in this chapter.
