**2. Background and motivation**

Evidence suggests that climate change has become a big matter in the world with organizations pulling their efforts in an attempt to find solution, for example, according to [6]. Climate change will exert increasing pressure on our ability to meet other major challenges, with feeding the world's growing population paramount 9.6 billion by 2050; see [7]. Over the next 40 years, the need to increase global cereal production by a minimum of 60–70% [8], the question to be asked is what is our understanding of climate change, what are the causes, and can these be mitigated? Researchers and scientists have been grappling with these questions, and some have given their understanding. Climate change plays a negative role to agriculture and causes excessive gases in the atmosphere, and the existence of "high levels of CO2 would have a catastrophic effect on the planet's ecosystems" [7].

Rising air temperatures trigger several important secondary effects. Increased global day- and nighttime temperatures are causing changes to seasonality. Warmer air temperatures are melting the polar ice caps, northern latitude ice shields, and high-altitude glaciers worldwide, leading to changes in the timing and volume of freshwater discharge and rising sea levels [7].

In order to slow down this process, human beings should be helped to understand some of the steps that need to be taken. One would interrogate as to what is the link between climate change and CSA. It can be argued that while climate change increases, the vulnerability to agriculture which results in variability of temperature and reduced rainfall or in some instances brings out flood. On the other hand, Juvadi [9] identified three critical contributions that come as a result of CSA, namely: (a) CSA reduces agriculture contribution to climate change; (b) strengthens resilience to climate change and variability; and (c) sustainably increases productivity and income [9].

International organizations, such as International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), saw the importance of CSA to an extent that it has established projects in Africa reaching out to countries such as Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa, and Sudan with one aim to capacitate the extension functionaries in order to best serve farmers with climate-smart agriculture. The project will develop CSA technologies and CSA farms in vulnerable regions of Ethiopia and Sudan. These technologies include improved crop varieties and land management, improved soil fertility management, integrated pest and weed management, agroforestry, and improved livestock systems. These CSA farms will also serve as research and training

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nutrients [23].

*Capacity Development for Scaling Up Climate-Smart Agriculture Innovations*

sites for students from the universities and be used as demonstration sites. Gender equality and the promotion of female farmers is a core activity of the project.

It is the opinion of the author that the need for climate change knowledge on both adaptation and mitigation is a must in order to assist in the solving the challenges posed by the negative effects of climate change in farmers especially the smallholder one because in most cases, they are not well positioned in terms of knowledge as well as financial muscle to handle the threat posed by climate change. For example, areas that receive flood change the ecosystems leading to new host of pathogenic organisms, or in some cases the environment is altered, and new diseases emerge which threatens the survival of these smallholder farmers. Authors have developed manuals to assist agricultural advisors to cope with such situations, see [6, 9–12].

Productivity in agriculture and the quality and quantity of produce will be low. The sector of agriculture will not be able to meet the demand of the increase in high population due to climate change. Maize production will be severely affected

There will be no products of maize that are exported to other countries, and the GDP of the country will be low [13]. It will result in poor economic growth that will

Agriculture practices will be affected; certain cultivation method will not be considered effective because of climate change [14]. Deep cultivation method cannot be adopted because of low rainfall received [15]. Minimal cultivation will be introduced to try to meet the requirement of the crops [16]. Farmers will sell their produce at higher price trying to meet daily operational cost of the farm. There will low level of employment rate in agriculture, and other permanent workers will lose their jobs [17]. There will be an introduction of other methods of cultivation that are neglected currently [18]. The mulching method will be used because of the following advantages; it promotes the water retention in the soil; the level of water that is being lost will be minimized. It also reduces the growth of weeds. There will be newly full adaptation of irrigation systems; the drip irrigation will be fully used [19].

It is because of the following advantages the total amount of water is applied directly to the root zone of maize plants, which will help in the full development of the plant [20]. There will be less evaporation rate due to the direct application of the water in the root zone. Other methods of irrigation that waste the usage of water will not be used. The disadvantage of the furrow irrigation is the high infiltration

Agriculture inputs will be ineffective; climate change will cause other species of insects to mutate. It will affect those insecticides that are registered now; they will not be able to control the pest population. It will pose a negative impact to the yield of farmers [22] leading to farmers not being able to meet daily operational cost of the farm. Environmental effect of climate change in the soil will be negative [21]. There will be high leaching of nutrients due to unpredictable receivable rainfall. Soil that has good base status of the soil will result in having low base status. Other soil nutrients will not be available to the root zone of the crops. It will cause the plant to suffer from nutrient deficiency. Farmers will need to supplement those leached-out

rate and evaporation of water that will result in a great loss [21].

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84405*

**3. Rationale for capacity development in CSA**

**4. The effect of climate change in agriculture**

because there will be limited rainfall for irrigation.

lead to low level of employment.

sites for students from the universities and be used as demonstration sites. Gender equality and the promotion of female farmers is a core activity of the project.
