Mohamed Fofanah

"Farmers need to be educated about climate change and the effects they will have on crops." - Franeiseo Nhaevongue Credit: Zahira Kharsany/IPS

It was climate change that killed 10 people in Sierra Leone.

The culprit was the rain that would not stop. In the city’s capital of Freetown it rained and rained for four days without end. It only stopped after it had taken the lives of 10 of the city’s residents.

The country’s Meteorological department says these August rains were the heaviest the country had seen in three years. And they blame it on climate change.

The worst part of this story was that many Sierra Leoneans couldn’t understand the sudden floods. 
Umaru Fofanah, the President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists said the majority of people in the country are illiterate. “This means that a huge number of Sierra Leoneans did not know what killed their family members, or can relate (to) the jargon (about) climate change.”

In Mozambique, cities like Maputo and Gaza in 2006 were flooded and this affected about 1,4 million people. Another incident blamed on climate change.
It is, however, surprising to note that all across Africa the ordinary people whose lives and livelihoods are mostly affected by climate change do not know what it actually is.

Celina Cossa, the founder and president of the General Union of Cooperatives – a network of women farmers in Mozambique – admitted: “I do not know what climate change is.”

Cossa leads almost 3,000 members in her cooperative – 95 percent of whom are women.
And one would think that Cossa, as the winner of the inaugural Food Agriculture and National Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) Food Security Policy Leadership Award, would know more about it.

But she doesn’t.

She told IPS TerraViva: “We have never discussed the issue of climate change in our meetings”

And she agrees that there had been changes in the weather that affects the farmer’s crop productions – but she didn’t understand why.

“I don’t know what climate change is, but I have heard it (the term)”. Farmer Franeiseo Nhaevongue said, her body bent over as she weeded the grass from the rows of her crop of cow peas at her Maputo farm.

Nhaevongue said she has been in farming since 1995 and has seen the changes in weather patterns over the years.

“Now we are having long periods of heat and that has been giving us poor harvests. Before, it (the climate) was cold and we were producing more (crops).”
Nhaevongue said they have been relying on irrigation to water their crops because of the lack of rain.

Sindiso Ngwenya, the secretary general for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) said: “These ordinary peasant farmers could not know the technicalities, the policies attached to climate change but they know that there is climate change.”

He agreed that civil society and ordinary farmers should be engaged more on the issues of climate change.
”I am disappointed over African delegates that go to these international meetings and negotiations. They are always out shopping when these meetings are on because they themselves do not understand the issues and civil society are not there to pressure them,” Ngwenya said.

Ngwenya said he expected this lack of lack of interest to change as COMESA had identified the gaps in negotiating climate change policy.

Ngwenya, who is also the chairman of the FANRPAN board said the network is now partnering with civil society institutions simple farmers and researchers that will take research evidence to these meetings and be at these meetings to support African negotiators.
He said this would arm African negotiators with the right information to speak on the issues of climate change and make positive demands for their people.

Franeiseo Nhaevongue tills her land. Credit: Zahira Kharsany/IPS