Kennedy Ndue

57216526879

Publications - 3

Determinants of Rural Households’ Intensity of Flood Adaptation in the Fogera Rice Plain, Ethiopia: Evidence from Generalised Poisson Regression

Publication Name: Sustainability Switzerland

Publication Date: 2023-07-01

Volume: 15

Issue: 14

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Effective adaptation to flooding risk depends on careful identification and combinations of strategies which, in turn, depends on knowledge of the determinants of flood adaptation. The main objective of this study was to examine the determinants of rural households’ intensity of flood adaptation in the Fogera rice plain, Ethiopia. A three-stage stratified sampling technique was employed to select 337 sample household heads. Primary data was collected through a structured household survey. Data analysis was accompanied by a descriptive and generalised Poisson regression (GP) model. The descriptive analysis showed that households adopted an average of three (3) flood adaptation strategies. The generalised Poisson regression further revealed that family size, availability of off-farm income, previous flood experience, access to credit, access to extension services, and an early warning information system statistically significantly increase flood adaptation strategies’ average number (intensity). However, the age of the household head negatively and significantly influences the intensity of flood adaptation. More specifically, households with off-farm income, previous flood experience, access to credit, access to extension, and an early warning information system were 20%, 94%, 13%, 30%, and 29% more likely to adopt more flood adaptation strategies, respectively. The findings call for immediate response and coordination among stakeholders to design strategies that enhance households’ livelihood, access to credit, access to extension services, and early warning information systems for effective flood adaptation in the study area.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/su151411025

European Green Transition Implications on Africa’s Livestock Sector Development and Resilience to Climate Change

Publication Name: Sustainability Switzerland

Publication Date: 2022-11-01

Volume: 14

Issue: 21

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Green growth and the transition towards green growth are gaining scientific and public interest across Africa at an unprecedented rate. The Paris Agreement ratification by all 54 member states and the African Union (AU) goals in its Agenda 2063 on green economies are sufficient evidence of this. This is in line with the European Green Deal (EGD) aspirations, which envisages making Europe a carbon neutral economy by 2050. One of the EGD’s four main pillars is sustainable food systems. The success of EGD is premised on its ability to inspire and support green transition and effective climate action globally. The borderless nature of climate change necessitates a holistic approach to ensure the EU’s green transition does not come at the cost of development elsewhere. The main challenge is finding Africa’s space and position within the desired holistic approach, as Africa’s economy is agriculturally driven. One key African agricultural sub-sector significantly impacting livelihoods is livestock, which supports up to 80% of the rural livelihoods and which grapples with challenges in satisfying the needs of a fast-growing population. What could the EU green transition mean to this sector? We established that between 2010–2019, the African livestock population grew exponentially, and feed production followed the same path, with the share of land under forests, grasslands and meadows declining drastically. Over the same period, the percentage of land under arable farming increased while the animal-based protein and meat imports curve grew exponentially. This situation puts the continent in a dilemma about finding a sustainable solution for the food–feed and environmental nexus. Against this backdrop, a myriad of questions arises on how the green transition can be established to promote mitigating any loss that might occur in the process. We conducted a detailed sectoral trend analysis based on Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) statistics to find plausible solutions and pathways to achieve a greener transition. We coupled it with intensive policy mapping to develop science-policy-driven solutions that could promote the green transition sustainably. To sustainably accelerate the sectoral growth trajectory while addressing climate change, we recommend adopting and implementing raft measures geared towards increased sectoral efficiency, effectiveness, innovativeness and a holistic approach to the problem. Adopting transformative policies can promote the sector’s competitiveness through incentivisation, technological adoption, financial support, market support and increased awareness of its importance in sustainable development. However, exercising caution in implementing these practices is crucial to ensure there is no leakage effect in implementing the EGD across Africa and beyond.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/su142114401

Life Cycle Assessment Perspective for Sectoral Adaptation to Climate Change: Environmental Impact Assessment of Pig Production

Publication Name: Land

Publication Date: 2022-06-01

Volume: 11

Issue: 6

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Growing demand for sustainably driven production systems, especially pork, requires a holistic or system thinking approach. Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) offers a robust methodological background as one of the approaches to achieving system analysis for a product along its lifecycle. On the other hand, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can perform state-of-art system analysis charac-terising its sustainability fronts as a compelling set of tools. Pork, as the most consumed meat across Europe (circa 34 kg per capita per year), compounded with the sector’s contribution to global greenhouse gases (GHG) doubling over the past decade necessitated this research. Our objective was to map hotspots along the value chain and recommend the best available practices for realising the sectoral contribution to carbon neutrality and climate change adaptation. To achieve the objective, we compared organic and conventional production systems by basing our analysis on Recipe midpoint 2016 (H) V1.13 as implemented in OpenLCA 1.10.2 using AGRIBALYSE® 3.0 datasets for eleven indicators. We found that producing 1 kg of pig meat under an organic production system had almost double the environmental impact of conventional systems for land use, water consump-tion, acidification, and ecotoxicity. Feed production and manure management are the significant hotspots accounting for over 90% of environmental impacts associated with 1 kg pig meat Live-weight (LW) production. Similarly, efficient conventional systems were less harmful to the environment in per capita unit of production and land use compared with organic ones in ten out of the eleven impacts evaluated. Implementing increased efficiency, reduced use of inputs for feed pro-duction, and innovative manure management practices with technological potential were some of the best practices the research recommended to realise minimal impacts on the identified hotspots.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/land11060827