Climate smart agriculture for Africa: the potential role of conservation agriculture in climate smart agriculture.

Abstract To achieve the challenges raised in Agenda 2063 and the Malabo Declaration, new agricultural techniques need to be promoted. Practical approaches to implement climate smart agriculture and sustainable agriculture, able to deliver at field level, are required. These include sustainable soil and land management that allows different user groups to manage their resources, including water, crops, livestock and associated biodiversity, in ways that are best suited to the prevailing biophysical, socio-economic and climatic conditions. The adoption of locally adapted sustainable soil management practices is needed to support climate change mitigation and adaptation from the agricultural perspective. In this sense, Conservation Agriculture (CA) can be adapted to local conditions, and help achieve the key objectives. The application of CA principles brings multiple benefits, especially in terms of soil conservation, but also for mitigating climate change. In fact, CA has the ability to transform agricultural soils from being carbon emitters into carbon sinks, because of no-tillage (NT) techniques and the return to the soil of diverse crop biomass from above-ground parts of plants and from diverse roots systems and root exudates. Similarly, fossil energy use decreases due to the reduction in agricultural operations, and so less CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere. Lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in CA also result, because of reduced and more efficient use of inputs. Scientific studies confirm the sequestration potential of increased soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks on croplands in Africa on each of the continent's major bioclimatic areas. Coefficients of SOC sequestration for Africa are presented in this chapter.