By Simthandile Ponti
GCBRs Simthandile Ponti and Leila Moosajee attended the Climate Change and Agriculture Youth Summit from the 30th of October to the 31st of October, that took place at Goudini Spa & Resort near Worcester. The conference was hosted by the Western Cape Department of Agriculture.
Dr Ilse Trautman (Head of Department at Western Cape Department of Agriculture) opened the conference and spoke about climate change, as well as its impacts, risks, adaptation and mitigation of climate change. She also shared some of the ideas to help with climate change, opportunities that are present for youth and lastly, the role of the youth in reducing climate change.
One of the sessions that stood out for most of the youth and delegates were the activities that demonstrated how important teamwork, critical thinking, support, innovation and collaboration is in our working environment.
Climate change projections for the Western Cape suggest that we will experience hotter, drier days. One of the activities we did was to plan a five-minute play, with the theme wildfires. This play demonstrated a sense of urgency from the landowner who is experiencing a wildfire, and it also provided practical details such as the contact details for the relevant disaster department that you should contact when you have a wildfire.
The most important lesson that stood out is that smallholder farmers are often more at risk to suffer from the negative impacts of climate change because they have limited access to resources and information that would enable them to develop effective response strategies. According to the Western Cape Department of Agriculture, conservation agriculture remains an important step towards the optimal use of natural resources and towards a proactive response to climate change in the agricultural sector.
