A crop yield risk analysis and mitigation of small-holder farmers at quaternary catchment level- Case study of B72A in Olifants river basin

Currently, Sub-Sahara is experiencing increased frequency of disasters either as floods or droughts which diverts scarce resources, time and efforts from other sustainable millennium development goals. Success in preventing food shortages in African continent will only be achieved if we understand the vulnerability and risk of the majority of small-holder farmers under rainfed and supplemental irrigation coupled with proper intervention. South Africa is not spared from these events either. Increased frequency of floods, droughts and dry spells pose an increasing threat to the small-holder farmers’ food security and water resources in B72A quaternary catchment, Olifants river basin. The paper attempts to measure crop yield risk and vulnerability to such disaster contexts from an interdisciplinary perspective by applying a set of indicators (physical, socio-economic and environmental) to define hazard risk management and areas requiring urgent help. The paper also explores how to capture institutional and gender vulnerabilities. The approach leads to a more complete understanding of the vulnerability and risk exposure that can help develop technologies and policies that better tally with the various livelihood strategies of the small-holder poor farmers. We conclude that once such knowledge base is created for a catchment, computational modeling of the impact of different types of events under different times can be achieved.