Diary: Climate impacts in Uganda - Part two

In researching climate change impacts on farmers and herders in Uganda recently, what struck me with great force was that everyone I spoke to - without a single exception - described the same large-scale changes in their climate over the last 20 or so years.

Most of Uganda has a bi-modal climate - that is, there are two rainy seasons. One starts in March and lasts through until June. The second lasts from around October until about December. In the north the country is more arid; most rain comes in April then peters out until finishing in September. There have been big changes to both seasons.

Baluku Yofesi, a farmer in Kasese District in western Uganda, describes the first: "We used to have much more rainfall than we are having now, that's one big change, and to me this area is hotter than 20 years ago.

"Until about 1988 the climate was okay, we had two rainy seasons and they were very reliable. Now the March to June season in particular isn't reliable, which doesn't favour the crops we grow. Rain might stop in April. Because of the shortened rains you have to go for early maturing varieties and now people are trying to select these.

"That's why some local varieties of pumpkins and cassava that need a lot of rain, even varieties of beans, have disappeared. We need things that mature in two months - maize needs three months of rain to grow, so two months is not enough."

Asked what the effects are, he says: "Reduced production means reduced income, obviously. And because of the reduction in traditional varieties we have poorer nutrition because we don't have the variety of foods, and because of malnutrition there's an increased susceptibility to disease. Children can't concentrate at school."

In contrast to increasing heat and drought during the first rains, the second rains seem to have got stronger, which is very much in line with computer models that forecast climate change.

But the extra rain isn't useful. To the contrary, it rains so hard that it sweeps away both crops and the soil they grow in, and causes floods. In mountainous areas like Rwenzori in the west or Elgon in the east, the torrential rain brings landslides that can cause heavy loss of life.

This is the second in a five-part series, re-published from the Oxfam GB climate change and poverty blog. You can read part one here.

A new Oxfam report on the impacts of climate change on poor people in Uganda will be published in early July.

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