Given the highly climate-sensitive character of agricultural production, climate change  has obvious and important ramifications for agricultural commercialisation, which  in turn has a bearing on poverty, gender empowerment, and food and nutrition  security. The nature and extent of climate change implications for agricultural  commercialisation will depend on a) the magnitude of the climate impacts that  farmers have to deal with; and b) the extent to which sustainable intensification  processes can be pursued in ways which strengthen, rather than weaken, adaptive  capacity and resilience in the face of climate change.  

From the perspective of commentators concerned with climate change, agricultural  commercialisation is a conundrum. It is implicated at a fundamental causal level  in generating anthropogenic climate change and – at the same time – agricultural  commercialisation is one of the modes of economic activity most sensitive to climate  impacts. 

Broadly speaking, the more commercial the agriculture, the more industrial and  intensive agricultural production tends to be and the greater its contribution to the  greenhouse gases driving climate change. At the same time, the fragility of agriculture  and food systems has increased. This dynamic is fundamental to any discussion of  commercialisation pathways, in sub-Saharan Africa or elsewhere. 

However, it also needs to be recognised that not all forms of commercialisation have  contributed equally to climate change: Africa’s contribution to agriculture-related  emissions – or indeed to greenhouse gas emissions more broadly – remains minimal.  If the future is not to repeat the past, then debates around transformative climate  adaptation may yield insights into the directions and forms that com…….

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