The regional blueprint for driving adoption of smart and sustainable agricultural practices across the Western Cape.
The SmartAgri Plan aligns with the Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy: Vision 2050 (WCCCRS 2022) and its Implementation Plan.
The vision is: “Leading the way to a climate-resilient agricultural future for the Western Cape”. More practically, the goal of the plan is “to equip agriculture to respond to climate change risks and opportunities through innovation, leadership and united strategic action”.
01
Promote a climate-resilient, low-carbon production system that is productive, competitive, equitable and ecologically sustainable across the value chain.
02
Strengthen effective climate disaster risk reduction and management for agriculture.
03
Strengthen monitoring, data and knowledge management and sharing, and lead strategic research for climate change and agriculture.
04
Ensure good co-operative governance and institutional planning for effective climate change response implementation for agriculture.
Read about how the Smart Agri Plan is evaluated - including the framework for measuring progress against the six priority themes and reporting on outcomes.
Phase 1 of the SmartAgri project focused on the compilation of a comprehensive Status Quo Review of climate change and agriculture in the Western Cape.
Climatic trends and risks were identified which are already impacting on the sector, such as increasing temperatures and reductions in the number of rainy days. Future climate projections were analysed.
The Review goes beyond the assessment of climate change responses in agriculture. It also engages in the assessment of climate risk and impacts of specific crop and livestock commodities and agro-climatic zones to provide a detailed understanding of the response gaps, needs and opportunities.
Twenty-three agro-climatic zones across the Western Cape Province were assessed.
The climate change trends and projections for the Western Cape were comprehensively updated in 2022 by the Climate System Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town
The results paint a clear picture of negative impacts of climate change across the province, especially with respect to agriculture. Decreasing rainfall should be expected in most areas and even when rainfall decreases are not projected, or do not manifest, increasing temperatures will almost certainly bring significant water balance challenges to agriculture.
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An external evaluation of the SmartAgri Plan (2014-2016) and its first phase of implementation (2016-2019) was completed in April 2020.
The purpose was to assess the plan in terms of:
The assessment was conducted across three broad areas:
The evaluation culminated in an Evaluation Report that outlines seven high level recommendations. These were actioned from 2021-2022.
PDF · ~2.4 MB
The SmartAgri Plan continues to be implemented across all the Programmes of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture (WC-DoA), and in collaboration with the Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (WC-DEA&DP).
A transversal Steering Committee meets once per quarter with representatives from WC-DoA, WC-DEADP and the GreenCape Agri-sector Desk.
SmartAgri activities, events and outputs are part of the agenda of the Western Cape Climate Change Working Group that includes all provincial departments, with the provincial Climate Change Directorate within WC-DEA&DP acting as the Secretariat.
SmartAgri is also an integral part of the discussions at the meetings of the Interministerial Committee on Climate Change that includes both Ministers and both Head of Department of the two lead departments (WC-DEA&DP and WC-DoA).
The implementation of the SmartAgri Plan is conducted across the sector with every person and institution across the agricultural value chain playing an important role. Strong public-private partnerships are required to accelerate uptake of climate smart approaches and technologies by the producers that will develop better resilience to climate variability and extremes.
