In South Africa, new methods help farmers adapt to climate challenges

MATATIELE :: SOUTH AFRICA

Maphafodi “Mme” Jonas works rich plant matter through her hands, explaining how mulching protects her tomatoes from heavy rains. The 62-year-old grandmother grows more than a dozen crops on less than 2.5 acres in Matatiele, South Africa, a small rural community where climate change has reduced yields and food availability. Her garden is now a hands-on classroom for women learning to farm and feed their families despite those challenges.

Surveys by WWF’s Climate Crowd initiative indicate that home gardens—once common and essential to food security—have declined as erratic rainfall, degraded soils, and rising temperatures have made farming harder. Many families now rely on less nutritious store-bought food, go into debt to eat, or exploit natural resources for income—harming ecosystems vital to clean water, healthy rangelands, and medicinal plants.

Yet small-scale agriculture, when implemented with sustainable techniques, can restore food security. With support from WWF and local partner Environmental and Rural Solutions, peer learning networks are spreading low-cost, high-impact methods like composting, mulching, mixed cropping, and traditional seed use to boost productivity and benefit biodiversity.

“People like Mme Jonas are at the center of building climate resilience,” says Nikhil Advani, WWF’s Climate Crowd lead. “We’re looking at how they’re coping with climate variability in their daily lives to develop and implement simple interventions that can help.”

Climate Crowd has gathered community-sourced data from 47 countries and piloted over 30 different community-led projects. Learn more.