Soil is a finite resource which takes thousands of years to form. Using it in a non-sustainable way leads to nutrient depletion and other forms of degradation. High temperatures and heavy rains resulting from climate change are accelerating these processes. Every year, some ten million hectares of land are destroyed worldwide – an area about the size of 14 million soccer fields.

Land degradation is a global problem. About 1.5 billion hectares worldwide are directly affected. Land degradation leads to crop loss and, thus, to a growing threat to the food security of millions of people.

Taking account of the specific country contexts, the programme "Soil protection and rehabilitation for food security" supports smallholders and nomadic livestock keepers in Ethiopia (highlands and lowlands), Benin, Burkina Faso, India, Kenya, Madagascar and Tunisia as they apply a variety of soil protection measures. Based on the experience gained through these activities, the programme also provides advice to political decision-makers on soil-friendly, socially inclusive agricultural policies.

The agricultural practices supported by the programme have a positive impact on the availability of water and on biological diversity. Both factors are helpful for adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector.

So far, 165,504 hectares of land have been rehabilitated or protected through the programme. The target is 280,000 hectares by 2023. This will benefit more than a million people. As a result of the application of soil protection measures, yields are increasing by an average of 40 per cent.

In addition, the change in farming systems, for example reduced use of mineral fertilisers, fire management and improved livestock feeding, is contributing to climate change mitigation. Research undertaken in the context of the programme shows that the soil targeted by the protection measures is emitting significantly less greenhouse gases and can serve as a carbon sink under certain conditions.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the keeping of livestock is an important means of livelihood for more than 80 per cent of poor households. However, rising temperatures and less rainfall are reducing the productivity of their livestock and the growth of fodder crops. Moreover, livestock farming is not only affected by the impacts of climate change but also plays a part in causing climate change. Thus, in many countries of the region, it is the agricultural sector – in particular livestock farming – that is the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Germany has worked with the International Livestock Research Institute, ILRI, and the World Bank to develop a programme for climate-smart livestock farming methods. The programme helps livestock farmers to develop promising climate-smart methods and to test them in the field, so to speak. As a result, there have been improvements in the cultivation of certain fodder crops and in dung and pasture management.

On-site measurements and laboratory testing are providing proof that this new approach to livestock farming is making a contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The findings are disseminated in "training-the-trainer" measures and are incorporated in the curricula of relevant training and extension organisations.

In addition, German implementing organisations are working with political decision makers in order to develop and try out potential new practices in livestock farming. Their collaboration is helping to ensure that the likely impacts of climate change on the livestock sector are taken into account in their planning of policy frameworks, strategies and investment projects.

At the same time, our partner countries are receiving support to switch their monitoring and reporting systems to the more complex tier 2 methods of calculating greenhouse gas emissions in the livestock sector. The tier 2 methods are particularly useful for demonstrating the effectiveness of climate protection measures. They also help partner countries to improve the accuracy of their reporting on the Paris Agreement.

To ensure a broad-based approach, the findings are then used – by the World Bank, amongst others – when formulating and implementing new, large-scale investment projects. And national teams are given advice on how to include climate-smart approaches when designing new projects.

In the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) stipulated in the Paris Agreement, the countries party to the agreement have all specified what measures they will take to mitigate climate change; many have also specified what measures they will take to adapt to climate change. Many African countries have placed the focus of their Nationally Determined Contributions on their agricultural sectors.

In Africa, agriculture is still the predominant means of securing a livelihood. Of the working population, six out of ten people work in the agricultural sector, and more than half of all farmers are smallholders. Since people working the land depend heavily on local rainfall, they are particularly vulnerable to changes in climatic conditions. But, without outside support, farming techniques that would help them adapt to these changing conditions tend to spread only slowly.

Through its development cooperation, Germany is supporting the African Union (AU), as well as its planning and coordinating arm NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development), in their efforts to prepare African countries for climate change. The AU is helping its member states to develop finance plans and implementation strategies. Such plans and strategies are helping them to fulfil their NDCs in the agricultural sector. For instance, extensive training – especially in the fields of climate-smart cultivation methods, climate financing and measurement of climate contributions – is being provided for technical staff working in the ministries responsible for agriculture, the environment and finance.

In addition, Germany is supporting the South-South transfer of knowledge. For example at the annual forum hosted by the Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance, representatives from civil society and research professionals come together to discuss the challenges facing the agricultural sector in times of climate change. The group of negotiators representing Africa at international climate conferences takes on board the insights coming out of the Forum in order to showcase what is happening in Africa and its agricultural sector. These insights serve as "scientific ammunition", so to speak, giving them a stronger negotiating position at these conferences.

Vanilla, cloves and pepper are only some of the products grown in Madagascar. The agricultural sector is important for the country, since about 80 per cent of the population depend on it for their livelihoods. Unfortunately, because Madagascar is an island, it is particularly severely affected by the effects of climate change. Heavy rainfall, hurricanes, floods and droughts are becoming more frequent and severe. The country is also being impacted by climate change effects that are more slow to emerge – such the gradual loss of fertile soil. Such changes are further reducing the country's already poor agricultural productivity.

Through its development cooperation, Germany is helping Madagascar in its efforts to adapt its rural value chains in the south and southeast of the country to climate change. The EU is also providing support for this measure. The rural value chains being assessed are those for groundnuts, sorghum, honey, ginger, coastal fishery, castor beans, goats and sheep, onions, coffee, cloves, pepper and vanilla. At the same time, the attempt is being made to grow larger crops in order to raise profitability, while keeping the effects of climate change in mind.

Thus, an assessment of the economic potential of these crops is to be followed by an assessment of future climate risks. The findings are to be used to formulate an holistic development strategy for each commodity, including any adjustments or changes that are deemed necessary. This may mean a switch to different seeds or watering the fields in a different way. But it could also mean changing the way commodities are stored or transported.

In order to cover the residual risk that remains even after adaptation measures have been carried out, climate risk insurance schemes are being offered. Furthermore, efforts are underway to raise the capacity of Madagascar's meteorological service so that it is able to collect more accurate meteorological data, since access to reliable data is important for many adaptation measures. For instance, such data could result in the recommendation to farmers to shift their harvest times. Last but not least, there will also be campaigns to raise people's awareness of climate change along with all of its consequences and the changes that may result from it.

Tohomé Hadonou is a farmer in Benin, who is proud to call 5.5 hectares of land her own. But she is no ordinary farmer. Five months ago, she and 46 other members of a women's group started attending training sessions to learn how to improve soil fertility. She now understands why the yields from her fields have decreased so sharply over the last few years. Every year, she planted nothing but wild watermelons on her 1.5 hectare field. After the harvest, it was customary to set all the fields alight to burn off the harvest residue. And this is what Tohomé Hadonou used to do too. Now, there is no longer any sign of charred soil or wild watermelon on her field.

A smile spreads across the 41-year-old farmer's face when she explains what has changed: "No, I no longer burn off the fields after harvesting my crops. Now I give my soil its strength back by using new methods." Not burning the fields helps to preserve micro-organisms in the soil and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Benin – 68 per cent of which are the result of burning biomass.

Instead of wild watermelons, Hadonou now grows black-eyed peas on her field. This West African bean, also known as "cowpea", is a grain legume. It helps to fix nitrogen in the soil and provides valuable nutrients for exhausted soils. The bean is also extremely rich in proteins and contains numerous vitamins and minerals.

However, in order to rehabilitate the soils over the long term, much more needs to be done. After the harvest, Hadonou leaves the crop residues on her fields so that they can gradually decompose – producing natural compost in the process.

And she has learned a few more useful tricks: "I now plant my crop rows horizontal to the natural gradient and have built a low wall of plant remains around the field. This helps to keep the water in the soil."

Rainfall is becoming increasingly unpredictable, with rains sometimes arriving so late that some of the planted seeds dry up. That is why Tohomé Hadonou now staggers her planting, so that she runs less of a risk of losing her entire harvest. By employing these methods, and by using varieties of maize that have been adapted to climate change and have a shorter growing period, she has recently been able to increase the maize yields of her field by as much as 30 per cent compared with those of other fields.

All in all, the programme for Soil protection and rehabilitation for food security has provided additional training for almost 20,000 small farmers in Benin since it began in 2015. The aim of the programme is to restore the fields of small farmers all around the world back to fertility, so that agriculture can be intensified in ways that are sustainable and adapted to climate change.

Laarroussi Touil runs a small farm in Morocco near the Atlantic coast. He has 0.6 hectares of land, sheep, six cows, but no tractor. Touil, who is 30 years old, and his wife Hanan have one son of pre-school age. Laarroussi Touil, who inherited the farm from his father, works it by himself, with no farmhands to help him. He has one horse – an animal that looks like a rather thin riding horse – which he uses as a draught animal.

In the winter of 2016/17, Touil took part for the first time in a project called "Innovation Transfer into Agriculture – Adaptation to Climate Change" (ITAACC). The aim of the project is to help farmers increase their yields of fava beans by attracting often disregarded 'little helpers' – namely wild bees, flies and wasps, who help to pollinate the fields and eat pests.

The approach is called "Farming with Alternative Pollinators" (FAP) and was developed in Uzbekistan in 2012. The more versatile the pollinators, the better placed farmers are to react to climate change-induced changes in weather patterns. Strong winds, cold, extreme heat or strong rainfalls can keep many honey bees from flying – but other pollinating insects are more robust.

Laarroussi Touil looks across his field, which is full of broad beans in the centre, with a narrow border of courgette, coriander, rapeseed, marjoram and rosemary around the edge. He says that there is a much greater variety of insects in his fields now, and the number of pests has gone down compared with previous years. This year's harvest was better, too, with more broad beans in each pod than there used to be. And Hanan Touil uses the additional plants and vegetables growing around the main crop in her own cooking. All this made the farmer curious to see what other potential benefits the pollinators could bring.

In spring 2017, Touil started his own project, using the FAP approach in his tomato field. For several years, the tomato leaf miner had been making life difficult for him – and for other tomato farmers in Morocco. The larvae of the tomato leaf miner damages the plant, and the black faeces they leave behind in each fruit reduce the price per kilogramme from five to three dirham. Only spray pesticides help, but Laarroussi Touil wants to use as little of these as possible, saying: "Spraying the plants is hard work and expensive, and makes the harvest less healthy."

So, instead, he sowed coriander, courgettes and sunflowers in order to attract more pollinators and natural pest killers. His plan paid off. The FAP method helped to improve his tomato crop, to the extent that his tomato plants were heavy with fruit and showed little damage from the tomato leaf miner. They brought him five dirham per kilogramme. That is why, in the autumn of 2017, he immediately volunteered to take part when the ITAACC Team was looking for farmers to test FAP methods on courgette crops.

He now intends to continue applying these methods in the future – and his wife is also a fan of FAP. Commenting on the FAP methods, Touil says: "The harvest is better and I don't have to use as much spray pesticide." That is why Mr and Mrs Touil did not hesitate to offer to hold one of the training courses on their farm. And now there is even a greenhouse on Laarroussi Touil's farm – so that he can test FAP methods there too.

"Conservation agriculture is not easy to do – but I intend to continue with it", says Lucia Kandambo, a smallholder from northern Namibia. Like most farmers there, she is suffering the consequences of climate change. Rainfall has decreased and become less regular – while, at the same time, the region now experiences storms with heavy rains. Some forecasts predict that by 2050 farming in the way that is common today in Namibia will only be possible in a very small part of the country. That is why Lucia Kandambo is looking for new methods of farming which will provide her with reasonable harvests. She feels that conservation agriculture is the right way forward.

The BMZ is supporting smallholder farmers in three regions of Namibia in their efforts to adapt their cultivation methods to climate change. The focus of the programme is on promoting conservation agriculture, or CA for short. The main feature of CA is that fields are no longer ploughed or turned over, and post-harvest crop residues are left on the fields to act as mulch. This helps to prevent the elements from causing soil erosion, and helps the soil to retain water for longer. As a result, it is easier to get through dry periods. And the layer of mulch reduces weed-growth – an important benefit for Namibia's smallholders, since they tend not to use herbicides. Another feature of CA is crop rotation. This means that several different crops are planted in succession in order to avoid monocultures and preserve soil fertility.

Lucia Kandambo belongs to the group of "lead farmers", as they are known. It is they who test the methods on their fields first and then pass on their know-how to other farmers. Kandambo is confident that other farmers will also switch to CA, saying: "Conservation agriculture is new, and there is a lot to learn. But a large number of other farmers in our village are already interested."

CA is a relatively new method in Namibia, which is why not much empirical data on its use there is available. That is why the BMZ is supporting research on CA at local universities, so that they can adapt the method better to conditions in Namibia. These universities are also receiving support from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, CIMMYT, which has already tested CA successfully in other Southern African countries.

Lucia Kandambo is optimistic, saying: "I have the impression that, even in the first year, yields have been considerably higher than with conventional farming methods." Initial findings are proving her right. Of the farmers taking part in the project, some are using conventional farming methods and others are practising "conservation agriculture". Those who have farmed their fields using CA are reporting that their yields are already 70 per cent higher than they were the previous year.

In 2017, after a severe drought, more than 200,000 small farmers in Tamil Nadu, India, received compensation from the national crop insurance programme. The damage was measured quickly and precisely through satellite technology, which made it possible to compensate farmers swiftly for their lost rice crop. The response was based on the RIICE project.

RIICE stands for Remote Sensing-based Information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging Economies. The project was set up in 2012 and has been assisting South East Asian countries and India in swiftly responding to imminent crop failure and enhancing farmers' income security. The initiative involves monitoring rice cultivation areas and insuring them against extreme weather events. It evolved from a partnership between Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Swiss Re, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), sarmap SA (a software company), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Some 90 per cent of the world's rice is produced in Asia. Many farmers' livelihoods there depend on rice. However, the entire region is faced with extreme weather conditions: floods, typhoons and droughts are very common, frequently wiping out entire harvests. RIICE enables small farmers to take out efficient crop insurance, making it possible to provide financial compensation quickly and providing governments with the necessary information for their emergency response.

In 2015, large sections of Tamil Nadu were flooded, destroying the newly planted fields of more than 400 rice farmers. Thanks to satellite data, it was possible to estimate the damage within a few days and provide farmers with new seedlings.

Two years later, Tamil Nadu was hit even harder. The worst drought in more than 140 years left the entire region parched. Thanks to information from RIICE, more than 200,000 rice farmers received an average of 195 euros each within three months to make up for their lost crops. Without the data, compensation would have taken up to a year. Gagandeep Singh Bedi, the highest-ranking government official for agricultural affairs in this South Indian state, said: "RIICE remote sensing technology (...) allows us to assess crop loss and damages in a more transparent and timely manner. This was particularly useful during the last cropping season to identify villages that had been hit by drought (...) in a record time."