Senior climate change researcher Gerald Nelson recently appeared on two radio spots to discuss IFPRI’s climate change research findings.

While attending the annual FANRPAN Regional Food Policy Dialogue in Windhoek, Namibia in late August, he spoke with the BBC World Service’s Focus on Africa radio show about the current state of food security in Africa. Read the highlights, below, or listen to the interview by clicking here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

On the increased demand for livestock:
More people—in Africa and in Namibia—mean more mouths to feed. What we hope is that those mouths come with more money so that they can afford better lifestyles . But when they do, they are going to want to eat more livestock; they’re going to want to eat a more diversified diet. When you raise livestock, you rely on having enough water, enough grass to feed them. Where does it come from? Well ultimately it relies on enough precipitation and a climate where it’s not too hot. But we’re headed for, throughout the world, higher temperatures.

On the impact of climate change on livestock:
Resilience to climate change means different varieties of animals, maybe even changes in species that we grow and certainly more storage of grains to deal with the changes in the climate patterns that we can see coming forward even if we cannot predict where or when.

On low carbon development pathways for Africa:
Although African countries contribute very little emissions of greenhouse gases today, as they grow, they need to make sure that the development pathway they grow on is not one that contributes a large amount of greenhouse gases. They need to have a low carbon development pathway. And we can imagine funding mechanisms where countries for whom it would be difficult to reduce their emissions can pay African farmers to capture more of the carbon, put it in the ground with the added benefit for those farmers that it actually makes their agriculture more productive.

Nelson discussed a broader set of climate change issues for the webinar Climate change: Impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation, which was conducted by 2Degrees, an organization that “helps businesses and public sector organizations across the globe to become more sustainable, faster”. Click here to listen to the 30-minute webinar.