Course overview
Welcome to Attain food security through subsistence and sustainable agriculture: Mitigate climate change impact and achieve sustainable livelihoods
This course looks at some of the causes of climate change and its effects on food security and food justice in particular. It discusses food and nutrition in relation to the geography of community spaces and presents various food insecurity scenarios at individual and community levels.
It also looks at:
- coping mechanisms that have helped people and communities to become resilient — for example, innovations in sustainable agriculture and subsistence food production to counter threats to livelihoods
- traditional best practices and the alignment with location-specific conservation of natural resources
- small-scale and traditional food processing techniques for preserving food for sustenance and survival
Attain food security through subsistence and sustainable agriculture: Mitigating climate change impact and achieving sustainable livelihoods—Is this course for you?
This course is intended for community members, people who work in the field, especially in the agriculture sector, and individuals who work at a grassroots level to mitigate the impacts of climate change — for example, volunteers, community leaders, community health workers and others in positions to support women and children at the community level. Such individuals could use it for themselves, or teachers/facilitators can use it for working with NGOs, communities and others in positions to support women and girls in their community.
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Course outcomes
Outcomes
On completion of Attain food security through subsistence and sustainable agriculture: Mitigate climate change impact and achieve sustainable livelihoods you will be able to:
- describe the impact of climate change on food security and food justice by linking increasingly severe weather in the local context to food security concerns.
- discuss the similarities and differences between concepts such as subsistence and sustainable agriculture, community farming and other similar concepts associated with building community resilience.
- identify best practices within their geographical contexts such as soil-less farming, backyard gardening and soil moisture conservation.
- describe small-scale food processing at the household and community levels and recognise innovations in tools and techniques for food processing and preservation.
- explain geographical and locale-specific best practices used in traditional communities.
Timeframe
Time
You will need approximately 7.5 hours to complete this course.
This course contains five units. Each unit will need approximately 1.5 hours of learning time.
If you use this course for working with your community, you could spread it over a number of training sessions.
An additional two hours of self-study time may be required.
Study skills
As an adult learner you will take a different approach to learning than you did when you were a schoolchild. You will choose what you want to study, you will have a professional or personal motivation for learning and you will most likely be fitting your study activities around other professional or domestic responsibilities.
Essentially you will be taking control of your learning environment. You will therefore need to think about how issues such as time management, goal setting and stress management will affect your performance. You may need to review skills such as essay planning, coping with exams and using the Web as a learning resource.
Your most significant considerations will be time and space — that is, the time you dedicate to your learning and the environment in which you engage in that learning.
We recommend that you take time now — that is, before you begin your self-study — to familiarise yourself with these issues. There are a number of excellent resources on the Web that can help you. For example:
This website has a list of resources about study skills, including taking notes, strategies for reading textbooks, using reference sources and dealing with test anxiety.
This website has useful links to resources on time management; efficient reading; questioning, listening and observing skills; “hands-on” learning; memory building; staying motivated; and developing a learning plan.
These two websites can get you started on your learning journey. At the time of writing, the links to them were active. To find more options, go to www.google.com and type in phrases such as “self-study basics,” “self-study tips” or “self-study skills.”
Need help?
At the learning centre, you will receive the same support as you would from a classroom teacher, or you might find a more experienced tutor to support you during a contact session.
Assessments
There is one assessment at the end of each unit. All assessments are self-assessments in the form of multiple choice questions (MCQs) and consist of between three to five questions.
You will have between five and ten minutes to read and complete each assessment.
