Is farming the way forward for dryland regions?

Combined with factors such as isolation, marginalisation and poverty – which are also largely characteristic of dryland ecosystems – there are generally few viable alternatives to agriculture-based livelihoods.

So, what do farmers do when drought or disease causes crops to fail and livestock to die? Or when floods wipe out entire fields, or the rain doesn’t come at the usual time of year? In Namibia, this depends on how resilient (read: rich) you are.