ABSTRACT Swaziland was affected severely by the 2015–16 El Nino drought, which severely affected agriculture and food security. Of special interest to this paper is its impact on irrigated home gardens on the Komati Downstream Development Project. This project was designed to extend irrigated sugar cane onto customary tenured Swazi Nation Land, with a secondary objective to improve food security by enabling farmers to convert some land from rain-fed to irrigated maize and vegetable production. A random questionnaire survey was undertaken on three farmers’ associations of the KDDP which have adopted irrigated home gardens, sampling approximately 50 per cent of those eligible. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with committee members of the associations. The paper concludes that unlike previous droughts where the gardens enabled farmers to produce food at a time when rain-fed production had collapsed, in the 2015–16 drought, the impact on water supplies was so great that the irrigated gardens also failed, compromising the food security of the farmers and their neighbours. It also appears that a significant number of farmers are beginning to question the long-term viability of their current farm system in the face of what many perceive as long-term changes in the regional climate.

中文翻译：

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2015-16 年厄尔尼诺干旱对斯威士兰科马蒂下游开发项目灌溉家庭花园的影响

摘要 斯威士兰受到 2015-16 年厄尔尼诺干旱的严重影响，严重影响了农业和粮食安全。本文特别感兴趣的是它对科马蒂下游开发项目的灌溉家庭花园的影响。该项目旨在将灌溉甘蔗扩展到惯用的斯威士兰国家土地上，其次要目标是通过使农民能够将部分土地从雨育土地转变为灌溉玉米和蔬菜生产来改善粮食安全。对采用灌溉家庭菜园的 KDDP 的三个农民协会进行了随机问卷调查，抽样调查了大约 50% 的合格人员。此外，还与协会的委员会成员进行了深入访谈。该论文得出的结论是，与之前的干旱不同，在雨养生产崩溃的时候，花园使农民能够生产粮食，而在 2015-16 年的干旱中，对供水的影响如此之大，以至于灌溉花园也失败了，从而影响了农民及其邻居的粮食安全。面对许多人认为的区域气候长期变化，相当多的农民似乎开始质疑他们当前农业系统的长期生存能力。