Challenge 1:

Improving the climate resilience of subsistence farming

Can you support communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change to maintain sustainable food production?

The threat of climate change

The climate crisis is already affecting the weather patterns that many communities have relied upon for centuries to grow their crops and feed their animals. This shift increases the vulnerability of food security and deepens existing poverty issues.

Acute hunger has more than doubled in countries worst affected by the climate crisis. Since 2000, nations such as Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe have faced the highest number of UN appeals due to extreme weather events. These countries are home to 48 million people already suffering from acute hunger.

Escalating extreme weather and agricultural challenges

Increased frequency of extreme weather: Drought, flooding, storm events, and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe.
New agricultural threats: As the climate changes, so do the pests and diseases that attack crops and livestock. Areas previously unaffected by crop-eating insects, blights, or fungi now face these new risks.

Climate change’s mixed impact on agriculture

In some regions, changing climates are bringing unexpected benefits, like warmer springs and longer growing seasons. For example, wheat’s growing range could expand, potentially increasing yields by 17%.

The hardest hit: subsistence farmers and poverty increase

Unfortunately, the overall impact will likely be negative, with maize yields expected to decline by 24%. Subsistence farmers, operating with limited financial resources and technology, will face severe challenges in adapting to these changes. The World Bank estimates that climate change could push an additional 132 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, with smallholder farmers among the most affected.

The role of engineering

Engineering plays an integral role in the provision of food all over the world.

Key areas of engineering in food production

Technology involved in designing new crops (bio-engineering).
Fertilizers that increase crop yields (chemical engineering).
Pesticides that deal with pests and diseases (chemical engineering).
Improving irrigation and soil quality (civil and agricultural engineering).
Harvesting and processing machinery, and packaging and distribution chains (electrical and mechanical, mechatronic, software, information and communications engineering).

Developing innovative engineering solutions

Can you come up with innovative engineering ideas that support communities around the world that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change to maintain sustainable food production?

Focus on small-scale farmers

Particular emphasis should be placed on small-scale farmers in remote and regional communities and on ensuring income is generated in a sustainable manner.

Theme consistency for World Engineering Day 2025

Make sure your innovative designs are consistent with the theme of World Engineering Day 2025: Shaping a sustainable future through engineering.

Sustainable Development Goals

This year, the Hackathon is primarily focused on UN SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

This particular challenge also connects with UN SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture and UN SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Participants may nominate additional SDGs that are addressed as part of their solution, including UN SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Red graphic displaying white text "1 No Poverty" with icons of a family and an elderly person.

SDG 1: No Poverty

Icon representing "Zero Hunger," featuring a steaming bowl on an orange background with the number 2.

SDG 2: Zero Hunger

Red background with text "5 Gender Equality." A gender symbol with an equals sign in the center is shown below.

SDG 5: Gender Equality

SDG 13: Climate Action

Background

The climate crisis is affecting agriculture and food security. Unpredictable changes in temperature (average temperatures as well as extreme heat and cold), the availability of water (too much or too little), and increased likelihood and frequency of destructive weather events that decimate crops and livestock herds, increase the probability that small-scale and subsistence farmers, and the communities that they support, fall further into poverty and crisis. As extreme weather events increase in frequency, the poorest families have less and less time to recover before the next disaster hits.

The most impoverished farmers are among the worst affected, in particular women farmers who already face greater difficulties accessing land, finance, and training.

Heatwaves

Intense periods of heat are projected to become more common and more extreme. In all regions of the world, one in 20-year extreme temperature events are expected to be hotter, and periods of temperature extremes considered unusual today will become the norm. Crops are affected if extreme temperatures coincide with key stages of crop development. Livestock are affected by heat stress causing loss of weight, reduced yield, and fertility.

Addressing this issue requires understanding existing farming practices, livestock management and food preferences alongside empathizing with the lived experience of vulnerable communities facing the reality of an uncertain future due to climate change. Women are particularly vulnerable in small rural farming communities and usually carry a greater share of the workload in addition to their household and family responsibilities.

Drought

Periods of low rainfall are projected to increase in intensity, frequency and duration. It results in reductions in water quality and availability which leads to agricultural losses and is particularly devastating in arid and semi-arid areas.

In parts of East Africa these impacts are already visible where the worst drought in half a century has caused crop failure, loss of livelihoods and large-scale internal displacement. At one point in 2022, 85% of cropland in Ethiopia had been affected, up to 60% of cereal production in Somalia was below average, and millions of livestock died due to lack of water and pasture following a 2-year drought.

It is estimated some 700 million people suffering from hunger already live in arid and semi-arid regions, and globally nearly 1.8 billion people live in water-stressed areas, a number that is projected to grow to half of the world population by 2030.

Heavy rainfall and flooding

Water-related disasters are likely to increase as the climate warms. Significant quantities of rainfall can destroy entire crops over wide areas, kill livestock, damage equipment and storage.

It can also destroy productive growing areas by reducing soil quality, through eroding top soils, washing away nutrients, depositing sediment, and increasing salinity. In 2022, one third of Pakistan was flooded, washing crops, topsoil, and farming infrastructure away.

Examples in practice

Low-energy water management or irrigation systems.
Water conservation techniques such as rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, soil moisture conservation, groundwater recharging to help farmers optimize water use.
Soil moisture content monitoring devices, including solar operated and mobile devices, for example, to optimize the use of water in irrigation.
Harvesting, planting and other equipment that can support the small scale farmer.
Soil protection techniques that reduce erosion and run-off, and improve nutrient quality (e.g. environmentally friendly fertilizers and pesticides, devices to optimize application of fertilizers and pesticides).
Crop strains resilient to drought, pest attacks etc.
Technologies that support regenerative agriculture.
Mobile apps and digital platforms that facilitate knowledge-sharing and provide timely information on weather patterns, natural disaster warning, pest management, and sustainable practices.
Software tools to support farm production.
Tools and equipment to support animal farming.

Learn more

Submission steps

Ready to submit? (Closed)

Submissions are due by 26 November 2024 (5pm CET)

You and your team will need to:

Register on the submissions portal.
Create a 5-minute video presenting your solution (no Zoom/Powerpoint recordings allowed), detailing elements of your entry. English subtitles are required for all videos, including for videos recorded in English.
Submit your video in MP4 or embed it from a video-sharing site, such as YouTube or Vimeo.
Write a short accompanying text (Max. 500 words) briefly summarizing your solution and including any information or research that could not be covered in the video, as well as how the solution advances one or more of the UN SDGs. The written element must be in English.

With thanks to Hackathon partners: Dr Marlene Kanga, Théophane Bélaud, Jacques de Mereuil, and Ivan Juiz of WFEO; Indira Ashwini of UNESCO; Katie Cresswell-Maynard of Engineers Without Borders; Firas Bou Diab of WFEO Young Engineers/Future Leaders; and Tennille Scicluna, Ben Erasin, and Adrian Rivera de Domingo of The Big Creative.