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Adapting agriculture and the food system
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No matter how effective strategies may be at mitigating further GHG emissions, the damage from past emissions has already been done. Climate change impacts are already affecting vulnerable populations around the globe, making broad adaptation a necessary component of a climate strategy. Climate change is large threat to food security. Agriculture will be greatly affected by higher temperatures, changes in precipitation, shifting seasons, and more extreme weather. Changes in precipitation will increase failure of short-run crop failures. The developing world will be adversely affected far greater than the developed world.1
Necessary steps include:
- Reducing fossil fuel based inputs
- Supporting local agriculture
- Adjusting to more scarce and less dependable water supplies
- Supporting the development of drought- and saline-resistant crops
Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture
Higher Temperatures
Farmers will have to adapt to higher global temperatures that will change the length of growing seasons, yields, the type of plants that can grown at a certain location.
Changes in Precipitation
Adapting to increasingly irregular water supplies through changes in precipitation patterns is key to farmers. As glacial runoff comes quicker with higher temperatures, farmers in areas that are dependent on this runoff will have to turn to technology, techniques and innovative practices such as drought-resistant seeds, drip irrigation and artificial glaciers.
Focus: Small Farmers
Subsistence farmers in the developing world have long used many techniques to adapt to changing local conditions, enabling smallholder farmers to sustain yields that meet their subsistence needs, despite marginal land endowments, climatic variability and low access to external inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides2. Their ability to survive is due in large part to the high levels of agrobiodiversity seen in traditional farming systems, which have a positive impact on agroecosystem function (Vandermeer (ed.) 2002). Diversification must therefore be employed as a strategy for managing climate risk in small farming systems. Other specific strategies for climate change adaptation for small farmers include:
•Polyculture systems or multiple crops
•Wild plant gathering
•Agroforestry and mulching
•Soil enhancement using organic matter
Case Study: Oxfam Bolivia
Climatic shifts caused heavy rains and flooding in Bolivia between 2007 and 2008. Dozens of people died and over 40,000 were made homeless as a result of the disaster. Oxfam worked with the people in the community of Trinidad to replicate an ancient agricultural system used by the Inca to cope with unpredictable flooding and other environmental challenges while improving soil fertility and productivity.
The system includes the construction of elevated seedbeds known locally as camellones, to prevent seeds, plants and soils from being washed away by floodwaters. Around the raised beds are water channels where a combination of plants and fish produce a fertile environment. The plants are harvested and placed on top of the banks where, after six months, they help produce 10cm of fertile soil. The fast-growing, indigenous, plants can also be used for animal fodder. Because water surrounds the beds, irrigation is very easy and once the system is established there is less need for watering.
According to a farmer in Trinidad, "In the old system we lost a lot of plants and seeds when the floods came. Then we had to wait for the water to go down before we could start replanting. But now the plants don't get covered with water when the flood comes. So we can still harvest and then we can immediately sow seeds again." Revival of the ancient indigenous system has offered an alternative to the slash and burn response to flooded farmland. According to Oscar Saavedra of the Kenneth Lee Institute, "it also creates a balance between the dry and wet seasons, enabling people to live with the process of nature rather than challenging it."
Footnotes
1. Climate change: Impact on agriculture and costs of adaptation, IFPRI, 2009, http://www.ifpri.org/publication/cli...sts-adaptation
2. Altieri, M. and Parviz Koohafkhan. "Enduring Farms: Climate Change, Smallholders and Traditional Farming Communities
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