The present challenge before the world is meeting the rising demand for food amid the climate-change-induced natural calamities affecting crop production. According to an estimate, pests and crop diseases destroy 20 to 40 per cent crop yield worldwide. Notably, pests and crop diseases have a lot to do with fluctuations in weather conditions triggered by climate change. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in a report published in 2021 said that relative to agriculture, industry, commerce and tourism taken together, agriculture alone absorbs the disproportionate share of 63 per cent impact from the natural disasters. Of course, the least developed countries (LDCs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are the worst victims of these disasters. Between 2008 and 2018, the report further goes, the natural disasters cost the agricultural sectors of the developing country economies over US$ 108 billion in damaged and lost crop and livestock production. During the period in question, Asia was the most hard-hit region with economic losses adding up to US$ 49 billion, followed by Africa at US$ 30 billion, and Latin America and Caribbean at US$ 29 billion.
Another recent FAO report published on October 13, 2023 says over the past three decades between 1991 and 2021, natural and manmade disasters are responsible for US$ 3.8 trillion in crop and livestock loss. In this estimate, the UN body included the fallouts from both natural and manmade disasters, such as wars, behind crop loss. Annually, the loss in food production comes to US$ 123 billion, which is actually 5.0 per cent of the total food production. This amount is enough to feed half a billion people, which is about three times the population of Bangladesh, every year.
The worst part of this scary report is that the main driver of such crop loss, the frequency of the natural calamities, has quadrupled since 1970s. Bangladesh, one of the developing countries most vulnerable to climate change, obviously bears the brunt of such scourges of natural origin. According to the Soil Resources Development Institute, during the last three and a half decades, salinity levels in the country have increased by more than 25 per cent. Going by a government report of 2022, the salinity level in the river Rupsa in the southern district of Khulna rose to 16.8 parts per trillion (ppt) in 2011 from 0.7 ppt nearly half a century before. As it is now common knowledge, rise in salinity in water and soil is directly linked to sea level rise, which in turn is a fallout from global warming. Over the past decades, far from showing any sign of abating, the conditions created by the global warming such as the rise in sea level have exacerbated further. A World Bank report of 2021 says that by 2050, about 37 per cent of all South Asian climate migrants will be from Bangladesh. Uprooted by reduced agricultural production, water scarcity, rising sea levels and other adverse impacts of climate change, around 216 million people might leave their homes and migrate within their own countries in South Asia. The number of these climate migrants in Bangladesh, according this estimate, could be around 13.3 million people. However, cultivating salinity-tolerant crops and adopting various coping strategies against climate change, the farmers of the country's coastal districts have been trying to tide over the crisis. But crops alone are not the only source of livelihood for the coastal population. They have also their livestock, which include farm animals like cows and goats. Salinity is also a big threat to these animals' survival as they need fresh drinking water, which is in short supply in the coastal districts. So, growing salinity-tolerant crops is not enough to stop the northward migration of the coastal population. Measures need also to be innovated to protect their livestock.
Situation in the northern districts is not better either. There are factors other than salinity at work to expose farmers there to vulnerabilities born of climate change. Last year (2022) in July, for instance, the country experienced the lowest rainfall in 41 years, which seriously affected crop production. Worse affected was the production of Aman rice, which is grown between June and November. Land preparation and germination of seeds for Aman crop are usually done during June and July. Farmers then plant the saplings in the field thus prepared. Because of the scanty rainfall, farmers, mostly in the northern districts, used groundwater to prepare their seedbeds to put in the saplings. But as expected the crop yield was low not only inflicting losses to the paddy farmers, but also to the livelihood of the agricultural labourers who had no work. So, the droughts attributable to climate change are not only behind crop loss contributing directly to food insecurity in the long run, its immediate effect is also the loss of livelihood to the unskilled agricultural labourers. Their adaption to the climate impact, which deprived them of their source of earning, is eating less, or in the worst case scenario, going altogether hungry. Small wonder that they migrate to the cities in search of work.
How can agriculture then best adapt to climate change? On this issue, William R. Sutton, Global Lead for Climate Smart Agriculture for the World Bank, mentioned some strategies last year which include using water more effectively and efficiently combined with policies to manage demand for water.
Being a climate- vulnerable country, Bangladesh needs to start the practice.
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