Combating climate-induced changes in agriculture

Changes in global weather patterns, particularly concerning a rise in the world's temperature, has the potential to permanently upset the delicate natural balance on which agriculture is dependent. In the context of world's food insecurity, finding the right balance between adapting to climate change and meeting other developmental goals poses one of the greatest, if not the greatest, challenges before the policymakers with a nightmarish scenario. The Food and Agriculture Organisation points out that although world food production has increased over the preceding decades, the number of people suffering from chronic hunger has also increased from under 800 million in 1996 to over a billion today. The impact of climate change on food production and food security is a global concern. Yet, for Bangladesh, such issues represent a particular threat where agriculture is already under pressure, primarily due to increased demand for food and depletion of land and water resources. Hence, rising climatic risks could potentially derail development efforts and further aggravate poverty. Changing weather patterns can affect agriculture in several ways. Rising temperatures adversely affect plant, animal and farmers' health. Rise in pest population and reduction in water supply would inevitably lead to the risk of aridity and land degradation. Scenarios forecast by government and international agencies point to a bleak picture: By 2050, dry season rainfall may fall by 37 per cent resulting in a significant increase in risk of drought. While monsoon rainfall is projected to rise by an estimated 28 per cent, irregular dry and wet spells may become the norm. With intense rainfall will inevitably come increased flooding and sedimentation - leading to decreased productivity of agriculture lands. Rising temperatures will require greater effort by developing nations such as Bangladesh to adapt agriculture production to climate change. Putting it in another perspective, agriculture management will have to be planned and executed under adverse conditions: water constraints, higher temperatures and greater exposure to weather extremes. Practices will have to be put in place to improve farm bio-diversity and improved soil organic matter. Some practices if implemented today could help weather the storm of climate-induced changes that are coming in the foreseeable future. For instance, the use of intra and inter-species diversity could potentially serve as an insurance against future environmental changes by increasing the system's resilience. Use of green manures, mulching and recycling crop residues and animal manure would increase water holding capacity of soils and their ability to absorb water during the monsoon. There is a greater need to move towards sustainable production methods: recycling of manures from livestock and crop residues by way of composting; and increased inter-cropping rotations with leguminous nitrogen-fixing crops. Crop rotation and diversification would enable farmers to grow products that can be harvested at different times, and have different climate environmental stress response characteristics. Putting in place diverse outputs and resilience will serve as a safeguard against risk of drought, extreme or un-seasonal temperature variations that threaten to reduce output of one crop, but not of others. Such practices can on the one hand mitigate green house gas (GHG) emissions and at the same time aid farmers to better weather floods, droughts and extreme weather fluctuations caused by climate change patterns. The other point of contention is the growing scarcity of water. With agriculture consuming nearly 70 per cent of the world's freshwater reservoir withdrawals, it has become highly suspect whether developing nations of Asia and Africa can marshal sufficient water for agricultural use to sustain the increases in population. One method to improve water use efficiency would be to enhance the capture and percolation of rainwater into the topsoil making use of crop residues as cover to facilitate water filtration and reduce water and soil erosion. For developing countries like Bangladesh, agriculture is of pivotal importance for assuring food security. According to the United Nations, global warming and climate change hold the potential to drastically reduce total agriculture prosecution by up to 50 per cent over the coming decades, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. To compound this, population growth projections lead credence to a doubling of the population creating huge tensions between demand for and supply of food. Bringing about a radical transformation in agricultural practices require bold and farsighted policy measures. It will require a considerable increase in public expenditure for agriculture, with particular emphasis on public research, extension education and services and the improvement of local infrastructure aimed at empowering, in particular, small-scale farmers to significantly increase gross productivity of the new regenerative agriculture systems. To mitigate the challenges to agriculture looming in the future, policy makers must recognise and adopt multiple, but integrated pathways across sectors to improve adaptive responses to changing climatic conditions. Neither an agricultural nor any other single sectoral intervention alone can provide sufficient scope to manage the future climate change risks. Short-term and long-term adaptive measures in agriculture, linked with clear focus on possible future risks must be integrated into cross-sectoral planning. Physical adaptive measures, such as link canals, irrigation, storage facilties for retaining water and drainage; adjusting existing agriculture practices to match future anticipated rsks, such as adjusting cropping pattern, selection of adapted crops varieties, diversification of cropping systems, more efficient use of nitrogen application on cultivated fields, etc. The above illustrates but a few measures that could pave the way for a changed and more adaptive agriculture sector capable of countering the adverse effects of climate change.