Food security in the shadow of climate change
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Firoz Rahman
BANGLADESH can ill afford to relegate agricultural research to a secondary importance, if it wants to increase production to meet the growing demand. Increasing productivity is of crucial importance to meet the growing demand to feed the extra population Bangladesh is having each year. Climate change is moving through new challenges for agricultural research to meet. The impact of climate change is still not alarming. But the latest warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC), a UN funded research organisation suggests that Bangladesh is likely to be one of the hardest hit countries in respect of its agriculture.
Bangladesh's production of rice could drop by 10 per cent and wheat by a third by 2050 if appropriate strategies are not devised for its agricultural sector in order to cope with changing climate. Of course, such adjustments will be all the more necessary for Bangladesh because its consumption of cereals will increase substantially with the projected further increases in its population.
The increase of rice output in Bangladesh more or less matched population growth over the last three decades. What is the guarantee that this balance would be maintained, without extra efforts, in the medium term not to speak of the long term. The critical challenge comes from the fact that most of the rice seed varieties have reached their saturation point of productivity. No extra yields can be expected from them. The challenge, therefore, is to develop, through research, new higher yielding seeds. Besides, seeds will need to be also resistant to droughts and other vagaries of weather that the IPPC is predicting for Bangladesh and other countries.
New types of cereal seeds will have to give higher yields growing over a shorter season. The new seeds come to grow well in saline conditions. Increasing saline water intrusion from the sea deep into Bangladesh is what climate change could do. Obviously, Bangladesh would need the new seeds to grow in saline conditions.
More frequent droughts, another possibility, would ask for the matching seed variety. Research will be needed for producing in the labs, flood resistant seeds to reach maturity fast before the effects of floods can destroy the crop.
In sum, it is time for Bangladesh to launch a vigorous agricultural research to ensure food security in the face of climate change.
BANGLADESH can ill afford to relegate agricultural research to a secondary importance, if it wants to increase production to meet the growing demand. Increasing productivity is of crucial importance to meet the growing demand to feed the extra population Bangladesh is having each year. Climate change is moving through new challenges for agricultural research to meet. The impact of climate change is still not alarming. But the latest warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC), a UN funded research organisation suggests that Bangladesh is likely to be one of the hardest hit countries in respect of its agriculture.
Bangladesh's production of rice could drop by 10 per cent and wheat by a third by 2050 if appropriate strategies are not devised for its agricultural sector in order to cope with changing climate. Of course, such adjustments will be all the more necessary for Bangladesh because its consumption of cereals will increase substantially with the projected further increases in its population.
The increase of rice output in Bangladesh more or less matched population growth over the last three decades. What is the guarantee that this balance would be maintained, without extra efforts, in the medium term not to speak of the long term. The critical challenge comes from the fact that most of the rice seed varieties have reached their saturation point of productivity. No extra yields can be expected from them. The challenge, therefore, is to develop, through research, new higher yielding seeds. Besides, seeds will need to be also resistant to droughts and other vagaries of weather that the IPPC is predicting for Bangladesh and other countries.
New types of cereal seeds will have to give higher yields growing over a shorter season. The new seeds come to grow well in saline conditions. Increasing saline water intrusion from the sea deep into Bangladesh is what climate change could do. Obviously, Bangladesh would need the new seeds to grow in saline conditions.
More frequent droughts, another possibility, would ask for the matching seed variety. Research will be needed for producing in the labs, flood resistant seeds to reach maturity fast before the effects of floods can destroy the crop.
In sum, it is time for Bangladesh to launch a vigorous agricultural research to ensure food security in the face of climate change.