Climate Smart Agriculture In South Asia

This book discusses various climate smart agro-technologies, their technical and economic feasibility across heterogeneous agro-climatic conditions, assessing farmers’ willingness to adopt those technologies, impact of climate smart technology in agricultural production and possible policy and investment opportunities to upscale it. Containing eight chapters, the book starts with a discussion about the methodological aspects of priority setting of the farm technologies across various regions of South Asia including Eastern Indo-Gangetic plain, Western Indo-Gangetic Plain and arid regions. Using data from field based trials and expert solicitations, the book next deliberates on a list of feasible technologies, assessed by constructing climate smart Feasibility Index. Further on, there is an analysis, using stated preference method, of the behaviour of farmers in adopting climate smart technologies. Preference of women farmers has been given a special focus in this book. After discussing the method priority setting of the farm technologies, impact of climate smart technologies has been analysed using real time data. Government policies have been reviewed with the view of achieving climate smart agriculture in South Asia. The book also describes the optimization modelling framework for investment allocation and technology prioritization. The model integrates both the bio-physical and the economic optimization model to capture the agro-climatic heterogeneity within the region and the variability of technical feasibility across regions and crops. Results of this model will help policy makers to identify how much to invest, where to invest and what technologies to prioritize for investments.

South Asia is primarily an agrarian economy facing the five transitions of population growth, urbanization, increasing income, shift toward animal-based food, and climate change simultaneously. In the process of ensuring food sufficiency under the intertwined challenges posed by these ongoing transitions, the boundaries of natural resources have been violated with adverse impacts on the health of the ecosystem. The application of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is viewed as an important strategy for imparting resilience to the food system in addressing the interconnected issues of food security through improved productivity and adaptation to and mitigation of the impacts of climate change. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) South Asia, in collaboration with its national partners, charted out and pursued studies for the policy and institutions required in upscaling CSA for the extensive South Asia region taking these broad CSA objectives in consideration. The important subthemes of this report include prioritization of CSA technologies for different agroclimatic regions, government policies for CSA, index-based insurance and climate risk management, and climate-smart investment and its implications on food security and farmers’ income.

Consortium for Scaling-up Climate Smart Agriculture in South Asia (C-SUCSeS) is a four-year joint initiative between South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Agriculture Center (SAC), International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the SAARC Development Fund (SDF). The program aims to foster partnership and cooperation between SAARC, National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES), IFPRI, and SAARC governments on the Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) agenda. The project also intends to support agricultural researchers’ to generate and facilitate delivery of technological solutions to smallholder and women farmers, with a specific priority on the intensification and resilience of smallholder agriculture, contributing, inter alia, to increasing water management efficiency, promote innovative, pro-poor approaches and technologies with demonstrated scaling-up potential, strengthen partners’ institutional and policy capacities, enhance policy engagement, and generate and share knowledge.

Driven by the need to produce more food for an ever-increasing population that is further marred with declining and degrading natural resource base, adapting to and mitigating climate change have posed a big challenge. It is an established fact that in agriculture, fertilizers, flooded rice cultivation, energy use in irrigation, tillage, and enteric emissions from ruminant animals are the main contributors of greenhouse gases, which accounts to about one-fourth of the total emissions. The evolution of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) emerged as a scientific response to this multi-headed hydra, which helps achieve higher production with reduced emission. The fact remains that the small farm holders of South Asia, who are already facing several non-climatic stresses, have limited capacity to adopt new technologies. There are a host of barriers in the form of limited access to natural resources, information, finance, and above all, low human capital that limit the adoption of technology. The global community is aware of these climate change challenges and has initiated programs to overcome these challenges across the world. In this context, and to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, there is a need for evidence-based research that have the potential to bring about transformative change in agriculture and food systems.

This book addresses an important topic of food security in South Asia with specific reference to climate change. Of the 1 billion food insecure people in the world, more than 30% are in South Asia. The problem of food insecurity may be exacerbated by the projected climate change especially because of the water scarcity caused by rapid melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and increase in variability in monsoonal rains and frequency of extreme events. Furthermore, large populations of Bangladesh and other coastal regions may be displaced by sea level rise. Thus, this volume addresses recommended land use and soil/water/crop/vegetation management practices which would enable land managers to adapt to climate disruption by enhancing soil/ecosystem/social resilience. In addition to biophysical factors, this book also addresses the issues related to human dimensions including social, ethnical and political considerations.

This book presents focussed information related to dynamic cropland transformation, agriculture development, climate change, and environment with the application of advance geospatial technology. It describes research using geospatial tools and techniques to develop the models, design, and planning for agricultural land use optimization especially in south Asian countries. It covers agriculture production, water scarcity, industrial development, natural resources, environmental degradation, and sustainable development. Features: Provides the adaptation strategy from a multidisciplinary resilience perspective Addresses contemporary agricultural resilience to various climate change issues Develops novel approaches for sustainability with environmentally sound practices Discusses methodological and innovative approaches at local to global perspective Reports research using geospatial tools and techniques to develop the models, design, and planning for agricultural land use optimization The book is aimed at researchers, professionals, and graduate students in GIS, environmental engineering, geography, agriculture, and climate studies.

Two of the greatest current challenges are climate change (and variability) and food security. Feeding nine billion people by 2050 will require major efforts aimed at climate change adaptation and mitigation. One approach to agriculture has recently been captured by the widely adopted term of "Climate Smart Agriculture" (CSA). This book not only explains what this entails, but also presents practical on-the-ground studies of practices and innovations in agriculture across a broader spectrum, including agroecology and conservation agriculture, in less developed countries. It is shown that CSA is not a completely new science and a number of its recommended technologies have been used for some time by local farmers all over the world. What is relevant and new is ‘the approach’ to exploit their adaptation and mitigation potential. However, a major limitation is the lack of evidence-based knowledge that is necessary for policy makers to prepare strategies for adaptation and mitigation. This book assembles knowledge of CSA, agroecology and conservation agriculture, and perspectives from different regions of the world, to build resilient food systems. The first part analyzes the concept, opportunities and challenges, and provides a global perspective, drawing particularly on studies from Africa and Asia. The second part of the book showcases results from various studies linked to soil, water and crop management measures from an ongoing program in India as well as experiences from other regions. The third section assesses the needs for an enabling policy environment, mainstreaming gender and sime final recommendations for up-scaling and/or out-scaling innovations.

This book focuses on a representative example and one of the world’s largest steppe conversions, and provides a detailed overview of the results of the BMBF-funded research project KULUNDA. As part of the Siberian virgin land policy, the Kulunda steppe was transformed into agricultural land from 1954 to 1965. In the course of the project, a multidisciplinary research team conducted a natural, social-economic and agro-scientific cause-and-effect analysis of (agro-)ecosystem destabilisation, as well as various field trials covering tillage and crop rotation options in their socio-economic context. The ecologically and economically sound findings offer strategies for combining climate smart land utilization, ecosystem restoration and sustainable regional development, and can readily be applied to other virgin land conversion efforts. In addition, the findings on the Eurasian steppes will expand the current conversion literature, which mainly consists of the ‘Dust Bowl’ literature of the North American plains. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scientists, professionals, and students in the environmental, geo- and climate sciences.