Development institutions need to help south east Asian farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change now, researchers are warning.
Water shortages, saltwater intrusion and volatile weather – all directly or indirectly exacerbated by climate change – are “putting the region’s food security at risk already”, Mark Rosegrant of the International Food Policy Research Institute told Emerging Markets.
Three types of solutions need to be prioritised, Rosegrant, director of IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division, said:
• At farm level, changing management practices, e.g. using no tillage or minimum tillage, to build up soil resilience to more extreme weather;
• At industry level, funding research e.g. into crop varieties that can better withstand different climatic conditions; and
• At national economic level, finding ways to finance rural infrastructure investment, and ensuring that farmers have fairer access to inputs, credit and markets for produce.
Adaptation measures were discussed at a workshop in Jakarta last month, organized by IFPRI, the Indonesian National Poverty Commission and the agriculture ministry.
A grim picture of the current effect of global warming was drawn there by Ancha Srinivasan, the ADB’s senior climate change specialist. He said that in the 1990s, flood-related damage in Asia was eight times greater, and direct damage from tropical cyclones 35 times greater, than in the 1970s. Economic impacts of typhoons amounted to about 3% of the Philippines’ GDP in 2009 and about $725 million to Vietnam in 2007.
Srinivasan listed observed physical effects of global warming including floods and storms rising, and the number of hot days per year rising, in Indonesia; the number of rainy days falling in Malaysia; more frequent cyclones in the Philippines; less rainfall and more storms in Thailand; and less rainfall and more extreme weather in Vietnam.
Bayu Krisnarmurti, Indonesia’s vice minister of agriculture, told the seminar that agricultural development was threatened by “escalating and uncontrolled agricultural land conversion”, competition for water resources, overdependence on rice in food consumption, and poor transport infrastructure.
To forestall the effects of climate change, Indonesia advocates expanding the cropping area by using suboptimal land; improving monitoring of pests and plant disease; strengthening farmer institutions; and developing rural infrastructure. The government also intends to accelerate diversification in food consumption.
IFPRI argues that overcoming bottlenecks and distortions in markets for agricultural goods is part and parcel of maintaining and increasing output in the face of climate change.
Maximo Torero, director of IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, said: “With high-value agricultural commodities, we need to achieve economies of scale that small farmers often do not have access to.”