Coping with climate impact on agriculture and food security
Better harvest has to be ensured. Photo:Paddy (Gumai Bil)
At the United Nations climate change conference last moth , an index was prepared for judging the risks of climate change countries. According to the index, Bangladesh will be most severely affected by climate change .Myanmar, Honduras, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, are in subsequent next positions. To understand how climate change will impact Bangladesh in future, three considerations are critical -- location, population, economy. Firstly, the location of Bangladesh is in a deltaic plane, where the sea is funnel shaped, making it susceptible to sea surge and cyclones. Secondly, the country is one of the most densely populated in the world. Besides, the country is also very poor and majority of people live below subsistence level, making them already vulnerable. Thirdly and the most profoundly damaging impact of climate change in Bangladesh will be from sea level rise with salinity intrusion, plus there would be temperature increase and droughts. All of these will drastically affect crop productivity and food security. With sea level rise there will be crisis of fresh water in the coastal zones. Most of Bangladesh is less than 10 meters above sea level. Sea levels crept up about 20 centimeters during the twentieth century and are predicted to go up between 18 and 59 centimeters over this century. Eleven percent of Bangladesh would be submerged, putting the lives of 55 million people in danger. Climate change will affect many sectors including human health, water resources, agriculture and food security, ecosystems and biodiversity. As tropical temperature zones expand and continue for longer time, incidents of infectious diseases like malaria, dengue will increase. Hotter summers will lead to more cases of heat stroke and deaths. But the most serious impact will be on agriculture and related food security. Agriculture is the major economic driver in Bangladesh, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the GDP and 65 percent of the labour force. Crop yields are expected to drop significantly. Crop production will decrease by 30% in 2100. Production of rice and wheat will reduce by 8.8%, and 32% within 2050, creating a very high risk of famine. The impacts of higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, extreme weather events, and severe draughts can turn part of the land into desert while the rising sea level will have already decreased the area of arable land and affected crop production. The predicted sea-level rise will threaten valuable coastal agricultural land, particularly in low-lying areas. Climate unpredictability will make planning of farm operations more difficult. The effects of these impacts will threaten food security of the most vulnerable people of the country. Its agriculture sector is already under stress from lack of productivity and unabated population growth. Any further attempt to increase productivity will add pressure to available land and water resources. Saline water intrusion will damage about 830,000 ha cultivable land. Disappearing seasons, (winter season is shrinking, autumn and dewy seasons are vanishing) will also affect the cropping pattern. Drought during the dry season and floods due to predicted increased rainfall during monsoon will affect production. Fisheries will also be affected; one of the major foreign currency earners, shrimp industry will suffer from rising temperature. Carps culture may reduce due to saline water intrusion in the ponds and open water bodies. Without long, sustained winters wheat production will drastically decrease. “The impact of climate change on agriculture and food security is undeniable and will most certainly worsen if governments and donors fail to take appropriate steps right now,” Ghulam Mohammad Panaullah, former research director of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), warned. Some preemptive measures can be taken to lessen the effects of climate change on agriculture. Already, Bangladesh has invested 10 million taka on its own, to build cyclone shelters and create a storm early-warning system. Earlier this year, it allocated another $50 million to agriculture and health budgets to help "climate-proof" certain development sectors. The nation's agricultural research centers are devising salinity-resistant and climate resilient varieties of crops. Bangladesh urgently needs support in developing a climate-resilient agriculture if its people are to survive and prosper in the long term. The first thing to do to adapt agriculture to changing climate is going for climate change-resilient agriculture. Salinity-resistant strains of rice are being devised at BRRI. Also salinity resistant fishes can be cultivated. Developing crop varieties resistant to flooding, drought and salinity, and better surveillance systems for new and existing disease risks is of utmost importance. Secondly, use of new techniques can negate the effect of climate change like floating beds for cultivating vegetables, maintaining the soil's moisture by covering the seed beds (and the manure around plants) with straw and leaves to prevent excessive evaporation and erosion, and increasing the amount of organic material in the soil. Cage and pen culture of fish in low lying areas can be introduced. Another way is modifying cropping patterns altogether, by including crops which grow better in hot weather. Warmer temperatures have already shifted the growing season in many parts of the globe including Bangladesh. Wheat needs sustained winter, rising temperature will decrease the production drastically; on the other hand maize grows better with rising temperature and needs less time also. Jute can survive after being water logged for 15 to 20 days, enough to pass seasonal flash floods in the char areas, also it can tolerate higher temperature. DAE can promote cropping pattern that suits this type of changed weather. Fourthly, hybrid seeds can be introduced to increase production. Some companies are planning to introduce maize/corn varieties which will increase production by at least 20%. The farmers have to be trained and their capacity increased to implement the plans at field level. This has to be done by the government, with help of NGOs operating in this sector. In 2005 the government prepared a National Action Plan on Adaptation (NAPA) identifying 15 projects that needed to be undertaken, but “unfortunately three years have already passed and we have only just started implementing the first project,” one involved GoB official said. Still there is scope, in the eyes of the experts: Bangladesh, with its long experience of natural disasters, can cope better with climate change than many other countries. A report in the Guardian (UK) said, "People of one of the poorest and most vulnerable and yet resilient and innovative countries transform it from being the world's most famously 'vulnerable' country to being recognized as perhaps its most 'adaptive' country." World's leading climate scientists agree that the nation desperately needs money from the West to adapt to problems, but they also point out that the country's history with catastrophe has in some ways given Bangladesh a head start in knowing how to cope with climate change. Indeed, in 2007 -- some 30 years after former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared Bangladesh "an international basket case" -- the World Bank predicted that it could join the ranks of middle-income countries within two decades.
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