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Climate change, agriculture and food security: proven approaches and new investments, Policy Briefing 29, Brussels, 27 September 2012
Smallholder agriculture
under climate change:
challenges and outlook
Sonja Vermeulen, Head of Research
CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change,
Agriculture and Food Security
Impacts
4 degrees by 2100 is likely
Impacts 1: Long-term trends
in temperature and rainfall
Length of growing
period (%)
To 2090, taking 14
climate models
Four degree rise
Thornton et al. 2010
>20% loss
5-20% loss
No change
5-20% gain
>20% gain
Impacts 2: Increasing
frequency and intensity of
extreme weather events
Pulwaty 2010
Impacts 3: Major transitions in
ecosystems and livelihoods
2050 compared with 2005 in A1B scenario
Cheung et al 2010
Impacts 4: Poorest at risk
By 2050, severe
childhood
stunting up by
23% in central
Africa and 62%
in South Asia
(uses IFPRI IMPACT
model + socioeconomic models)
Lloyd et al. 2011
Environmental Health Perspectives
Becoming
“climate smart”
Food
security
GHG CO2-eq tonne
per capita
25
20
15
10
5
0
US
Adaptation
Malawi
Ecological
footprint
“Climate-smart agriculture” means building resilience,
balancing trade-offs, suiting the context
Adaptation
Adaptive capacity
Technology
Income & assets
Governance
&
institutions
Infrastructure
Knowledge &
skills
Social capital
Access
to
information
Key adaptation strategies
Incremental adaptation to progressive
climate change
• Closing yield gaps (i.e. sustainable intensification)
• Raising the bar – technologies & policies for 2030s
Climate risk management
• Technologies (e.g. flood control)
• Institutions (e.g. index-based insurance)
• Climate information systems (e.g. seasonal forecasts)
Transformative adaptation
• Changing production systems
• Changing livelihood portfolios
• Example: Climate
analogue tool
• Identifies the range of
places whose current
climates correspond to
the future of a chosen
locality
• These sites are used
for cross-site farmer
visits, & participatory
crop & livestock trials
Adapting to
long-term
climate
trends
Example: Climate services
• Met services produce
forecast information
downscaled in space &
time
• Farmers & met services
work together to ensure
forecasts meet local
needs
Adapting
to greater
climate
variability
To transformational adaptation?
•
•
•
•
Relocation of growing areas & processing
facilities
Agricultural diversification, or shifts
Livelihood diversification, or shifts
Migration
Summary points
Climate change impacts on
smallholder agriculture:
• Are more complex than often assumed – and
happening faster than often assumed
• Are unevenly distributed geographically
• Depend on household and national capacities and
contexts as well as on exposure to climate threats
• Pose major threats to nutrition, welfare, incomes and
health among poorer households
Responding with climate-smart
agriculture:
• Is foremost about development – addressing
smallholder concerns, building assets & resilience
• Adds new actions on climate to sustainable
development
• Deals with trade-offs, not only “win-win-wins”
• Must be “landscape-smart” too
• Will not solve future food security on its own (need
actions on distribution, diets, waste)
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