Blogs

by Cecilia Schubert

What do farmers need in order to adapt to climate change and build resilience? This topic was discussed vividly during  the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) side event “Building resilience in the agricultural sectors for adaptation to climate change” held at the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) meetings. The ambition of the side event was to offer different perspectives and approaches for building resilience in agriculture for adaptation to climate change and pin down what we need to do in order to build resilience among farmers.

The side event took place on 15 May starting off with an introduction presentation by Alexandre Meybeck (FAO), signaling that now is really the time to showcase agriculture, to make sure it is discussed during the SBSTA meetings currently ongoing in Bonn, Germany. Read more »

By Gopal Bhatta

Gopal Bhatta, Science Officer for the South Asia benchmark site, recently participated in a refresher workshop organized by Sheetal Ganj Gramodyog Sewa Samiti, New Delhi, India. The workshop included sessions that ranged from climate smart agriculture to group dynamics in resource management which attracted a total of 12 District Agriculture Officers and agriculture engineers from different parts of Nepal. Gopal talked to the officers about climate smart agriculture and how it could be piloted and up-scaled in different parts of Nepal. This blog post is a summary of the session held by Gopal Bhatta in late April.

Sensitizing climate change issues

In the first half of the workshop, the officers were sensitized on climate change issues that the world has been facing recently and will have to face in the upcoming future, in general but also in Nepal. The session started from general empirical findings from around the world followed by climate change evidences in Nepal. Participants discussed in depth the research findings that predicts decline in yield of major cereals in South Asia with rising global temperature. Nepal’s temperature has been increasing at 0.060C each year and the models predict that productivity of key crops will be reduced with this rising temperature and rainfall variability in Nepal in the near future. Read more »

By Gopal Bhatta

CGIAR Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) launched Climate Smart Agriculture Learning Platform (CSALP) for South Asia this April. The platform aims to encourage communication between policymakers, political leaders, researchers, farmers and civil society. It provides a collective platform for policy advocacy and facilitates development of Climate Smart Agriculture Knowledge Bank.

His Excellency President of Nepal, Dr. Ram Baran Yadav launched the platform in Kathmandu and released the first issue of CSALP South Asia’s Quarterly newsletter. The program was attended by Jim Hansen, Theme 2 Leader, Pramod Aggarwal, Regional Program Leader-South Asia,  Gopal Bhatta, CCAFS’ South Asia Science Officer, former Minister of Science, Technology and Environment of Nepal, Mr. Ganesh Shah, Secretary of Nepal Federation of Journalists, Mr. Jagat Nepal, and Executive Director of The Communicator, a Nepalese organization, Mr. Chandra Adhikari. Read more »