April 2012

By Abdoulaye Saley Moussa and Robert Zougmoré

As drought continues to ravage West Africa, threatening millions of lives, it is becoming clear that food security in the region, which already relies on unsustainable agricultural practices, will be further threatened by the effects of climate change. Urgent actions are needed to prevent the situation from turning into a humanitarian disaster in this semi-arid region. Ensuring food security in a changing climate has never been more important; at the same time it represents one of the greatest challenges to overcome.

Although agriculture constitutes the major source of food, it is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Climate-smart agriculture, defined as “agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes GHGs (mitigation), while enhancing the achievement of national food security and development goals“ is needed to overcome this threat and ensure sustainable food security while conserving the environment.

Joining forces to address the food insecure situation in West Africa Read more »

As Asian countries move to confront the escalating threat that rapid climate change poses food security, water supplies, flood management and farm yields, leading climate specialists, agricultural scientists, development organizations, governments and global experts representing 14 Asian countries gathered in Bangkok on 11-12 April for the conference Climate Smart Agriculture in Asia: Research and Development Priorities. The objective was to review the most up-to-date research on the impacts of climate change and outline priority actions for enhancing the resilience and lowering the emissions footprint of Asian agriculture.

As a co-organiser of the event, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) helped share research innovations from across the CGIAR for enhancing the climate resilience of Asian agriculture.

At the close of the meeting, participants noted the need for increased multi-discplinary, and multi-sectoral collaboration to ensure the region is able to adapt to climate change, while reducing emissions from the agricultural sector.

Here's a rundown stories we produced, or were written about CGIAR research, at the event. Read more »

by A.K. Singh

The impacts of climate change on agriculture are being witnessed all over the world, but countries like India, with >80% of small and marginal farmers with poor coping mechanisms, are more vulnerable in view of their dependence on agriculture and excessive pressure on natural resources. In the recent years, there has been a significant rise in the frequency of extreme weather events affecting farm level productivity and impacting availability of staple food grains at the national level. Within a season, severe droughts and floods are being experienced in the same region, worsening the plight of all stakeholders. Read more »

by Bruce Campbell

In 15 years, the globe will have another 1 billion persons, many of them in South Asia. South Asia is also a climate change hotspot as shown in the report by Ericksen and colleagues in Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity in the global tropics. The region is marked by high sensitivity to climate change and relatively low adaptive capacity, because of widespread rural poverty. The region has also been hit by various extreme weather events in the last few years. For example, the major flood of 2007 caused losses in rice yields in the order of a million tonnes in Bangladesh. Rainfall variation within and between years is expected to increase. Himalayan glaciers that account for about 9% of flow in the Ganges are receding, and one anticipated outcome is a rise in the frequency of floods caused by glacial lake outbursts. Read more »