Kanak's blog

Farmers' corner: Nepalese farmers talk about the changing climate

Submitted by Kanak on 24th April 2012
Tags:

 

 

 

Raj Krishna Mushyan and Padam Bahadur Shrestha, both farmers from Nepal talk about the climate smart agriculture learning platform, recently launched in the South Asia benchmark site and about the changing climate in their areas affecting their lives and farms. 

Raj Krishna Mushyan:

My village Madhyapur Thimi is known as the green vegetable garden of Kathmandu valley, where majority of Newars (ethnic group) are still engaged in agriculture, mostly in vegetable production. We grow a variety of vegetables and supply them to the Kathmandu valley. I can recall changing pattern of farming within our community over the years. Read more »

National initiative on climate resilient agriculture in India

Submitted by Kanak on 24th April 2012
Tags:
There is a need to improve India's resilience to climate change

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 »

Prioritizing climate adaptation for South Asian agriculture at different scales

Submitted by Kanak on 24th April 2012
Tags:

by Pramod Joshi, International Food Policy Research Institute

Increasing population and rising economic growth are putting tremendous pressure on the agriculture sector to meet the present and future demand for food commodities. Unfortunately, the agriculture sector is confronted with numerous inherited challenges, which include stagnating crop yields and declining profitability mainly due to growing input use inefficiencies and deteriorating quality & quantity of natural resources. Rising food prices, inconsistent domestic and trade policies and deteriorating agri-institutions are further aggravating the agrarian crisis. Climate change is further exasperating the agriculture sector. Read more »

What are the opportunities for South Asia in the face of climate change?

Submitted by Kanak on 24th April 2012
Tags:
Climate change might bring new opportunities to South Asia

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 »

New South Asia climate-smart agriculture learning platform launched

Submitted by Kanak on 24th April 2012
Tags:
New forum collects generated knowledge about climate smart agriculture in Asia

Read the first e-newsletter from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Learning Platform for South Asia

South Asia is considered one of the most vulnerable regions to climate variability and change due to its high population, high exposure to climatic risks, chronic food insecurity, widespread poverty, and relatively limited adaptive capacity. Increasing population and incomes in the region are leading to higher food demand, placing pressure on agricultural systems to produce more food from the same or less land and resources, whose availability is dwindling due to competition with other sectors. The region needs to implement elements of climate smart agriculture (CSA) that sustainably increase productivity and resilience, while also reducing emissions of, or removing, greenhouse gases. Read more »

Monitoring shifting weather patterns in Sri Lanka for climate adaptation in agriculture

Submitted by Kanak on 23rd April 2012
Tags:

by Sarath Nissanka, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Despite its relatively small aerial extent, Sri Lanka exemplifies a variety of climatic conditions depending on the geographical settings of respective locations. Being an island in the Indian Ocean, the country shows very typical maritime-tropical temperature conditions. These conditions are characterized by moderate average temperatures in comparison with the more continental tropics. Temperature conditions in Sri Lanka are also characterized by a significant temperature decrease in the central highlands according to the atmospheric lapse rate. With the climate of Sri Lanka changing over the past few decades, investigation of how weather patterns change across different agro-ecological regions, drifting of seasons, and occurrence of region-specific extreme weather events and their impacts is essential to develop possible adaptation & mitigation mechanisms. Read more »

Syndicate content