Agricultural expansion and its impacts on climate change: evidence from Iran

peer reviewedExcessive concentration of greenhouse gases in atmosphere emitted from human activities has been considerably changing the world’s climate, especially in the last 50 years. Agriculture, as humans’ food production system, has undoubtedly interrelated with climate change (CC). During current decades, the impacts of CC on agriculture have been properly investigated; however, the impacts of agriculture on CC have received lower attention. This may be due to the scarcity of long-term spatiotemporal climatic and agricultural data to analyze coupling trends and interactions. Benefiting from a comprehensive database and using structural equation modeling, this study seeks to investigate the contribution of agriculture to CC in Iran for more than half a century. For this, two indicators were developed to evaluate structural characteristics of agricultural expansion (AEI) and CC at the province level. Then, the effect of AEI on CC was investigated using the structural equation modeling technique. The results showed that AEI has not had a positive contribution to raising the long-term average surface temperature. Precisely, the provinces with a higher level of surface temperature have had a lower AEI, indicating that other sectors outweigh agriculture in exacerbating long-term CC in the country. Nevertheless, Iran still needs to improve and sustain its agricultural practices and technologies. The main conclusion of this study is that if the government and policymakers aspire to manage CC, they should have a more holistic and systematic view. In other words, not only do they need to consider all drivers of CC, but they also have to pay close attention to the network of relationships among the drivers

Rethinking resilient agriculture: From climate-smart agriculture to vulnerable-smart agriculture

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is seeking to overcome the food security problem and develop rural livelihoods while minimizing negative impacts on the environment. However, when such synergies exist, the situation of small-scale farmers is often overlooked, and they are unable to implement new practices and technologies. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to improve CSA by adding the neglected but very important element “small-scale farmer”, and introduce Vulnerable-Smart Agriculture (VSA) as a complete version of CSA. VSA indicates, based on the results of this study, that none of the decisions made by policymakers can be realistic and functional as long as the voice of the farmers influenced by their decisions is not heard. Therefore, to identify different levels for possible interventions and develop VSA monitoring indicators, a new conceptual framework needs to be developed. This study proposed such a framework consisting of five elements: prediction of critical incidents by farmers, measuring the consequences of incidents, identifying farmers' coping strategies, assessing farmers' livelihood capital when facing an incident, and adapting to climate incidents. The primary focus of this study is on farmers’ learning and operational preparation to deal with tension and disasters at farm level. Understanding the implications of threats from climate change and the recognizing of coping mechanisms will contribute to an increase in understanding sustainable management

Smart Land Governance: Towards a Conceptual Framework

peer reviewedGlobal environmental governance (GEG) is one of the world’s major attempts to address climate change issues through mitigation and adaptation strategies. Despite a significant improvement in GEG’s structural, human, and financial capital, the global commons are decaying at an unprecedented pace. Among the global commons, land has the largest share in GEG. Land use change, which is rooted in increasing populations and urbanization, has a significant role in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a response, land governance and, consequently, good land governance, have arisen as normative concepts emerging from a series of success factors (notably economic development, environmental conservation, and social justice) to achieve greater sustainability. However, global land governance has shown little success in helping GEG due to the lack of intellectual and flexible thinking over governing the land sector. Consequently, reforming land governance “in a smart way” is one of the most critical actions that could contribute to achieving GEG goals. Hence, we propose a smart land governance (SLG) system that will be well addressed, understood, and modeled in a systemic and dynamic way. A smart system may be smart enough to adapt to different contexts and intellectual responses in a timely fashion. Accordingly, SLG is able to promote shared growth and solve many land sector problems by considering all principles of good land governance. Therefore, in order to enhance adaptive land governance systems, efficient land administration and management are required. This study’s outcomes will raise the comprehension of the problems of land management, providing an excellent framework to help land planners and policy-makers, as well as the development of strategic principles with respect to the principal multidimensional components of SLG

Impact of Heat Stress on Rainfed Wheat Growth and Yield Under Semi-arid, Semi-humid and Mediterranean Climates in Iran Condition

peer reviewedAssessing crop yield in response to heat and drought stress is important in implementing the best adaptation strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change. For this aim, observations from 105 agricultural/meteorological experiments in the semi-arid (Maragheh, Qamlou and Sararoud), Mediterranean (Hashem Abad and Oltan) and semi-humid (Gharakhil) regions of Iran were used to investigate the response of the reproductive growing duration (RGD) and grain yield of rainfed winter wheat to certain climatic and agro-climatic indices consisted of precipitation (mm), growing degree days (GDDs), and cumulative extreme temperatures above wheat tolerance threshold level of ≥ 34 °C (TAT). Accordingly, multiple linear regression was applied under baseline (1998–2012) and future increasing temperature (by 1 °C and 2 °C). Results indicated that the average of wheat RGD and yield were 37.2 ± 0.71 d and 2.3 ± 0.05 t ha−1 in semi-arid, 25.7 ± 0.8 d and 2.9 ± 0.11 t ha−1 in semi-humid, and 21.7 ± 0.59 d and 5.25 ± 0.17 t ha−1 in Mediterranean regions, respectively. The main findings showed that, on average during 1998–2012, wheat RGD and yield changed by − 0.26 d yr−1 and − 0.93% (0.02 t ha−1 yr−1) in semi-arid, + 0.25 d yr−1 and − 1.27% (0.04 t ha−1 yr−1) in semi-humid, and − 0.01 d yr−1 and − 0.27% (0.01 t ha−1 yr−1) in Mediterranean regions, respectively. Precipitation and TAT had substantial positive and negative impacts on RGD by + 0.1 d yr−1 and − 0.03 d yr−1, and crop yield by + 0.04% and − 1.14% in all study locations. An increase in GDDs, however, significantly shortened RGD (− 0.06 d yr−1) and consequently reduced grain yield (− 0.04%) in semi-arid regions, while in semi-humid and Mediterranean regions, increasing GDDs had a positive impact on RGD (+ 0.07 d yr−1) and yield (+ 0.19%). Among the indices, TAT showed significantly greater detrimental effects on RGD and grain yield particularly when accompanied by less precipitation (i.e. drought stress). Our results highlighted that any increase in temperatures even by 1 °C or 2 °C would lead to drastic increases in TAT and GDDs in all study regions, most especially in semi-arid regions. Under these conditions, any benefits from precipitation would be neutralized by the negative impacts of increased GDDs and TAT in all study locations. The insights into crop response to weather variations and climate extremes provide excellent evidence and a basis for reducing crop yield damage by designing for improved heat tolerance for the future

Rethinking resilient agriculture: From Climate-Smart Agriculture to Vulnerable-Smart Agriculture

peer reviewedClimate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is seeking to overcome the food security problem and develop rural livelihoods while minimizing negative impacts on the environment. However, when such synergies exist, the situation of small-scale farmers is often overlooked, and they are unable to implement new practices and technologies. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to improve CSA by adding the neglected but very important element “small-scale farmer”, and introduce Vulnerable-Smart Agriculture (VSA) as a complete version of CSA. VSA indicates, based on the results of this study, that none of the decisions made by policymakers can be realistic and functional as long as the voice of the farmers influenced by their decisions is not heard. Therefore, to identify different levels for possible interventions and develop VSA monitoring indicators, a new conceptual framework needs to be developed. This study proposed such a framework consisting of five elements: prediction of critical incidents by farmers, measuring the consequences of incidents, identifying farmers' coping strategies, assessing farmers' livelihood capital when facing an incident, and adapting to climate incidents. The primary focus of this study is on farmers’ learning and operational preparation to deal with tension and disasters at farm level. Understanding the implications of threats from climate change and the recognizing of coping mechanisms will contribute to an increase in understanding sustainable management

Barriers to zero tropical deforestation and ‘opening up’ sustainable and just transitions

The UN Sustainable Development Goals include ambitious targets for tackling deforestation and emphasise the roles of diverse actors and partnerships for transformative change. Initiatives for governing tropical forests take multiple forms, including ‘zero deforestation’ supply chain initiatives, carbon forestry, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), legislative frameworks that intend to cut off markets for illegally harvested timber, and emerging landscape and jurisdictional approaches. Drawing on insights from political ecology and sustainability transitions research, this chapter discusses the barriers to transitioning to ‘zero deforestation’ through consideration of: (1) the contested framing of the problem of deforestation, (2) how sustainable forest governance is translated and enacted across scales, and (3) who is represented in ‘the transition’. This reveals opportunities for sustainable and just transitions for forests. We argue that careful attention must be paid to the influences of power and politics surrounding forest governance and its social and ecological outcomes, and the need to challenge orthodoxies around economic growth that currently underpin policy responses

Famine in the Horn of Africa: Understanding institutional arrangements in land tenure systems

Natural calamities such as drought, famine, and climate change have collided to create a humanitarian crisis. For the Horn of Africa (HoA), famine is among the factors that have caused the worst historical damages to the individual countries. Man-made calamities such as decentralized agricultural, pastoral activities and forest clearing are also root causes for the damage. Institutional arrangements (IAs) on land tenure systems and agricultural land conversion (ALC) as a part of this problem will be analyzed in this paper. Poor IAs on land are considered the main cause of insecure land tenure which diminishes the productivity of agriculture in this region, and this, specifically in times of drought, exacerbates famine. Accordingly, the paper explores the idea that to what extent poor IAs on land tenure systems can explain the famine in the HoA. IAs on land comprise two main functions: land quality management and regulation and standard-setting for land utilization. The types of IAs for land often differ. The “optimal” arrangement depends on political, economic, social, climatic, geographical, and technical factors that together form a complex system of IAs

Climate smart agriculture: Mitigation and adaptation strategies at the global scale

To address adaptation and mitigation strategies for climate change, researchers in the agricultural field have extended numerous technologies and practices known as climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The CSA has led to an important debate on sustainable development in the agriculture system and climate among the scientific and civil society. However, one of the main challenges is incorporating the effects of climate change into agricultural development planning. For effective adaptation, the set of technologies that the CSA concept comprises requires measures of policies to decrease vulnerability and improve the capacity of producers, especially smallholders. Therefore, the goal of this chapter is to expand and formalize the CSA conceptual framework by relying on the theory and concepts of global adaptation and mitigation strategies. Overall, the chapter provides some evidence of good practices and innovative strategies of upgrading the CSA approach to mitigation and adaptation strategies through development agencies and civil society, research and academia, etc