Evaluating the value of agricultural climate services using hindcast experiments Methods development in India and Bangladesh

This research note offers insights to a new method for understanding the economic benefits of utilizing climate services for decision making in agriculture, which can provide justification for the public and private investment in provision of climate services to farmers. In order to understand the potential benefits of weather information for improved farm decision making, case studies from wheat farming in India and Bangladesh are presented

How to build a pandemic resilient agrifood system? A review of policy lessons from COVID-19 in Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted most of the Bangladesh population and almost all sectors of its economy, including the agriculture and food systems. The Government of Bangladesh (GoB) and development partners took measures to prevent the spread of the virus and keep the agriculture and food systems running, and farmers and communities adopted local techniques as resilience measures to adapt to and lessen the effect of the virus. This review attempts to synthesize the knowledge on impacts of COVID-19 on Bangladesh agriculture and food systems, and document government's and development partners' policy responses and measures to COVID-19 to mitigate the impacts and farmers' coping strategies as effective resilience measures. The aim here is to provide a comprehensive picture of impacts and policy lessons to the Bangladesh government and development partners to effectively manage any future pandemics such as COVID-19 in the country and in developing countries of Asia. The core lesson is that agriculture needs a transformation to technology intensive (both digital and non-digital), efficient supply chains (i.e., shorter value chains), mechanization, farmer organizations led, and consumer connected (e.g., online platforms and direct marketing channels) with various kinds of resilience measures, including information sharing systems, financial mechanisms and social safety nets. A diversified approach is required for perishable and non-perishable commodities. There is also need of international effort to minimize trade and supply disruption and prevention of export ban and similar policies to reduce the impact on food system and associated livelihoods

Developing a framework for an early warning system of seasonal temperature and rainfall tailored to aquaculture in Bangladesh

The occurrence of high temperature and heavy rain events during the monsoon season are a major climate risk affecting aquaculture production in Bangladesh. Despite the advances in the seasonal forecasting, the development of operational tools remains a challenge. This work presents the development of a seasonal forecasting approach to predict the number of warm days (NWD) and number of heavy rain days (NHRD) tailored to aquaculture in two locations of Bangladesh (Sylhet and Khulna). The approach is based on the use of meteorological and pond temperature data to generate linear models of the relationship between three-monthly temperature and rainfall statistics and NWD and NHRD, and on the evaluation of the skill of three operational dynamical models from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) project. The linear models were used to evaluate the forecasts for two seasons and 1-month lead time: May to July (MJJ), forecast generated in April, and August to October (ASO), forecast generated in July. Differences were observed in the skill of the models predicting maximum temperature and rainfall (Spearman correlation, Root Mean Square Error, Bias statistics, and Willmott’s Index of Agreement,), in addition to NWD and NHRD from linear models, which also vary for the target seasons and location. In general, the models show higher predictive skill for NWD than NHRD, and for Sylhet than in Khulna. Among the three evaluated NMME models, CanSIPSv2 and GFDL-SPEAR exhibit the best performance, they show similar features in terms of error metrics, but CanSIPSv2 presents a lower interannual standard deviation

Analyzing farm household strategies for food security and climate resilience: The case of Climate-Smart Villages of Southeast Asia

This paper develops a conceptual framework with an indicator-based approach to assess Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) and applies it to case study sites in Lao PDR (Ekxang CSV), Cambodia (Rohal Suong CSV), and Vietnam (Tra Hat CSV) in Southeast Asia. The intensification, extensification, diversification, commercialization, alteration of practices, use of common lands, migration strategies that can augment climate resilience, farm income, assets, and food security are assessed based on a composite index of the strategies and key outcome variables. The study demonstrates a method that can be applied widely for assessing climate-smart agriculture strategies and finding possible entry points for climate-smart interventions. The influence of gender in resource control and livelihood strategies is also discussed. It is also evident that the climate-smart interventions can augment different livelihood strategies of farmers and enhance the developmental and climate resilience outcomes. There is a need to prioritize the possible interventions in each case and implement them with the help of donor agencies, local institutions, and government offices

Climate action for food security in South Asia? Analyzing the role of agriculture in nationally determined contributions to the Paris agreement

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement propose a country’s contribution to global mitigation efforts and domestic adaptation initiatives. This paper provides a systematic analysis of NDCs submitted by South Asian nations, in order to assess how far their commitments might deliver meaningful contributions to the global 2°C target and to sustainable broad-based adaptation benefits. Though agriculture-related emissions are prominent in emission profiles of South Asian countries, their emission reduction commitments are less likely to include agriculture, partly because of a concern over food security. We find that income-enhancing mitigation technologies that do not jeopardize food security may significantly augment the region’s mitigation potential. In the case of adaptation, analysis shows that the greatest effort will be directed towards protecting the cornerstones of the ‘green revolution’ for ensuring food security. Development of efficient and climate-resilient agricultural value chains and integrated farming bodies will be important to ensuring adaptation investment. Potentially useful models of landscape level climate resilience actions and ecosystem-based adaptation are also presented, along with estimates of the aggregate costs of agricultural adaptation. Countries in the region propose different mixes of domestic and foreign, and public and private, adaptation finance to meet the substantial gaps

Digital climate advisory and bundled services (DCAS) tools landscape assessment for Bangladesh

This document is a long list of existing digital tools and platforms for selected value chains in Bangladesh based on key characteristics, accomplishments, challenges and business models

Development of a participatory approach for mapping climate risks and adaptive interventions (CS-MAP) in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in 2016 adversely affected Vietnam particularly in the Mekong River Delta (MRD), where more than 90% of the country’s rice export is produced annually. During that time, salinity intrusion and drought significantly affected agricultural production in the area. Furthermore, flooding is another recurring event in the area that is increasing in frequency. An assessment conducted by CGIAR Centers showed that even as warnings were provided by the government for the 2016 ENSO, these were not translated into appropriate preparations and responsive actions for agriculture. To address this critical issue, the Department of Crop Production (DCP) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) of Vietnam, and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in Southeast Asia (CCAFS- SEA) collaborated to develop and test an participatory approach for mapping climate risks and adaptive interventions (CS-MAP) to recognize climate-related risks, identify potentially affected areas and develop regional and provincial adaptation plans for rice production. The CS-MAP is a participatory approach involving experts from various local and national offices for: (1) identifying climate-related risks; (2) delineating affected areas and risk levels; (3) proposing corresponding adaptive plans; (4) fine tuning and verifying proposed measures; and (5) developing integrated provincial and regional adaptation plans. Risks and adaptive interventions maps were developed for normal and ENSO years by using technical data (i.e. topography and hydrology), infrastructures (i.e. dikes, road and canals), and local observations. CS-MAP is now is under various stages of development and implementation in 13 MRD provinces highlighting the organizational uptake and integration of the approach

Analysing the challenges in implementing Vietnam’s Nationally-Determined Contribution (NDC) in the agriculture sector under the current legal, regulatory and policy environment

This study analyses the current supporting laws, regulations, strategies, national action plans, NDCs, scientific literature and other documents and policies in Vietnam to identify the barriers against the effective implementation of mitigation and adaptation agriculture activities committed in Vietnam’s NDC. It also identifies the redundancies and synergies between climate action and green growth plans of the country. As a result, the study found that there is a strong supporting legal framework for implementing NDC actions in Vietnam. However, challenges and gaps are identified in awareness and technical capacity; coordination and resource allocation; downscaling to the provinces; engagement of private sector and NGOs; regulatory framework, which are critical to NDC implementation. A set of key recommendations are proposed on how to address the challenges raised by identified barriers are developed

Modeling ENSO impact on rice production in the Mekong River Delta

The Mekong River Delta is the rice production hub in South-east Asia and has a key role in determining rice prices in the world market. The increasing variability in the local climate due to global climate changes and the increasing severity of the ENSO phenomenon threatens rice production in the region, which has consequences for local and global food security. Though existing mapping efforts delineate the consequences of saline water intrusion during El Niño and flooding events during La Niña in the basin, research to predict future impacts in rice production is rather limited. The current work uses ORYZA, an ecophysiological model, combined with historical climate data, climate change scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5 and climate-related risk maps to project the aggregate productivity and rice production impacts by the year 2050. Results show that in years of average salinity intrusion and flooding, the winter-spring rice crop in the MRD would experience an average annual decrease of 720,450 tons for 2020–2050 under the RCP4.5 scenario compared to the baseline of 2005–2016 average and another 1.17 million tons under the RCP8.5 scenario. The autumn-winter crop would decrease by 331,480 tons under RCP4.5 and 462,720 tons under RCP8.5. In years of severe salinity intrusion and flooding, the winter-spring rice crop would decrease by 2.13 million tons (10.29% lower than the projection for an average year) under RCP4.5 and 2.5 million tons (13.62%) under RCP8.5. Under severe conditions, the autumn-winter crop would have an average decrease of 1.3 million tons (7.36%) under RCP4.5 and 1.4 million tons (10.88%) for the RCP8.5 scenario. Given that most of the rice produced in this area is exported, a decline in rice supply at this scale would likely have implications on the global market price of rice affecting global food security. Such decline will also have implications for the rural economy and food security of Vietnam. Suggestions for corrective measures to reduce the impacts are briefly discussed

1281-1292

This article reports the application of a tool ‘‘ScalA’’ that generates information on a multitude of aspects and assesses the local suitability of CRSA practices among sub-Saharan smallholders. It also briefly presents other state-of-the-art tools that can be used for similar purposes