Addressing gender-based impacts of climate change: A case study of Guinayangan, Philippines

This brief summarizes the findings of a case study of a diversification effort undertaken in Guinayangan Climate-Smart Village. Small livestock systems, a climate-smart agriculture practice, present a less risk-prone livelihood venture. It can feature as a diversification agenda, reducing the risks from crop failure and are relevant to all ecosystems. Small livestock initiatives can benefit women as it provides them with a low-labor and manageable economic option, which requires a small startup investment

Equity, empowerment and gender relations: A literature review of special relevance for climate-smart agriculture programming

The brief summarizes the results of a literature review on equity, empowerment and gender relations for climate-smart agriculture programming. The review found out that a wider and more equitable gender sensitivity is now seen amongst policy makers and local government, with a corresponding enhanced and out-scaled uptake on CSA. Improved access to resources, information, markets and decision-making opportunities of women will bring them on par with men as equal partners in climate change and disaster risk reduction efforts. Applying social learning improved the adaptive capacities of women

Pathways to Attaining a Food Secure Philippines through a Competitive and Climate-Resilient Agri-Fisheries Sector

This document highlights the key messages drawn from climate adaptation efforts and events done with Philippines’ Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Offices (DA-RFOs) across the country. This brief, developed for the Climate Change Consciousness Week, offers DA a synthesis of lessons from the Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AMIA) village experience as a bankable model for establishing context specific, local adaptation platforms for developing and disseminating CRA technologies and processes. This brief also offers valuable policy insights for the Philippines’ National Adaptation Plan

Fostering local adaptation platforms for agriculture: How context specific climate-smart villages (CSVs) can relate to local adaptation efforts.

Local adaptation platforms help empower sub-national and local government players, civil society organizations, and public-private partnerships in demonstrating the validity of agro-ecology-specific solutions to current and future climate change impacts. This brief discusses how Climate-Smart Villages, good examples of local adaptation platform, have served as centers for discovery, adaptation, learning, and sharing of climate-smart agriculture in local communities

The AMIA Experience: Supporting local actions for Climate Resilient Agriculture

The brief tackles how the Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AMIA) Program of the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture (DA) served as a platform for supporting local actions for climate resilient agriculture. The document discusses a number of key lessons emerging from the AMIA Village experience on the importance of local platforms for adaptation in the form of Climate-Smart Villages towards overall resilience building of the sector

Applying participatory action research methods in community-based adaptation with smallholders in Myanmar

Smallholder farms in four unique agroecological regions in Myanmar were targeted in this participatory study. Key support systems are needed for effective community engagement in implementing Climate Smart Villages (CSV). Farmers in the CSVs identified a menu of adaptation options that they would test, adopt and scale. This “portfolio approach” ensured there were opportunities for men, women, and landless households to participate in the community adaptation process. The research suggests that land tenure regimes influence the nature of the adaptation options and their eventual uptake. The study provides geographic and climate details specific to each region and relates them to perceptions of smallholder households

Measuring Household Resilience in the Climate Smart Villages in the Philippines, Myanmar and Cambodia

Resilience has traditionally been understood as a function of observable and measurable characteristics. More recently, discussions of household resilience have emphasized the need to pay attention to resilience as a set of capacities. What this paper aims to develop is a framework and a methodology for accounting both tangible and intangible characteristics found in the household, that is, measuring assets, social capital, as well as inherent personal characteristics or traits of the household decision-maker that may or may not predispose a household to be resilient. A framework from Béné (2014) was used as an analytical framework for both quantitative and qualitative studies. The quantitative study consists of surveying households (n=623) across six climate-smart villages (CSVs) in Myanmar, Cambodia, and the Philippines. Three dimensions of household resilience were identified: resilience capacities, subjective resilience, and intra-household gender relations. Each dimension of resilience is envisioned to complement the other in order to better understand household level resilience. The dimensions are consolidated in order to construct a Household Resilience Score (HRS). The study confirms that there are strong links found among relationships between the use of CSA initiatives and resilience capacities. The study also revealed that subjective resilience is equally important in understanding household resilience. There is a strong relationship in how households think they can recover from a shock in relation to specific psychosocial traits such as perseverance, self-efficacy, and conscientiousness

A Financial Analysis of Homestead Native Chicken Raising: A Climate-Smart Agriculture Option Adopted in the Province of Koh Kong, Cambodia

In 2018, the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) and the Cambodian Center for Study and Development for Agriculture (CEDAC) under the Asian Development Bank’s Cambodia Biodiversity Conservation Corridors Project (BCC) implemented the Community Development Funds Project in the Koh Kong and Mondul Kiri provinces which included the capacity building activity on improving native chicken production for smallholder farmers specifically, broiler production, and hatchery. This study supported by the International Research and Development Center (IDRC) analyzed the financial benefits gained by households in the Koh Kong province from this climate smart agriculture approach to small scale poultry production. When native chickens were raised for meat purposes (broiler production), the total net income received by the households amounted to USD 6,286.00 in 2019, and USD 8,003.00 in 2020. As the volume of sales increased, the average net income showed an increasing trend while the production cost per kilogram of broiler sold decreased. The study also revealed that profitability was highest among households that sold more than 100 kg of broilers compared to other households with lesser sales volume (using the Operating Profit Margin Ratio as a gauge). Hatchery operators earned a total net income of USD 10,136.00 in 2019 which increased to USD 13,604.00 in 2020. Broiler production and hatchery operation can be useful climate resilient enterprises to supplement the household income while complementing the existing economic activities of the village households such as growing crops and raising small livestock. Local food systems are enriched in the process and agrobiodiversity of small livestock is conserved through their sustainable use. This native chicken project was also gender fair and of special relevance to women in the communes

COVID-19 impact on local agri-food system in Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines: Findings from a rapid assessment

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent enforcement of mobility restrictions have created bottlenecks in the agri-food system. When the food supply chain is disrupted, economic loss occurs, putting rural households, already in poverty, into severe food insecurity. A survey was conducted to assess the impacts of restrictions brought by COVID-19 on local food systems operations of Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) in Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. The rural and traditional food systems of agriculture-based villages continued to operate with minimal adjustments during the course of COVID-19 restrictions. Our findings showed high mean household dietary diversity scores in Chhouk CSV (6.4), Htee Pu CSV (8.2), and Himbubulo Weste CSV (7.2) despite significant perceived changes in the availability and prices of certain food groups. Complementary and diverse food production and access to informal food outlets were essential parts of the local food systems and played critical roles in supplying food commodities to the population during the pandemic

Coconut-based Systems in the Philippines: Intensification and Diversification with Climate-Smart Agriculture

To generate evidence on increasing household resilience to climate change through increased farm income while also generating social benefits, a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) study was undertaken in 2021 by the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) with support from the International Research and Development Center (IDRC). For the Philippine component of the study, the study determined the financial and social benefits of raising native pigs and planting fruit trees and black pepper gained by the households from Guinayangan, Quezon and Ivisan, Capiz. The combination of planting fruit trees and black pepper as well as native pig production are viable when they are integrated with the main sources of livelihood of the villages of Himbubulo Weste and Magsaysay (Guinayangan). The study showed that the said villages will continue to financially benefit from the CSA interventions despite facing possible threats in the market. The funds invested by the community members in implementing the CSA interventions are expected to be recovered within three years after 2020. Diversifying farm production should be encouraged and practiced by more households as it serves as a cushion to minimize loss of livelihood for the family, and could help households maintain a steady and reliable income even if one of the crops failed or incurred losses