Adapting agriculture to changing climate of South Asia

Abstract

South AsiaSA is very vulnerable to current as well as future climatic risks owing to its large population, food demand and poverty. There is an urgency to increase the adaptive capacity of the region’s agriculture to a changing climate. This paper highlights a wide range of Climate Smart Agriculture options undertaken to address the risks and challenges faced by farmers in the region. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) helps to improve farm productivity and income, increase adaptation and resilience to a changing climate and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. CSA options include water, energy, nutrient, carbon, weather and knowledge-smart technologies, practices and services suitable for various crops and cropping systems in the region. The paper also summarises a meta-analysis of climate- smart agricultural technologies adopted in South Asia. The implementation of a range of CSA technologies can improve yield of rice from 0.5 to 2.5 tonne per hectare and wheat yield from 0.2 to 2.8 tonne per hectare (33-64). Our primary study of three agri-business companies outreach areas showed that the involvement of agri-business companies has significance for the adoption of CSA technologies in their outreach areas. Depending on the type of CSA technology, the CSA technology adoption rate in the industry’s outreach area was 50-60% in rice, 60-70% in maize and 80-90% in sugarcane farmers. The average farm income has increased by 20% following CSA interventions in all crops. This paper also discusses the key challenges and enabling factors that can accelerate CSA adoption and potential use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) for scaling-out a range of CSA technologies. The paper concludes by discussing public sector and private sector strategies to scale-up adaptation options depending on the nature of climatic risks and investment requirements.