The scoping study on the ‘Impact of climate change and food insecurity on poverty’ mainly focuses on farmers’ perception toward climate change and its imminent impact upon their livelihoods. The study covers four countries in its scope: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. It aims toward addressing food insecurity and livelihood threats in South Asia by changing the region’s cultivation practices and operationalising a regional food bank.

Perception analyses show that climate change has adversely affected farmers across the Indian sub-continent. Recurrent natural hazards such as droughts and heavy floods have afflicted the region’s poor population disproportionately. Farmers have reported shortened rainy seasons and increased temperatures over the years. They have lamented over the decline in crop yield as a result of shortened cropping seasons. Climate change has severely impacted agriculture and resulted in a substantial decline in subsistence farming across all select South Asian countries. 

Although farmers across the region have begun adapting to climate change, the farming communities largely understand climate variability and not climate change. As such, their adaptation strategies aim at enhancing crop productivity and reducing crop loss via cultivation of crops that are best suited to appropriate climatic zones. But farmers need to adopt water and soil conservation measures so as to conserve the environment from further degradation. This will provide them with plenty of water even during dry seasons.

At the local level, the government needs to formulate both pro-environmental agricultural and pro-poor policies to better address the plethora of issues emanating from climate change. In order to better adapt to climate change, South Asian economies need to invest in research and development of climate resilience agriculture. The region can seek foreign technical expertise in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. For example, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) assists South Asian countries like Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan by developing measures to deal with the increased summer drought and competing irrigation and water supply demands. These measures include cultivation of drought resistant crops, improvement of irrigation efficiency, enhancement of water resource management, rehabilitation of degraded forests and pasturelands, and protection of watershed (ADB 2010).

At the regional level, member countries need to increase the transfer and share of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) technology to promote economic growth and regional cooperation in the region. The region must work toward realising a SAARC Food Bank so as to better serve each other in times of food crises. Since intra-regional trade plays a vital role in achieving economic prosperity, the respective SAARC governments must work toward liberalising agricultural trade. This enables them to spread the risks of climate change and thus increase resilience to its impacts (ADB and IFPRI 2009).

References:

ADB 2010, ‘ADB Climate Change Programmes facilitating Integrated Solutions in Asia and the Pacific’, Asian Development Bank, Manila.