Crisis: A young boy suffers from malnutrition in South Jakarta. When the boy was two years old, he only weighed 7 kilograms. JP/Ricky Yudhistira

An article by Rita A. Widiadana and Desy Nurhayati posted on The Jakarta Post on the conference on biodiversity, food security and climate change which took place in Nusa Dua,  Bali

The conference in  Bali took place as the world is on the brink of a food crisis.
1.5 billion farmers in the world have been facing drastic climate changes, which means for them much less income and a considerably higher risk of poverty and starvation.
Only in the 20th century, 90% of diversity of the most important crops has disappeared.
Food prices have increased of almost 30%, and this is likely to cause political instability and to contribute even more to poverty and hunger.

Besides weather changes and disasters, such as floods and draughts, also  the rapid growth of the world’s population, which is estimated to be of 9 billion within 2050, is threatening food security.

Clive Stannard, an expert from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said that  “The growing number of extreme weather events — long droughts, floods, hurricanes, the likelihood of pest and disease migrations will have devastating impacts on crop production, especially in the tropical and subtropical regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa,” and he added that all the world’s countries, both developed and developing, are facing the problem of a food crisis and the increase of food prices.

Shakeel Bhatti, the secretary of the Treaty’s governing body, said that “With climate change already altering farming conditions and the population rapidly increasing, preserving and sharing crop diversity on a global scale is no longer optional”.
He also said that since no country on Earth has in its border the necessary diversity to meet the future needs, they urgently need to improve the way they share seeds and crop materials.

The uncomforting FAO’s data showed that hungry people have increased from 840 million in 2003 to 1 billion in 2010, and the most harrowing and menacing fact is that every five seconds a child dies from hunger-related illness.

Furthermore, the data showed that while, in the past, humankind had used more than 7000 species to produce food, now two thirds of the world’s food is genereted only by twelve plants and five animal species.

Pepe Esquinas-Alcázar, a professor and director of the Center for Studies on Hunger and Poverty at the University of Cordoba, Spain, and former secretary on genetic resources for food and agriculture, said that this is the  consequence of the Green Revolution, which has substituted millions of varieties in uniformed and homogenous varieties.

“You can only select what you need if there is diversity. If everything is homogenous, you don’t have anything to select. That is the idea – the importance of biodiversity. Less diversity means more vulnerability.”

He then said we are destroying the basis of food and agriculture, which are necessary in order to cope with the unpredictable environmental changes and humankind’s needs in the future.

“Therefore, the cooperation of countries and continents worldwide to solve this kind of problem is not a choice, it is a must.”

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Malawi maize farmer / Flickr – Swathi Sridharan

The biggest part of Malawi’s GDP is the product of agriculture, particularly of maize, which is the first source of food. Farmers have said that “maize is food and if we do not grow it, we fear we will not have food”. But climate change is seriously threatening the only crop the population relies on and high temperatures are causing huge yields reductions.

This article by Blessings Chinsinga posted on Science and Development Network explains how the key strategy to cope with climate change is crop diversification, which could then allow to achieve food security. ”Maize is so important that some scholars characterize Malawi’s politics as the politics of maize”.  But Malawi must diversify away from maize in order to adapt to climate change.

“While constantly making references to the ideals of crop diversification, the main preoccupation of the government is to achieve food security using high-yielding maize varieties”, writes Chinsinga.
The goal of changing the politics of food security is failing. “Even a major fertilizer subsidy programme, introduced by the government in 2005, has failed, even though it was designed to promote crop diversification”.

Blessing Chinsinga tells how critical the role of policy is in the adaptation process and how the ”conflict between climate adaptation and food security policies shows we must create the right conditions for change”.

Read full article here

In his article published on Water Matters, News of IWMI Reserach in Sri Lanka in April 2010, Nishadi Eriyagama describes the recent review by IWMI on the status of climate change reseacrh and activities in Sri Lanka.

This review suggests that Sri Lanka’s mean temperature may increase by about 0.9-40 C, over the baseline (1961-1990), by the year 2100 with accompanying changes in the quantity and spatial distribution of rainfall. These changes may lead to an increase in the Maha (wet) season irrigation water requirement for paddy by 13-23% by 2050 compared to that of 1961-1990 (De Silva et al. 2007).  Future projections on coconut yield suggest that production after 2040 may not be sufficient to cater to local consumption (Peiris et al. 2004), and a reduction in the monthly rainfall by 100 mm could reduce productivity by 30-80 kilograms of ‘made’ tea per hectare (Wijeratne et al. 2007), thus impacting the country’s exports.

This study also attempts to identify the country’s agricultural vulnerability hot spots, as well as identify existing knowledge gaps. It developed a pilot level Climate Change Vulnerability Index consisting of three subindices (Exposure, Sensitivity and Adaptive Capacity), which was subsequently mapped at a district level.

It points out that in the face of an uncertain climate, Sri Lanka needs to concentrate on “smart investments” and “no regrets” adaptation interventions that simultaneously deliver climate resilience and address current development needs. Both, rainwater harvesting, and restoration of the ancient tank system of the country, are two such adaptation options against future challenges in the water resources and agriculture sectors.

To read more about the impacts of climate change on water resources in Sri Lanka, click here. The article by Nishadi Eriyagama is also on Delicious.

Further information can be found here.

References:

- De Silva, C. S., Weatherland, E. K., Knox, J. W., Rodriguez-Diaz, J. A. (2007) Predicting the Impacts of Climate Change – a Case Study of Paddy Irrigation Water Requirements in Sri Lanka. Agricultural Water Management 93 (Bookmark on Delicious).

- Peiris, T. S. G., Wijeratne, M., Ranasinghe, C. S., Anandacumaraswamy, A., Fernando, M. T. N., Jayakody, A., Ratnasiri, J. (2004) Impact of Climate Change on Coconut and Tea Industry in Sri Lanka. Paper presented at the 2nd AIACC Regional Workshop for Asia and the Pacific. Manila, Philippines.

- Wijeratne, M., Anandacumaraswamy, A., Amaratunge, M. K. S. L. D., Ratnasiri, J., Basnayake, B. R. S. B., Kalra, N. (2007) Assessment of Impact of Climate Change on Productivity of Tea (carmellia sinensis L.) Plantations in Sri Lanka. Journal of the National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka 35(2): 119-126.