Sustainable Solutions for Food Security: Combating Climate Change by Adaptation

559 Pages·2019·16.7 MB·English

by  Atanu Sarkar

Atanu Sarkar
Suman Ranjan Sensarma
Gary W. vanLoon Editors
Sustainable
Solutions
for Food Security
Combating Climate Change
by Adaptation
Sustainable Solutions for Food Security
Atanu Sarkar • Suman Ranjan Sensarma
Gary W. vanLoon
Editors
Sustainable Solutions
for Food Security
Combating Climate Change by Adaptation
Editors
Atanu Sarkar Suman Ranjan Sensarma
Division of Community Health and KPMG
Humanities New Delhi, India
Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University
St Johns, NL, Canada
Gary W. vanLoon
School of Environmental Studies
Queen’s University
Kingston, ON, Canada
ISBN 978-3-319-77877-8 ISBN 978-3-319-77878-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77878-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964086
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Foreword
Climate change is no longer a myth or speculation; rather it is a clear and present
threat to the entire biosphere and all of humanity. We have already started witness-
ing the onslaughts of climate change in various avatars, such as extreme weather
patterns (drought, heavy rain, floods, cyclones, heat waves, and forest fires), sea
level rise, growing numbers of climate refugees, and the spread of various illnesses.
It is worth emphasizing that people from low-income countries are the ones who
will bear the major brunt of climate change.
Indeed, climate change is a threat to all four dimensions of food security, i.e. its
availability, accessibility, utilization, and systems stability. The inhabitants of vul-
nerable and food insecure areas are likely to be the first victims. People living on the
coasts and floodplains and in mountains, drylands, and the Arctic are the most at
risk. Agriculture-based livelihood systems that are already vulnerable to food inse-
curity face the risk of increased crop failure, new patterns of pests and diseases, lack
of good seeds and planting materials, and loss of livestock and fisheries. Low-
income people are at risk of food insecurity owing to loss of assets and lack of an
adequate social safety net. Food systems are also facing looming threats of internal
and international migration, resource-based conflicts, and civil unrest triggered by
climate change and its consequences.
Considering the global trend in using fossil fuels, rising energy demands of the
emerging economies, and lack of political consensus, there has been very limited
progress in curbing greenhouse emissions following the Kyoto Protocol and subse-
quent international agreements including the recent Paris Climate Agreement. Even,
for argument sake, if we stop all greenhouse gas emitting anthropogenic activities,
it will take several decades to reach any noticeable improvement. Therefore, it is
necessary to strengthen the resilience of the vulnerable people and to help them
cope with this additional threat to food security. To avert food insecurity, several
international agencies and experts strongly advocate climate change adaptation
along with mitigation. Sustainable adaptations are believed to ensure food security
without affecting the ecosystem and at the same time maintain economic growth.
Scientists are actively engaged in the development of various sustainable solutions
to overcome the adverse effects of climate change on food security, and many of
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vi Foreword
these ingenuities are displaying promising results. On the other hand, there is a need
for appropriate social policy and pro-people regulatory systems in order to bring the
benefits of climate smart strategies.
Despite the fact that some sustainable technologies are already recognized as the
viable solutions for adapting climate change to warrant food security, there are no
proper centralized information sources of those proven (and also waiting-for-
approval) solutions for researchers and policy-makers. While there are numerous
publications describing impacts of climate change on food security at a global or
regional scale, there has not been any book documenting and describing the potential
contribution to climate adaptation of tested and replicable, sustainable solutions.
The present volume Sustainable Solutions for Food Security: Combating Climate
Change by Adaptation has filled the long-standing gap. The editors, led by Dr.
Atanu Sarkar, make a significant effort to illustrate the right perspectives, and have
made a significant contribution to disseminate the knowledge in a layman’s lan-
guage. It is a challenge to provide an interdisciplinary perspective in the complex
discourses of food insecurity, climate change, and adaptation. The editors are to be
commended for recognizing the value of diversity in research and practice. They
have brought together researchers from all continents, and the shared research is
relevant in local and global contexts. While the volume, as a whole, represents an
excellent cross section of the extremely complicated global problem, the individual
chapters contribute to various specific lines of inquiry, for example, latest research
and application of climate smart crops, fisheries, natural resource management, and
capacity building for farming and disadvantaged communities.
I deeply appreciate the efforts of the editorial team for their hard work and hope
that the volume will be very helpful for policy-makers, development practitioners,
researchers, and general readers who are interested in the subject.
M. S. Swaminathan
M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation,
Chennai, India
Foreword
The probability that climate change would harm food security was well recognized
by some in the early 1990s, though it was, as far as I know, not until 2003 that the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations first highlighted
climate change at the 29th session of the FAO Committee on World Food Security.
In the 1990s there was a strong, even dominant view that although climate change
would create winners and losers, food production overall would hold its own, even
considering population growth and growing affluence for many.1 Furthermore, and
perhaps not coincidentally, the losers were mostly predicted to be farmers and poor
consumers in low-income regions, such as the tropics, while winners would be
farmers at high latitudes (soil quality permitting) in Russia, Canada, and Scandinavia.
There has also long been a view that adaptation by farmers and others involved
would make an important compensatory contribution.
That relaxed period is over, as revealed many times by the over 60 contributors
of this authoritative and optimistic book, written by authors from many countries,
including from several of the world’s leading agricultural research institutions.
Although the book has a particular emphasis on agricultural adaptation to climate
change, some chapters also focus on issues such as equity and natural resource
management. The authors collectively illustrate the large and diverse challenges
that climate change poses to agriculture. These include rising temperature, more
extremes, intensified droughts, and, in some settings, more flooding and rising
salinity. There are also risks of increased pests and falling nutritional properties,
even if yields can be preserved. Added to this is the growing realization that other
resources needed for agriculture are limited (at least at affordable prices), such as
fossil fuels, currently essential for fertilizer, for pesticides, and, in most places, for
transport and powering machinery.
Suggested techniques to contribute to the solutions that are needed (and that are
discussed) include crop diversification, drip irrigation, and different crop manage-
ment strategies. Also important are crop breeding and genomic modification,
1 Butler, C.D. (2009) C.D. Food security in the Asia-Pacific: Malthus, limits and environmental
challenges Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2009, 18, 577–584
vii
viii Foreword
including the possibility that it may be able to make rice more like maize, by con-
verting strains of it to a C4 plant, thus reducing its need for water and nitrogen
fertilizer.
Although the book has chapters on adapting the staples of wheat, maize, and rice
to climate change, including in Africa, the need for greater diversification is recog-
nized and reflected by chapters on crops such as Bambara groundnuts. Several chap-
ters stress the additional vulnerability of agriculture (and farmers) in rain-fed areas,
which often have the additional disadvantage of being underdeveloped. As one
chapter points out, “the most vulnerable farmers and communities, namely, small-
holder subsistence and market oriented farmers in marginal environments, are those
who face the most extreme climate change-related challenges at the same time as
being the least able to adapt.”
The methods and policies described in this book are vital to improve food secu-
rity, but so too are climate change mitigation, slower population growth (especially
in countries with high fertility), and a fairer global system of economic opportunity
and reward. It is my understanding, especially, of these challenges, shared with
Associate Professor Atanu Sarkar who, together with his colleagues Prof. Emeritus
Gary W. vanLoon and Dr. Suman Ranjan Sensarma, has edited this book, which
motivated me to write this foreword, which I am delighted to do.
Colin D. Butler
Health Research Institute
University of Canberra
Canberra, ACT, Australia
College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
Flinders University
Bedford Park, SA, Australia
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Contents
Part I Introduction
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Atanu Sarkar, Gary W. vanLoon, and Dave Watson
Part II Climate-Smart Crops, Adaptive Breeding and Genomics
2 Adaptation of Crops to Warmer Climates:
Morphological and Physiological Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Ullah Najeeb, Daniel K. Y. Tan, Muhammad Sarwar,
and Shafaqat Ali
3 Climate Smart Crops: Flood and Drought- Tolerant Crops . . . . . . . . . 51
Camila Pegoraro, Carlos Busanello, Luciano Carlos da Maia,
and Antonio Costa de Oliveira
4 Adaption to Climate Change: Climate Adaptive
Breeding of Maize, Wheat and Rice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Dave Watson
5 Using Genomics to Adapt Crops to Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Yuxuan Yuan, Armin Scheben, Jacqueline Batley,
and David Edwards
6 Climate-Resilient Future Crop: Development of C Rice . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4
Hsiang Chun Lin, Robert A. Coe, W. Paul Quick,
and Anindya Bandyopadhyay
7 Crop Diversification Through a Wider Use
of Underutilised Crops: A Strategy to Ensure Food
and Nutrition Security in the Face of Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
M. A. Mustafa, S. Mayes, and F. Massawe
ix
x Contents
8 Bambara Groundnut is a Climate-Resilient Crop:
How Could a Drought- Tolerant and Nutritious Legume
Improve Community Resilience in the Face of Climate Change? . . . . 151
Aryo Feldman, Wai Kuan Ho, Festo Massawe, and Sean Mayes
Part III Natural Resource and Landscape Management
9 The Challenge of Feeding the World While Preserving
Natural Resources: Findings of a Global Bioeconomic Model . . . . . . . 171
Timothy S. Thomas and Shahnila Dunston
10 Adaptation to Climate Change Through Adaptive
Crop Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Dave Watson
11 Water Management Technology for Adaptation
to Climate Change in Rice Production: Evidence
of Smart-Valley Approach in West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Aminou Arouna and Aristide K. A. Akpa
12 An Agroecological Strategy for Adapting to Climate
Change: The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Norman Uphoff and Amod K. Thakur
13 Efficient Desalinated Water Pricing in Wetlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Oscar Alfranca
14 Drip Irrigation Technology: Analysis of Adoption
and Diffusion Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Francisco Alcon, Nuria Navarro, María Dolores de-Miguel,
and Andrea L. Balbo
15 Combating Climate Change Impacts for Shrimp
Aquaculture Through Adaptations: Sri Lankan Perspective . . . . . . . . 287
J. M. P. K. Jayasinghe, D. G. N. D. Gamage,
and J. M. H. A. Jayasinghe
16 Application of the Terroir Concept on Traditional
Tea Cultivation in Uji Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Fitrio Ashardiono
17 The Opportunity of Rural Space with Urban Relationships:
Urban Agriculture as Contemporary Cultural Landscape
for Resilience by Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Luis Maldonado Rius