“Agriculture worldwide is being impacted by climate change and in less than 15 years global population will rise by one billion people,” said Sir John Beddington, lead author of the article What Next For Agriculture After Durban? which appeared in the January 2012 edition of Science magazine.
“Policymakers and scientists need to work together, quickly, to chart a course toward a sustainable global food system.”
Although many people use the terms climate and weather interchangeably, weather is what the conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time. Climate change is change in long-term averages of daily weather.
There is continuing discussion and often disagreement on climate change and which factors have the greatest effect on this phenomenon.
I say we should let the academics deal with those issues while we, the practitioners in the agricultural industry concentrate on how to adapt to and deal with the effects that climate change and related phenomena have on local weather – which is, of course, of paramount importance to our agricultural performance.
Agriculture is an activity that is very vulnerable to climate change and variability in weather and this should be a matter of national concern. We must have a long-term plan which will prepare us for coming events and not just wait until they happen and then react.
Farmers must be prepared to change their agronomic practices as required, while Government must review its policies and programmes, including incentives, to ensure that they promote appropriate and sustainable agricultural practices in keeping with this adaptation.
Recommendations
Recommendations for adaptation from the international scientific community include
(1) Diversification of the farming mix. Since livestock are more resistant to climate change than crops, livestock production could be one of the key methods for farmers to adapt to climate change;
(2) Use of insecticides which have been proven to be effective at higher temperatures;
(3) Enhancement of research of plant and animal varieties that are heat and stress resistant, resistant to new insects and diseases;
(4) Promotion of agricultural best practices, particularly integrated crop management, conservation agriculture, intercropping, and fertilizer best management practices;
(5) Establishment of international technology assessment and sharing programmes for climate change, as well as capacity-building programmes, including the development of local and global centres of excellence;
(6) Encouragement of productivity improvements – in a sustainable way – on existing agricultural land to avoid additional land clearing and give priority to the rehabilitation of degraded agricultural soils;
(7) Provision of incentives to farmers and other stakeholders which reward adoption of sustainable and responsible production systems, better performing technologies and the efforts of early adopters;
(8) Creation of a dedicated adaptation fund for agriculture accessible to farmers’ organizations in developing countries.
Farming First is a global coalition of 124 organizations representing the world’s farmers, agronomists, scientists, engineers, and industry.
Working together, they have compiled a comprehensive policy framework, which provides innovative solutions to reduce emissions from agriculture and adapt to climate change while increasing agricultural productivity to meet growing food needs.
The Farming First coalition calls on all governments active in the COP15 negotiations to:
• Support the unique role of agriculture in the global climate change response.
• Encourage the use of all available and applicable climate change solutions.
• Promote funding mechanisms which support the needs of all levels and forms of farming.
• Reward resource-based productivity improvements as a direct contributor to climate-change effectiveness.
• Invest in capability sharing to encourage all farmers to play a role in climate change while safeguarding local and global food security.
The Barbados Government is encouraged to support not only imported high technology solution geared to larger farmers, but also creative innovations brought forward by smaller farmers.
In earlier columns I have encouraged the use of simple covered structures which will protect crops from excessive rain as one mitigation measure. Public officers should be able to advise farmers of the best and cheapest methods of construction as well as on sourcing the materials necessary to build these structures.
• The Agro-doc has over 40 years’ experience in agriculture in Barbados, operating at different levels of the sector. Send any questions or comments to The Agro-doc, c/o Nation Publishing Co. Ltd, Fontabelle, St Michael.
