Tuesday November 17, 2009

Going hungry

By HILARY CHIEW

Climate change will affect farm yields. We have to act now to avoid possible food shortages.

CLIMATE refugees – those fleeing rising sea levels or displaced by weather disasters, and farmers facing crop failures due to climate change-induced events –are predicted to reach 200 million by 2050.

Scientists say even small local temperature increases will decrease yields especially in tropical and seasonal dry areas.

Agriculture is one human activity that is both contributor and victim of global warming. Use of chemical fertiliser and land conversion release planet-heating greenhouse gases. Industrial agricultural emissions through increased application of nitrogen dioxide is projected to increase from 10% to 65% by 2030.

But melting glaciers, droughts, floods and erratic rainfall are affecting farm outputs in many developing countries, thus increasing the risk of hunger for the global population.

Speaking at the recent Asia Pacific Conference On Confronting The Food Crisis And Climate Change organised by the Pesticide Action Network-Asia Pacific, sustainable agriculture researcher Lim Li Ching of Third World Network said smallholders, subsistence farmers, pastoralists and artisanal fisherfolk will suffer complex and localised impacts of climate change.

Farmers winnow paddy in Sulawesi, Indonesia. As the climate changes, farm yields will be affected.

“Freshwater availability in central, south, east and south-east Asia, particularly in large river basins, is projected to decrease and this could adversely affect more than a billion people by 2050,” she warned.

Herman Kumara of the Sri Lanka National Fisheries Solidarity Movement noted that the 0.6°C increase in temperature in the Himalaya over the last 30 years would have serious repercussion on agricultural land in Asia. He said the Himalayan-Hindu Kush and the Tibetan Plateau glaciers represent the largest body of ice on the planet outside the polar region, and together fed seven major rivers – the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Yellow, Irrawaddy and Mekong. These basins are home to 1.3 billion people from Pakistan to Indo-China and parts of India and China.

He said coastal areas, especially heavily populated deltas in south, east and south-east Asia would be at greatest risk from increased flooding.

“Increased ocean temperature would be especially detrimental to sensitive marine organisms such as corals which may bleach, resulting in overall reef degradation and collapse of fisheries.

“Millions of people in developing countries derive their livelihoods from fishing. Worldwide, marine and freshwater fisheries generate over US$130bil (RM455bil) annually while around 2.6 billion people get their protein from seafood. This is as much a development and economic issue as it is an environmental one,” he pointed out.

Feeling the effects

The two-day conference that brought together farmers and fisherfolk groups in the region revealed that climate change is already being experienced by subsistence farmers. In Uttarakand, a northern Indian state in the Himalaya, farmers can no longer predict the monsoon and that has caused poor harvest.

Closer to home, the natives of Sarawak are also experiencing unpredictable rainfall. Sarawak Dayak Iban Association secretary-general Nicholas Mujah said in his village in the Samarahan division, east of Kuching, farmers were delaying sowing rice seeds to as late as October when it was previously carried out in August.

He said while farmers like his parents inherited the traditional knowledge of observing the moon to determine the right time to clear the land, burn the soil and sow seeds to ensure a bountiful harvest, inexperienced farmers who did not observe the subtle changes failed to adapt and suffered crop failure.

He suspected that the food shortage crisis in Ulu Belaga in central Sarawak in August was linked to climate change. He said the reported successive crop failures needed to be investigated further.

Lim believes a radical overhaul of agricultural policies and practices is needed.

Food security: Afghan women harvesting tomatoes in the outskirts of Kabul. Farm crops were damaged by a spell of cold weather.

She said an assessment by the Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) concluded that the future of agriculture laid in diverse, agro-ecologically based farming.

“Ecological agriculture promotes adaptation to climate change by harnessing farmers’ skills and knowledge in producing on-farm fertiliser and breeding locally adapted seeds. A high degree of crop diversity will avert risks from droughts and diseases,” said Lim.

While many governments are doubtful over whether organic farming is the way forward, studies show that organic yields are comparable to that from conventional farming in developed countries.

A review of 286 projects in 57 countries reported that average yields increased by 79% for small farmers growing cereals and roots.

To mainstream ecological agriculture that is based on appropriate technologies and farmers’ needs, Lim said support was needed from governments and international agencies to redirect investment, research, training and policy.

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