research proposal on climate change and agriculture

CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security

• Columbia University
• Ùniversity of Vermont

Bruce Campbell

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) generates evidence and supports adoption of climate-smart agricultural policies, practices, and services that alleviate poverty, increase gender equity, and support sustainable landscapes.

CCAFS promotes climate-smart policies, practices, and services that enable agriculture to meet the triple goals of food security, climate change adaptation, and mitigation.

Agriculture and climate function hand in hand. Today, 32–39% of global crop yield variability is explained by climate; this translates to annual production fluctuations of 2–22 million tonnes for major crops such as maize, rice, wheat, and soybean. At the same time, agriculture and livestock directly contribute about 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and agriculturally-driven land use changes cause additional emissions.

By 2050, a growing global population with shifting consumption patterns will require agriculture to deliver 60% more food, yet every 1 °C of warming above historical levels is likely to cause a decrease of approximately 5% in crop productivity. Continuing uneven rural development and inattention to the resource gaps that women and youth are facing will exacerbate inequality. These trends and drivers present a global challenge that requires concerted action.

CCAFS proposes a climate-smart agriculture (CSA) solution that will transform and re-orient agricultural systems to support food security in the context of the new realities of climate change. CSA has three pillars: 1) sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in incomes, food security, and development; 2) adapting and building resilience to climate change from farm to national levels; and 3) reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon where possible. Embedded in CSA are efforts to close the gender gap and engage youth.

While the CSA approach is closely aligned with on-farm practices related to sustainable intensification and agro-ecological approaches, CCAFS extends CSA to landscape-level interventions (e.g. management of farm-forest boundaries), services (particularly information and finance), institutions (e.g. around market governance, incentives for adoption) and the food system (particularly consumption patterns and wider climate-informed safety nets).

Despite growing global action and investment in CSA, the science is not yet fully developed. There is limited evidence on synergies and trade-offs in productivity, resilience, and mitigation resulting from different agricultural practices, technologies, and programs, and across agro-ecologies and social contexts. Science must also inform national and global climate policies that fully integrate food security concerns with the need for climate action.

Where We Work

CCAFS target countries include:

• Latin America: Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Honduras
• West Africa: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Senegal
• East Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda
• South Asia: India, Nepal, Bangladesh
• Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam

Impacts by 2022

Ensuring a food-secure future in a changing climate requires engagement, from farmers’ fields to global processes, forging linkages between the global change and agricultural communities, and giving equal attention to technology, institutions, power, and process. Both incremental and transformative pathways are necessary. CCAFS and partners catalyse change towards climate-smart agriculture, food systems and landscapes, thereby contributing to:

• Reducing poverty
• Improving food and nutrition security for health
• Conserving natural resources and ecosystem services

With these goals in mind, CCAFS and partners are committed to the following globally ambitious impacts by 2022:

• 9 million people (50% women) assisted to exit poverty
• 6 million less people (50% women) that experience nutritional deficiencies
• 160 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions mitigated per year
• 11 million farm households adopt climate-smart agriculture
• 8 million households with improved access to capital, with increased benefits to women

Related Links

• CCAFS Website
• CCAFS Publications
• CCAFS Tools, maps, models and data
• CCAFS Program Management Unit at Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands)  [email protected]
• Bruce Campbell, Program Leader (The Netherlands)  [email protected]
• Rhys Bucknall-Williams , Global Communications and Knowledge Manager (The Netherlands) [email protected]

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Open Access

Climate change resilient agricultural practices: A learning experience from indigenous communities over India

Affiliation South Asian Forum for Environment, India

* E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]

Affiliation Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Lausanne, Switzerland

• Amitava Aich, 
• Dipayan Dey, 
• Arindam Roy

Published: July 28, 2022

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022
• Reader Comments

The impact of climate change on agricultural practices is raising question marks on future food security of billions of people in tropical and subtropical regions. Recently introduced, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) techniques encourage the practices of sustainable agriculture, increasing adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks at multiple levels. However, it is extremely difficult to develop a single framework for climate change resilient agricultural practices for different agrarian production landscape. Agriculture accounts for nearly 30% of Indian gross domestic product (GDP) and provide livelihood of nearly two-thirds of the population of the country. Due to the major dependency on rain-fed irrigation, Indian agriculture is vulnerable to rainfall anomaly, pest invasion, and extreme climate events. Due to their close relationship with environment and resources, indigenous people are considered as one of the most vulnerable community affected by the changing climate. In the milieu of the climate emergency, multiple indigenous tribes from different agroecological zones over India have been selected in the present study to explore the adaptive potential of indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK)-based agricultural practices against climate change. The selected tribes are inhabitants of Eastern Himalaya (Apatani), Western Himalaya (Lahaulas), Eastern Ghat (Dongria-Gondh), and Western Ghat (Irular) representing rainforest, cold desert, moist upland, and rain shadow landscape, respectively. The effect of climate change over the respective regions was identified using different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario, and agricultural practices resilient to climate change were quantified. Primary results indicated moderate to extreme susceptibility and preparedness of the tribes against climate change due to the exceptionally adaptive ITK-based agricultural practices. A brief policy has been prepared where knowledge exchange and technology transfer among the indigenous tribes have been suggested to achieve complete climate change resiliency.

Citation: Aich A, Dey D, Roy A (2022) Climate change resilient agricultural practices: A learning experience from indigenous communities over India. PLOS Sustain Transform 1(7): e0000022. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022

Editor: Ashwani Kumar, Dr. H.S. Gour Central University, INDIA

Copyright: © 2022 Aich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1 Introduction

Traditional agricultural systems provide sustenance and livelihood to more than 1 billion people [ 1 – 3 ]. They often integrate soil, water, plant, and animal management at a landscape scale, creating mosaics of different land uses. These landscape mosaics, some of which have existed for hundreds of years, are maintained by local communities through practices based on traditional knowledge accumulated over generations [ 4 ]. Climate change threatens the livelihood of rural communities [ 5 ], often in combination with pressures coming from demographic change, insecure land tenure and resource rights, environmental degradation, market failures, inappropriate policies, and the erosion of local institutions [ 6 – 8 ]. Empowering local communities and combining farmers’ and external knowledge have been identified as some of the tools for meeting these challenges [ 9 ]. However, their experiences have received little attention in research and among policy makers [ 10 ].

Traditional agricultural landscapes as linked social–ecological systems (SESs), whose resilience is defined as consisting of 3 characteristics: the capacity to (i) absorb shocks and maintain function; (ii) self-organize; (iii) learn and adapt [ 11 ]. Resilience is not about an equilibrium of transformation and persistence. Instead, it explains how transformation and persistence work together, allowing living systems to assimilate disturbance, innovation, and change, while at the same time maintaining characteristic structures and processes [ 12 ]. Agriculture is one of the most sensitive systems influenced by changes in weather and climate patterns. In recent years, climate change impacts have been become the greatest threats to global food security [ 13 , 14 ]. Climate change results a decline in food production and consequently rising food prices [ 15 , 16 ]. Indigenous people are good observers of changes in weather and climate and acclimatize through several adaptive and mitigation strategies [ 17 , 18 ].

Traditional agroecosystems are receiving rising attention as sustainable alternatives to industrial farming [ 19 ]. They are getting increased considerations for biodiversity conservation and sustainable food production in changing climate [ 20 ]. Indigenous agriculture systems are diverse, adaptable, nature friendly, and productive [ 21 ]. Higher vegetation diversity in the form of crops and trees escalates the conversion of CO 2 to organic form and consequently reducing global warming [ 22 ]. Mixed cropping not only decreases the risk of crop failure, pest, and disease but also diversifies the food supply [ 23 ]. It is estimated that traditional multiple cropping systems provide 15% to 20% of the world’s food supply [ 1 ]. Agro-forestry, intercropping, crop rotation, cover cropping, traditional organic composting, and integrated crop-animal farming are prominent traditional agricultural practices [ 24 , 25 ].

Traditional agricultural landscapes refer to the landscapes with preserved traditional sustainable agricultural practices and conserved biodiversity [ 26 , 27 ]. They are appreciated for their aesthetic, natural, cultural, historical, and socioeconomic values [ 28 ]. Since the beginning of agriculture, peasants have been continually adjusting their agriculture practices with change in climatic conditions [ 29 ]. Indigenous farmers have a long history of climate change adaptation through making changes in agriculture practices [ 30 ]. Indigenous farmers use several techniques to reduce climate-driven crop failure such as use of drought-tolerant local varieties, polyculture, agro-forestry, water harvesting, and conserving soil [ 31 – 33 ]. Indigenous peasants use various natural indicators to forecast the weather patterns such as changes in the behavior of local flora and fauna [ 34 , 35 ].

The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach [ 36 ] has 3 objectives: (i) sustainably enhancing agricultural productivity to support equitable increase in income, food security, and development; (ii) increasing adaptive capacity and resilience to shocks at multiple levels, from farm to national; and (iii) reducing Green House Gases (GHG) emissions and increasing carbon sequestration where possible. Indigenous peoples, whose livelihood activities are most respectful of nature and the environment, suffer immediately, directly, and disproportionately from climate change and its consequences. Indigenous livelihood systems, which are closely linked to access to land and natural resources, are often vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change, especially as many inhabit economically and politically marginal areas in fragile ecosystems in the countries likely to be worst affected by climate change [ 25 ]. The livelihood of many indigenous and local communities, in particular, will be adversely affected if climate and associated land-use change lead to losses in biodiversity. Indigenous peoples in Asia are particularly vulnerable to changing weather conditions resulting from climate change, including unprecedented strength of typhoons and cyclones and long droughts and prolonged floods [ 15 ]. Communities report worsening food and water insecurity, increases in water- and vector-borne diseases, pest invasion, destruction of traditional livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and cultural ethnocide or destruction of indigenous cultures that are linked with nature and agricultural cycles [ 37 ].

The Indian region is one of the world’s 8 centres of crop plant origin and diversity with 166 food/crop species and 320 wild relatives of crops have originated here (Dr R.S. Rana, personal communication). India has 700 recorded tribal groups with population of 104 million as per 2011 census [ 38 ] and many of them practicing diverse indigenous farming techniques to suit the needs of various respective ecoclimatic zones. The present study has been designed as a literature-based analytical review of such practices among 4 different ethnic groups in 4 different agroclimatic and geographical zones of India, viz, the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh, the Dongria Kondh of Niamgiri hills of Odisha, the Irular in the Nilgiris, and the Lahaulas of Himachal Pradesh to evaluating the following objectives: (i) exploring comparatively the various indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK)-based farming practices in the different agroclimatic regions; (ii) climate resiliency of those practices; and (iii) recommending policy guidelines.

2 Methodology

2.1 systematic review of literature.

An inventory of various publications in the last 30 years on the agro biodiversity, ethno botany, traditional knowledge, indigenous farming practices, and land use techniques of 4 different tribes of India in 4 different agroclimatic and geographical zones viz, the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh, the Dongria Kondh of Niamgiri hills of Odisha, the Irular in the Nilgiris, and the Lahaulas of Himachal Pradesh has been done based on key word topic searches in journal repositories like Google Scholar. A small but significant pool of led and pioneering works has been identified, category, or subtopics are developed most striking observations noted.

2.2 Understanding traditional practices and climate resiliency

The most striking traditional agricultural practices of the 4 major tribes were noted. A comparative analysis of different climate resilient traditional practices of the 4 types were made based on existing information available via literature survey. Effects of imminent dangers of possible extreme events and impact of climate change on these 4 tribes were estimated based on existing facts and figures. A heat map representing climate change resiliency of these indigenous tribes has been developed using R-programming language, and finally, a reshaping policy framework for technology transfers and knowledge sharing among the tribes for successfully helping them to achieve climate resiliency has been suggested.

2.3 Study area

Four different agroclimatic zones and 4 different indigenous groups were chosen for this particular study. The Apatanis live in the small plateau called Zero valley ( Fig 1 ) surrounded by forested mountains of Eastern Himalaya in the Lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh. It is located at 27.63° N, 93.83° E at an altitude ranging between 1,688 m to 2,438 m. Rainfall is heavy and can be up to 400 mm in monsoon months. Temperature varies from moderate in summer to very cold in the winter months. Their approximate population is around 12,806 (as per 2011 census), and Tibetan and Ahom sources indicate that they have been inhabiting the area from at least the 15th century and probably much earlier ( https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5893/ ).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

The base map is prepared using QGIS software.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022.g001

The Lahaulas are the inhabitants of Lahaul valley ( Fig 1 ) that is located in the western Himalayan region of Lahaul and Spiti and lies between the Pir Panjal in the south and Zanskar in the north. It is located between 76° 46′ and 78° 41′ east longitudes and between 31° 44′ and 32° 59′ north altitudes. The Lahaul valley receives scanty rainfalls, almost nil in summer, and its only source of moisture is snow during the winter. Temperature is generally cold. The combined population of Lahaul and Spiti is 31,564 (as per 2011 census).

The Dongria Kondh is one of the officially designated primitive tribal group (PTG) in the Eastern Ghat region of the state Orissa. They are the original inhabitants of Niyamgiri hilly region ( Fig 1 ) that extends to Rayagada, Koraput, and Kalahandi districts of south Orissa. Dongria Kondhs have an estimated population of about 10,000 and are distributed in around 120 settlements, all at an altitude up to 1,500 above the sea level [ 39 ]. It is located between 190 26′ to 190 43′ N latitude and 830 18′ to 830 28′ E longitudes with a maximum elevation of 1,516 meters. The Niyamgiri hill range abounds with streams. More than 100 streams flows from the Niyamgiri hills and 36 streams originate from Niyamgiri plateau (just below the Niyam Raja), and most of the streams are perennial. Niyamgiri hills have been receiving high rainfall since centuries and drought is unheard of in this area.

The Irular tribes inhabit the Palamalai hills and Nilgiris of Western Ghats ( Fig 1 ). Their total population may be 200,000 (as per 2011 census). The Palamali Hills is situated in the Salem district of Tamil Nadu, lies between 11° 14.46′ and 12° 53.30′ north latitude and between 77° 32.52′ to 78° 35.05′ east longitude. It is located 1,839 m from the mean sea level (MSL) and more over the climate of the district is whole dry except north east monsoon seasons [ 40 , 41 ]. Nilgiri district is hilly, lying at an elevation of 1,000 to 2,600 m above MSL and divided between the Nilgiri plateau and the lower, smaller Wayanad plateau. The district lies at the juncture of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats. Its latitudinal and longitudinal location is 130 km (latitude: 11° 12 N to 11° 37 N) by 185 km (longitude 76° 30 E to 76° 55 E). It has cooler and wetter climate with high average rainfall.

3 Results and discussion

3.1 indigenous agricultural practices in 4 different agro-biodiversity hotspots.

Previous literatures on the agricultural practices of indigenous people in 4 distinct agro-biodiversity hotspots did not necessarily focus on climate resilient agriculture. The authors of these studies had elaborately discussed about the agro-biodiversity, farming techniques, current scenario, and economical sustainability in past and present context of socioecological paradigm. However, no studies have been found to address direct climate change resiliency of traditional indigenous agricultural practices over Indian subcontinent to the best of our knowledge. The following section will primarily focus on the agricultural practices of indigenous tribes and how they can be applied on current eco-agricultural scenario in the milieu of climate change over different agricultural macroenvironments in the world.

3.1.1 Apatani tribes (Eastern Himalaya).

The Apatanis practice both wet and terrace cultivation and paddy cum fish culture with finger millet on the bund (small dam). Due to these special attributes of sustainable farming systems and people’s traditional ecological knowledge in sustaining ecosystems, the plateau is in the process of declaring as World Heritage centre [ 42 – 44 ]. The Apatanis have developed age-old valley rice cultivation has often been counted to be one of the advanced tribal communities in the northeastern region of India [ 45 ]. It has been known for its rich economy for decades and has good knowledge of land, forest, and water management [ 46 ]. The wet rice fields are irrigated through well-managed canal systems [ 47 ]. It is managed by diverting numerous streams originated in the forest into single canal and through canal each agriculture field is connected with bamboo or pinewood pipe.

The entire cultivation procedure by the Apatani tribes are organic and devoid of artificial soil supplements. The paddy-cum-fish agroecosystem are positioned strategically to receive all the run off nutrients from the hills and in addition to that, regular appliance of livestock manure, agricultural waste, kitchen waste, and rice chaff help to maintain soil fertility [ 48 ]. Irrigation, cultivation, and harvesting of paddy-cum-fish agricultural system require cooperation, experience, contingency plans, and discipline work schedule. Apatani tribes have organized tasks like construction and maintenance of irrigation, fencing, footpath along the field, weeding, field preparation, transplantation, harvesting, and storing. They are done by the different groups of farmers and supervised by community leaders (Gaon Burha/Panchayat body). Scientific and place-based irrigation solution using locally produced materials, innovative paddy-cum-fish aquaculture, community participation in collective farming, and maintaining agro-biodiversity through regular usage of indigenous landraces have potentially distinguished the Apatani tribes in the context of agro-biodiversity regime on mountainous landscape.

3.1.2 Lahaula (Western Himalaya).

The Lahaul tribe has maintained a considerable agro-biodiversity and livestock altogether characterizing high level of germ plasm conservation [ 49 ]. Lahaulas living in the cold desert region of Lahaul valley are facultative farmers as they able to cultivate only for 6 months (June to November) as the region remained ice covered during the other 6 months of the year. Despite of the extreme weather conditions, Lahaulas are able to maintain high level of agro-biodiversity through ice-water harvesting, combinatorial cultivation of traditional and cash crops, and mixed agriculture–livestock practices. Indigenous practices for efficient use of water resources in such cold arid environment with steep slopes are distinctive. Earthen channels (Nullah or Kuhi) for tapping melting snow water are used for irrigation. Channel length run anywhere from a few meters to more than 5 km. Ridges and furrows transverse to the slope retard water flow and soil loss [ 50 ]. Leaching of soil nutrients due to the heavy snow cover gradually turns the fertile soil into unproductive one [ 51 ]. The requirement of high quantity organic manure is met through composting livestock manure, night soil, kitchen waste, and forest leaf litter in a specially designed community composting room. On the advent of summer, compost materials are taken into the field for improving the soil quality.

Domesticated Yaks ( Bos grunniens ) is crossed with local cows to produce cold tolerant offspring of several intermediate species like Gari, Laru, Bree, and Gee for drought power and sources of protein. Nitrogen fixing trees like Seabuckthrone ( Hippophae rhamnoides ) are also cultivated along with the crops to meet the fuels and fodder requires for the long winter period. Crop rotation is a common practice among the Lahaulas. Domesticated wild crop, local variety, and cash crops are rotated to ensure the soil fertility and maintaining the agro-biodiversity. Herbs and indigenous medicinal plants are cultivated simultaneously with food crops and cash crop to maximize the farm output. A combinatorial agro-forestry and agro-livestock approach of the Lahaulas have successfully able to generate sufficient revenue and food to sustain 6 months of snow-covered winter in the lap of western Himalayan high-altitude landscape. This also helps to maintain the local agro-biodiversity of the immensely important ecoregion.

3.1.3 Dongria Kondh (Eastern Ghat).

Dongria Kondh tribes, living at the semiarid hilly range of Eastern Ghats, have been applying sustainable agro-forestry techniques and a unique mixed crop system for several centuries since their establishment in the tropical dry deciduous hilly forest ecoregion. The forest is a source for 18 different non-timber forest products like mushroom, bamboo, fruits, vegetables, seeds, leaf, grass, and medicinal products. The Kondh people sustainably uses the forest natural capital such a way that maintain the natural stock and simultaneously ensure the constant flow of products. Around 70% of the resources have been consumed by the tribes, whereas 30% of the resources are being sold to generate revenue for further economic and agro-forest sustainability [ 52 ]. The tribe faces moderate to acute food grain crisis during the post-sowing monsoon period and they completely rely upon different alternative food products from the forest. The system has been running flawlessly until recent time due to the aggressive mining activity, natural resources depleted significantly, and the food security have been compromised [ 53 ].

However, the Kondh farmer have developed a very interesting agrarian technique where they simultaneously grow 80 varieties of different crops ranging from paddy, millet, leaves, pulses, tubers, vegetables, sorghum, legumes, maize, oil-seeds, etc. [ 54 ]. In order to grow so many crops in 1 dongor (the traditional farm lands of Dongria Kondhs on lower hill slopes), the sowing period and harvesting period extends up to 5 months from April till the end of August and from October to February basing upon climatic suitability, respectively.

Genomic profiling of millets like finger millet, pearl millet, and sorghum suggest that they are climate-smart grain crops ideal for environments prone to drought and extreme heat [ 55 ]. Even the traditional upland paddy varieties they use are less water consuming, so are resilient to drought-like conditions, and are harvested between 60 and 90 days of sowing. As a result, the possibility of complete failure of a staple food crop like millets and upland paddy grown in a dongor is very low even in drought-like conditions [ 56 ].

The entire agricultural method is extremely organic in nature and devoid of any chemical pesticide, which reduces the cost of farming and at the same time help to maintain environmental sustainability [ 57 ].

3.1.4 Irular tribes (Western Ghat).

Irulas or Irular tribes, inhabiting at the Palamalai mountainous region of Western Ghats and also Nilgiri hills are practicing 3 crucial age-old traditional agricultural techniques, i.e., indigenous pest management, traditional seed and food storage methods, and age-old experiences and thumb rules on weather prediction. Similar to the Kondh tribes, Irular tribes also practice mixed agriculture. Due to the high humidity in the region, the tribes have developed and rigorously practices storage distinct methods for crops, vegetables, and seeds. Eleven different techniques for preserving seeds and crops by the Irular tribes are recorded till now. They store pepper seeds by sun drying for 2 to 3 days and then store in the gunny bags over the platform made of bamboo sticks to avoid termite attack. Paddy grains are stored with locally grown aromatic herbs ( Vitex negundo and Pongamia pinnata ) leaves in a small mud-house. Millets are buried under the soil (painted with cow dung slurry) and can be stored up to 1 year. Their storage structure specially designed to allow aeration protect insect and rodent infestation [ 58 ]. Traditional knowledge of cross-breeding and selection helps the Irular enhancing the genetic potential of the crops and maintaining indigenous lines of drought resistant, pest tolerant, disease resistant sorghum, millet, and ragi [ 59 , 60 ].

Irular tribes are also good observer of nature and pass the traditional knowledge of weather phenomenon linked with biological activity or atmospheric condition. Irular use the behavioral fluctuation of dragonfly, termites, ants, and sheep to predict the possibility of rainfall. Atmospheric phenomenon like ring around the moon, rainbow in the evening, and morning cloudiness are considered as positive indicator of rainfall, whereas dense fog is considered as negative indicator. The Irular tribes also possess and practice traditional knowledge on climate, weather, forecasting, and rainfall prediction [ 58 ]. The Irular tribes also gained extensive knowledge in pest management as 16 different plant-based pesticides have been documented that are all completely biological in nature. The mode of actions of these indigenous pesticides includes anti-repellent, anti-feedent, stomach poison, growth inhibitor, and contact poisoning. All of these pesticides are prepared from common Indian plants extract like neem, chili, tobacco, babul, etc.

The weather prediction thumb rules are not being validated with real measurement till now but understanding of the effect of forecasting in regional weather and climate pattern in agricultural practices along with biological pest control practices and seed conservation have made Irular tribe unique in the context of global agro-biodiversity conservation.

3.2 Climate change risk in indigenous agricultural landscape

The effect of climate change over the argo-ecological landscape of Lahaul valley indicates high temperature stress as increment of number of warm days, 0.16°C average temperature and 1.1 to 2.5°C maximum temperature are observed in last decades [ 61 , 62 ]. Decreasing trend of rainfall during monsoon and increasing trend of consecutive dry days in last several decades strongly suggest future water stress in the abovementioned region over western Himalaya. Studies on the western Himalayan region suggest presence of climate anomaly like retraction of glaciers, decreasing number of snowfall days, increasing incident of pest attack, and extreme events on western Himalayan region [ 63 – 65 ].

Apatani tribes in eastern Himalayan landscape are also experiencing warmer weather with 0.2°C increment in maximum and minimum temperature [ 66 ]. Although no significant trend in rainfall amount has been observed, however 11% decrease in rainy day and 5% to 15% decrease in rainfall amount by 2030 was speculated using regional climate model [ 67 ]. Increasing frequency of extreme weather events like flashfloods, cloudburst, landslide, etc. and pathogen attack in agricultural field will affect the sustainable agro-forest landscape of Apatani tribes. Similar to the Apatani and Lahaulas tribes, Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes are also facing climate change effect via increase in maximum and minimum temperature and decrease in rainfall and increasing possibility of extreme weather event [ 68 , 69 ]. In addition, the increasing number of forest fire events in the region is also an emerging problem due to the dryer climate [ 70 ].

Higher atmospheric and soil temperature in the crop growing season have direct impact on plant physiological processes and therefore has a declining effect on crop productivity, seedling mortality, and pollen viability [ 71 ]. Anomaly in precipitation amount and pattern also affect crop development by reducing plant growth [ 72 ]. Extreme events like drought and flood could alter soil fertility, reduce water holding capacity, increase nutrient run off, and negatively impact seed and crop production [ 73 ]. Agricultural pest attack increases at higher temperature as it elevates their food consumption capability and reproduction rate [ 74 ].

3.3 Climate resiliency through indigenous agro-forestry

Three major climate-resilient and environmentally friendly approaches in all 4 tribes can broadly classified as (i) organic farming; (ii) soil and water conservation and community farming; and (iii) maintain local agro-biodiversity. The practices under these 3 regimes have been listed in Table 1 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022.t001

Human and animal excreta, plant residue, ashes, decomposed straw, husk, and other by-products are used to make organic fertilizer and compost material that helps to maintain soil fertility in the extreme orographic landscape with high run-off. Community farming begins with division of labour and have produced different highly specialized skilled individual expert in different farming techniques. It needs to be remembered that studied tribes live in an area with complex topological feature and far from advance technological/logistical support. Farming in such region is extremely labour intensive, and therefore, community farming has become essential for surviving. All 4 tribes have maintained their indigenous land races of different crops, cereal, vegetables, millets, oil-seeds, etc. that give rises to very high agro-biodiversity in all 4 regions. For example, Apatanis cultivate 106 species of plants with 16 landraces of indigenous rice and 4 landraces of indigenous millet [ 75 ]. Similarly, 24 different crops, vegetables, and medicinal plants are cultivated by the Lahaulas, and 50 different indigenous landraces are cultivated by Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes.

The combination of organic firming and high indigenous agro-biodiversity create a perfect opportunity for biological control of pests. Therefore, other than Irular tribe, all 3 tribes depend upon natural predator like birds and spiders, feeding on the indigenous crop, for predation of pests. Irular tribes developed multiple organic pest management methods from extract of different common Indian plants. Apatani and Lahaulas incorporate fish and livestock into their agricultural practices, respectively, to create a circular approach to maximize the utilization of waste material produced. At a complex topographic high-altitude landscape where nutrient run-off is very high, the practices of growing plants with animals also help to maintain soil fertility. Four major stresses due to the advancement of climate change have been identified in previous section, and climate change resiliency against these stresses has been graphically presented in Fig 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000022.g002

Retraction of the glaciers and direct physiological impact on the livestock due to the temperature stress have made the agricultural practices of the Lahaula’s vulnerable to climate change. However, Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes are resilient to the temperature stress due to their heat-resistant local agricultural landraces, and Apatanis will remain unaffected due to their temperate climate and vast forest cover. Dongria Kondh tribe will successfully tackle the water stress due to their low-water farming techniques and simultaneous cultivation of multiple crops that help to retain the soil moisture by reducing evaporation. Hundreds of perennial streams of Nyamgiri hills are also sustainably maintained and utilised by the Dongria Kondhs along with the forests, which gives them enough subsistence in form of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). However, although Apatani and Lahuala tribe extensively reuse and recirculate water in their field but due to the higher water requirement of paddy-cum-fish and paddy-cum-livestock agriculture, resiliency would be little less compared to Dongria Kondh.

Presence of vast forest cover, very well-structured irrigation system, contour agriculture and layered agricultural field have provided resiliency to the Apatani’s from extreme events like flash flood, landslides, and cloud burst. Due to their seed protection practices and weather prediction abilities, Irular tribe also show resiliency to the extreme events. However, forest fire and flash flood risk in both Eastern Ghat and Western Ghat have been increased and vegetation has significantly decreased in recent past. High risk of flash flood, land slide, avalanches, and very low vegetation coverage have made the Lahaulas extremely vulnerable to extreme events. Robust pest control methods of Irular tribe and age-old practices of intercropping, mixed cropping, and sequence cropping of the Dongria Kondh tribe will resist pest attack in near future.

3.4 Reshaping policy

Temperature stress, water stress, alien pest attack, and increasing risk of extreme events are pointed out as the major risks in the above described 4 indigenous tribes. However, every tribe has shown their own climate resiliency in their traditional agrarian practices, and therefore, a technology transfers and knowledge sharing among the tribes would successfully help to achieve the climate resilient closure. The policy outcome may be summarizing as follows:

• Designing, structuring and monitoring of infrastructural network of Apatani and Lahaul tribes (made by bamboo in case of Apatanis and Pine wood and stones in case of Lahaulas) for waster harvesting should be more rugged and durable to resilient against increasing risk of flash flood and cloud burst events.
• Water recycling techniques like bunds, ridges, and furrow used by Apatani and Lahaul tribes could be adopted by Irular and Dongria Kondh tribes as Nilgiri and Koraput region will face extreme water stress in coming decades.
• Simultaneous cultivation of multiple crops by the Dongria Kondh tribe could be acclimated by the other 3 tribes as this practice is not only drought resistance but also able to maximize the food security of the population.
• Germplasm storage and organic pest management knowledge by the Irular tribes could be transferred to the other 3 tribes to tackle the post-extreme event situations and alien pest attack, respectively.
• Overall, it is strongly recommended that the indigenous knowledge of agricultural practices needs to be conserved. Government and educational institutions need to focus on harvesting the traditional knowledge by the indigenous community.

3.5 Limitation

One of the major limitations of the study is lack of significant number of quantifiable literature/research articles about indigenous agricultural practices over Indian subcontinent. No direct study assessing risk of climate change among the targeted agroecological landscapes has been found to the best of our knowledge. Therefore, the current study integrates socioeconomic status of indigenous agrarian sustainability and probable climate change risk in the present milieu of climate emergency of 21st century. Uncertainty in the current climate models and the spatiotemporal resolution of its output is also a minor limitation as the study theoretically correlate and proposed reshaped policy by using the current and future modeled agro-meteorological parameters.

4. Conclusions

In the present study, an in-depth analysis of CSA practices among the 4 indigenous tribes spanning across different agro-biodiversity hotspots over India was done, and it was observed that every indigenous community is more or less resilient to the adverse effect of climate change on agriculture. Thousands years of traditional knowledge has helped to develop a unique resistance against climate change among the tribes. However, the practices are not well explored through the eyes of modern scientific perspective, and therefore, might goes extinct through the course of time. A country-wide study on the existing indigenous CSA practices is extremely important to produce a database and implementation framework that will successfully help to resist the climate change effect on agrarian economy of tropical countries. Perhaps the most relevant aspect of the study is the realization that economically and socially backward farmers cope with and even prepare for climate change by minimizing crop failure through increased use of drought tolerant local varieties, water harvesting, mixed cropping, agro-forestry, soil conservation practices, and a series of other traditional techniques.

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Weather Variability, Extreme Shocks and Women’s Participation in African Agriculture

Are female or male farmers in Africa more affected by weather variability and extreme shocks? A new study from the International Food Policy and Research Institute (IFPRI) sets out to answer this question. The study,  Weather Variability and Extreme Shocks in Africa, Are Female or Male Farmers more Affected?  seeks to empirically quantify how women and men differentially adapt their participation in agricultural employment under weather variability and extreme climatic events. Using labor force and bioclimatic data across Africa, IFPRI studied agricultural labor patterns in areas with weather variability and climate shocks and found that these events force a reduction in agricultural labor for both men and women. However, in cases of extreme shocks, the number of hours women worked decline much less on average compared to men’s, meaning their workload reduces less than men’s. Therefore, women’s agricultural labor is important for sustaining households’ agricultural production during climatic events. 

Agriculture is a primary sector of employment in Africa and plays a key role in food security. In a sample of 30 African countries, around 159 million people aged 15 and older are directly engaged in agriculture, with an additional 307 million people dependent on the sector indirectly. In the whole continent,  nearly 100 million women are directly engaged in agriculture , representing 44.8 percent of total agricultural employment. In addition to the time devoted to agricultural production, women’s domestic labor plays a crucial role in sustaining agricultural household livelihoods. Despite their important role in agricultural livelihoods,  women face additional constraints  relative to men in unequal access to and use of productive and financial resources and information, control over agricultural decisions and income, and in higher reproductive labor burdens.

With such a pivotal, but challenging, role in the agricultural sector, it is important to understand how changing climatic conditions impact women. Pre-existing gender gaps in agriculture have been found to be magnified under climate-sensitive conditions. For example,  a study on food security in India  found that when climate-related disasters lead to declining yields and increasing food insecurity, women tend to consume less food than men.  Another study noted that in times of extreme weather , men are more likely than women to migrate to areas unaffected by shock, while women find themselves responsible for an increasing workload in agriculture and supplemental income-generating activities in men’s absence, as well as increased domestic labor. In a rural district in Tanzania,  extreme weather events have forced poor women into a labor market to be hired by wealthier women  to collect animal fodder, adding extra workload to women’s existing responsibilities. In some instances,  extreme weather events  force women to accept jobs that expose them to hazards, illnesses and work exploitation. 

These results highlight that, under changing climate conditions, men’s agricultural labor is falling faster than women’s, and that women are putting in more hours of agriculture labor than men.

Knowing the importance of women’s role in the agricultural sector, as well as the challenges they face, the study authors try to understand how women’s agricultural labor changes under weather variation, as compared to men’s agricultural labor. They found that extreme weather events reduce the number of weekly hours farmers engaged in agricultural activities by an average of 40 percent in the case of heat waves and 14 percent for droughts. The effects of heat waves and drought events appear especially severe in West and Central Africa, where the number of weekly hours dedicated to agricultural labor fall by an average of 49 and 23 percent, respectively. Flood events have a greater impact in East and Southern Africa, where weekly working hours decrease by an average of 26 percent. 

Looking at sex-disaggregated data, the study found that women’s working hours in agriculture decline to a lesser degree than those of men, particularly in response to heat waves. Overall, women’s participation in agricultural activities mitigate the negative impact of heat waves on farm labor by an estimated 40 percent compared with men’s participation. In North Africa, women’s hours devoted to agricultural labor are 15 percent higher than men’s, while in Western and Central Africa women’s participation in agriculture mitigate the negative impacts of droughts by 28 percent as compared to men’s. These results highlight that, under changing climate conditions, men’s agricultural labor is falling faster than women’s, and that women are putting in more hours of agriculture labor than men.   Under current climate change scenarios, female farmers are now becoming the backbone of African agriculture, essential to sustaining production.

Implications for Programming

Given the pivotal role women play in enhancing agricultural performance and mitigating the negative effects of extreme weather events, as well as the impact of changing climactic conditions on female farmers and agricultural livelihoods, agricultural programming should increasingly be equipped to reach, benefit and empower women. 

Economic development programs will need to grapple with the changing agricultural production landscape. As viable natural resources become more scarce, rural populations are pushed into urban settings, leaving agricultural production at risk. Governments, investors, and programs need to consider how to ensure farmers, a population group that may increasingly be female-dominated, are producing enough for both domestic and international consumption while balancing livelihood needs. The success of these farmers will be crucial in smoothing food security across all populations.

Agricultural production programs will need to ensure services are reaching women, as farming demographics become increasingly female. Extension services must increase their direct engagement with female farmers, particularly on drought-related, heat-stress, and flood-tolerant agricultural technologies that will help them adjust to the impacts heat waves, drought and weather variations have on production. 

Given that women have traditionally faced constraints in accessing financing due to their more limited assets to leverage, lack of credit history and mobility challenges, financial providers will need to consider how products can be tailored and targeted towards women to ensure they can access needed agricultural inputs and technology. Financial providers can attract women by relaxing loan and bank account requirements, developing innovative measures to overcome lack of credit history, and providing remote or mobile banking access. Looking ahead, as women take on more responsibility both in the field and at home, investors should consider how agricultural research and development can reduce women’s labor burden both within and outside agriculture, with attention paid to tradeoffs such as workloads, food security, individual and household wellbeing and availability of assets.

Market systems programs will need to meet the needs of female farmers who face gendered constraints in access to agricultural and financial resources, control over how income is used and labor demands. As the agricultural workload shifts increasingly to women, programs should consider time-saving ways to connect women farmers to the marketplace, such as favorable contracting that places the burden of transport on the buyer, digitization of the marketplace and upgraded infrastructure. Bundling needed services, such as financing, extension services and digital marketplaces will ensure that women are able to comfortably engage in the market system even if they face mobility or time constraints. Examples include digital marketplaces/e-commerce platforms linking buyers and sellers, agricultural extension services that can also be digitized and localized geographic information on agricultural conditions.

As agricultural livelihoods increasingly fall on women farmers, all programming will need to set specific targets to engage women in the production, distribution and marketing phases. The use of Gender and Social Inclusion Analysis in design and implementation of programming will be key to ensuring effective integration of women in productive household livelihoods.

This blog was originally published on Agrilinks . 

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• Published: 27 April 2016

Gaps in agricultural climate adaptation research

• Debra Davidson 1  

Nature Climate Change volume  6 ,  pages 433–435 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

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The value of the social sciences to climate change research is well recognized, but notable gaps remain in the literature on adaptation in agriculture. Contributions focus on farmer behaviour, with important research regarding gender, social networks and institutions remaining under-represented.

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The need for more social science research directed towards addressing complex problems such as climate change has been widely acknowledged 1 , 2 . Yet important social scientific research remains limited in many cases, to the detriment of effective policy responses. The integration of the social sciences into research programmes on climate change adaptation in agriculture provides a case in point.

Given the obvious social dimensions of adaptation in general — and agriculture in particular — one might expect to observe a high degree of social science integration in this field. Growing calls for transformative adaptation in agri-food systems that constitute fundamental structural shifts have been bolstered by research indicating the sensitivity of agricultural production to climate change 3 , 4 , the associated potential losses in farmer income 5 and food security 6 , the incommensurability of conventional production practices with climate resilience 7 and the potential for mitigation co-benefits. Although instances of autonomous adaptation have been noted 8 , the adoption rates of adaptive measures in agriculture nonetheless have been disappointing 9 , and in high-income countries the perceived threat of climate change and subsequent support for adaptation among farmers is particularly low 10 . To maximize the potential for effective transformative adaptation, researchers must be able to identify and evaluate multiple adaptation pathways, as well as their limits and barriers, throughout our agri-food systems. This in turn requires that the social factors defining these pathways should be at the forefront of research.

Research contributions

To assess the contributions of the social sciences to research on climate change adaptation in agriculture, content analysis of peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic published in 2007 and 2015 was conducted (see the Supplementary Information for the method). Three trends include a substantial increase in the research attention to climate change adaptation in agriculture, an increase in the proportion of studies that focus on farming in developing countries, and growth in the social science input. In 2007, just 18% of the 39 peer-reviewed articles on the topic of climate change adaptation in agriculture included a social dimension. In 2015, this rose to 58% of the 201 relevant articles (see Supplementary Table 1 ).

These advances are laudable. The increase in the proportion of studies that included a social component, however, masks notable gaps.

The social component in the vast majority of studies entails survey research on the perceptions and/or practices of farmers, often conducted by natural scientists. This constitutes important information on observed adaptation practices. Yet the number of published studies that included deeper understanding of the social factors that explain farmer behaviour, as well as other social factors that are influential in agri-food systems, is small. Thus the social factors that facilitate or constrain systemic change in agriculture tend to be missed.

The following highlights three interrelated factors that constitute the subject matter of all of the remaining publications that included a social component — gender, social networks and institutions (including governance). As those remaining studies show, these social factors are key to adaptation, but are by no means the only ones of relevance. None of these are prominent in the literature, yet research exemplifies the important insights to be offered by such social-scientific analyses.

Research gaps

Just five of the 201 studies published in 2015 focused on gender, and all were conducted in non-industrial countries ( Fig. 1 ). The limited research that has focused on gender nonetheless reiterates its relevance. Research consistently shows that farming households headed by women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and women in all types of households are relatively more vulnerable to food insecurity in those cultural settings in which men control food distribution 11 . Female farmers are also less likely to adopt any available adaptation strategies 12 due to financial and resource limitations, control over smaller land parcels and less tenure security. The invisibility of women's roles in farming and the associated male biases of many agricultural organizations in several regions also supports the exclusion of female farmers from many of the benefits of extension efforts 13 , including information, subsidized tools, seed, fertilizers and improved livestock breeds. Women are consequently often excluded from participation in adaptation decision making, and thus the unique knowledge and needs associated with their specific roles in farming tend not to be reflected in those decisions.

A total of 201 articles were analysed for the inclusion of various social dimensions across regions. See Supplementary Information for details.

Given that women make up 43% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries ( http://www.fao.org/sofa/gender/didyouknow/en ), the adaptation barriers they face are relevant not only to their own household food security, but to adaptation of the agricultural sector as a whole. Women often express less skepticism 14 and higher concern for climate change 15 , suggesting that women are a key resource for adaptation of the sector that is not yet being capitalized on.

A second gap pertains to social networks. Five of the 201 published articles in 2015 consisted of social network analysis, two of which were conducted in non-industrial countries ( Fig. 1 ). All individual behaviour is socially embedded, and addressing the question of why farmers behave in certain ways requires research that reveals this social embeddedness. Many studies, however, resort to simplified rational-actor approaches to human behaviour. But farmers are not mere 'utility maximizers' 16 , even when they have complete autonomy over their operations. Practices are inevitably shaped by institutional norms and discourses, which privilege some rationalities while excluding others, narrowing the range of adaptation pathways 17 .

The architecture of social networks is thus a critical function of adaptation. Adaptive innovation, as with all types of innovation, requires social learning, which is most likely to occur when actors have access to a plurality of new ideas and knowledge that support alternative practices — resources that emerge and diffuse through social networks. Contrarily, social networks can serve to constrain adaptive change, particularly when power is vested in interests that favour the status quo, or otherwise marginalize important sources of knowledge and capacity.

One recent study provides clear evidence of the import of network architecture 18 . Australian farmers who exhibited transformational adaptation practices were engaged in strong connections with external knowledge providers, combined with relatively weak connections with family and community networks; probably because local networks can reinforce traditional cultural norms and practices at the expense of innovation.

Interestingly — and in contrast — local informal support networks have become an important resource for farmers in the developing world, particularly women, who are excluded from relationships with external knowledge and support providers 19 . The role of 'bridger' organizations has also been shown to be essential in closing network gaps 20 .

A third important area of research entails the multiple influential institutions and other actors that are engaged in agri-food systems. This describes a combined 25 studies published in 2015 ( Fig. 1 ): 13 focused on policy or governance institutions, eight on the role of scientific organizations such as extension agents and four on the role of marketing and business institutions, such as private finance. Among these, 11 focused on non-industrial countries. Because our regional and global agri-food systems are defined by a complex web of multiple institutions and actors, research on the influence of those institutions and actors on farmer behaviour, and on the system as a whole in ways that have implications for adaptation, is critical. In many cases, actors other than farmers themselves have an enormous influence over farm-level decision-making and the transformative potential of agri-food systems. The disruptive potential of the expansion of urban producers and consumer-based food movements, for example, has been largely unremarked on. Yet the emergence of new producers, shifts in consumer behaviour and the political attention drawn to food issues by citizens all have clear repercussions for adaptation pathways.

Stimulating cross-disciplinary research

Fostering more and better social science will require more than an 'add-on' approach whereby a social scientist or two is invited to a table dominated by natural scientists. Attention to the following three interrelated challenges in particular would go a long way towards the development of an integrated research programme that is better suited to address complex problems such as climate change.

First, despite the inclusion of many social scientists in large scientific bodies such as the IPCC, the prevailing norms and practices that govern IPCC activities nonetheless have been adopted largely from the natural sciences and are simply not compatible with research practices in many social science disciplines. For example, the standards adopted for validation and certainty are premised on deductive, quantitative methods and are not readily transposable to research that employs other methodological approaches (placing a confidence interval around comparative case studies of community-level vulnerability makes no sense). Furthermore, the fact that human behaviour is so incredibly variable limits the generalizability of many empirical studies, another criteria for validation in the natural sciences. This is, in effect, one of the most important lessons of the social sciences: any strategies intended to incite behavioural shifts must necessarily be appropriate to specific social, cultural, political and economic contexts to be effective. Methodological privileging has marginalized and undervalued a large proportion of social scientific research 21 . Critical scrutiny and revisiting of the norms and practices that govern scientific bodies like the IPCC, with the inclusion of input from social scientists, is an essential step towards integration.

Social scientists themselves are also on the hook. We need to put more effort into cross-disciplinary engagement, which in turn requires an emphasis on communicating the relevance of our findings for both natural scientists and knowledge users, and greater investments into moving beyond problematizing, to the development of concrete solution pathways. More methodological work needs to be done to integrate social scientific understandings of social processes into complex frameworks of coupled social–ecological systems that accord attention to cross-scale interactions, as well as forecasting of future pathways — approaches that are critical to addressing climate change. Many such models, however, suffer from a limited input from social theory. This limitation is at least in part attributable to the norms embraced by some social science disciplines, including the tendency to overlook non-social phenomena and a general aversion to 'future-gazing'.

Finally, funding providers have not heeded the call for more social science. Funding for social sciences is lower than for the natural sciences in many countries around the world, yet there is a direct correlation between funding levels and the citation rates of articles 22 . Teaching loads in social science and humanities departments in academia also tend to be higher 23 . In 2013, US$92 million out of the US National Science Foundation's total annual budget of US$5.5 billion was provided to the social and economic sciences combined 24 .

A small but noteworthy body of literature exemplifies the value of social scientific research to the understanding of climate change adaptation and its barriers in agriculture, and to the development of effective strategies. A growing number of studies have focused on the perceptions and behaviours of farmers in developing countries in particular. A much smaller body of research has revealed the substantial influence of gender, social networks and institutions on adaptation outcomes, suggesting the need for significantly more research in these areas. Increasing methodological sophistication and data availability further enhance the utility and potential for the integration of the social sciences into interdisciplinary research endeavours, and their ability to inform policy. Taking advantage of the full value offered by the social sciences demands confronting three interrelated barriers to its uptake: norms and practices within scientific bodies that are not compatible with social scientific forms of inquiry, disciplinary resistance within the social sciences and insufficient financial support.

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Davidson, D. Gaps in agricultural climate adaptation research. Nature Clim Change 6 , 433–435 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3007

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CLIMATE CHANGE<br />

AND AGRICULTURE<br />

source of two powerful greenhouse gases: nitrogen oxide (N2O) <strong>and</strong> methane (CH4): • The N20 is<br />

released into the atmosphere most often as a result of microbial transformation of nitrogen<br />

fertilizers in the soil; the production of N20 in agriculture accounts for more than half of the total<br />

emissions from agriculture; • The release of CH4 is the commonest result of intestinal fermentation<br />

in ruminants (stomach fermentation) • Emissions of N2O <strong>and</strong> CH4 are the result of the storage of<br />

manure fertilizers - the decomposition of manure stored under conditions of reduced oxygenation -<br />

as well as its disintegration in fields <strong>and</strong> other agricultural l<strong>and</strong>s (Lobell et al., 2008). <strong>Agriculture</strong><br />

almost does not release carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere - the widespread greenhouse gas<br />

in the atmosphere (see emission measurement data). On the contrary, agricultural l<strong>and</strong>, which<br />

occupies half of the territory of the EU, contains large quantities of carbon reserves, which helps to<br />

reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The climate that is changing is also a major challenge<br />

for agriculture <strong>and</strong> the formation of agricultural policy. This brochure explains how EU agriculture is<br />

endangered <strong>and</strong> how it affects global warming, as well as how the sector <strong>and</strong> the EU agricultural<br />

policy can be tackled with the double challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while<br />

adapting to the projected impact of climate change. <strong>Climate</strong> change affects many economic<br />

sectors, <strong>and</strong> agriculture is one of the most dem<strong>and</strong>ing, because agricultural products are directly<br />

dependent on climatic factors. Access to natural resources (l<strong>and</strong>, air, water) is crucial for the survival<br />

of agriculture. This is equally important for everyone in Europe, because arable l<strong>and</strong>, forests <strong>and</strong><br />

forest l<strong>and</strong> cover almost 90% of the EU area. <strong>Climate</strong> variability is one of the main reasons one year,<br />

which leads to a change in annual harvests <strong>and</strong> presents an unavoidable risk of agricultural<br />

production. Therefore, agriculture is in the first struggles in the fight against the effects of climate<br />

change. Adaptation is a critical challenge for agriculture <strong>and</strong> rural areas. At global level, emissions<br />

are calculated by sector using st<strong>and</strong>ard IPCC methods for enumeration of greenhouse gases. All EU<br />

Member States are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on <strong>Climate</strong> <strong>Change</strong><br />

<strong>and</strong> report on their annual emissions of greenhouse gases in accordance with a common<br />

framework for reports. The list of gases in agriculture includes emissions of methane (CH4) <strong>and</strong><br />

nitrogen oxide (N2O). Both gases are usually converted to CO2 equivalent because it is a way to<br />

match their different global warming potentials. CO2 emissions generated from agricultural<br />

machinery, facilities <strong>and</strong> farms are not included in the category agriculture, but in the list of "energy"<br />

gases. The extraction of carbon from agricultural l<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> cultures is also not part of agricultural<br />

budgets, but is reported through a section called "L<strong>and</strong> Use, L<strong>and</strong> Use <strong>Change</strong>, <strong>and</strong> Forestry".<br />

Therefore, measurement of emissions in agriculture is much more difficult than in other industrial<br />

activities, due to the complex biological <strong>and</strong> ecological processes involved in the release of gases<br />

from agricultural systems. The methodology for calculating emissions combines the use of countryspecific<br />

data (number of animals, area of planted agro-cultures, use of fertilizers) <strong>and</strong> st<strong>and</strong>ard<br />

factors that influence the release of gases (i.e. the amount of CH4 per animal). For example: the

amount of CH4 released during the digestion process in ruminants is calculated according to the<br />

number of animals multiplied by the factor of the release of gases per animal. These emission<br />

factors are unsafe <strong>and</strong> conceal important sources of spatial variability <strong>and</strong> do not take into account<br />

many of the activities taken to mitigate the consequences in the agricultural sector. For example,<br />

emission data take into account the predicted changes in the amount of fertilizer use, but there are<br />

therefore no foreseen changes in the application technology or the composition of the fertilizer.<br />

Therefore, it should be noted that the results do not accurately reflect the emissions from<br />

agriculture, because they include too many uncertain factors. The conclusion is that the monitoring<br />

methodology needs to be developed, with the aim of increasing the accuracy of the greenhouse gas<br />

emissions assessment from agriculture. The trend of emission reductions, originating from<br />

agriculture, is largely the result of an improvement in the ease of agricultural practice (for example:<br />

using the latest technology in the use of fertilizers <strong>and</strong> better fertilization conditions), the<br />

implementation of the "Nitrate Directive" (which includes voluntary <strong>and</strong> m<strong>and</strong>atory rules for the use<br />

<strong>and</strong> use of fertilizers) <strong>and</strong> encouragement from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), such as<br />

stimulating direct payments to farmers if they apply <strong>and</strong> respect certain ecological conditions. In<br />

the period from 1990 to 2005, significant reductions occurred in the major sources of emissions in<br />

agriculture: ruminant methane <strong>and</strong> nitrogen oxide from the soil. Reducing the methane release<br />

(above 20%) of livestock is primarily a result of a drastic reduction in the number of throats. All<br />

Member States except Portugal <strong>and</strong> Spain have reduced greenhouse gas emissions from stomach<br />

fermentation in the survivors, <strong>and</strong> the newest Member States have the greatest success. The release<br />

of methane into the air, from manure, was also reduced by 9%, with the greatest improvement in<br />

corn prevention in the new Member States (Huntingford et al., 2005). Unlike other industries, the<br />

release of gases in agriculture cannot be easily controlled by pressing the switch on the machine.<br />

The approach to sustainability of agriculture is to enable it to deliver certain ecological results while<br />

remaining a self-sustaining, competitive economic sector that has economic <strong>and</strong> social advantages.<br />

Measures that contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the production of<br />

agricultural products are not always the result of the implementation of a specific change in climate<br />

change policy, but are driven by general agricultural <strong>and</strong> environmental policies aimed at the longterm<br />

sustainability of the sector.

Y. S., Rao, G .G. S. N., Rao, S. G. & Vijayakumar, P. (2006). Impact of climate change in<br />

Ramakrishna,<br />

In: Chadha, K. L. <strong>and</strong> Swaminathan, M. S. (ed.), Environment <strong>and</strong> <strong>Agriculture</strong>, New<br />

<strong>Agriculture</strong>.<br />

D. B., Burke, M., Tebaldi, C., Mastr<strong>and</strong>rea, M., Falcon, W. & Naylor, R. (2008). Prioritizing<br />

Lobell,<br />

change adaptation needs for food security in 2030. Science, 319, 607 - 10.<br />

climate<br />

A., Lane, A. & Hijmans, R. J. (2007). The effect of climate change on crop wild relatives,<br />

Jarvis,<br />

Ecosystems, <strong>and</strong> Environment, 126 (1/2), 13 - 23.<br />

<strong>Agriculture</strong>,<br />

C., Lambert, F. H, Gash, J. H. C., Taylor, C. M. & Challinor, A. J. (2005). Aspects of climate<br />

Huntingford,<br />

prediction relevant to crop productivity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B<br />

change<br />

References<br />

Delhi: Malhotra Publishing House.<br />

360, 1999 - 2009.

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<strong>Climate</strong>.<strong>PhD</strong>researchon.com RESEARCH PROPOSAL ON PHD CHANGE ADAPTATION CLIMATE SAMPLE PHD RESEARCH PROPOSAL ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND AGRICULTURE <strong>Climate</strong> change is now recognized as one of the biggest <strong>and</strong> most serious challenges for the planet - humanity, the human environment <strong>and</strong> the world economy. There is now evident scientific evidence that high concentrations of gases in the atmosphere that cause greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the reason for global warming. And while the world has faced climatic changes before, this is the first time that they appear as a result of human influence. It is a challenge that we can <strong>and</strong> must deal with. It is believed that most of the global warming we are witnessing today is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, as a result of human activities, especially changes in the use of soil by deforestation, as well as the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil <strong>and</strong> gas). Europe is warmer by almost 1 ° C in the last century, which is more <strong>and</strong> more rapidly than the global average (Ramakrishna et al., 2006). Climatic conditions have become more variable. Rainfall <strong>and</strong> snowfall increased significantly in Northern Europe, while precipitation was significantly reduced, <strong>and</strong> droughts were more common in Southern Europe. Temperatures are becoming more extreme <strong>and</strong> at the same time floods are becoming more <strong>and</strong> more common. While individual weather phenomena cannot be attributed to one single cause, statistical analyzes show that the risk of such events is significantly increased as a result of climate change. Economic losses caused by weather <strong>and</strong> catastrophes have increased significantly over recent years. Given its wide range of effects, climate change, both in the medium <strong>and</strong> long term, will have a major impact on changing policy making. Today, climate change is a twofold challenge: how to reduce the release of greenhouse gases that are the causes of global warming (known as mitigation of impact); <strong>and</strong> how to adapt to current <strong>and</strong> future climate change in order to reduce the negative impact that will have on us - adaptation. The changing climate is a very big challenge for agriculture in the process of shaping agricultural policies. This brochure explains how the European Union's agriculture is affected by, <strong>and</strong> how it affects global warming, <strong>and</strong> how the agricultural sector <strong>and</strong> the EU agricultural policy can be tackled with the double challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while adapting to the presumed effect climate change. <strong>Agriculture</strong> needs to tackle the double challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions while adapting to the expected effects of climate change. <strong>Agriculture</strong> also releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but this is relatively less in comparison with other economic sectors. <strong>Agriculture</strong> can also offer solutions to the challenges of climate change in the EU. <strong>Agriculture</strong> is an important

• Page 2 and 3: Climate.PhDresearchon.com CLIMATE C
• Page 4: Y. S., Rao, G .G. S. N., Rao, S. G.

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USDA Makes $1.5 Billion Available to Help Farmers Advance Conservation and Climate-Smart Agriculture as Part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda

Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will help farmers save money, create new revenue streams, enhance natural resources, and tackle the climate crisis.

MANKATO, Minn., April 3, 2024 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the availability of an historic $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2024 to invest in partner-driven conservation and climate solutions through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is accepting project proposals now through July 2, 2024, that will help farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners adopt and expand conservation strategies to enhance natural resources while tackling the climate crisis. These projects in turn can save farmers money, create new revenue streams, and increase productivity.  

The investments in climate-smart agriculture that USDA has made since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, and will continue to make through the Inflation Reduction Act and Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities , are estimated to support over 180,000 farms and over 225 million acres in the next 5 years. Today’s investment is made available through the Farm Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in history, which has enabled USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to boost funding for RCPP. Additionally, NRCS is announcing progress on its effort to streamline and simplify RCPP and improve processes and implementation.  “We had unprecedented demand for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program last year, showing the robust interest in conservation from farmers and ranchers,” Secretary Vilsack said. “Through the increase in funding from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, we’re able to invest even more this year in this important program, increasing our impact across the landscape. We’re looking forward to seeing what the more streamlined and customer-oriented Regional Conservation Partnership Program can do to get more conservation on the ground in the coming months and years.”  There are two separate funding opportunities being announced today: RCPP Classic and RCPP Alternative Funding Arrangements (AFA). RCPP Classic projects are implemented using NRCS contracts and easements with producers, landowners and communities in collaboration with project partners. Through RCPP AFA, the lead partner works directly with agricultural producers to support the development of innovative conservation approaches that would not otherwise be available under RCPP Classic. NRCS will set aside $100 million for Tribal-led projects to be used between both funding opportunities.

The 2024 RCPP funding priorities are climate-smart agriculture, urban agriculture, conservation, and environmental justice. This funding advances President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative , which aims to ensure that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain climate, clean energy, and other federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. Today’s action also advances President Biden’s America the Beautiful initiative, a 10-year, locally led and nationally scaled conservation initiative that includes the voluntary efforts of farmers, ranchers and private landowners.

NRCS encourages proposals led by historically underserved entities or Indian tribes.

Project proposals for RCPP are being accepted through the RCPP portal . Details on the RCPP Classic and RCPP AFA funding opportunities are available on Grants.gov.  NRCS will be hosting webinars to provide additional information. Learn how to participate at the RCPP website . 

More about RCPP  

RCPP is a partner-driven approach to conservation that funds solutions to natural resource challenges on agricultural land. By leveraging collective resources and collaborating on common goals, RCPP demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships in delivering results for agriculture and conservation.     In November 2023, NRCS announced more than $1 billion for 81 RCPP projects across the country. View the interactive map of awarded projects here .  Since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, NRCS has invested a total of $1.8 billion in 256 RCPP projects covering 49 states and territories.  

More about the RCPP Improvement Effort 

Through a concerted effort in 2023 using feedback and expertise from partners, employees, leadership and stakeholders, NRCS identified several improvements to RCPP that the agency has implemented and will continue to implement in the months and years ahead. In fiscal year 2024, NRCS is: 

• Streamlining RCPP agreement negotiation to allow simultaneous execution of program partnership and supplemental agreements; 
• Updating policy and business tools to streamline the development of RCPP agreement deliverables and reducing the need for nationally approved waivers; 
• Conducting annual comprehensive training for state program managers and support staff; and 
• Delegating additional authority to State Conservationists to support locally led projects. 

NRCS will continue to invest in creating a new business tool to support greater automation of RCPP agreement development, obligating funding to partners, and quicker processing of payments.  NRCS is working on model easement deeds to streamline implementation of RCPP easements that use common deed terms for specific land uses.  This year, NRCS aims to reduce negotiation time from 15 months to 6 months, with the goal to reduce the time even further in future years.  For the full list of RCPP improvements NRCS has identified, please visit our website .  In addition to improving RCPP, NRCS is also working to make improvements to its Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and Conservation Stewardship Program to make them function better for producers, partners and staff. 

More about the Inflation Reduction Act 

These two RCPP funding opportunities include Farm Bill and Inflation Reduction Act funds.   In total, the Inflation Reduction Act provides $19.5 billion over five years to support USDA’s oversubscribed conservation programs, including $4.95 billion for RCPP over five years. The Inflation Reduction Act, part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, represents the single largest investment in climate and clean energy solutions in American history. Learn more about NRCS’ Inflation Reduction Act investments in fiscal year 2023.  

USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit usda.gov .    #  

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Impact of climate change on primary agriculture, water sources and food security in Western Cape, South Africa

Elliot m. zwane.

1 Department of Agricultural Extension and Animal Production, Centre of Rural Community Empowerment, University of Limpopo, Sovenga, South Africa

Climate change is undoubtedly one of the biggest crises that humanity is facing today. There is a robust scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is occurring not only in the Western Cape but around the world. The objective of this research was to assess the impact of climate change on primary agriculture and food security. The paper is based on a literature review. A variety of literature reviews, for example, 11 government reports and 21 journal articles including experience outside Western Cape, were consulted to enrich the local experience regarding the impact of climate change on agriculture. The results indicated that many dams had low water levels (40%) during 2016/2017, which reduced crop yields including grapes. Droughts, which affected both smallholder and commercial farmers, are now a common phenomenon. Livestock production has declined over time, with small stock, the beef and dairy industry being the most affected. The paper concludes by highlighting climate adaptation and mitigation interventions and strategies for both crops and livestock production in the Western Cape. The major recommendations included scaling up on the use of organic matter to avoid burning and creating gas emissions to the atmosphere, the effective use of livestock manure and the use of appropriate and adaptable seed varieties, managing the manure of the livestock to assist in mulching to reduce water loss through evaporation and using adaptable seeds.

Keywords: climate change; impact; mitigation; primary agriculture; adaptation; drought.

Introduction and background

Climate change is considered to be one of the biggest challenges that communities are facing locally and internationally (IPCC 2006). The reason why climate change is interpreted as a crisis is that it affects the very sources of human livelihood that are agriculture and the environment. Any disturbance in either agriculture or the environment affects the sources of livelihood of communities. Agriculture plays a major role in food production that feeds nations. The estimated population growth of 1.5 billion in the sub-Saharan countries will expect agriculture to feed them by 2050 (FAO 2007 ). The projected situation of sub-Saharan countries is that they will experience challenges of climate change (Cohen et al. 2008 ). However, the situation has changed, with extreme heat especially in the subtropics and changes in the rainfall pattern (Serdeczny et al. 2015 ). Evidence suggests that the climate change is already affecting the sub-Saharan countries. In a study documented by 350 Africa.org ( n.d .), it showed eight ways in which the impact of climate change affects Africa and the sub-Saharan countries. It was confirmed that livestock such as goats and sheep were dying because of a lack of grazing, and water sources were drying up, causing a serious conflict among the users. The impact of climate change also affects South Africa.

Benhin ( 2006 ) asserted that as far as agriculture in South Africa is concerned, it is a highly sophisticated and successful sector that is made up of medium- to large-scale farms. These farms are commercially oriented, capital intensive and generally produce a surplus, which account for 90% of the value added and cover 86% of the agricultural land (NDA 2000 ). The availability of water has become the most limiting factor when it comes to agricultural production in South Africa, especially when one considers rainfall pattern because rainfall is unevenly distributed across the country. According to DWAF ( 2004 ), South Africa receives an annual rainfall of 450 mm, which is low when compared with the world’s average of 860 mm, and it has high levels of evaporation; on the contrary, South Africa has only 10% of its area that receives more than 750 mm, of which 50% is used for agriculture.

The Western Cape is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It lies in the Mediterranean climate zone receiving winter rainfall as opposed to the rest of the provinces. It is located on the southern tip of the African continent between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. It is bordered by the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape provinces; the region is topographic and climatically diverse (Western Cape Municipalities 2017 ). The Western Cape covers an area of 129 462 km 2 . It is the fourth largest province in South Africa by surface area and also ranks fourth in population. The Western Cape is rich in agriculture and fisheries. It is an ideal place for grape cultivation. Other fruits and vegetables are also grown here. The province is divided into one metropolitan municipality, five district municipalities, and 24 local municipalities (Western Cape Municipalities 2018 ).

Agriculture plays an important role by providing food and earning foreign currency (Hoffman & Harrison n.d. ). According to Pienaar ( 2017 ), the Western Cape is one of the provinces which export agricultural products to both other provinces and other countries in the world; different industries such as the deciduous fruit, wine and citrus are found in the Western Cape, which contribute significantly to the overall agri-economy of South Africa. It contributes 2% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Apart from crops, the Western Cape has livestock. It is estimated that the Western Cape contributes 24% of the GDP in South Africa. The total contribution of agriculture to the GDP of the Western Cape is around 4% (Hoffman & Harrison n.d. ).

What motivated this study was the fact that the Western Cape used to supply the other provinces with fodder; however, the situation started to change in 2014 and 2015. The water situation started to deteriorate, leading to negative performance and strict measures of controlling irrigation water. The Western Cape Department of Agriculture organised annual symposiums and speaker after speaker spoke about the need to contain the drought by capacitating the extension advisory services.

The author being one of the speakers in one of the annual symposia noticed that the adverse effect of climate change on agriculture would have severe implications in ensuring food for the region. According to Benhin ( 2006 ), South Africa and the Western Cape contribute 50% of maize as the staple diet of the South African Development Community (SADC). The author undertook this study to establish what impact the 3-year drought has had on to the primary agriculture. Of greater interest was the fact that when the inland provinces, such as Limpopo, were affected by drought in 1981–1984 and subsequent years (Maponya & Mpandeli 2016 ), the Western Cape was the life blood of the nation, as it would supply livestock products, food and fruits to the rest of the provinces. However, with the changes in climate, the Western Cape Province has experienced severe drought since 2015. It is the only province that enjoys a Mediterranean climate; therefore, it was imperative for the writer to explore their strategies in dealing with their primary agriculture in the wake of climate change in order to provide lessons that could be adapted for other provinces in South Africa.

Problem statement

There is little understanding about the concept of climate change and how this phenomenon affects smallholder farmers in the Western Cape Province. Climate change has negative impacts on crops and animals, resulting in food insecurity. Given the yearly reduced crop and livestock yields, farmers and communities in the Western Cape have been baffled by a number of questions that point to their lack of understanding of the concept of climate change and variability. The major question is the following: what strategies can be adopted to mitigate climate challenges? The impact of climate change has been reported by a number of studies, people, government departments and non-state actors.

The evidence and impacts of climate change in the Western Cape are largely highlighted in the studies by Shabangu ( 2017 ); IPCC ( 2007 ) and the Government of the Western Cape ( 2014 ). Agricultural extension services become a must in the drive to increase food production. Such services provide knowledge and advice to primary food producers and facilitate awareness on the changes that occur in the environment and how such changes affect production of food in the Western Cape. This article sought to conceptualise climate change and variability as it affects smallholder farmers in the Western Cape. The impact of climate change on water sources, livestock and crops is highlighted and mitigation strategies are recommended.

Methodology

The paper is based on a literature review. Different search engines were used to search ‘climate change’-related articles in journals and books. Of eight government reports, four were written by consultants on behalf of the government, and 21 articles were found from journals, giving the number of required studies to undertake this research. This means that many articles were consulted and the viewpoints were collected as the basis and parameters for this paper. As indicated, general reports about the Western Cape were used as well as those that reported on challenges of climate change in the Western Cape were included: such as ‘Policy and strategic documents’ Government Policy on Climate Change of ( 2014 ), the Climate Change Response Strategy in the Western Cape ( 2014 ), the Western Cape Climate Change Response Framework ( 2014 ), Green Agri, a Policy Framework for Climate Change for response in the West Coast District ( 2014 ) and the Farmer’s Weekly of May 2017. All these documents and articles were found useful in terms of expanding the frontiers of knowledge on climate change in the Western Cape. It should be noted that there was no specific study area selected for this article. The methodology was to review the different areas and to point out whether there are policies to deal with the impact of climate change in the Western Cape.

Findings and discussion

Conceptualisation and contextualisation of climate change.

Understanding the concept of climate change is critical because many researchers forget to include climate variability and report on climate change as if it is something happening within a short timeframe. Scientists speak about climate change as changes that take place (where) over a long period, and one needs to have records to measure the changes that took place (IPCC 2007 ). In the absence of records, one has to include climate variability; for example, Afful ( 2016 ) used the concept of climate variability in his conceptualisation and discussion of the extension competency in climate change. There is a need to differentiate between climate change and variability. According to WIRED UK ( 2018 ), climate change is a broad range of global phenomena created predominantly by burning fossil fuels, which add heat-trapping gases to the earth’s atmosphere. These phenomena include the increased temperature trends described by global warming, which also encompass changes such as sea-level rise; ice mass loss in Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic and mountain glaciers worldwide; shifts in flower/plant blooming; and extreme events. Other authors view the definition from a different perspective; for example, climate change in the IPCC ( 2007 ) refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period of time, typically decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate over time, whether caused by natural variability or as a result of human activity. This definition provides a comprehensive insight; for example, it was reported that the gradual yet dramatic disappearance of the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro is a result of climate change (350Africa.org). The glaciers act as a water tower and several rivers are now drying up. It is estimated that 82% of the ice that capped the mountain, when it was first recorded in 1912, is now gone (350Africa.org).

Climate has always been changing naturally; the current impact of human activities is causing the climate to change in an unnatural way and at a faster pace than ever before (Shabangu 2017 ). This unnatural and human-induced climate change is problematic as it is causing shifts in the normal climatic conditions such as rainfall and temperature, which, in turn, are placing pressure on the planet’s natural environment and have negative impacts on people and their livelihoods (Benhin 2006 ). The question that is asked is the following: what is drought and whether it is caused by climate change or not? According to the Western Cape Government ( 2017 ), there are four types of drought. The first one is meteorological drought: this is an extended period during which less than a certain amount of the normal (long-term average) rainfall is received over a large area.

The second one is hydrological drought: the impact of a reduction in rainfall on natural and artificial surface water resources. Furthermore, this type of drought occurs when there is a deficit in surface runoff below normal conditions or when there is normal depletion of groundwater supplies. Hydrological drought reduces the supply of water for irrigation and other household and industrial uses. The third one is agricultural drought: a reduction in water availability below the optimal level required by a crop during each different growth stage, resulting in impaired growth and reduced yields. Agricultural drought relates to an imbalance in water content of the soil during the growing season. The fourth one is the socio-economic drought: the impact of drought on human activities, including both indirect and direct impacts. It relates to institutional economic decision-making. Socio-economic drought occurs when demand for freshwater exceeds supply (Western Cape Government 2017 ).

These drought scenarios were explained in the government communication for farmers, alerting them of what to expect in the Western Cape. There was an argument as to which stage can be declared as a disaster. It is the writers’ view that all the municipalities are affected and as such the situation of drought and climate change affect all areas of the Western Cape, for example, the water rationing, especially in the city of Cape Town, is a case in point.

Causes of climate change

Studies show that there is no single factor that causes climate change. Indications from literature are that both humans and non-humans can cause climate change (Cracknell 2011 ; Shabangu 2017 ). Humans could be engaged in activities that increase the amount of heat-trapping gases in the earth’s atmosphere, a phenomenon called ‘greenhouse gases’. According to Cracknell ( 2011 ), greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere and are important as they make the earth’s temperature warm enough for life to exist. Without these heat-trapping gases, the planet would be far too cold, making it uninhabitable.

However, as humans increase the amount of these gases in the atmosphere, more and more heat is trapped, which, in turn, is causing the climate to change. Human activities release a range of greenhouse gases; however, there are four major gases that cause climate change: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases. Carbon dioxide, according to Cracknell ( 2011 ), is the major global contributor to climate change and is released through the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) and the removal of biomass, especially through deforestation in the tropical regions.

The second most important greenhouse gas is methane. The high emissions of methane arise from agricultural activities and practices, in particular, from the management of manure and the decomposition of organic waste. It is important to indicate that the mismanagement of manure may result in releasing more gases into the atmosphere. These gases are known to be promoting climate change.

The third key greenhouse gas is nitrous oxide, which is also released during agricultural activities, mainly through the application of nitrogen fertilisers, depending on the type of fertilisers that are being used; some fertilisers can contribute to climate change, for example, nitrogen fertilisers can decompose under anaerobic conditions to produce a gas known as nitric oxide, which can escape into the atmosphere to cause havoc, thereby destroying the cover of the atmosphere. The final category of greenhouse gas is fluorinated gases; these are emitted during industrial processes but have a minimal impact compared to other gases (Aydinalp & Cresser 2008 ; Cracknell 2011 ).

The following livestock were reported: 493 380 herd of cattle in February 2004; the Western Cape accounted for just 3.6% of the national herd, although its 2 979 410 sheep make up a more substantial 10.6%. The region also has 239 757 pigs (15.3%) and 244 915 goats (3.7%). The industry is both extensive and field-based (cattle and sheep), or intensive and based on grain feeds (poultry and pigs) (Vink & Tregurtha n.d. ). Furthermore, there are 1267 milk producers in the Western Cape (Vink & Tregurtha n.d. ), and the management of manure becomes important. It should be understood that no matter how little these gasses are produced by livestock, the potential to contribute to damaging the atmospheric layer serving as a cause of climate change exists in the Western Cape based on the numbers of the livestock.

Implications of greenhouse gases to food security

Food security, according to Benhin ( 2006 ), is defined as a ‘state that prevails when people have secure access to sufficient nutritious food for normal growth, development, and an active and healthy life’. This explanation is in line with the understanding of other researchers and important institutions that promote food security (DAFF 2014 ). According to Cracknell ( 2011 ), greenhouse gas emissions are causing the earth to get warmer.

Warmer temperatures are causing other major changes around the world. Impacts of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere include a rise in weather-related incidents such as floods, droughts, frosts, hailstones and destructive storms; the extinction of countless plant and animal species; the loss of agricultural harvests in vulnerable areas; the changing of agricultural seasons; the melting of glaciers; the disruption of water supplies; the expansion of infectious tropical diseases; the rising of sea levels and much more (Benhin 2006 ). One of the sectors most affected by climate change is the agricultural sector as it is dependent on environmental stability in terms of water supply, atmospheric temperatures, soil fertility and the incidents of pests and disease (Benhin 2006 ).

The negative effects of climate change affect smallholder farmers which directly has an impact on food security. Furthermore, the people most vulnerable to climate change impacts are communities in developing countries, given their low or compromised resilience levels to climate change (Cohen et al. 2008 ). Communities in developing countries have limited financial and technical resources to support climate adaptation and mitigation (Benhin 2006 ). Smallholder farmers in rural areas, such as the tea farmers in Kenya, will be severely affected unless action is taken now to ensure that they are aware of the impacts of climate change and are supported to address these impacts using locally appropriate solutions (Cohen et al. 2008 ).

Climate change has significant impact on agriculture, especially on those crops that are dependent on consistent climatic conditions; hence, it affects food security (Vink & Tergurtha n.d. ); it also causes the growing season to be shortened, resulting in disastrous failure (Benhin 2006 ). Thus, smallholder farmers who depend on agriculture may experience food shortages. It is important to note that leadership in the two departments of Local Government and the Department of Economic Opportunities responsible for Economic Development and Tourism have acknowledged and agreed that ‘extreme weather events are threatening food security and economic growth’ (Western Cape Department of Agriculture 2016 :7). This paper argues that action needs to be taken to mitigate the impact of climate change in the Western Cape Province.

Impact of climate change on crop production

Climate change and climate variability present a negative influence on crop production (Afful 2016 ). In areas, for example, where irrigation is insufficient, crops wither and die, thus reducing the yield. The reduced yield could further mean reduced profit and increased poverty. However, certain steps need to be taken to mitigate climate change and improve crop production. The following mitigation could be adopted. It has also been found that climate change affects crops by spreading new types of diseases that were not there in the past (Cohen et al. 2008 ). Such diseases and pests might be difficult to control because of a lack of registered pest control remedies.

The outbreak of the fall armyworm in South Africa, for example, presented new challenges and caused havoc to the farmers in the beginning of 2017 (M. Motupa [Limpopo Department of Agriculture, Gravelot Service Centre] pers. comm., 18 April 2017). As far as the Western Cape is concerned, the drought and heat affected fruit quality (e.g. size, sunburn, colour and storage ability) in the 2016 and 2017 season, and the demand has decreased in key markets; therefore, the export share is expected to decrease by 4.2%. A similar trend was observed in terms of vegetable production, and one tomato firm was closed down because of climate change (Western Cape Government 2017 ). In the Ceres region, 50% fewer onions and 80% fewer potatoes were planted because of a lack of water. The reduced production could be translated to a R40-million loss in wages to seasonal workers (Agri Western Cape, 20 September 2017) cited by the Western Cape Government ( 2017 ).

Mitigation measures for crop production

It is very important that crops should be adapted to the agricultural environment in the wake of climate change. Research can make a contribution in the breeding of new climate-tolerant crop varieties to suit the changing climate patterns (source). Historical and current breeding practices and experience indicate that natural biodiversity within crops has allowed for plant adaptation to different conditions, providing clear evidence that plant breeding has great potential to support adaptation of crops to climate change (IPCC 1996 ). The development of a cropping system that can also be seen as another measure can help agriculture in the Western Cape to adapt to a changing climate (Vink 2003 ). It has been found that where crop mixtures were used, there has been positive results in terms of output because if several crops are growing at one time, this can help systems exhibit greater durability during periods of high water or heat stress (IPCC 1996 ).

According to Davies ( 2014 ), the Government of the Western Cape adopted a climate change response strategy that, among others, focussed on food security. Some of the strategies included exploring alternative crops and testing them under drought conditions, conservation farming practices, crop rotation, more efficient use of water, renewable energy farm planning, and monitoring of plant and soil changes. It is true that climate-related disasters pose significant challenges to the agricultural sector of the Western Cape. There is doubt that if this is not addressed adequately, the intensification of disaster risks associated with climate change have the potential to undermine the productivity and resilience of this sector.

The impacts also extend significantly into the wider provincial economy. It is for this reason that the Government of the Western Cape has developed a drought response strategy in which mitigation issues have been implemented. The Government of the Western Cape has rolled out a wide range of support actions in partnership with industry organisations and Agri Western Cape; for example, it provided drought support (mainly feed provision) to stock farmers, and the Avian Influenza epidemic had been well managed (Government of Western Cape 2017).

Impact of drought on livestock production

Drought knows no size of farming; it affects both smallholder and large-scale farming. This was confirmed by Swart in 2016 who presented in the AGRA (Agricultural forum consisting of role players called to discuss drought situation) dialogue on drought, who reported that all categories of farmers were affected by climate change. There was not sufficient fodder for their livestock within the commercial farming sector, and livestock were given potato seedlings to graze on because they were not being sold because of the drought (Swart 2016 ). While it is argued that climate change is causing havoc in livestock, Rust and Rust ( 2013 ) observed that some of the problems in livestock cooperatives were caused by conflicts resulting from poor leadership or the development of opportunistic ideas by individual members of the cooperatives. It is important that leadership should take advantage when policies are pronounced to help the farmers. Experience showed that selfishness does not help. Farmers need to be organised to fight the scourge of drought as a team rather than by competing with each other.

Climate change will affect animal production in different ways. Rust and Rust ( 2013 ) identified four ways: changes in livestock feed, grain availability and price challenges, the impact on livestock pastures and forage crop production and quality of feed changes in livestock diseases and pests, and the direct effects of extreme weather events on animal health, growth and reproduction. Furthermore, the indirect effects of climate-driven change in animal production may result mainly from alterations in the nutritional environment. Research indicates that changes in climate, to a large extent, will affect the quality and quantity of forage (Topp & Doyle 1996 ).

The impact of climate change may result in the deterioration of pasture, towards lesser quality, which, in turn, will affect the quality of animals; hence, the meat quality will also be affected. Sometimes the quality of meat may be affected by infected feed that the animals eat (Rust & Rust 2013 ). Changes in temperature and rainfall may result in the spread of disease and parasites creeping into new regions, or an increase in the incidence of pests and diseases. Pests and diseases reduce animal productivity and increase animal mortality (Baker & Viglizzo 1998 ).

Other changes include heat stress which, according to Fuquay ( 1981 ), has various detrimental effects on livestock. In the dairy herd, climate change will result in a decrease in fodder production from dry land and irrigated pastures, resulting in the rise in feed costs (Rust & Rust 2013 ).

As far as monogastric animals are concerned, they emit gases that if not managed will go into the atmosphere and destroy the layer that protects the intense heat from destroying the environment and human beings. Poultry meat and egg production are the most efficient animal protein production systems (Rust & Rust 2013 ). Poultry meat production is the most environmentally efficient (smallest carbon footprint per unit product produced), followed by pork and mutton (primarily lamb) with beef the least efficient (Williams, Audsley & Sandars 2006 ).

Some of the emissions can be reduced by using various housing techniques that have been developed to reduce emissions. A combination of housing and feeding measures seems most promising to achieve a substantial reduction in emissions at a relatively low cost (Van der Peet-Schwering et al. 1999 ). As far as the Western Cape is concerned, livestock farmers are among the hardest hit by the drought. An estimated 30 000 cattle have been sold as farmers were unable to feed their herds. The impacts of the drought in the summer rainfall region on beef cattle herds, with high numbers of animals slaughtered, have been reported (Government of Western Cape 2017).

Impact of climate change on water sources for irrigation

Climate change affects water for irrigation (Benhin 2006 ). It was also proved in the farmer’s perception that climate change is a reality in the Western Cape. For example, 50% of the sample interviewed by Benhin ( 2006 ) observed that the climate is becoming drier and hotter, the winter season has shortened and the rain is coming later than expected. The Farmers Weekly (2017) reported that in the Western Cape there was a decline in the volume of wine grapes harvested because of a lack of irrigation water (Du Preez 2017 ).

The dam levels have gone down to 30% (Du Preez 2017 ). It has been found that in other places, like some irrigation schemes such as Krokodilheuvel in the Limpopo province, irrigation has not been effective because it was a furrow system prior to the introduction of the drip and floppy systems of irrigation. It is the writers’ experience that where flood irrigation is used, it has proved to waste more water; hence, it was officially not recommended in the Limpopo province. Drip and sprinkler irrigations were recommended by the Limpopo Head Office (De Witt 2010 ).

It was further reported that farmers in the Western Cape have sold 30 000 cattle because of a lack of feed as a result of drought. The water availability was reported based on the rainfall received in the areas; for example, in 2016 rainfall in September was lower than 50% of the long-term mean in the northern and western parts of the Western Cape. Only the Southern Cape east of the Breede River mouth experienced normal to above-normal rainfall. In October of the same year, most areas had below-normal rainfall, with a few exceptions (Government of Western Cape 2017); this situation provides evidence that climate change is affecting the availability of water.

Mitigation for livestock production

It is understood that mitigation is associated with reducing risk of loss from the occurrence of any undesirable event. In general, mitigation means to minimise the degree of any loss or harm ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mitigation ). According to the response policy on climate change, mitigation factors imply that steps have to be taken to lessen the impact of climate change (Davies 2014 ; Western Cape Department of Agriculture 2014 ). The Western Cape’s response strategy is a two-pronged process consisting of mitigation and adaptation. In terms of mitigation, it aims at making some contribution to national and global efforts to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a sustainable low carbon economy in the Western Cape, while simultaneously addressing the need for economic growth, job creation and improving socio-economic conditions.

The second strategy, namely adaptation, aims to reduce climate vulnerability and develop the adaptive capacity of the Western Cape’s economy, its people, its ecosystems and its critical infrastructure in a manner that simultaneously addresses the province’s socioeconomic and environmental goals. Beef and dairy cattle can contribute to climate change through the greenhouse gasses they emit. On the contrary, beef and dairy cattle are tolerant to heat stress (Rust & Rust 2013 ).

However, in the case of dairy and monogastric animals, the following need to be considered: lowering the concentrations of urea and ammonia in the slurry; lowering the temperature of the slurry; reducing the emitting surface area; and reducing the pH of the slurry (Rust & Rust 2013 ). It is important that we need to be seen taking steps to deal with climate change and not to promote it but to adopt mitigation steps. The Western Cape will need to work and ensure that natural resources are well managed to reduce climate vulnerability. The other area to work on would be to improve resilience and coping capacity within the various communities that are also vulnerable. The other step would be to actively adapt some of the practices to climate change.

Conclusion and recommendations

It is evident that climate change is one of the biggest challenges that humanity is facing both in the Western Cape Province and internationally. It was evident that extension advisors did not have sufficient knowledge of climate change, including its causes. The findings indicated that humans also cause climate change; hence, it is important that humans should be made aware of the concept of climate change and its impacts so that they can adopt climate smart farming techniques and practices. This research was conducted in the spirit of equipping extension advisors to take note of it in order to promote adaptation and mitigation measures.

This paper discussed the findings and specifically made reference to crops and livestock that indicate how the Western Cape has been affected by climate change, especially during the 2015 and 2016 drought. The article concluded by listing some of the mitigation steps that need to be considered in both crop and livestock production. Based on the findings, it is recommended that measures of mitigation should be adopted towards food security and these include the following:

• breeding livestock that are adaptable to the environment
• adopting precise farming strategies as pronounced in the climate change reports of the Western Cape like the policy of climate change of the Western Cape
• minimising environmental degradation like burning of organic materials because gases affect the atmospheric layer that serves as a protection against ultraviolet rays; furthermore, human beings should refrain from injudicious use of irrigation water and fertilisers; avoid overgrazing; keep the correct size of the herd; and not burn organic matter but rather adapt other practices like composting
• managing the manure of the animals and using adaptable seeds from crop breeding
• low-income people, who depend on vulnerable subsistence agriculture, should be assisted with the correct measures
• promoting climate research uptake among extension officers so that they can contribute to the body of knowledge that will mitigate or adapt to climate change
• developing more drought-resistant dry land crops and pastures for dairy consumption and adopting more effective and environmentally friendly farming practices
• conducting education and sensitisation workshops for extension advisors to enable them to fight the effects of climate change at local and regional levels.

Acknowledgements

Competing interests.

The author declares no competing interests with regard to the writing of this article.

How to cite this article: Zwane, E.M., 2019, ‘Impact of climate change on primary agriculture, water sources and food security in Western Cape, South Africa’, Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies 11(1), a562. https://doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v11i1.562

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• Methane (CH 4 ) : Agricultural activities, waste management, energy production and use, and biomass burning all contribute to CH 4 emissions.
• Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) : Agricultural activities, such as fertilizer use, are the primary source of N 2 O emissions. Chemical production and fossil fuel combustion also generates N 2 O.
• Fluorinated gases (F-gases) : Industrial processes, refrigeration, and the use of a variety of consumer products contribute to emissions of F-gases, which include hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ).

Additional compounds in the atmosphere including solid and liquid aerosol and other greenhouse gases, such as water vapor and ground-level ozone can also impact the climate. Learn more about these compounds and climate change on our Basics of Climate Change page .

Global greenhouse gas emissions can also be broken down by the economic activities that lead to their atmospheric release. [1]

• Electricity and Heat Production (34% of 2019 global greenhouse gas emissions): The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Industry (24% of 2019 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from industry primarily involve fossil fuels burned on site at facilities for energy. This sector also includes emissions from chemical, metallurgical, and mineral transformation processes not associated with energy consumption and emissions from waste management activities. (Note: Emissions from industrial electricity use are excluded and are instead covered in the Electricity and Heat Production sector.)
• Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (22% of 2019 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector come mostly from agriculture (cultivation of crops and livestock) and deforestation. This estimate does not include the CO 2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon (e.g. in biomass, soils). [2]
• Transportation (15% of 2019 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector primarily involve fossil fuels burned for road, rail, air, and marine transportation. Almost all (95%) of the world's transportation energy comes from petroleum-based fuels, largely gasoline and diesel. [3]
• Buildings (6% of 2019 global greenhouse gas emissions): Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector arise from onsite energy generation and burning fuels for heat in buildings or cooking in homes. Note: Emissions from this sector are 16% when electricity use in buildings is included in this sector instead of the Energy sector.

Note on emissions sector categories.

Emissions of non-CO 2 greenhouse gases (CH 4 , N 2 O, and F-gases) have also increased significantly since 1850.

• Globally, greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise across all sectors and subsectors, most rapidly in the transport and industry sectors.
• While the trend in emissions continues to rise, annual greenhouse gas growth by sector slowed in 2010 to 2019, compared to 2000 to 2009, for energy and industry, however remained roughly stable for transport.
• The trend for for AFOLU remains more uncertain, due to the multitude of drivers that affect emissions and removals for land use, land-use change and forestry.
• rising demand for construction materials and manufactured products,
• increasing floor space per capita,
• increasing building energy use,
• travel distances, and vehicle size and weight.

To learn more about past and projected global emissions of non-CO 2 gases, please see the EPA report, Global Non-CO 2 Greenhouse Gas Emission Projections & Mitigation Potential: 2015-2050 . For further insights into mitigation strategies specifically within the U.S. forestry and agriculture sectors, refer to the latest Climate Economic Analysis report on Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potential in U.S. Forestry and Agriculture .

In 2020, the top ten greenhouse gas emitters were China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Japan, Iran, and Canada. These data include CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and fluorinated gas emissions from energy, agriculture, forestry and land use change, industry, and waste. Together, these top ten countries represent approximately 67% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2020.

Emissions and sinks related to changes in land use are not included in these estimates. However, changes in land use can be important: estimates indicate that net global greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry, and other land use were approximately 12 billion metric tons of CO 2 equivalent, [2] or about 21% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. [3] In areas such as the United States and Europe, changes in land use associated with human activities have the net effect of absorbing CO 2 , partially offsetting the emissions from deforestation in other regions.

EPA resources

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (in the United States)
• Non-CO 2 Greenhouse Gases: Emissions and Trends
• Capacity Building for National GHG Inventories

Other resources

• UNFCCC GHG Data Interface
• European Commission Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research
• World Development Indicators
• Climate Watch
• Carbon Dioxide and Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy Data Explorer (IEA)

1. IPCC (2022), Emissions Trends and Drivers. In IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. doi: 10.1017/9781009157926.004

2. Jia, G., E. Shevliakova, P. Artaxo, N. De Noblet-Ducoudré, R. Houghton, J. House, K. Kitajima, C. Lennard, A. Popp, A. Sirin, R. Sukumar, L. Verchot, 2019: Land–climate interactions . In: Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmotte, H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, P. Zhai, R. Slade, S. Connors, R. van Diemen, M. Ferrat, E. Haughey, S. Luz, S. Neogi, M. Pathak, J. Petzold, J. Portugal Pereira, P. Vyas, E. Huntley, K. Kissick, M, Belkacemi, J. Malley, (eds.)]. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157988.004

3. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2021 , (February 2021), www.eia.gov/aeo

Note on emissions sector categories:

The global emission estimates described on this page are from the Intergovernmental Panel (IPCC) on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report. In this report, some of the sector categories are defined differently from how they are defined in the Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions page on this website. Transportation, Industry, Agriculture, and Land Use and Forestry are four global emission sectors that roughly correspond to the U.S. sectors. Energy Supply, Commercial and Residential Buildings, and Waste and Wastewater are categorized slightly differently. For example, the IPCC's Energy Supply sector for global emissions encompasses the burning of fossil fuel for heat and energy across all sectors. In contrast, the U.S. Sources discussion tracks emissions from the electric power separately and attributes on-site emissions for heat and power to their respective sectors (i.e., emissions from gas or oil burned in furnaces for heating buildings are assigned to the residential and commercial sector). The IPCC has defined Waste and Wastewater as a separate sector, while in the Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions page, waste and wastewater emissions are attributed to the Commercial and Residential sector.

• GHG Emissions and Removals Home
• Overview of Greenhouse Gases
• Sources of GHG Emissions and Removals
• Global Emissions and Removals
• National Emissions and Removals
• State and Tribal GHG Data and Resources
• Facility-Level Emissions
• Gridded Methane Emissions
• Carbon Footprint Calculator
• GHG Equivalencies Calculator
• Capacity Building for GHG Inventories

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Out on dry land: Water shortage threatens species in Ruaha National Park in Tanzania

by Jan Zwilling, Leibniz-Institut für Zoo- und Wildtierforschung (IZW) im Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.

Climate change is not the only cause of arid landscapes. A research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) has investigated the consequences of increased water abstraction for agriculture and livestock farming from the Great Ruaha River.

This river, which used to flow continuously, now dries up for months at a time. The scientists showed that some herbivores were able to partially compensate for the temporary lack of water through their diet, whereas others had little or no ability to do so. In particular, African buffalo, plains zebra and waterbuck were sometimes severely restricted in their habitat use as a result.

The effects of water scarcity on Ruaha National Park's biodiversity are described in an article in Wildlife Biology .

Although national parks across Africa aim to protect wildlife from the direct negative impacts of human activities such as bushmeat hunting, poaching, and livestock farming, wildlife populations are declining in many national parks. This is partly due to indirect human impacts, such as water abstraction from rivers outside national parks.

When little or no rain falls during the dry season in African countries, temporary water sources such as puddles, rain-filled depressions, and pools dry up. Many animal species respond by moving to the area around the remaining water.

"We wanted to find out which animal species cope best with water scarcity and which survival strategies they develop," explains first author Dr. Claudia Schmied, whose doctoral thesis on the consequences of water abstraction from the Great Ruaha River for the large animal community was supervised by the Leibniz-IZW. "During three dry seasons, we investigated which herbivores in Ruaha National Park changed their location and moved to sites where they find reliable water sources."

Some herbivores were more sensitive to water shortages than others, the scientists confirm. "There are animals that can partially compensate for the lack of drinking water through their diet, or have mechanisms to regulate their body temperature to limit water loss through feces and urine."

"Our results show that omnivores such as the crowned duiker and the warthog stayed put, so that their distance to the nearest water source in the late dry season significantly increased, so they did not follow the water," says Schmied. This was also the case for impala (Aepyceros melampus) and greater kudu (Strepsiceros zambesiensis), which have a mixed vegetarian diet.

"Our results suggest that these species are better able to cope with the decline in surface water than, for example, the African buffalo."

As grazers, African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), plains zebra (Equus quagga), and waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) need constant access to drinking water. Omnivores such as the warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) and the crown duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia) have a broader diet, eating underground plants such as tubers and rhizomes, fruits, and smaller animals—food that contains more water than the grass during the dry season.

This advantage makes these species less dependent on access to drinking water.

The scientists mapped where the animals went in the early and late parts of the dry seasons to record in which locations they spent their time. The results were consistent with the expectation that some species were moving closer to the few remaining water sources in the upper Great Ruaha River.

"Our spatial analyses showed that the African buffalo completely withdrew from the study area during the dry season. These grazing animals are particularly dependent on water, as the moisture content of the grazed grasses is low during the dry season," says Professor Stephanie Kramer-Schadt, head of the Department of Ecological Dynamics at the Leibniz-IZW.

"The African buffalo in Ruaha National Park, therefore, loses large parts of its habitat during the dry season," adds Dr. Marion East, a scientist in the Department of Ecological Dynamics at the Leibniz-IZW and supervisor of Schmied's doctoral work.

At the end of the dry season, water-dependent herbivores increasingly congregated around the shrinking waterholes on the upper reaches of the Great Ruaha River. Larger predators, such as lions and leopards, move into these areas and consume a part of these populations.

However, little is known about the long-term effects of the loss of water from the Great Ruaha River on the ecology of Ruaha National Park and its high biodiversity. Increasing concentrations of animals around remaining water sources may facilitate the transmission of pathogens, the scientists suggest.

The high levels of water loss could also lead to a more rapid decline in nutrient quality and riparian vegetation, which in turn could affect the health of herbivores and have negative consequences for their populations.

Ruaha National Park in Tanzania was established in 1964 and expanded in 2008 to include the Usangu Game Reserve. Covering an area of 20,226 square kilometers, it is one of the largest national parks in Africa. It is considered to be one of the most important wildlife habitats in Africa. The Great Ruaha River is one of Tanzania's largest rivers and is regarded as the ecological backbone of Tanzania before it flows through Ruaha National Park (Tanzania), one of Africa's largest national parks.

Provided by Leibniz-Institut für Zoo- und Wildtierforschung (IZW) im Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V.

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Newly sequenced genome reveals coffee's prehistoric origin story -- and its future under climate change

Study charts family history of arabica, world's most popular coffee species, through earth's heating and cooling periods over last millennia.

The key to growing coffee plants that can better resist climate change in the decades to come may lie in the ancient past.

Researchers co-led by the University at Buffalo have created what they say is the highest quality reference genome to date of the world's most popular coffee species, Arabica, unearthing secrets about its lineage that span millennia and continents.

Their findings, published today in Nature Genetics , suggest that Coffea arabica developed more than 600,000 years ago in the forests of Ethiopia via natural mating between two other coffee species. Arabica's population waxed and waned throughout Earth's heating and cooling periods over thousands of years, the study found, before eventually being cultivated in Ethiopia and Yemen, and then spread over the globe.

"We've used genomic information in plants alive today to go back in time and paint the most accurate picture possible of Arabica's long history, as well as determine how modern cultivated varieties are related to each other," says the study's co-corresponding author, Victor Albert, PhD, Empire Innovation Professor in the UB Department of Biological Sciences, within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Coffee giants like Starbucks and Tim Hortons exclusively use beans from Arabica plants to brew the millions of cups of coffee they serve everyday, yet, in part due to a low genetic diversity stemming from a history of inbreeding and small population size, Arabica is susceptible to many pests and diseases and can only be cultivated in a few places in the world where pathogen threats are lower and climate conditions are more favorable.

"A detailed understanding of the origins and breeding history of contemporary varieties are crucial to developing new Arabica cultivars better adapted to climate change," Albert says.

From their new reference genome, accomplished using cutting-edge DNA sequencing technology and advanced data science, the team was able to sequence 39 Arabica varieties and even an 18th century specimen used by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus to name the species.

The reference genome is now available in a publicly available digital database.

"While other public references for Arabica coffee do exist, the quality of our team's work is extremely high," says one of the study's co-leaders, Patrick Descombes, senior expert in genomics at Nestlé Research. "We used state-of-the-art genomics approaches -- including long- and short-read high throughput DNA sequencing -- to create the most advanced, complete and continuous Arabica reference genome to date."

Humanity's favorite coffee evolved without people's help

Arabica is the source of approximately 60% of the world's total coffee products, with its seeds helping millions start their day or stay up late. However, the initial crossbreeding that created it was done without any intervention from humans.

Arabica formed as a natural hybridization between Coffea canephora and Coffea eugenioides , whereupon it received two sets of chromosomes from each parent. Scientists have had a hard time pinpointing exactly when -- and where -- this allopolyploidization event took place, with estimates ranging everywhere from 10,000 to 1 million years ago.

To find evidence for the original event, UB researchers and their partners ran their various Arabica genomes through a computational modeling program to look for signatures of the species' foundation.

The models show three population bottlenecks during Arabica's history, with the oldest happening some 29,000 generations -- or 610,000 years -- ago. This suggests Arabica formed sometime before that, anywhere from 610,000 to 1 million years ago, researchers say.

"In other words, the crossbreeding that created Arabica wasn't something that humans did," Albert says. "It's pretty clear that this polyploidy event predated modern humans and the cultivation of coffee."

Coffee plants have long been thought to have developed in Ethiopia, but varieties that the team collected around the Great Rift Valley, which stretches from Southeast Africa to Asia, displayed a clear geographic split. The wild varieties studied all originated from the western side, while the cultivated varieties all originated from the eastern side closest to the Bab al-Mandab strait that separates Africa and Yemen.

That would align with evidence that coffee cultivation may have started principally in Yemen, around the 15th century. Indian monk Baba Budan is believed to have smuggled the fabled "seven seeds" out of Yemen around 1600, establishing Indian Arabica cultivars and setting the stage for coffee's global reach today.

"It looks like Yemeni coffee diversity may be the founder of all of the current major varieties," Descombes says. "Coffee is not a crop that has been heavily crossbred, such as maize or wheat, to create new varieties. People mainly chose a variety they liked and then grew it. So the varieties we have today have probably been around for a long time."

How climate impacted Arabica's population

East Africa's geoclimatic history is well documented due to research on human origins, so researchers could contrast climate events with how the wild and cultivated Arabica populations fluctuated over time.

Modeling shows a long period of low population size between 20-100,000 years ago, which roughly coincides with an extended drought and cooler climate believed to have hit the region between 40-70,000 years ago. The population then increased during the African humid period, around 6-15,000 years ago, when growth conditions were likely more beneficial.

During this same time, around 30,000 years ago, the wild varieties and the varieties that would eventually become cultivated by humans split from each other.

"They still occasionally bred with each other, but likely stopped around the end of the African humid period and the widening of the strait due to rising sea levels around 8,000 to 9,000 years ago," says Jarkko Salojärvi, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and another co-corresponding author of work.

Low genetic diversity threatens Arabica

Cultivated Arabica is estimated to have an effective population size of only 10,000 to 50,000 individuals. Its low genetic diversity means it could be completely decimated, like the monoculture Cavendish banana, by pathogens, such as coffee leaf rust, which causes $1-2 billion in losses annually.

The reference genome was able to shed more light on how one line of Arabica varieties obtained strong resistance to the disease.

The Timor variety formed in Southeast Asia as a spontaneous hybrid between Arabica and one of its parents, Coffea canephora . Also known as Robusta and used primarily for instant coffee, this species is more resistant to disease than Arabica .

"Thus, when Robusta hybridized itself back into Arabica on Timor, it brought some of its pathogen defense genes along with it," says Albert, who also co-led sequencing of the Robusta genome in 2014. Albert and collaborators' current work also presents a highly improved version of the Robusta genome, as well as new sequence of Arabica's other progenitor species, Coffea eugenioides .

While breeders have tried replicating this crossbreeding to boost pathogen defense, the new Arabica reference genome allowed the present researchers to pinpoint a novel region harboring members of the RPP8 resistance gene family as well as a general regulator of resistance genes, CPR1 .

"These results suggest a novel target locus for potentially improving pathogen resistance in Arabica," Salojärvi says.

The genome provided other new findings as well, like which wild varieties are closest to modern, cultivated Arabica coffee. They also found that the Typica variety, an early Dutch cultivar originating from either India or Sri Lanka, is likely the parent of the Bourbon variety, principally cultivated by the French.

"Our work has not been unlike reconstructing the family tree of a very important family," Albert says.

Nestlé Research funded the majority of the research. The large international team was co-led by Albert, whose work was supported by the National Science Foundation, and contributions from many other organizations. Other UB contributors include Trevor Krabbenhoft, PhD, and Zhen Wang, PhD, both assistant professors of biological sciences; PhD student Steven Fleck; PhD graduate Minakshi Mukherjee; and former research scientist Tianying Lan -- all from the Department of Biological Sciences.

• Food and Agriculture
• Evolutionary Biology
• Origin of Life
• Early Climate
• Heirloom plant
• Permian-Triassic extinction event

Story Source:

Materials provided by University at Buffalo . Original written by Tom Dinki. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Jarkko Salojärvi, Aditi Rambani, Zhe Yu, Romain Guyot, Susan Strickler, Maud Lepelley, Cui Wang, Sitaram Rajaraman, Pasi Rastas, Chunfang Zheng, Daniella Santos Muñoz, João Meidanis, Alexandre Rossi Paschoal, Yves Bawin, Trevor J. Krabbenhoft, Zhen Qin Wang, Steven J. Fleck, Rudy Aussel, Laurence Bellanger, Aline Charpagne, Coralie Fournier, Mohamed Kassam, Gregory Lefebvre, Sylviane Métairon, Déborah Moine, Michel Rigoreau, Jens Stolte, Perla Hamon, Emmanuel Couturon, Christine Tranchant-Dubreuil, Minakshi Mukherjee, Tianying Lan, Jan Engelhardt, Peter Stadler, Samara Mireza Correia De Lemos, Suzana Ivamoto Suzuki, Ucu Sumirat, Ching Man Wai, Nicolas Dauchot, Simon Orozco-Arias, Andrea Garavito, Catherine Kiwuka, Pascal Musoli, Anne Nalukenge, Erwan Guichoux, Havinga Reinout, Martin Smit, Lorenzo Carretero-Paulet, Oliveiro Guerreiro Filho, Masako Toma Braghini, Lilian Padilha, Gustavo Hiroshi Sera, Tom Ruttink, Robert Henry, Pierre Marraccini, Yves Van de Peer, Alan Andrade, Douglas Domingues, Giovanni Giuliano, Lukas Mueller, Luiz Filipe Pereira, Stephane Plaisance, Valerie Poncet, Stephane Rombauts, David Sankoff, Victor A. Albert, Dominique Crouzillat, Alexandre de Kochko, Patrick Descombes. The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars . Nature Genetics , 2024; 56 (4): 721 DOI: 10.1038/s41588-024-01695-w

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