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CCAFS Policy Briefs, 06. Recalibrating Food Production in the Developing World
Thornton P.; CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) - CCAFS, 2012^An analysis of the effects of climate change on 22 critical agricultural commodities and three important natural resources in the developing world reveals a number of cross-cutting themes: The world’s agricultural systems face an uphill struggle in feeding a projected nine to ten billion people by 2050. Climate change introduces a significant hurdle in this struggle.
- Securing and maintaining necessary levels of calories, protein and nutrients for populations around the world will be an exceptional challenge.
- Recalibrating agriculture in the face of climate change is more t ...
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Available online: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/24696
P. Thornton ; (CCAFS) CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
Published by: CCAFS ; 2012^An analysis of the effects of climate change on 22 critical agricultural commodities and three important natural resources in the developing world reveals a number of cross-cutting themes: The world’s agricultural systems face an uphill struggle in feeding a projected nine to ten billion people by 2050. Climate change introduces a significant hurdle in this struggle.
- Securing and maintaining necessary levels of calories, protein and nutrients for populations around the world will be an exceptional challenge.
- Recalibrating agriculture in the face of climate change is more than planting crops that can tolerate warmer weather. Some commodities, for example, can grow in warm weather but cannot resist the insects and diseases whose prevalence will increase. Others can tolerate
a lack of water but not the sporadic flooding that occurs with more common weather extremes.
- Even as global deforestation continues, trees continue to be valued as a provider of agricultural commodities like nuts and fruit; as a mitigating resource that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; and also as a staple of adaptation—trees help stabilize soil erosion, better regulate water, as well as provide shade, firewood and fodder.
- Production of the most common commodity staples—wheat, maize and rice—will be challenged by new weather patterns. Adjustments in production, replacement with commodities that can tolerate the new conditions in different regions, and innovations in technology are key elements of adaptation.
- Raising livestock and catching fish and other aquatic products—two of the more common sources of protein—will also be challenged by a new climate. In some areas, different plants, breeds and species can provide substitutions, but in others, adaptation is critical.
- This recalibration of agriculture will eventually extend beyond what is grown and raised. The world’s many cultures must adapt to the changing dinner menu forced upon them due to climate change.Collection(s) and Series: CCAFS Policy Briefs- No. 06
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Agroclimatology ; Global warming ; Food Safety
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Tortillas on the roaster: Central American maize-bean systems and the changing climate
This study predicts the potential impacts that climate change will have on the production of maize and beans, the two most important food crops in Central America. Using state-of-the-art climate models and GIS tools, agronomic research and socio-economic analyses, it makes recommendations to climate change adaptation strategies tailored to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The results of the study are intended to fill a critical gap in the knowledge of the impacts of climate change on maize/bean production in Central America, in order for stakeholders to shift from a position of ...
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Available online: http://preventionweb.net/go/29175
Anton Eitzinger ; Kai Sonder ; Axel Schmidt ; Catholic Relief Services ; International Center for Tropical Agriculture, the
Published by: CRS ; 2012This study predicts the potential impacts that climate change will have on the production of maize and beans, the two most important food crops in Central America. Using state-of-the-art climate models and GIS tools, agronomic research and socio-economic analyses, it makes recommendations to climate change adaptation strategies tailored to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The results of the study are intended to fill a critical gap in the knowledge of the impacts of climate change on maize/bean production in Central America, in order for stakeholders to shift from a position of uncertainty to a position of risk management.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Climate change ; Agroclimatology ; Disaster Risk Management (DRM) ; Food Safety ; El Salvador ; Guatemala ; Honduras ; Nicaragua
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Climate change and agriculture: can market governance mechanisms reduce emissions from the food system fairly and effectively?
Agriculture accounts for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. How agriculture is practised, therefore, has significant potential for mitigating climate change, providing food security and improving the livelihoods of food producers worldwide. There is growing interest in the use of market governance mechanisms for tackling climate change by giving the financial incentives to make the required changes. The key messages emerging from this study are that economic measures have a vital part to play, but to be effective, emissions from food production and consumption must be addressed to ...
Climate change and agriculture: can market governance mechanisms reduce emissions from the food system fairly and effectively?
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Available online: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/16512IIED.pdf
T. Garnett ; International Institute for Environment and Development
Published by: IIED ; 2012Agriculture accounts for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. How agriculture is practised, therefore, has significant potential for mitigating climate change, providing food security and improving the livelihoods of food producers worldwide. There is growing interest in the use of market governance mechanisms for tackling climate change by giving the financial incentives to make the required changes. The key messages emerging from this study are that economic measures have a vital part to play, but to be effective, emissions from food production and consumption must be addressed together. A balance needs to be struck by applying a mix of approaches: no single measure will be effective on its own. ‘Soft’ measures, such as voluntary agreements can provide an enabling context for action, but they must be backed up by ‘harder’ regulatory or economic measures. Regulation, in the form of a cap on emissions, is a prerequisite for other market governance measures to function well.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Agriculture ; Greenhouse gas reducing ; Climate change ; Food Safety ; Climate policies
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Extreme weather events and crop price spikes in a changing climate: illustrative global simulation scenarios
Willenbockel D. - Oxfam, 2012Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes. Various impact studies have considered the effects of projected long-run trends in temperature, precipitation and carbon dioxide concentrations caused by climate change on global food production and prices. However, according to this study, an area that remains underexplored is the food price impacts that may result from an expected increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The study uses a global dynamic multi-region computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore the potential food pri ...
Extreme weather events and crop price spikes in a changing climate: illustrative global simulation scenarios
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Available online: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/rr-extreme-weather-even [...]
Published by: Oxfam ; 2012
Agriculture is highly sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes. Various impact studies have considered the effects of projected long-run trends in temperature, precipitation and carbon dioxide concentrations caused by climate change on global food production and prices. However, according to this study, an area that remains underexplored is the food price impacts that may result from an expected increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The study uses a global dynamic multi-region computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore the potential food price impacts of a number of extreme weather event scenarios in 2030 for each of the main exporting regions for rice, maize and wheat.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Agroclimatology ; Extreme weather event ; Climate change ; Food Safety ; Impact studies
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CGIAR Working paper, 23. Impacts of climate change on the agricultural and aquatic systems and natural resources within the CGIAR’s mandate
CCAFS, 2012The document attempts to distil what is currently known about the likely impacts of climate change on the commodities and natural resources that comprise the mandate of CGIAR and its 15 Centres. It was designed as one background document for a review carried out by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) at the behest of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on what is known about the likely effects of climate change on food security and nutrition, with a focus on the most affected and vulnerable regions and populations. A total of 25 summaries covering 22 ...
Impacts of climate change on the agricultural and aquatic systems and natural resources within the CGIAR’s mandate
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Available online: http://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/21226/ccafs-wp-23-cc_impacts_CGI [...]
(CCAFS) CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
Published by: CCAFS ; 2012The document attempts to distil what is currently known about the likely impacts of climate change on the commodities and natural resources that comprise the mandate of CGIAR and its 15 Centres. It was designed as one background document for a review carried out by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) at the behest of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on what is known about the likely effects of climate change on food security and nutrition, with a focus on the most affected and vulnerable regions and populations. A total of 25 summaries covering 22 agricultural commodities, agroforestry, forests and water resources, present information on the importance of each commodity for food and nutrition security globally, the biological vulnerability of the commodity or natural resource to climate change, and what is known about the likely socioeconomic vulnerability of populations dependent partially or wholly on the commodity or natural resource. With a few exceptions, the likely impacts of climate change on key staples and natural resources in developing countries in the coming decades are not understood in any great depth. There are many uncertainties as to how changes in temperature, rainfall and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will interact in relation to agricultural productivity; the resultant changes in the incidence, intensity and spatial distribution of important weeds, pests and diseases are largely unknown; and the impacts of climate change and increases in climate variability on agricultural systems and natural-resource-dependent households, as well as on food security and the future vulnerability of already hungry people in the tropics and subtropics, are still largely a closed book. CGIAR along with many other partners is involved in a considerable amount of research activity to throw light on these issues.
Collection(s) and Series: CGIAR Working paper- No. 23
Language(s): English; Other Languages: French, Spanish
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Climate change ; Adaptation ; Climate change - Mitigation ; Vulnerability ; Agroclimatology ; Food Safety ; Tropical climate ; Tropics ; India ; Syrian Arab Republic ; Philippines ; Nigeria ; Malawi ; Kenya ; Colombia ; Mexico ; Indonesia ; Mali ; France ; Malaysia ; Viet Nam ; Zambia ; Brazil ; Benin ; Uganda ; Peru ; Sri Lanka
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Climate change, water stress, conflict and migration
UNESCO, 2012This collection of papers, presented at the symposium ‘Climate change, water stress, conflict and migration’ held on 21 September 2011 in the Netherlands, highlight how climate change, water stress and other environmental problems threaten human security. For example, the paper by Muniruzzaman ilustrates how water ignores political and community boundaries, and how decisions in one place can significantly affect water use elsewhere. India’s plans to build more dams could, for instance, have devastating affects for Pakistan’s agricultural productivity which is highly dependent on water supply f ...
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Feeling the heat: the human cost of poor preparation for disasters
Islamic Relief Worldwide, 2012This report shows the positive difference Islamic Relief Worldwide is beginning to make in the area of disaster risk reduction (DRR) by highlighting how village disaster committees and earthworks to raise people’s houses have reduced the impact of seasonal flooding in north-western Bangladesh. It shows how irrigated vegetable growing and microfinance loans for small businesses are helping former pastoralists to build new livelihoods in north-eastern Kenya that are less vulnerable to drought. It provides evidence that being better prepared can save money as well as lives and shows that it can b ...
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Ocean-Based Food Security Threatened in a High CO2 World : a Ranking of Nations’ Vulnerability to Climate Change and Ocean Acidification
Emissions from human activities are changing the ocean’s chemistry and temperature in ways that threaten the livelihoods of those who depend on fish and seafood for all or part of their diets. The changes may reduce the amount of wild caught seafood that can be supplied by the oceans and also redistribute species, changing the locations at which seafood can be caught and creating instability for ocean-based food security, or seafood security. This report ranks nations based on the seafood security hardships they may experience by the middle of this century due to changing ocean conditions from ...
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Managing drought risk on the ranch: a planning guide for great plains ranchers
National Drought Mitigation Center ; United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) - University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), 2012This guide is designed to help rangeland managers to better prepare for and manage drought. For ranchers in the United States, drought can be defined as too little soil moisture to meet the needs of dominant forage species during their rapid growth windows. The longer you wait to make decisions, the fewer options you will have available to you and producers who focus on increasing flexibility and maximizing the health of resources are more likely to find solutions during drought that minimize painful decisions with limited resources. Accordingly, having a plan will help producers get through a ...
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Good Practices in Building Innovative Rural Institutions to Increase Food Security
Continued population growth, urbanization and rising incomes are likely to continue to put pressure on food demand. International prices for most agricultural commodities are set to remain at 2010 levels or higher, at least for the next decade (OECD-FAO, 2010). Small-scale producers in many developing countries were not able to reap the benefits of high food prices during the 2007-2008 food price crises. Yet, this upward food price trend could have been an opportunity for them to increase their incomes and food security. The opportunity that high food prices could have provided as a pat ...
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The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security Issue
Bigas Harriet; Axworthy Thomas S.; UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH); et al. - UNU, 2012In March 2011, high-level experts from around the world were invited to Toronto, Canada, to meet with members of the InterAction Council about the status of the world’s freshwater supply as it relates to global security issues (see List of Participants in this volume). These experts reported that that the global water crisis is real and that there is urgency in addressing the growing number of security risks associated with threatened water supply and quality. They also, however, expressed hope and identified opportunities that can be realized by the timely triggering of change in policies, in ...
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Water for wealth and food security: supporting farmer-driven investments in agricultural water management
IWMI, 2012This report addresses the effective use of available water as a way to help to improve productivity and reduce poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. It combines the practical improved water management systems and approaches, including the reduction of risks associated with climate variability through environmental risks monitoring. It documents the benefits of irrigation already been invested by farmers in small-scale irrigation, and provides practical recommendations and tools for governments, the private sector, donors and organizations to effectively support these farmer-led initiatives to improve ...
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Climate change, agriculture and food security in Tanzania
The consequences of climate change for agriculture and food security in developing countries are of serious concern. Due to their reliance on rain-fed agriculture, both as a source of income and consumption, many low-income countries are considered to be the most vulnerable to climate change. This paper estimates the impact of climate change on food security in Tanzania. Representative climate projections are used in calibrated crop models to predict crop yield changes for 110 districts in the country. The results are in turn imposed on a highly-disaggregated, recursive dynamic economy-wide mo ...
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Climate Change and Price Volatility: Can We Count on the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve?
ADB, 2012On 12 July 2012, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three intergovernmental agreement establishing the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR) entered into force. In this paper, lead author Roehlano Briones, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, assesses the effectiveness of APTERR as a mechanism for addressing food security in light of the rising challenges of climate change and price volatility. Using Riceflow, a model of the global rice economy, he studies the possible impacts of APTERR releases on the rice market by simu ...
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Green Accounting and Data Improvement for Water Resources
Winpenny James; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - UNESCO, 2012 (UNESCO Side publications series-No. 02)Water makes a critical contribution to all aspects of personal welfare and economic life. However, global water resources are coming under increasing pressure. It is widely recognized that over the next few decades global drivers such as climate change, population growth and improving living standards will increase pressure on the availability, quality and distribution of water resources. Managing the impacts of these drivers to maximize social and economic welfare will require intelligent policy and management responses at all levels of collection, production and distribution of water. The go ...
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