Possible solution: Climate-smart agriculture viable for food security

Agriculture PhD scholar claims food requirement will increase 50 per cent by 2030

RAWALPINDI: New agricultural methods need to be adopted to meet the climate change challenges.

These views were shared with The Express Tribune by Agriculture PhD scholar Babar Baloch Latif, who insists that climate smart agriculture was the ultimate solution to stave off future threats.

He claimed that in 50 years, global agricultural output will need to surpass anything in known history with little or no increase in available resources including water. By 2030, he added, the need for food would be 50 per cent higher than what is being produced today.

Latif further explained that in 1961, the world`s agriculture sector had to feed 3.5 billion people using 1.37 billion hectares of land. Since then, the world population has doubled, while crop area has only increased by 12 per cent.

Water, on the other hand, will be another matter of grave concern. Agriculture utilises approximately 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water and will need 17 per cent more by 2020 to produce adequate food supplies. Currently, only 17 per cent of land on earth is usable, contributing nearly 40 per cent of total agricultural output, he said.

Inadequate, old fashioned and traditional methods of food handling causes more than 30 per cent of food to be lost before reaching consumers and forces many to sleep hungry every night. In addition, climate change is forcing shifts in the agricultural development agenda across the globe. Changes in temperature and precipitation and the rising frequency of extreme climatic events are projected to significantly reduce global food production during the current century, he said.

Putting forward a solution, Latif said that Climate Smart Agriculture is an integrated approach to achieving food security in the face of climate change. “But as a matter of fact, it is yet, just a concept and needs much elaboration and demonstration especially for developing economies including Pakistan,” he said.

He stated that climate smart agriculture (CSA) needs support of research and development organisations, policy and decision makers, national and international financers and dedicated knowledge and experience worthy human resources for long term sustainability of agriculture.

A warm welcome to CSA may result in sustainable increase in agriculture productivity, resilience and capacity building of agriculture and food sectors in making them more adaptive towards climate changes and reduction in greenhouse gases and global food insecurity. CSA confronts on three dimensional approaches to achieve the objectives of sustainable food production and eliminating climatic threats gradually, he remarked.

CSA tries to bring together farmers, scientist, policy-makers and other stakeholders to identify, refine, disseminate and implement fruitful actions to make a considerable difference, he explained. Along with this, climate research has mapped changing temperatures, precipitation and the higher risk of extreme events. However, effects are expected to vary substantially across even relatively small regions. Thus, the design of changes in crop varieties and crop mix, infrastructure investments and policies must be individualised.

Expressing his views on CSA Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University (PMAS-AAU) Vice Chancellor Dr Rai Niaz said CSA is a continuous and iterative process of planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and advancement towards sustainable solutions. “Agricultural production is directly linked with complex food chains and requires many stakeholders to participate in solving the daunting problems of agriculture, food insecurity and climate change simultaneously,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2014.