Climate change and agriculture

Political patronage needed to solve relating issues - Prof. Buddhi Marambe:

Prof. Buddhi Marabe, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture in the University of Peradeniya stressed the need to have a strong political will and mass support to address issues related to climate change and agriculture.

Participating in the inaugural session of ‘Sanhinda’, an interactive panel discussion launched by Disaster Management Centre in collaboration with UNDP. He pointed out that agriculture has gained unprecedented recognition in the wake of recent food shortages and subsequent increase in food and fuel prices.

He noted that global population will increase from 6.3 billion at present (2008) to 9 billion in 2050 and 90 per cent of growth will take place in developing countries and by 2020, fifty per cent of world population would live in cities and metros.

Prof. Marambe said in his opening remarks that current demand for food (crop based food) will increase globally by fifty per cent while demand for meat and animal product will also increase by fifty percent especially with the rising levels of income.

It has been predicted that demand for food will be doubled within the next forty years and this will not only be a challenge for the world but also be a daunting challenge for Sri Lanka.

As many countries of the world, Sri Lanka also experienced the impact of the Green Revolution that took place in mid 1960s.

The salient characteristics of the Green Revolution include the introduction of new high yielding varieties that replaced traditionally grown moderately yielding varieties, and a heavy use of synthetic agrochemicals that replaced more environmentally friendly sustainable technologies with low chances for environmental pollution, modern technologies replacing more labour and time consuming activities.

Though these measures have resulted in higher crop and animal production and productivity over time, these technologies/techniques have also affected the environmental health and equilibrium in the long run.

However, today, the world experiences difficulties in improving the crop productivity further, lack of organic matter in soil, missing links of beneficial organisms in nature, poor quality water, high pest and disease incidents, aggravated problems caused by weeds, and extreme climatic conditions (eg. severe droughts and flooding) that have affected not only agricultural production, but also our health. Prof. Marambe stressed the fact that climate change has contributed significantly to poor agricultural production at a global scale.

Describing the alarming ground realities, Prof. Marambe stated that the world cereal stocks are at their lowest since 1970s and that Sri Lanka did not have buffer stocks of rice since October 2007 and has been struggling to have access to food markets in the Asian region.

The Asian cereal exporters have started ensuring their food security by the introduction of new cereal export taxes (eg. India and China) and also imposing laws preventing cereal exports and the world market for cereals is very limited but the demand is growing. For instance Wheat demand is growing by 20 per cent while a demand for Maize is growing by 15 per cent and Rice is by 7 per cent.

Referring to Sri Lanka’s position Prof. Marambe stated that Sri Lanka has taken every step to produce food. “Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu” program launched by the government will help stop importing about 23 agricultural products and boost our agricultural economy through effective implementation while facing these challenges from the man made disasters such as climate change.

He stressed the fact that the government should take measures to have adequate buffer stocks of rice in the stores, made out of rice imported from neighbouring countries soon after rice harvesting is done (not to wait until there is a crisis).

More emphasis will have to be paid in development of new varieties that will withstand extreme climate events, identifying new environmentally friendly production and processing techniques that will have minimum levels of adverse impacts on the climate in the long run.

It is important to note that Food aid, which is only 0.4 per cent of the world’s food production, is also becoming increasingly scarce and expensive, making things more difficult to organizations such as UN to support countries suffering from abject poverty.

Recent estimated statistics indicate that the climate change will affect the agricultural production, and is expected to decrease agricultural production by 16 per cent in 2020.

“Our ignorance about the present and future climate change, associated with our poor ability to foresee the evolution of world and Sri Lankan Agriculture beyond few years ahead are major constraints in this whole affair of dealing with the impacts of climate change on agriculture”, he emphasised.

There is not time left for us to sit and argue whether the climate change is taking place or not. Therefore action is needed to be taken in responding to the changes that place in the environment, while having a proper assessment of the conditions prevailing and future scenarios.

Research in the area of agriculture has to be done with a view to improving climate, taking advantage of knowledge on climate to manage the variability, and develop and adapt species/breeds and production systems to suit the changing climate.

He further pointed out that more focus should be on ‘political will and support’ to address these burning issues related climate change and agricultural production.

W. A. M. S. J. Pushpakumara of Practical Action who took part in the discussion on behalf of civil organisation in the field stated that forgotten traditional varieties of paddy which have proven resistance to diverse soil conditions are also produce a yield as almost equal to high bride developed varieties.

The crust of his argument was traditional agriculture should also be developed hand in hand with modern cultivation methods.

The discussion was organised by Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights and UNDP.