Communication and capacity building to advance adaptation strategies in agriculture in the context of climate change in India
Communication and capacity building to advance adaptation strategies in agriculture in the context of climate change in India
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Date
2015-04
Authors
Balaji, Venkataraman
Ganapuram, Sreedhar
Devakumar, C
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Publisher
Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
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Abstract
Climate change is perhaps the most serious issue that affects food security of a very large number of
human beings and animals. Impacts of climate change will be particularly significant in South Asia
where most of food production comes from smallholder farms. Vulnerability in this region is two-fold:
production of important food crop varieties may be affected by developments such as rise in
temperature; smallholder farmers have low economic resilience when large variations in crop outputs
occur. Both adaptive and anticipatory measures based on research in agricultural sciences are being
proposed. What is important is also to build the capacity of smallholder farmers to cope with the
impact of climate change-induced phenomena. Key guides to large scale action such as the UN
Framework Convention for Climate Change propose integrated action for capacity building involving
both top-down and bottom-up inputs. In this paper, we provide an overview of accepted impacts of
climate change on agriculture and food security in South Asia, and the proposed and ongoing
agronomic adaptation strategies in India. Our focus is on capacity building at a micro-level which can
augment adaptation efforts. We offer two case studies that provide pointers for integrating novel
communication and capacity building processes for smallholder farmers that can considerably improve
their ability to engage in action for adaptation.
Description
Pre-print; Manuscript submitted to Decision, Journal of IIM-Calcutta; Accepted for publication 29 April 2015
Subject
Agriculture,
Climate Change,
Capacity Building
Country
India