Climate change and Sustainable intensification

Fentahun Mengistu (EIAR)

Strengthening CGIAR - EARS partnerships for effective agricultural transformation in Ethiopia

Consultative Meeting, 4 – 5 December 2014

• Low population pressure;

• Good natural and material resources

• Better environment; low degradation, better fertility, etc

• Better biodiversity

• Climate was congenial

In the past?

And because I was amazed they said to me:

‘Honoured guest, do not be amazed, in the years that we harvest little we gather enough for three years' plenty in the country

And if it were not for the multitude of locusts and the hail, which sometimes do great damage, we should not sow the half of what we sow, because the yield is incredibly great,

And we sow so much with the hope that even if each of those said plagues should come, some would be spoiled and some would remain and if all is spoiled the year before has been so plentiful that we have no scarcity

Father F. Alvares: The Prester John of the Indies. A true relation of the lands of the

Prester John, being the narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520

• Population growth

• Since 1960, the world population has more than doubled

• The demands on global agricultural production, arising out of population and income growth, almost tripled

• Global agriculture has been successful in meeting this increase in demand

• Urbanization

• Globalization

• NRs under severe pressure from current rates of consumption;

• humans are using 30% more resources than the earth replenish each year-leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air & water, fish, etc

Today?

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• Climate is fast changing

• fresh water reserves,

• fish stocks and forests are shrinking

• fertile land is being destroyed

• biodiversity is declining

• species are becoming extinct

• ecosystems and the ecological services they provide degrading

• Food insecurity, poverty is rampant

• progress to reduce hunger; if it can be sustained

• Household income increase; change of food habit

Today?

• Change at unprecedented rate

• Globalization

• Urbanization- 64 % DC in 2050

• Burgeoning population- 9 billion 2050

• High demand for food (70% much more), fiber, feed, energy

• Limited resources put to competing use; land, water, fuel, material resources

• Biodiversity decline

• Climate worsen

The future?

Climate change: defining challenge of the generation

• The weather patterns that people and ecosystems have become accustomed to over time are changing

• The existing build-up of GHG concentrations- CC climate change in the coming decades is inevitable

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How is climate change manifesting in Ethiopia?

Frequency of abiotic & biotic stresses

• Moisture stress/drought occurrences

• Flooding

• Landslide

• Rainfall pattern unpredictable

• Drying up of water points

• Warming/cooling- shift in ecological adaptation:

warm area crops are crawling up into the cool highlands

mosquitoes,

• Sand storms

• Pests and diseases; quela birds, locusts

• MLND

• Rusts

• Coffee wilt

• Ginger bacterial wilt

• Tomato fruit borer

• Cotton mealy bug

• Mango white scale

• Faba Bean Gall

• Water hyacinth

• Prosopis

• Parthenium

• Animal and human diseases

• etc

Pest, disease, invasive weeds incidence

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• Many solutions already exist; we are all part of the

solution (Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director)

Transition towards low carbon societies

Taking action to minimize the negative impacts of

CC / Adaptation/ and building resilience

• Planning adaptive responses to our economy and

society today is more cost effective than

responding to a crisis tomorrow

lessen environmental, economic & social costs

reduces our vulnerability to CC effects

Resilience:

• Providing a safety net

• Early warning systems or disaster insurance

• Integrating risk management into development plans

• Development interventions to enhance the production,

income generation, and saving capacities

Climate smart agriculture

sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development

adapting and building resilience of agricultural and food security systems to CC at multiple levels

reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture; crops, and livestock

Agricultural research help farmers to be resilient

• Enhancing and climate-proofing agricultural

productivity by improving agricultural techniques and

adopting higher-yielding, climate-proofed crops and

livestock

• Helping conservation and efficient utilization of natural

resources

• increased adaptation of crops & livestock to climate

stress

• sustainable land management; combating land and water

degradation

• resource-conserving technologies

• access to and utilization of technology and information12/16/2014

Local VS improved sorghum

Tide ridge water harvesting technique

Tie-ridge Farmers practice

• More food production with much less impact on environment; even improving the environment

• About a union of sustainability with productivity

• SI of small-scale, often mixed, farming systems has a critical role to play in meeting the food and nutritional demands of our planet’s burgeoning population

• an essential process for the short term and an attractive proposition for the longer term

Sustainable intensification of small scale agriculture:

a possible trajectory of the future

• Decouple from specific production target

• Not a strategy for food system as a whole; just one component

• Are we thinking food production or food system?

• Sustainable food security: needs multiple frontsDD side: decrease population, efficient food system-

governance, food loss & waste SS side: more food with less environmental damage• Why only environment: broad range of social and

ethical aspects

Issues on SI concept

Is SI really a viable option given the scale of the increases in production and productivity that are required?

Do the technologies associated with SI make significant inroads into yield gaps?

Can small-scale household systems rooted in agriculture be robust enough to cope with the environmental and economic shocks that are increasingly commonplace in the areas where they are practiced?

Issues on SI solution

In many, parts of the developing World (e.g. Nepal, African Highlands) intensive (as in, characterized by high output: input ratios), integrated systems were the norm for centuries until they became degraded by population and other pressures in less than one century!

• Are our efforts to promote a return to this situation through SI genuinely feasible?

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• population growth

• population distribution (rural vs urban)

• resource conservation / degradation,

• improvements in productive efficiency / productive potential

• political conflict

• land resources

• input availability

• balance of trade, etc?

What are likely to be the most significant drivers of change under SI scenario

What are the most significant interactions amongst these drivers likely to be?

How dynamic are these drivers likely to be in terms of their impacts as we move towards the envisaged future

Do the components have a static, diminishing or enhanced role in maintaining sustainable nutrition and food security ?

What are the intermediate response variables (e.g. social equity, food sufficiency, GDP from agriculture) that we should (realistically) be targeting in our efforts to support the move towards sustainable nutrition and food security?

What are our most promising entry points / mitigation measures?

How and where, the greatest gains in food and nutritional security are likely to be made?

Which interventions are likely to have the greatest potential?

To what extent do they need to be supported by innovation in research and policy?

Ethiopia’s Development trajectory

• Climate-Resilient Green Economy strategy• Agricultural Development Led Industrialization

• Envisions achieving middle-income status by 2025 in a climate-resilient green economy ; zero Net emission

• Following a green growth path that fosters development and sustainability

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1. Agriculture: Improving crop and livestock production practices for higher food security and farmer income while reducing emissions

2. Forestry: Protecting and re-establishing forests for their economic and ecosystem services, including as carbon stocks

3. Power: renewable energy

4. Transport, industrial sectors and buildings: modern and energy efficient technologies

Building Green Economy

• If CGs/NARS of various competence

can join hands and act together with a

portfolio of strategies we would be

able to contribute to achieving the

envisaged goals

• And if this effort turn out to be a

success, it would perhaps be a model

for future R&D interventions

• Thus is whay the idea of a mega

project on: SI &CC” proposed