Smart agriculture for food security

Rita SharmaThe outlook for all things smart is opening up, including Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). Varanasi, set to develop as a Smart City, will be a lighthouse for sectors seeking sustainable ways to handle demographic pressures, finite environmental resources and climate change. The Finance Minister’s budget speech has promised a hundred smart cities. With urban India well covered, it is the turn now of smart agriculture, equipped both to enhance food security and combat global warming.  

 

CSA will promote; increased food production through best practices; adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change; and  mitigation of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) both through reduced agriculture-related emissions and absorption of atmospheric carbon. It is notable that while agriculture produces food, it also produces GHGs (methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide) - about 17 per cent nationally, after energy 57 per cent and industry 22 per cent. (India: Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2007, Ministry of Environment & Forests, GoI). Farmers have, for generations been minimising risks and adapting to climate variability, though now they will have to cope with the accelerated pace of change. Mitigation through agriculture is a new entrant into the equation.  

 

The spotlight, hitherto, has been on adaptation. The Finance Minister in his budget speech announced a Rs. 100 crore National Adaptation Fund, stating that, “Climate change is a reality...agriculture as an activity is most prone to the vagaries of climate change…”. This resonates with the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture of 2012 (NICRA) with Rs. 200 crore. The Sustainable Agriculture Mission in the National Action Plan on Climate Change of 2008 also has adaptation as its main focus.  

 

So, how is CSA different from these three and other adaptation oriented climate change national initiatives? CSA is wider in scope. It highlights innovation and proactive change in farming systems in the context of all its elements: sustainable increase in farm output, adaptation and emission mitigation. CSA has been endorsed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Bank and the Food & Agriculture Organization. At the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Summit on 23 September this year President Obama launched the "Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture". 

 

India has resisted any kind of mitigation obligations through the agriculture route. From the perspective of the Indian climate change establishment adaptation has been the conventional peg, considered safer in view of a long-standing apprehension about  agriculture getting trapped into the vortex of any multilateral debate on the burden-sharing for emission mitigation. The raison d’etre is that it would be inequitable to expect the subsistence level Indian farmer to have anything to do with combating the global warming problem for which the rich industrialised countries are primarily responsible. 

 

The adaptation oriented initiatives are directed towards anticipating and responding to the problem by adjusting agricultural practices and putting in place coping strategies. There are technologies for making agriculture more resilient to climate variability, thereby reducing risks. Measures include drought and flood tolerant seeds, pest and disease resistant varieties of crops, adapted livestock and fish, weather forecasts, ICT based agro-advisories and weather based insurance. These adaptation initiatives are aligned with NAPCC’s Sustainable Agriculture Mission, NICRA,  National Food Security Mission, National Mission on Micro Irrigation, etc.  

 

It is feared that incentivising CSA for GHG emission reduction from farms could adversely affect cereal production and food security in developing countries. The apprehension is that CSA may prove to be a trojan-horse for marginalising the smallholder farmers. Critics of CSA question the ethical grounds for stepping up smallholder participation in mitigation through carbon sequestration and any trading in carbon as an emissions control measure. It is emphasised that soil is for food and not for managing the environment through carbon markets. 

 

There has been caution in many quarters about accepting the approach of development of agriculture as an instrument of mitigation. It is flagged that the case for international funding for adaptation may be sidetracked and compromised as a result.  Many argue that the focus on adaptation, foundational to developing countries, should not be blurred by introducing the mitigation dimension. Legitimising soil carbon off-sets through a mitigation approach will exacerbate social injustice by shifting the burden of mitigation onto developing countries. 

 

The thrust of India’s agriculture programme has been on food security and adaptation to climate change. This has marshalled the energies of science and technology, along with indigenous knowledge, to bring about greater resilience in agriculture and simultaneously increase yields. A win–win situation emerges when technologies, practices and programmes aimed at adaptation have mitigation as a side benefit.  A good example of adaptation and mitigation being two sides of the same coin is the SRI system of rice cultivation, producing significantly higher yields than the average with 30-50 per cent less water. Mitigation is a by-product, with paddy-field related GHG emissions considerably lower. 

 

Agroforestry promotes adaptation along with increased productivity.  Smallholders plant trees on farms and field boundaries, integrated with crops and livestock, to enhance and diversify income, reduce risks and rejuvenate their natural resource base. This is known to improve the soil and water regime. The improved soils, richer in organic matter, would grow more crops. Trees on farms could better withstand droughts and floods. A co-benefit would be mitigation in the form of carbon captured by the trees and stored in landscapes.  

 

MGNREGA provides a safety net and is an important adaptive strategy for the poor. It offers livelihood diversification away from dependence on agriculture alone. What makes MGNREGA different from other safety-net programmes lies in the nature of activities undertaken in the scheme. Water conservation, land development, soil improvement, drought proofing, tree plantation comprise over 75 per cent of the work programme. These activities improve the fertility and productive capacity of the land, helping in reducing vulnerability to drought. At the same time mitigation is a by-product. 

 

The position on CSA adopted by India is a safe middle path. Promoting agriculture as a primary vehicle of mitigation is not acceptable. The main thrust of sustainable agriculture policy and programmes will continue to focus on food security and adaptation to climate change. If, however, the practices and technologies of adaptation yield side-benefits of agriculture related emission reduction and climate mitigation, that is a bonus. In the short term this might suffice. For the long term, is it smart?

 

The writer was a Commissioner on the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change (2010-2012) established by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/smart-agriculture-for-food-security/14017.html