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Recent Research on Climate Change and Food Security
Abstract
The ability of food systems to respond to climate change is both exciting and underappreciated. This chapter examines potential producer and consumer responses to climate change, their ability to mitigate otherwise negative effects on food security, and the role of public and private organizations in investing in adaptation when individual responses are inadequate. This research, on the other hand, attempted to delve into the literature on climate change and adaptation policies by looking into the relationship between climate change and food security, adaptation, and agriculture in developing countries, specifically Malaysia. It is necessary to address some important issues concerning climate change and food security in this chapter in order to gain a better understanding of adaptation concepts and climate change as they relate to food security. Many studies have highlighted the negative net impact of climate change on agriculture. Most studies have shown that Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, with the majority of people reliant on climate-sensitive agricultural systems. According to a review of the literature on food security issues, food production alone would not be able to contribute to overall food security because food production is dependent on a variety of climatic conditions and factors. Many reports in particular define the negative effects based on forecasts for various time segments and suggest that the amount of rainfall is decreasing in trend and will continue to decrease in the future with some uncertainty regarding its amount. Although a mild rise in temperature (between 1 and 3 °C) may support food production in temperate regions, it may have a negative effect in tropical and seasonally dry areas. Furthermore, this study discovered a scarcity of studies on adaptive capacities in developing countries that represent the introduction of a certain level of adaptation alternative that can be used as a benchmark for measuring food security or food sustainability. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to discuss the different climate change adaptive capacities and concerns for food sustainability particularly in Malaysian context.
The current study aims to examine the symmetric and asymmetric effects of climate change (CC) on rice productivity (RP) in Malaysia. The Autoregressive-Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) models were employed in this study. Time series data from 1980 to 2019 were collected from the World Bank and the Department of Statistics, Malaysia. The estimated results are also validated using Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), and Canonical Cointegration Regression (CCR). The findings of symmetric ARDL show that rainfall and cultivated area have significant and advantageous effects on rice output. The NARDL-bound test outcomes display that climate change has an asymmetrical long-run impact on rice productivity. Climate change has had varying degrees of positive and negative impacts on rice productivity in Malaysia. Positive changes in temperature and rainfall have a substantial and destructive impact on RP. At the same time, negative variations in temperature and rainfall have a substantial and positive impact on rice production in the Malaysian agriculture sector. Changes in cultivated areas, both positive and negative, have a long-term optimistic impact on rice output. Additionally, we discovered that only temperature affects rice output in both directions. Malaysian policymakers must understand the symmetric and asymmetric effects of CC on RP and agricultural policies that will promote sustainable agricultural development and food security.
Agriculture and climate change are internally correlated with each other in various aspects, as climate change is the main cause of biotic and abiotic stresses, which have adverse effects on the agriculture of a region. The land and its agriculture are being affected by climate changes in different ways, e.g., variations in annual rainfall, average temperature, heat waves, modifications in weeds, pests or microbes, global change of atmospheric CO2 or ozone level, and fluctuations in sea level. The threat of varying global climate has greatly driven the attention of scientists, as these variations are imparting negative impact on global crop production and compromising food security worldwide. According to some predicted reports, agriculture is considered the most endangered activity adversely affected by climate changes. To date, food security and ecosystem resilience are the most concerning subjects worldwide. Climate-smart agriculture is the only way to lower the negative impact of climate variations on crop adaptation, before it might affect global crop production drastically. In this review paper, we summarize the causes of climate change, stresses produced due to climate change, impacts on crops, modern breeding technologies, and biotechnological strategies to cope with climate change, in order to develop climate resilient crops. Revolutions in genetic engineering techniques can also aid in overcoming food security issues against extreme environmental conditions, by producing transgenic plants.
The achievement of food security and the promotion of open trade are two of the key challenges the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) faces. The 2007/08 food crisis had sparked wider debates about the relationship between the two variables, and the extent to which the existing trade policies of the Association are detrimental to the promotion of food security in the region, and vice-versa. While the global food crisis did not necessarily hamper regional trade, the ways in which individual nations responded to the crisis were not only detrimental to the promotion of regional food trade, but also to the overall open economic commitment of the region vis-à-vis the world market.
The agricultural policy in Malaysia has been biased toward industrial crop development (rubber, oil palm, cocoa, pepper) at the expense of food (fisheries, livestock, dairy, cereals, fruits, and vegetables). The policy bias toward the former has left the food sector behind in all dimensions, growth, productivity, and return as resources are diverted to those crops. The food sector needs rejuvenation in terms of productivity enhancement (through R&D and extension) and cost reduction through input sector development.
Sustainability and business process management (BPM) are both on today's IS research agenda. BPM on the one hand is even seen as one of the core aspects of the discipline. Sustainability on the other hand is a practical problem for business managers around the globe. In this paper we investigate if and how aspects of this trend towards more sustainable enterprises have been adopted and incorporated into current BPM research. We do so in form of a structured literature review. This literature review should help to discuss if today's BPM research provides the right tools and methods to green the underlying business activities or if it is rather embracing sustainability only on a descriptive/argumentative level without true incorporation into its methodological foundations. Based on the literature review the paper closes with some ideas for a future research agenda at the intersection of BPM and sustainability. © (2012) by the AIS/ICIS Administrative Office All rights reserved.
Food security is becoming an issue of great importance in not only developing countries but also in the developed world. There is an intimate relationship between food security and poverty. Food insecurity is a common problem among the low-income households in the developing countries including Malaysia. This paper aims to identify and review literatures that have given effort to measure food security status at household as well as national level in Malaysia. The paper also focuses on the issues and challenges of food security in Malaysia. Literatures were identified for review through a comprehensive search by using electronic and non-electronic databases. Based on the review of literature, it was found that household food security is significantly correlated with the income level of the households. Other socioeconomic variables of the households also affect the food security status of the households. More of the food insecure households are living below the poverty line, have a larger household size, low education level, more children and school going children and mothers as housewives. From the national perspective, Malaysia has achieved a significant increase in the production of several basic food items such as rice, fruits, vegetables, fisheries, and poultry. However, the country is highly dependent on importation of many agricultural products such as wheat, beef, mutton and dairy items due to their rising demand as well as relatively limited local production. Therefore, the key challenge for food security in the country is to achieve self-sufficiency level in most of the food requirements as well as to reduce dependency on food importation. So, further research is urgently needed to set more effective policies and strategies for achieving the self- sufficiency in producing food commodities in the country.
Malaysia's stance on food security is largely translated in terms of achieving self-suffi ciency in rice production at about 65-70% of the local consumption. Since Malaysia does not have the comparative advantage in rice production, it implements a wide range of market interventions to achieve the intended level of rice production. The policy instruments include among others: guaranteed minimum price for paddy, price control, price and input subsidies and import monopoly. These interventionist instruments may not be sustainable in the long-term as they incur a high budgetary burden to the government, misallocation of resources and liberalization demand from WTO. The industry faces challenges in terms of land competition for urbanization and industrial uses and declining soil fertility due to heavy use of chemical fertilizer. This paper examines the infl uence of the fertilizer and the cash subsidies, as well as land conversion and fertility on the level of self-suffi ciency in rice. A system dynamics model is applied to analyse the causal and feedback relationships of these variables in the paddy production system framework. The study shows that Malaysia may not be able to sustain the targeted self-suffi ciency level without adequate R&D to address the production constraints particularly below-optimum productivity and the threats of climate change. The consumption of rice on the other hand continues to rise due to the increase in population.
Rice is one of the most important staple foods for world’s population ranking third after Wheat and Maize in terms of production and consumption. Asia accounts for over 95% of global rice production with Brazil, ranked ninth as the only non-Asia nation among the World’s top ten producers. China (194.3 million tonnes) and India (148.3 million tonnes), ranked first and second respectively are by far largest producer of rice, producing half of the World’s rice. Malaysia is currently ranked 25th with a production capacity of 2.4 million tonnes and fairly constant cultivable land of about 0.7 million hectares since the 1980s. even though the land area for rice production has remained rather constant, rice productivity has been increasing every year from 2.1 in 1961 to 3.6 tons ha-1 in 2008 with an annual increase of 2.0% per year or about 28,000 tonnes per year. This has not in any way guaranteed self-sufficiency as over 700,000 tonnes or 30% of its rice needs were being imported from their neighbouring countries annually. The study therefore, examines rice production with respect to growing population for self-sufficiency in Malaysia. This is considering past trends in rice production, water use efficiency, eating habits and prosperity level by 2015.
This paper investigates how climate change can affect agricultural production and proposes some adaptation measures that could be undertaken to mitigate the negative effects of climate change while enhancing the positive ones. The paper stresses the importance of planned adaptation measures and highlights possible strategies for reducing risk and improving resilience. To quantify the possible effects of climate change and the effects of adaptation measures this study uses the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). The analysis first explores the potential effects of climate change on yields and prices. It then goes on to analyse the potential impacts of two distinctive sets of adaptation strategies on yields, prices, and food security, namely: i) research and development (to develop new crop varieties that are better suited to changed climate conditions) and ii) changes in irrigation technology. Last, the analysis in this paper estimates the public and private investment needs in research and development (R&D) for developing new crop varieties, and further develops estimates of the cost of improving irrigation technologies in OECD countries.
Climate is the primary determinant of agricultural productivity. Concern over the potential effects of long-term climatic change on agriculture has motivated a substantial body of research over the past decade. This body of research addresses possible physical effects of climatic change on agriculture, such as changes in crop and livestock yields, as well as the economic consequences of these potential yield changes. This paper reviews the extant literature on these physical and economic effects and interprets this research in terms of common themes or findings. Of particular interest are findings concerning the role of human adaptations in responding to climate change, possible regional impacts to agricultural systems and potential changes in patterns of food production and prices. Limitations and sensitivities of these findings are discussed and key areas of uncertainty are highlighted. Finally, some speculations regarding issues of potential importance in interpreting and using information on climate change and agriculture are presented.
Recent experience of food price volatility in global markets encourages closer examination of the dynamics underlying the global food system and reveals a range of contingent factors. Meanwhile a common thread of many recent expert reports has emphasised the need to intensify agricultural production to double food output by 2050. Drawing upon a food regimes approach, the paper argues that the global food system is vulnerable to three inter-connected challenges that make a largely productivist strategy inappropriate. Analysis suggests that there is a strong likelihood of rising energy costs given the anticipated decline in conventional oil supplies which will have repercussions for land-use and food security. Climate change scenarios anticipate rates of warming and drying in large areas of the tropics that will also have huge implications for food security in those areas. Yet the mode of operation of the global food system is to deliver poor quality nutrition with significant dietary health consequences, a phenomenon labelled malconsumption. The paper argues that these issues are closely inter-related and until we address the fact that the global food system remains dominated by powerful economic interests, an effective solution will remain elusive.
Ricardian model was used to estimate the impact of climate change on granary level net revenue of paddy sector in Malaysia. Panel data from eight granaries was used in this study and the annual net revenue was regressed against climate variables and other controlled variables. The results indicate that climate is one of the determinants of Malaysian paddy granaries’ profitability. Given future predicted climate scenario indicates that farmers are predicted to lose an average of about 67% of revenue within the period of 2020 to 2029, 88% within 2050 to 2059, and 127% within 2090 to 2099. The losses might affect the livelihood of 296,000 paddy farmers in Malaysia. Thus, immediate adaptation strategies are critical in order to deal with such predicted effects.
THE MODEL.................................................................................................................................7 I. Basic Methodology on Food............................................................................................. 7
Malaysia is one of the highly vulnerable countries due to climatic changes. Here the changes in climate
factors cause adverse impacts on agricultural sustainability and relevant livelihood sustainability. To
adapt to these changes a prudent adaptation policy is very important. Several countries follow different
adaptation policy based on their localized socioeconomic and geographical status. While defining its
adaptation policy, Malaysia also needs to consider several crucial factors. This study discusses issues
relevant to the farmers’ adaptation to climate change in Malaysia and also provides few
recommendations that will help policy makers to prepare the agricultural adaptation policy for climate
change
The availability and efficient use of the feed resources in Asia are the primary drivers of performance to maximise productivity from animals. Feed security is fundamental to the management, extent of use, conservation and intensification for productivity enhancement. The awesome reality is that current supplies of animal proteins are inadequate to meet human requirements in the face of rapidly depleting resources: arable land, water, fossil fuels, nitrogenous and other fertilisers, and decreased supplies of cereal grains. The contribution of the ruminant sector lags well behind that of non-ruminant pigs and poultry. It is compelling therefore to shift priority for the development of ruminants (buffaloes, cattle, goats and sheep) in key agro-ecological zones (AEZs), making intensive use of the available biomass from the forage resources, crop residues, agro-industrial by-products (AIBP) and other non-conventional feed resources (NCFR). Definitions are given of successful and failed projects on feed resource use. These were used to analyse 12 case studies, which indicated the value of strong participatory efforts with farmers, empowerment, and the benefits from animals of productivity-enhancing technologies and integrated natural resource management (NRM). However, wider replication and scaling up were inadequate in project formulation, including systems methodologies that promoted technology adoption. There was overwhelming emphasis on component technology applications that were duplicated across countries, often wasteful, the results and relevance of which were not clear. Technology delivery via the traditional model of research-extension linkage was also inadequate, and needs to be expanded to participatory research-extension-farmer linkages to accelerate diffusion of technologies, wider adoption and impacts. Other major limitations concerned with feed resource use are failure to view this issue from a farming systems perspective, strong disciplinary bias, and poor links to real farm situations. It is suggested that improved efficiency in feed resource use and increased productivity from animals in the future needs to be cognisant of nine strategies. These include priorities for feed resource use; promoting intensive use of crop residues; intensification of integrated ruminant-oil palm systems and use of oil palm by-products; priority for urgent, wider technology application, adoption and scaling up; rigorous application of systems methodologies; development of adaptation and mitigation options for the effects of climate change on feed resources; strengthening research-extension-farmer linkages; development of year round feeding systems; and striving for sustainability of integrated farming systems. These strategies together form the challenges for the future.
Feeding a growing global population in a changing climate presents a significant challenge to society. The projected yields of crops under a range of agricultural and climatic scenarios are needed to assess food security prospects. Previous meta-analyses have summarized climate change impacts and adaptive potential as a function of temperature, but have not examined uncertainty, the timing of impacts, or the quantitative effectiveness of adaptation. Here we develop a new data set of more than 1,700 published simulations to evaluate yield impacts of climate change and adaptation. Without adaptation, losses in aggregate production are expected for wheat, rice and maize in both temperate and tropical regions by 2 °C of local warming. Crop-level adaptations increase simulated yields by an average of 7–15%, with adaptations more effective for wheat and rice than maize. Yield losses are greater in magnitude for the second half of the century than for the first. Consensus on yield decreases in the second half of the century is stronger in tropical than temperate regions, yet even moderate warming may reduce temperate crop yields in many locations. Although less is known about interannual variability than mean yields, the available data indicate that increases in yield variability are likely.
This paper examines the development and use of scenarios as an approach to guide action in multi-level, multi-actor adaptation contexts such as food security under climate change. Three challenges are highlighted: (1) ensuring the appropriate scope for action; (2) moving beyond intervention-based decision guidance; and (3) developing long-term shared capacity for strategic planning. To overcome these challenges we have applied explorative scenarios and normative back-casting with stakeholders from different sectors at the regional level in East Africa. We then applied lessons about appropriate scope, enabling adaptation pathways, and developing strategic planning capacity to scenarios processes in multiple global regions. Scenarios were created to have a broad enough scope to be relevant to diverse actors, and then adapted by different actor groups to ensure their salience in specific decision contexts. The initial strategy for using the scenarios by bringing a range of actors together to explore new collaborative proposals had limitations as well as strengths versus the application of scenarios for specific actor groups and existing decision pathways. Scenarios development and use transitioned from an intervention-based process to an embedded process characterized by continuous engagement. Feasibility and long-term sustainability could be ensured by having decision makers own the process and focusing on developing strategic planning capacity within their home organisations. 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
This paper examines the development and use of scenarios as an approach to guide action in multi-level, multi-actor adaptation contexts such as food security under climate change. Three challenges arehighlighted: (1) ensuring the appropriate scope for action; (2) moving beyond intervention-based decision guidance; and (3) developing long-term shared capacity for strategic planning. To overcome these challenges we have applied explorative scenarios and normative back-casting with stakeholders from different sectors at the regional level in East Africa. We then applied lessons about appropriate scope, enabling adaptation pathways, and developing strategic planning capacity to scenarios processes in multiple global regions. Scenarios were created to have a broad enough scope to be relevant to diverse actors, and then adapted by different actor groups to ensure their salience in specific decision contexts. The initial strategy for using the scenarios by bringing a range of actors together to explore new collaborative proposals had limitations as well as strengths versus the application of scenarios for specific actor groups and existing decision pathways. Scenarios development and use transitioned from an intervention-based process to an embedded process characterized by continuous engagement. Feasibility and long-term sustainability could be ensured by having decision makers own the process and focusing on developing strategic planning capacity within their home organizations.
Society's response to every dimension of global climate change is
mediated by culture. We analyse new research across the social sciences
to show that climate change threatens cultural dimensions of lives and
livelihoods that include the material and lived aspects of culture,
identity, community cohesion and sense of place. We find, furthermore,
that there are important cultural dimensions to how societies respond
and adapt to climate-related risks. We demonstrate how culture mediates
changes in the environment and changes in societies, and we elucidate
shortcomings in contemporary adaptation policy.
Long a fruitful area of scrutiny for students of organizations, the study of institutions is undergoing a renaissance in contemporary social science. This volume offers, for the first time, both often-cited foundation works and the latest writings of scholars associated with the "institutional" approach to organization analysis. In their introduction, the editors discuss points of convergence and disagreement with institutionally oriented research in economics and political science, and locate the "institutional" approach in relation to major developments in contemporary sociological theory. Several chapters consolidate the theoretical advances of the past decade, identify and clarify the paradigm's key ambiguities, and push the theoretical agenda in novel ways by developing sophisticated arguments about the linkage between institutional patterns and forms of social structure. The empirical studies that follow--involving such diverse topics as mental health clinics, art museums, large corporations, civil-service systems, and national polities--illustrate the explanatory power of institutional theory in the analysis of organizational change. Required reading for anyone interested in the sociology of organizations, the volume should appeal to scholars concerned with culture, political institutions, and social change.
It has become commonly accepted that a successful climate strategy should compound mitigation and adaptation. The accurate combination between adaptation and mitigation that can best address climate change is still an open question. This paper proposes a framework that integrates mitigation, adaptation, and climate change residual damages into an optimisation model. This set-up is used to provide some insights on the welfare maximising resource allocation between mitigation and adaptation, on their optimal timing, and on their marginal contribution to reducing vulnerability to climate change. The optimal mix between three different adaptation modes (reactive adaptation, anticipatory adaptation, and investment in innovation for adaptation purposes) within the adaptation bundle is also identified. Results suggest that the joint implementation of mitigation and adaptation is welfare improving. Mitigation should start immediately, whereas adaptation somehow later. It is also shown that in a world where the probability of climate-related catastrophic events is small and where decision makers have a high discount rate, adaptation is unambiguously the preferred option. Adaptation needs, both in developed and developing countries, will be massive, especially during the second half of the century. Most of the adaptation burden will be on developing countries. International cooperation is thus required to equally distribute the cost of adaptation.
This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.
The economy-wide implications of sea level rise in 2050 are estimated using a static computable general equilibrium model. Overall, general equilibrium effects increase the costs of sea level rise, but not necessarily in every sector or region. In the absence of coastal protection, economies that rely most on agriculture are hit hardest. Although energy is substituted for land, overall energy consumption falls with the shrinking economy, hurting energy exporters. With full coastal protection, GDP increases, particularly in regions that do a lot of dike building, but utility falls, least in regions that build a lot of dikes and export energy. Energy prices rise and energy consumption falls. The costs of full protection exceed the costs of losing land.
Economists have often neglected the role of the community as a third pillar in the economic system next to the state and the market. Yet in agricultural development, which is often thwarted by both market and state failures, the “community mechanism” has a particular and promising role to play. It is one of Yujiro Hayami’s unique contributions to the economics literature that he developed “a conceptual framework for economists” that emphasizes the role of communities and shows how the contested concept of social capital can be applied to analyze them from an economic perspective (Hayami, 2009). At the same time, Hayami is not a “community romanticist” — he is well aware that, just like states and markets, communities can also fail.
Climate change poses one of the gravest risks to mankind as it affects a wide variety of socio-economic activities, important to world food security. Agriculture is one of the most important sectors vulnerable to climate change. Agricultural production is sensitive to climate change, and food security is sensitive to agricultural production. Climate abnormalities such as perpetual droughts, floods, heat waves, and rainfall failure can have devastating consequences for agricultural production and the impacts could be immediately transmitted to food security and livelihoods. This chapter attempted to assess the short-run economic impacts of climate change (change in the levels of temperature and precipitation) with a focus on the Ethiopian economy. In doing so, it uses a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model based on the 2005/06 Ethiopian Social Accounting Matrix. One of the innovative approaches of this study is the explicit inclusion of different agro-ecological zones (AEZs) of the country in estimating the likely effects of climate change.The results of the CGE model simulation show that climate change has a dampening effect on economic growth and many key macroeconomic indicators. Investment is the only macroeconomic variable that increases despite the changes in climate. For instance, for a 3.260C increase in temperature and a 12.02mm decline in precipitation which will result in a 9.71% loss in crop production, the CGE model simulation indicated that real GDP declines by 3.83%. Moreover, almost all sectoral activities are affected negatively and different agro-ecologies are affected differently. For instance, the highland part of the country, which is the main producer of food crops, is severely affected compared to other AEZs in terms of agricultural production. The findings further revealed that household livelihoods (measured in terms of real income and welfare) are negatively affected, and the effect is unevenly distributed across different household groups. The highest losses in income and welfare are likely to be incurred by the poor households that are residing in smaller urban centers. Thus, the results of this study call for improved climate adaptation actions at farm level and beyond for reducing both economic decline and welfare loss and enhancing resilience. These results also provide critical information for informing economic policy on climate change and achieving food security.
It is widely accepted in the scientific community that climate change is a reality, and that changes are happening with increasing rapidity. In this second edition, leading climate researcher Barrie Pittock revisits the effects that global warming is having on our planet, in light of ever-evolving scientific research. Presenting all sides of the arguments about the science and possible remedies, Pittock examines the latest analyses of climate change, such as new and alarming observations regarding Arctic sea ice, the recently published IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and the policies of the new Australian Government and how they affect the implementation of climate change initiatives. New material focuses on massive investments in large-scale renewables, such as the kind being taken up in California, as well as many smaller-scale activities in individual homes and businesses which are being driven by both regulatory and market mechanisms. The book includes extensive endnotes with links to ongoing and updated information, as well as some new illustrations. While the message is clear that climate change is here (and in some areas, might already be having disastrous effects), there is still hope for the future, and the ideas presented here will inspire people to take action. Climate Change: The Science, Impacts and Solutions is an important reference for students in environmental or social sciences, policy makers, and people who are genuinely concerned about the future of our environment.
Adaptation to climate change is now widely recognised as an equally important and complementary response to greenhouse gas mitigation in addressing climate change. Adaptation consists of deliberate actions undertaken to reduce the adverse consequences, as well as to harness any beneficial opportunities. A wide range of adaptation measures can be implemented in response to both observed and anticipated climate change. How much adaptation might cost, and how large its benefits might be, are issues that are increasingly relevant both for on-the-ground projects, as well as in a global context where trade-offs might need to be considered between the costs of climate policies and the residual damages resulting from climate change. This chapter provides a context for examining adaptation costs and benefits, and discusses key issues related to the timing of adaptation decisions as well as how such decisions could be affected by the uncertainty surrounding the impacts of climate change. It also moves the discussion beyond cost estimation to examining market and regulatory mechanisms that can be used to incentivise adaptation actions. Such mechanisms have so far received little attention in the context of adaptation.
This study empirically explores climate change-related impacts on rice farming by using global circulation models together with crop modelling. The approach uses a bottom-up strategy which focuses on agricultural production loss under various climatic conditions following observational records of precipitation and warming climatic factors up to the year 2090. The study provides a wide range of potential climate outcomes and assesses the comparative advantages of both mitigation and adaptation alternatives concerning prioritizing requirements to reduce scenario vulnerabilities in rice agriculture. Utilizing scenario vulnerabilities, this study visualizes alternative guidelines and some of the potential paths policymakers could take with their planning strategies. The issue considered in the present study could be used as a reference for developing climate change and global warming-related agricultural policies in Malaysia and other places with similar ecological conditions.
Climate change is a complex phenomenon. Now climate change has become a buzz word in general and particular to agriculture and food security. It is true for developing countries where there is a dearth of information to support and reject such a complex phenomena of this universally important aspect of nature. Climate change is as unpredictable as the movement of a bird in the sky that even an ornithologist cannot predict the movement of a falcon that is swinging in the air and so is the case of climate change even for meteorologists working in the World Meteorological Station. The main concern about climate change and food security is that changing climatic conditions can initiate a vicious circle where infectious diseases cause or compound hunger, which, in turn, make the affected populations more susceptible to infectious disease. The result can be a substantial decline in labor productivity and an increase in poverty and even mortality. Essentially all manifestations of climate change, such as drought, higher temperatures, or heavy rainfalls could have an impact on the disease pressure on plants and animals. Also, climate change could affect food safety and food security. It is anticipated that due to climate change many flora and fauna including humans, higher plants and animals will face new diseases due to easily expansion of diseases causing epidemic cycle making more favorable to pathogens in different parts of the world. There will be a continuous outbreak of such diseases making hunger and malnutrition more severe than ever and consequently affect for important food commodities due to changing climate of tropical, temperate and equatorial zones, the main biodiversity zones for population and food production as well. Hence, this paper tries to provide a brief review on climate change with respect to food security and crop production, which, ultimately, could suggest agronomic measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change and adopt vagaries of climate change in the days ahead for an agrarian country like Nepal. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ajn.v1i0.7541 Agronomy Journal of Nepal (Agron JN) Vol. 1: 2010 pp.40-49
The negative effects of climate change are projected to affect the populations with the least capacity to adjust, but with the greatest need for improved agricultural performance to achieve food security and reduce poverty. The purpose of the paper is to identify how climate change affects how we should approach the process of transforming agricultural systems (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) to support global food security and poverty reduction in a sustainable way. We also identify implications for FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and CGIAR priorities.To achieve this goal, we identify and discuss five major categories of responses within agricultural transitions that can be taken to respond to climate change: 1) increasing the resilience of production systems, 2) diversification, 3) expanding the use of no regrets technologies and planning, 4) better use of information for risk management, and 5) utilizing the co-benefits from mitigation. The urgency of reducing food insecurity together with the need for immediate responses to climate change impels us to define mechanisms, actions and approaches to stimulate desired transitions.
Coping with climatic variations or future climate change must be rooted in a full understanding of the complex structures and causes of present vulnerability, and how it may evolve over the coming decades. A theory of the social vulnerability of food insecurity draws upon explanations in human ecology, expanded entitlements and political economy to map the risk of exposure to harmful perturbations, ability to cope with crises, and potential for recovery. Vulnerable socio-economic groups in Zimbabwe and the potential effects of climate change illustrate some of the applications of the theory.
Sustainable energy supply is essential for actualizing Malaysia׳s vision to become a high-income country. The current power production and demand trends show that Malaysia has a reserve margin that will only last for the next few years. This calls for further investment, research and development in the country׳s power sector in order to meet the ever increasing energy demand. The government׳s diversification policy and power sector expansion plan emphasizes on the incorporation of renewable energy sources (RESs) and other less CO2 emitting sources like nuclear into the national energy mix. However, the environmental ramifications of this policy should be part of any future expansion plan of national grid. This paper presents a panoramic overview of the Malaysian energy sector, the energy policy revolution and the power sector expansion strategy towards secure sustainability. We want to bring into focus the benefits and challenges of Malaysia׳s power sector expansion plan with the aim of stimulating further discussion and research on the environmental ramifications of the plan.
Current science education reforms and policy documents highlight the importance of environmental awareness and perceived need for activism. As “environmental problems are socially constructed in terms of their conceptualized effects on individuals, groups, other living things and systems research based on constructivist principles provides not only a coherent framework in which to theorize about learning, but also a context for understanding socially constructed issues” (Palmer and Suggate in Res Pap Educ 19(2), 2004, p. 208). This research study investigated the impacts of the learning processes structured based on the theories of constructionism and social constructivism on students’ environmental awareness and perceived need for activism. Students constructed multimedia artifacts expressing their knowledge, attitudes, awareness, and activism about environmental issues through a constructionist design process. In addition, a social networking site was designed and used to promote social interaction among students. Twenty-two high school environmental science students participated in this study. A convergent mixed methods design was implemented to allow for the triangulation of methods by directly comparing and contrasting quantitative results with qualitative findings for corroboration and validation purposes. Using a mixed method approach, quantitative findings are supported with qualitative data (student video projects, writing prompts, blog entries, video projects of the students, observational field notes, and reflective journals) including spontaneous responses in both synchronous and asynchronous conversations on the social network to provide a better understanding of the change in students’ environmental awareness and perceived need for activism. The findings of the study indicated that students’ environmental awareness and perceived need for activism were improved at different scales (personal, community, global) throughout the constructionist and social constructivist learning processes.
The U.S. Agency for International Development used to be the sole arbiter of U.S. foreign aid. Today it is underfunded, understaffed, and losing influence to the Pentagon. The next president must revive USAID by making it a strong autonomous agency or a cabinet-level department.
Food security policy in Malaysia is largely about ensuring the availability, accessibility and utilization of rice to the society. To this end, three policy objectives were set since 1970s, namely: to ensure high price to paddy farmers to produce rice, to achieve a certain level of self-sufficiency in rice and to ensure a stable and high quality of rice to the consumers. To ensure these three-pronged objectives are met, the government has embarked on a protectionist regime to ensure the sector is insulated from the market vagaries particularly supply and price shocks. The instruments implemented include; price control (farm and retail), subsidies and income transfer, licensing and import monopoly. The interventions are deep and extensive in that the industry is highly distorted and begun to show some rigidities and inefficiencies. After the successful Green Revolution in the 1970s, paddy productivity has been slowing down in terms of annual rate of change. By 1990s, the chemical intensive culture introduced by the Green Revolution had started taking a toll. Evidences of reduction of soil fertility and water quality were rampant. While the other parts of the world are experiencing technological advances in paddy farming, Malaysia’s farmers remain conventional in their practices due to poor extension services. Hence, this study attempts to rectify these problematic and complex situation by proposing the need for more R&D (Research and Development) for higher yielding varieties, application of bio-fertilisers and new approach of extension (through farmer field schools). Towards these ends, the study has adopted the system dynamics methodology to capture the circular causality between variables in the paddy and rice system as well as delays and non-linearities. The findings suggest that gradual transition to bio-fertilizers, funding for R&D for development of high yielding hybrid rice and increasing the cropping intensity hold big promise towards productivity enhancement. The promotion of training and extension services using participatory approach of learning by doing or the farmer field schools is desirable to reduce the productivity gaps.
There is widespread agreement that our ability to deliver sustainable food security for all will be challenged in three dimensions — population growth, constrained natural resources, and climate change. The latest Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World (FAO 2012), estimates the number of undernourished in the world at around 850 million persons (averaged for 2010-2012). The period of relatively steady decline since 1990 was interrupted after 2007 when food prices spiked, and the numbers have remained substantially unchanged since then.
It is clear that substantial resources are needed to sustain the detail of modeling and model improvements that are needed to meet the needs identified above and others. This suggests that cooperation across these two sets of institutions (FAO and the CGIAR) to take advantage of their expertise could result in better understanding for all. At the same time, neither of these institutions has some of the expertise badly needed to assess the coming food security challenges, so cooperation should extend to a range of research organizations. The paper highlights three types of joint activities — cooperative quantitative modeling, cooperative use of institutional and outside substantive expertise, and sustained cooperation with model intercomparison efforts.