Graduating to climate smart agriculture to ensure food security
Bangladesh needs to scale up sustainable agricultural practices that enable farmers to raise their incomes sustainably, adapt to the effects of climate change and reduce and eliminate GHG emissions
Robust, data-backed digital solutions options can lessen the effects of both rapid and slow onset disasters that cause "Loss and Damage" to those unable to take measures against climate change.
Bangladesh is a low-lying deltaic country with a population of over 166 million, highly dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture.
Agriculture is vital in increasing productivity, ensuring sustainable food security and creating employment opportunities. According to the provisional calculation of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics for the economic review of Bangladesh, the contribution of agriculture to the GDP in FY 2021-22 is about 11.50%.
Data from the Global Climate Risk Index, which ranks Bangladesh the seventh most affected country by extreme events between 1993 and 2022, shows that Bangladesh lost $3.72 billion and witnessed 189 extreme weather events from 2000 to 2022. This led to an average of 0.8-1.1% of GDP losses for Bangladesh annually.
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Bangladesh's monsoon season floods 80% of its land, particularly on the southwest coast. Climate change impacts have severely affected local farmers' livelihoods, leading to storm surges, inadequate rainfall, extreme temperatures and heat waves. Expanding evidence is crucial for sustainable agri-food systems and improved rural livelihoods, with case stories here illustrating severe loss and damage events.
Worried about the next meal
Mozar Ali, 60, experienced the wrath of cyclones Amphan (2020) and Yas (2020), which caused damage to his paddy crops, plants and poultry; which was more shocking to him than his damaged house. He had no savings left to rebuild his land and needed help from Union Parisad.
Mozar borrowed Tk40,000 to fix his house and left with a group of paddy cutter labourers for other districts, to make a livelihood. He is still repaying a loan he took to build a roof.
Saline soil or infested leaves: who to fight first?
Minara Begum, 47, lives in Barbunia Union, Morelganj Upazila, and faced a devastating cyclone in 2007. The cyclone caused extensive damage to her home, including flooding the paddy fields, fish cages and destroying trees.
After receiving relief from NGOs, she took a loan from Asha Samiti to repair her house and pay off debts.
Since 2021, high tide water from a nearby canal has caused flash floods, leaving a saline layer on her crop fields. She failed at every possible attempt to protect her crops from insects and saline intrusion.
Green field turned yellow
Momota Rani, 46, lives in Uttar Sutalori Village of Morrelganj Upazila in Bagerhat District. She is the breadwinner of her family and cultivates vegetables for selling. In 2007, Sidr caused significant damage to her house and land.
She and her daughters were left homeless. She received help from the council and worked on a road repair program for 90 days. With that money, she also took a land lease to start farming fish, but faced challenges due to saline intrusion in water.
She also tried traditional vegetable cultivation. Her vegetable leaves turned yellow and spotty due to salinity intrusion on the land, leading to production failure.
Failure of traditional cropping method
Karima Akter, a 37-year-old from east Baroikhali village, shared her experience with cyclones Sidr, Bulbul, Nargis, Amphan and Sitrang. Sidr (2007) severely affected her fish farming business, leaving her destitute and struggling to support her family.
Her husband, who took a small land lease for paddy cultivation, failed due to salinity and insect attacks on rice seedlings. Local insecticides failed to prevent the infestation, leaving them empty.
Working together to scale up climate-resilient cropping systems
Helvetas Bangladesh has collected beneficiary profiles for 101 families, including people like Mozar Ali, Minara Begum, Karima Akter and Momota Rani, who experienced substantial economic loss due to recurrent loss and damage of agricultural land, fishing farms, homestead gardens and trees. The initiative aims to avoid and address repeated economic and non-economic losses and damage.
The Panii Jibon Project has initiated a mixed vegetable production team from Paikgasa, Koyra and Morrelganj Upazila, utilising climate-resilient crop, livestock and fish farming systems. The team collaborates with local service providers to access digital solutions and share information. They are also providing capacity-building training related to climate change adaptation.
However, tensions remain over the potential submersion of houses and crops by saline water in case of another cyclone. Momota Rani, who joined the producer group team last year, now cultivates fish and vegetables in a saline-tolerant method and breeds and vaccinates poultry herself. She is concerned about the potential for drought and barren land due to insufficient rain.
The Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC estimates that climate change has caused economic and non-economic loss to 850,000 households and 250,000 farmlands in Bangladesh between 2014 and 2021. Supporting alternative climate-resilient livelihoods aligns with the government's vision and contributes to local economies.
Bangladesh struggles to implement climate-smart agriculture support for ensuring food security. Building an evidence base can help apply action points for future success.
The Bangladesh Delta plan (2100) targets to achieve a safe, climate-resilient and prosperous delta with a mission to ensure long-term water and food security, economic growth and environmental sustainability. This can effectively reduce vulnerability to natural disasters and build resilience to climate change, which needs scaling up of sustainable agricultural practices that enable farmers to raise their incomes sustainably, adapt to the effects of climate change and reduce and eliminate GHG emissions.
To implement these policies in practice, Helvetas is trying to work on a tiny scale in capacity building of these local farmers, through linkages with DAE in Morrelganj, Koyra and Paikgasa Upazila and local service providers, where these vulnerable people got several agri-related supports. However, these efforts will not be sustained if not adopted, replicated and mainstreamed nationally by the government.
Jannatun Nayem is a Knowledge Management Officer of the Panii Jibon Project for Helvetas Swiss InterCorporation Bangladesh. Her Research Interest lies in Climate Justice. M Manjurul Islam is a PhD Student at the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics and an Arrell Scholar at Arrell Food Institute, University of Guelph, Canada.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
