Assessment of Large Seed Banks Requirement for Drought Risk Management in South Asia

‘Taming the Anarchy’ is an important and—as Tushaar Shah says in its preface—a provocative book. Readers, he expects, will question some of his powerful ideas and arguments. Shah, Senior Advisor to the Director General at the International Water Management Institute in Colombo and Senior Advisor to the Government of India, exhibits in this book the rare skill of being able to write for both politicians and practitioners while maintaining the scientiWc rigor of the groundwater scientist he is. Shah eloquently explains why after independence the relation between South Asian states and their farming communities began to change as supply-based water delivery became unsatisfactory. In a relatively short period of time, this gave rise to an era of atomistic pump irrigation. The author provides interesting details in describing the extent of the tube well irrigation revolution in South Asia and the likely consequences for the future of canal irrigation. He also explores the spatial variability of groundwater potential in the region, refuting the simplistic claim of general overexploitation of the resource. Shah makes it clear that pump irrigation has not solved all the problems of irrigated agriculture in South Asia. To the contrary, sustaining irrigated agriculture in South Asia is a huge challenge, requiring actions by the farmers and initiatives from society itself. Irrigated agriculture and food production in South Asia, a region with about 1.5 billion people, deserve our interested attention because of its potential impact on all our lives. Causes of the pump irrigation revolution

Changing characteristics of meteorological droughts in Nigeria during 1901–2010

The South Asian subcontinent contains a vast mosaic of environments and lifeways. Agriculture and pastoralism are important food producing systems within this mosaic but coexist alongside hunter-gatherer-fisher-forager groups, shifting cultivators, and nomadic pastoralists that are often marginalized. This interplay between different lifeways has deep roots in South Asian history and prehistory. Despite this, discussions of early South Asian agriculture and pastoralism often depict a limited and narrow dataset, confined to a few sites. As a result it has been argued that the origins of agriculture and pastoralism in South Asia are hard to pinpoint. However, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and genetic data, alongside the growing archaeological record, are showing that the South Asian subcontinent is a rich ground for exploring the complexity and nuance of changing lifeways during the transition to agro-pastoralism. People in South Asia incorporated both nonnative crops and animals from southwest Asia, Africa, and China into existing systems, domesticated local taxa in multiple regions, and continued to exploit wild resources throughout periods of established agro-pastoral systems. A diversity of Neolithics are therefore demonstrated within the subcontinent, and the mixing of traditions is a hallmark of South Asia and is critical for discussions about what early agriculture and pastoralism looked like and what the impacts of changing lifeways and economies were over time.

The chapter introduces the book that highlights various challenges and opportunities for water management and cooperation in South Asia. Taking into consideration the increasing urbanization and development in the region and related pressure on water resources, the various chapters investigate water conflictual and cooperative attitudes and gestures between countries and regions, analyse management trade-offs between nature, agriculture and urban uses, and look into water sustainable management and related policies. The chapter highlights the increasing importance of South Asia, alerts for the constraining impacts of water scarcity, and indicates challenges for improved sustainable water management. The chapter concludes with synopses of each part of the book and of the chapters that compose them.

Of late, intensive farming for higher food production is often associated with many negative implications for soil systems, such as decline of soil organic matter (SOM), increase in risks of soil erosion by wind and/or water, decline in soil biological diversity, increase in degradation of soil physical quality, lower nutrient-use efficiency, high risks of groundwater pollution, falling water tables, increasing salinization and waterlogging, in-field burning of crop residues, pollution of air and emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), leading to global warming, and decline in factor productivity. These negative implications necessitate an objective review of strategies to develop sustainable management practices, which could not only sustain soil health and ensure food security, but also enhance carbon sequestration, decrease GHG emissions, and offer clean and better ecosystem services. Conservation agriculture (CA), that includes reduced or no-till practices along with crop residue retention and mixed crop rotations, offers multiple benefits. Adoption of a system-based CA conserves water, improves and creates more efficient use of natural resources through the integrated management of available soil nutrients, water, and biological resources, and enhances use efficiency of external inputs. Due to apparent benefits of CA, it is increasingly being adopted and now covers about 180 million hectares (Mha) worldwide. However, in South Asia its spread is low (<5 Mha), mostly concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). In this region, one of the serious issues is “residue burning” with severe environmental impacts. A huge amount of crop residue left over after the combine harvest of rice has forced farmers to practice widespread residue burning (∼140 M tonnes) to cope with excessive stubble and also for timely planting/sowing of succeeding crops. In rice-wheat cropping systems, which cover more than 10 Mha in the IGP, CA practices are relatively more accepted by farmers. In these systems, any delay in sowing leads to yield penalty of 1–1.5% per day after the optimum sowing date of wheat. The strong adoption of CA practices in IGP is mainly to overcome delayed sowing due to the field preparation and control of weeds, timely planting, and also escape from terminal heat during the grain-filling stage. Major challenges to CA adoption in South Asia are small land holdings (<1 ha), low technological reach to farmers, nonavailability of suitable farm implements for small farm holders, and the staunch conventional farming mind-set. South Asia region consists of many countries of diverse agro-ecologies with contrasting farming systems and management. This region, recently known for rapid economic growth and increasing population, necessitates higher food production and also hot-spots for adoption of CA technologies. Therefore, in this review critically explores the possibility, extent of area, prospects, challenges, and benefits of CA in South Asia. HIGHLIGHTS Conservation agriculture (CA), consisting of reduced or no-tillage and crop residue retention, is a self–sustainable system which offers an alternative to crop residue burning. The CA approach improves soil health by increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) and aggregation and also conserves soil, water and energy than conventional farming systems. South Asian countries are suitable for adoption of CA practices but the area under CA remains low (<5 Mha) as compared to the global area (180 Mha). Adoption of CA in South Asia has skewed distribution, mainly in Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh in South Asia. Development of herbicide-resistant weed species and weed shift by continuous application of herbicides are the major challenges in adoption of CA. The traditional-farming mind-set, socio-economic conditions, small farm-holdings, weed and residue management, and non-availability of suitable machinery are key constraints to the low adoption of CA practices in South Asia.

Public management in South Asia has been influenced by the colonial past which has resulted in the domination of administrative systems by the bureaucrats. Bureaucracies remained firmly entrenched as powerful groups and performed both administrative and political functions. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka represent cases with similar backgrounds which opted for different political and economic systems after achieving independence. Consequently, a number of issues have emerged in public management in South Asia. These include debureaucratization of the policy process, complex relationship between specialists and generalists, integration of administrative structures, reconciliation of merit and equity, choice between professional and political patronage, revitalization of management, bridging the ever widening gap between the citizens and administrators, and the establishment of a sound ethical base of administration. The success of South Asian governments in dealing with these issues will determine, to a considerable extent, the dimensions and directions of change. While some of the issues will have to be addressed in the natural course of development, others will require a substantial degree of commitment from the governments as well as the societies.

There is increasing evidence suggesting that climate change will negatively impact agricultural production in South Asia. Decreased domestic production may make South Asian countries more dependent on imports. The extent to which South Asia will need to increase its imports as a result of climate change will presumably depend on the degree to which the latter will affect domestic output. The effects of climate change on agriculture may well differ substantially for individual South Asian countries and indeed for regions within a given country which can be approximated by food production units. This calls for an analysis of climate change effects on trade flows under alternative trade policy regimes both for agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. The specific objectives of the paper include the following: analyze the extent to which agricultural production in South Asia and elsewhere in the world may be affected by different scenarios regarding climate change; analyze the extent to which changes in domestic production in South Asia resulting from climate change will lead to increased demand for imports by South Asian countries; analyze the effects of increased import demand in South Asia and changing exportable surpluses elsewhere on world market prices of major agricultural commodities consumed in South Asia; to the extent that South Asian governments allow transmission of changes in world market prices to domestic prices, analyze the potential welfare effects of changes in the latter; analyze if, and to what extent, worldwide trade liberalization and implementation of South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) will dampen the effects of climate change on domestic agricultural prices in South Asia. In this context, the report is organized as follows: chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two describes the methodology used - with particular attention to how different models and modeling techniques are linked to produce an as accurate as possible assessment based on state-of-the-art knowledge. Chapter three provides an up-to-date analysis of trade flows and policies, and production patterns for key food products in South Asia to explain the context in which climate change is taking place. Chapter four describes the climate change scenarios and illustrates their consequences for crop yields at a global level and for South Asia - and in particular shows the vulnerability of the region to these changes. Baseline design, simulations, and results are discussed in chapter five. The final chapter six provides a short summary, discusses the limitations of the analysis, and derives suggestions and guidelines for future research.

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This chapter summarizes the archaeological evidence for the Neolithic and early food production across South Asia, with a focus on four major macro-regions with distinct chronological sequences, crop ecologies and cultural traditions. The four macro-regions are given by the northwest, including the greater Indus valley, the Gangetic plains, eastern India and savanna India. The earliest agriculture in South Asia can be found along the western tributaries of the Indus River, at aceramic settlements like Mehrgarh. Towards the middle Ganges plains there is clear evidence of a strongly indigenous Neolithic tradition, which included the development of rice cultivation and eventual sedentism. The nature of early Neolithic societies in eastern India has been less well studied than other parts of the subcontinent. However, there is a growing corpus of information from various streams of evidence available in the archaeological literature. The case for a truly independent origin of agriculture in South Asia is strongest in the southern peninsula of India.

This paper aims to study how alternative trade policies will help mitigate the effects of climate change in agriculture in South Asia. We use a modified version of MIRAGE CGE for long term projections and allowing modeling of climate change effects (impact on yield) at a subregional level (163 geographical units at the world level) to simulate the effects of 13 SRES scenarios in 8 different trade policy landscapes. Based on these results, we discuss the ranking of trade policy options based on expected values but also in terms of variance using the theory of decision in uncertainty. Choices between unilateral and regional strategies for the countries of the sub regions are compared. Our results confirm that South Asia will be one of the most adversely affected regions in terms of the impacts of climate change on agricultural yield. Both the overall level of economic activity and trade flows will react to this change (-0.5 percent of real income for the region in average, up to -4 percent for Pakistan). Beyond national real income, we also look at the distributional effects of climate change. Unskilled worker real wages, proxy for poor people income, are largely and generally negatively impacted by climate change. We show that trade policies weakly affect the overall economic impact of climate change but leads to more significant changes for the poor.

Human-induced climate change is occurring at a fast rate, and agriculture, for its greater dependence on nature, is the most vulnerable sector to climate change. The rate of global warming has increased, and among the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is mainly responsible for this. It is projected that climate change may adversely affect global food security in this century. South Asia accommodated nearly half (48%) of the World's multidimensional poverty in 2017, and any adverse impact on agriculture will hurt South Asian countries very badly. Among eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka together have nearly 99% share of total GDP and 97.8% of the total population of South Asia in 2018. This study attempts to find out the evidence of the impact of climate change on agriculture in South Asia and five selected countries mentioned above based on data collected from the central database of the World Bank for the period of 1960 to 2016. We begin by assuming that CO2 can affect the agricultural value-added and examine whether there is any equilibrium long-run relationship among value added by agriculture, CO2 emissions, land under cultivation of cereal crops, and rainfall using the ARDL bounds test and error correction model. We do not find any evidence of the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture in South Asia and five selected countries.KeywordsAutoregressive distributed lagged modelError correction modelClimate changeSouth Asian CountriesValue added by agriculture

Flash droughts are abrupt and rapid intensification of droughts that affect agriculture, water, and ecosystems and are commonplace in South Asia. Despite their potential impact, flash drought evolution characteristics and underlying mechanisms in South Asia remain underexplored. We use a multivariate approach to analyze the onset speed, frequency, severity, duration, and return period of flash droughts, and the role of atmospheric circulation and human-induced climate change. We find that flash droughts are more common and intense in the crop season, especially in central India, western Pakistan, and eastern Afghanistan. They are caused by persistent atmospheric patterns that block moisture transport to South Asia. Additionally, anthropogenic climate change has intensified flash droughts in the spring-summer season, with a median fraction of attributable risk of 60%, 80%, and 90% for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, respectively. Our results suggest that flash droughts will expand and worsen in the future, requiring adaptation measures for the water, agriculture, and energy sectors.

• CSBs are an important seed source for participants in Malawi. • Participating in CSBs is associated with higher food security compared to non-participants with similar socioeconomic status. • Past exposure to rainfall shortages and high temperatures is associated with a higher propensity to participate in CSBs. Community Seed Banks (CSBs) are promoted as an approach to support farmers’ access to quality seeds of adapted varieties. While the adoption and impact of varieties distributed through conventional formal seed systems have been extensively studied, research on how participation in CSBs relates to farmers’ seed systems and food security is limited. This paper uses survey data covering 688 households and 1600 plots from Northern and Central Malawi, combined with historical climate data, to assess the extent to which farmers are utilizing CSBs as a seed source and the association of farmer participation in CSBs with a range of other foods system variables. We find that CSBs are the source of about 1/3 of the seeds of maize, groundnut, and soyabean used by the participants and that they source less of their seeds from their own harvest compared to non-participants. While the use of CSB seeds of different crops shows mixed associations with yields at the plot-level, we find that CSB participation is positively associated with higher household food security overall. Furthermore, we find a positive association between exposure to high mean temperatures and rainfall shortages and the propensity to participate in CSBs, suggesting CSBs play a role in adaptation. This study thus shows that CSB participation is associated with several positive food system outcomes, but more research is needed to understand the causal links as well as the efficiency of CSBs compared to other approaches to strengthen farmers’ seed security.

Characterizing the cereal systems and identifying the potential of conservation agriculture in South Asia

Agriculture in South Asia is vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, adaptation measures are required to sustain agricultural productivity, to reduce vulnerability, and to enhance the resilience of the agricultural system to climate change. There are many adaptation practices in the production systems that have been proposed and tested for minimizing the effects of climate change. Some socioeconomic and political setup contributes to adaptation, while others may inhibit it. This paper presents a systematic review of the impacts of climate change on crop production and also the major options in the agricultural sector that are available for adaptation to climate change. One of the key conclusions is that agricultural practices that help climate change adaptation in agriculture are available, while the institutional setup to implement and disseminate those technical solutions is yet to be strengthened. Thus, it is important to examine how to bring the required institutional change, generate fund to invest on these changes, and design dynamic policies for long-term climate change adaptation in agriculture rather than a mere focus on agricultural technology. This is one of the areas where South Asian climate policies require reconsidering to avoid possible maladaptation in the long run.