Climate Change Impacts in Japan and Southeast Asia: Implications for Crop Adaptation

Abstract

Southeast Asia region comprises a group of mainland and island countries with diverse geophysical and socioeconomic characteristics. Southeast Asia includes Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, The Union of Myanmar, and Vietnam. Most of the Southeast Asian countries are low-income and low-middle income economies with an exception of Singapore with high-income economy and Malaysia with upper-middle-income economy (The World Bank 2010). In addition to these countries, this paper also touches upon climate change impacts in Japan, which could provide needed capacity in mitigation of some of the impacts observed in the Southeast Asian countries. Agriculture in value added of national gross domestic product (GDP) in this region accounts to about 17.3%. However, there is a variation with figures ranging between 41.8% (Lao PDR) and 0.1% (Singapore) (Fig. 3.7.1). While the share of agriculture in national GDPs may appear less significant, agriculture undoubtedly plays an important role beyond its share in the national GDP in these countries. Agriculture employs about 50.4% of total population in these countries (FAO 2009c), with a range between less than 1% in Singapore and 80% in East Timor, and is backbone for realizing food security and providing needed inputs to the industry. Southeast Asian countries differ in the agricultural productivity. In terms of developmental indicators, Southeast Asia is the third poorest region in the world after sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia and ranks poorly in terms of labor productivity, access to food, maternal health, and forestation (United Nations 2009). Hence, any external stress can mean significant impact on sustainable development of many Southeast Asian countries. Rice is the principal cereal crop cultivated in the Southeast Asia grown in about 46.7 Mha (amounting to 82% of total area under cereal cultivation in the region) with a productivity of 4.04 tha−1 (FAO 2009a) and provides about 60% of total calories, 1195 kcal/capita/day, to millions of people in Southeast Asia (FAO 2009b). Other principal crops grown in the region are maize, sorghum, wheat, barley, and rye. The region imports wheat (9.5 Mt), soybeans (4.5 Mt),