Climate-smart Agriculture Concept Research Articles

Climate-Smart Agriculture: Climate Change-Friendly and Resilient Agriculture

The world is now facing a dilemma because; on the one hand, agriculture intensification to feed the skyrocketing population entails more fossil fuels consumption and more synthetic fertilizers application inducing more Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions that exacerbate climate change. Climate change, on the other hand, has led to adverse effects on the agriculture sector on a global scale despite some minor advantages in higher latitudes. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA), hence, is the only solution to ensure sustainable agriculture productivity and maintain its resilience to climate change consequences. It is a modern approach to responding the climate change by reducing the trade-offs and improving the synergies of agricultural practices. It stands on three main pillars namely, sustainable productivity, resilience-building, and GHGs emissions mitigation using indigenous knowledge and site-specific solutions. Among several practices applied, the Internet of Things (IoT) in agriculture is one of the modern initiatives that can achieve the principal goals of CSA significantly. Therefore, the overall goal of this review paper is to examine the reciprocal effects of climate change and agriculture, discuss the concept of CSA, and ascertain its applicability in Afghanistan.

Economy-wide impact of climate smart agriculture in India: a SAM framework

In the context of climate change, the Indian agricultural sector treads in a certain duality between promoting food security in response to the increasing population, but at the same time in ensuring environmental sustainability, and sustained economic growth, especially in developing countries like India. The concept of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) emerged from the recognition of this duality. Using the Indian Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) 2017–18, the economy-wide effects arising out of agricultural interventions were estimated, keeping accord with the impacts on sectoral outputs and household incomes from the adoption of varying CSA interventions such as Conservation Agriculture, System of Rice and Wheat Intensification (SRI-SWI) and Natural Farming, fitting the three-pillared criterion of CSA—(1) Productivity (2) Adaptation and (3) Mitigation. Additionally, a shift in cropping patterns from Paddy and Wheat to less emission-intensive crops was also studied. Results show that SRI-SWI provides the highest economy-wide impacts while accounting for lower GHG and water footprint. Alternative crops such as Maize, Sorghum, and Millet have minimal increase in income and output effects while having lower water and carbon intensity compared to rice and wheat. The current study would sensitize policymakers to prioritize suitable policy and institutional measures for upscaling climate smart interventions in India.

Building the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate variability: Using climate-smart agriculture in Bono East Region, Ghana

The concept of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) emerges from a requirement to come up with advanced solutions towards the intricate and combined objectives of enhancing crop yields, ameliorating resilience, and encouraging a low-emissions agricultural sector. This study examines how smallholder farmers are building their resilience to climate variability using CSA practices in the Bono East Region, Ghana. Specifically, the study sought to: (i) assess the trends of temperature and rainfall for the period 2011 to 2021; (ii) identify and rank CSA practices used by the smallholder farmers for resilience building in agricultural systems; and; (iii) determine the barriers militating against smallholder farmers' implementation of the prioritized CSA practices. Standardized rainfall and temperature anomalies integrated with Sen's slope were used to determine the temperature and rainfall trends. One hundred and fifty random household surveys in five selected communities (Benkai, Fiaso, Traa, Awurano, and Bomini) accompanied by five key informant interviews were used to collect field data. The CSA practices identified by the farmers and the barriers opposing the implementation of these practices were ranked using the Relative Importance Index (RII) and Weighted Average Index (WAI) respectively. Results showed that rainfall was inconsistent and temperature rose from 2011 to 2021 in the study area. Results also revealed that the key CSA practices implemented by the farmers were appropriate fertilizer application (RII = 0.758), mixed farming (RII = 0.735), and crop diversification (RII = 0.717). However, in the implementation of these CSA practices, the farmers were confronted with key barriers including increased occurrences of diseases and pests (WAI = 1.173), restricted access to agricultural technologies (WAI = 1.100), and excessive price of improved crop varieties (WAI = 1.067). The study concludes that the resilience of smallholder farmers in Ghana can be built through the effective implementation of the aforementioned CSA practices.

Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and Adaptation of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) in Nigeria

This review is focused on Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and adaptation of climate smart agriculture (CSA) in Nigeria. Specifically, this paper discusses the role of indigenous knowledge in farmers’ perception of climate change; indigenous knowledge used by farmers in responding to climate change; challenges in applying IKS in CSA adaptation and opportunities to integrate indigenous knowledge and CSA into extension education. The impacts of climate change are observed at various spatial scales; from local to global and are a threat to global environmental sustainability, particularly its consequent risks to indigenous communities and their livelihoods. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) offers an integrative approach to adaptation within the context of agriculture that involves services to farmers and farm activities with the intention of creating greater resilience of farming systems in the face of environmental change and reducing the environmental effects. The concept of CSA is new and still evolving, howbeit, many of the practices that make up CSA already exist worldwide and are currently used by farmers to cope with various forms of risks. To foster CSA using IKS, it calls for in-depth analysis of successfully completed and on-going practices as well as their relationship with current and future agricultural and environmental outlook. IKS can help to achieve food security and broaden agricultural development in this time of a changing climate and rising food demand.

The Progress of the Development of a Climate-smart Agriculture in Europe: Is there Cohesion in the European Union?

The development of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is crucial in ensuring the creation of a low-carbon society and mitigation of climate change. These tasks require concerted actions from multiple stakeholders since the very concept of CSA is rather complex and requires multi-dimensional consideration. This study defines and applies various indicators to evaluate the development of CSA in the European Union (EU). To do this, three different multi-criteria decision-making methods, namely Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR; multi-criteria optimization and compromise solution), were employed for the construction of a composite indicator. A combination of both objective (entropy) and subjective (Analytic Hierarchy Process) weighting techniques was utilized to derive the weights of the indicators. The leaders in the EU in terms of CSA are Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, whereas the countries with the lowest levels of CSA development are Cyprus, Greece and Portugal. This study also revealed divergence in the development of these practices in the EU-24 for the period 2004-2019. Thus, a more inclusive approach is needed to ensure the spread of climate-smart ideas in European agriculture sectors.

CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE. UTOPIA OR REALITY?

Current estimates predict a world population growth of 9.6 billion by the year 2050, many of whom will live in countries already facing food insecurity. To feed this population, agricultural production will have to increase by approximately 50%, a difficult situation due to the effects of climate change. In order to achieve food production goals without putting the environment at risk, FAO, since 2009, has supported member countries in their initiatives to implement Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) that takes into account local and national specificities and priorities, to sustainably increase productivity and resilience, strengthen food security and mitigate damage from greenhouse gases (GHG). This literature review seeks to contribute to discussions on the recognition of the CSA concept, its applicability in agricultural systems and review advantages or disadvantages to face global climate change. In Brazil, there is growing concern, due to the country's high vulnerability and low development capacity to face environmental impacts. However, despite the attractiveness of the concept, specific criteria to guide the approaches and technologies to be used have not yet been defined.

An Assessment of Integration of MSMEs and CSA into Livestock Red Meat Value Chain: A Case Study of Kajiado County, Kenya

The livestock sector is a major contributor to food security, livelihoods, and is most affected by climate change, but is also a major contributor of GHGs. While climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been adopted to mitigate the effects of climate change it has focused more on smallholder food crop producers with little attention to livestock production, and or entire food chains. MSMEs play a pivotal role in enhancing the ability of producers to engage with value chains, integrate women and marginalized groups, innovate, and are key drivers of community resilience, social adaptation, poverty reduction, and protection of livelihoods due to MSMEs’ greater adaptability and flexibility. Linking CSA to MSMEs within the livestock red value chains will strengthen the chains, improve incomes, reduce climate risks and increase resilience for pastoralists in ASALs. This study reveals that the red meat value chains in ASALs are still underdeveloped and fragmented, have little application of modern technologies and practices, unsustainable, and largely nomadic. Further, there is low integration of MSMEs and CSA due to actors’ low awareness of the concept of CSA, limited capacity building on CSA, incentives, and policy instruments to integrate MSMEs thus leaving the value chains weak, inefficient, vulnerable to climate risks, and unsustainable. Adaption of sustainable practices can only come after the integration of actors, therefore there is a need to invest in context-based integration approaches, such as awareness and knowledge, affordable relevant modern technologies and practices, relevant policy instruments, and incentives to realize the CSA triple wins, and develop climate-resilient red meat value chains.

Towards Climate Smart Farming—A Reference Architecture for Integrated Farming Systems

Climate change is emerging as a major threat to farming, food security and the livelihoods of millions of people across the world. Agriculture is strongly affected by climate change due to increasing temperatures, water shortage, heavy rainfall and variations in the frequency and intensity of excessive climatic events such as floods and droughts. Farmers need to adapt to climate change by developing advanced and sophisticated farming systems instead of simply farming at lower intensity and occupying more land. Integrated agricultural systems constitute a promising solution, as they can lower reliance on external inputs, enhance nutrient cycling and increase natural resource use efficiency. In this context, the concept of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) emerged as a promising solution to secure the resources for the growing world population under climate change conditions. This work proposes a CSA architecture for fostering and supporting integrated agricultural systems, such as Mixed Farming Systems (MFS), by facilitating the design, the deployment and the management of crop–livestock-=forestry combinations towards sustainable, efficient and climate resilient agricultural systems. Propelled by cutting-edge technology solutions in data collection and processing, along with fully autonomous monitoring systems, e.g., smart sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the proposed architecture called MiFarm-CSA, aims to foster core interactions among animals, forests and crops, while mitigating the high complexity of these interactions, through a novel conceptual framework.

Smart and Climate-Smart Agricultural Trends as Core Aspects of Smart Village Functions.

Attention has shifted to the development of villages in Europe and other parts of the world with the goal of combating rural–urban migration, and moving toward self-sufficiency in rural areas. This situation has birthed the smart village idea. Smart village initiatives such as those of the European Union is motivating global efforts aimed at improving the live and livelihood of rural dwellers. These initiatives are focused on improving agricultural productivity, among other things, since most of the food we eat are grown in rural areas around the world. Nevertheless, a major challenge faced by proponents of the smart village concept is how to provide a framework for the development of the term, so that this development is tailored towards sustainability. The current work examines the level of progress of climate smart agriculture, and tries to borrow from its ideals, to develop a framework for smart village development. Given the advances in technology, agricultural development that encompasses reduction of farming losses, optimization of agricultural processes for increased yield, as well as prevention, monitoring, and early detection of plant and animal diseases, has now embraced varieties of smart sensor technologies. The implication is that the studies and results generated around the concept of climate smart agriculture can be adopted in planning of villages, and transforming them into smart villages. Hence, we argue that for effective development of the smart village framework, smart agricultural techniques must be prioritized, viz-a-viz other developmental practicalities.

Climate Smart Agriculture Concept and Adaptation in Nepal: An Overview

Nepal is the fourth most vulnerable country with Global Hunger Index (GHI) of 21.2 % scored indicating various risks and vulnerability. Impact of climate change seen on agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Nepal in a frontline of climate change as 42 districts classified as food insecure, 21 glacial lakes are potentially dangerous and Nearly 1.9 million people are highly climate vulnerable is dangerous statistical data for future Nepal. Change in rainfall pattern, temperature variation, unseasonal rain and long drought are some impacts on climate which ultimately impact on agriculture systems. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorients agricultural system to support food security under changing environmental condition. CSA promotes only by collaborate actions of small holder farmers, marginalized group, policy makers and others related sectors. In this paper bird's eye views on issues of climate change, Climate smart agriculture (CSA), local institution, policy makers, adaptation and practices, Program, policy, project ongoing in Nepal to tackle all of such concerns of impacts of climate change in agriculture, climate, food security particularly in the context of Nepal.

Bio-Economic Assessment of Climate-Smart Tea Production in The Northern Mountainous Region of Vietnam

Agricultural production in the face of climate change requires a climate-smart transformation and reorientation at multiple scales. Vietnam is one of the developing countries that is agriculture-based and severely affected by climate change; therefore it is crucial that the agricultural system advances toward this transformation. While climate-smart agriculture has gained a significant attention in global fora, context-specific evidence is still scarce in Vietnam. This study examines climate-smart agriculture potentials in tea production systems in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam. Since the climate-smart agriculture concept is multidimensional, which includes food security and adaptation and mitigation, an interdisciplinary analytical framework is employed in this research to assess the economic and biophysical dimensions. Enterprise budgets and representative farms (i.e., farms or households having one or more activities or enterprises) are developed for tea and alternative crops, as well as livestock production, to analyze the productivity dimension of food security. In evaluating the adaptation potential of tea production, local farmers’ perceptions and experiences of extreme weather events are combined with ERA-Interim data (1989-2013) and household survey data on income levels (reanalysis dataset taken from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts; ERA stands for ECMWF Reanalysis). Greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration potentials are estimated through partial Carbon Footprint Life Cycle Assessment. Results show that tea production systems generate net margins, returns to capital, and family labor higher than the alternatives. Farmers, therefore, have high incentives to switch from other crops to tea production. In the face of climate change, tea has shown a strong biophysical adaptive capacity compared to other crops in the northern mountainous region. Tea production systems have a high capability for carbon storage. Evidence of strong synergies between food security and mitigation and adaptation is demonstrated for tea production systems in the northern mountainous region, and potential tradeoffs were highlighted, where relevant.

Institutional Perspectives of Climate-Smart Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is increasingly seen as a promising approach to feed the growing world population under climate change. The review explored how institutional perspectives are reflected in the CSA literature. In total, 137 publications were analyzed using institutional analysis framework, of which 55.5% make specific reference to institutional dimensions. While the CSA concept encompasses three pillars (productivity, adaptation, and mitigation), the literature has hardly addressed them in an integrated way. The development status of study sites also seems to influence which pillars are promoted. Mitigation was predominantly addressed in high-income countries, while productivity and adaptation were priorities for middle and low-income countries. Interest in institutional aspects has been gradual in the CSA literature. It has largely focused on knowledge infrastructure, market structure, and hard institutional aspects. There has been less attention to understand whether investments in physical infrastructure and actors’ interaction, or how historical, political, and social context may influence the uptake of CSA options. Rethinking the approach to promoting CSA technologies by integrating technology packages and institutional enabling factors can provide potential opportunities for effective scaling of CSA options.

COP 21 and the global horticulturist: the way to climate smart horticulture

By the end of the century, changes in temperature and rainfall, rising sea levels and the likely increase in extreme weather events will have a considerable impact on horticulture. Globally, agriculture, deforestation and other land uses are responsible for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions. Faced with these changes, ensuring food security for all, especially for the poorest, is a major global challenge for horticulturists. Farmers from all around the globe will have to adapt to new contexts and this requires profound changes. The concept of climate-smart agriculture is based on the premise that it is possible to ensure production meets the needs of farmers while adapting to and mitigating climate change. CSA refers to agricultural systems that increase food security in the face of climate change, enhance adaptive capacity of farmers to the impacts of climate change, and mitigate climate change where possible. CSA has quickly been integrated into the global development agenda; it is not a new set of practices to be promoted to farmers, but rather an integrated approach to the implementation of agricultural development policies and programmes that strives to improve food security, livelihoods, and resilience under the realities of climate change, while at the same time capturing mitigation co-benefits where possible.

USE OF SMART INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE

The concept of Climate Smart Agriculture couples climate change and food security through the integration of adaptation and mitigation measures, mostly driven by smart-innovations. The paper is an attempt to present how climate smart agriculture concept could be driven by diffusion of the smart innovations in agriculture, and how these innovations could contribute to reduce vulnerability and hence increase resilience to climate change. The results of foresight studies shows that use of innovative technologies could provide benefits through reducing the asymmetry of information coming from natural production systems and through reducing its vulnerability, as well as reducing the environmental pressure and connected with this risk of increased production failures and negative external effects.

Identifying Climate-smart agriculture research needs

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach to help agricultural systems worldwide, concurrently addressing three challenge areas: increased adaptation to climate change, mitigation of climate change, and ensuring global food security – through innovative policies, practices, and financing. It involves a set of objectives and multiple transformative transitions for which there are newly identified knowledge gaps. We address these questions raised by CSA within three areas: conceptualization, implementation, and implications for policy and decision-makers. We also draw up scenarios on the future of the CSA concept in relation to the 4 per 1000 Initiative (Soils for Food Security and Climate) launched at UNFCCC 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21). Our analysis shows that there is still a need for further interdisciplinary research on the theoretical foundation of the CSA concept and on the necessary transformations of agriculture and land use systems. Contrasting views about implementation indicate that CSA focus on the “triple win” (adaptation, mitigation, food security) needs to be assessed in terms of science-based practices. CSA policy tools need to incorporate an integrated set of measures supported by reliable metrics. Environmental and social safeguards are necessary to make sure that CSA initiatives conform to the principles of sustainability, both at the agriculture and food system levels.

The way forward: An agroecological perspective for Climate-Smart Agriculture

The concept of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has consistently been positioned between science and policy. CSA has given rise to a lively debate in both the scientific community and civil society although it addresses the pressing need for an efficient strategy to manage agriculture and food systems facing climate change (CC). CSA formally targets the simultaneous fulfilment of three criteria: (i) CC mitigation, (ii) adaptation to CC and (iii) food security. Yet, the review of scientific literature on CSA displays a clear discrepancy between these three objectives, underlining the fact that CSA is regularly perceived as addressing only adaptation, and not mitigation and food security. On the other hand, research on agroecology (AE) reveals an extensive knowledge about food security and adaptation, often at scales which can be considered complementary to those of CSA. A better use by CSA of AE research results may help CSA focus on two currently overlooked dimensions, i.e. (i) mitigation and (ii) trade-offs and synergies between the three criteria. CSA does not have a specific blueprint for climate-smart practices and has rather a strong focus on policies, institutions and financing. Hence AE actually responds to the needs of CSA in terms of site-specificity and potential for adoption by farmers because it is strongly based on local practices. We argue that an eco- and socio-logical approach to CSA represents a sine qua non condition if CSA is to promote inclusive development and participate to collective efforts to manage agriculture and food systems under climate change.

AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY IN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PLANNING

Abstract Climate change is one of the biggest threats to food production worldwide. Recently, an increasing number of initiatives have embraced the concept of climate smart agriculture to respond to climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges. A central component of this approach is the use of agricultural biodiversity at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels for increasing productivity, adaptability and resilience of agricultural production systems. This paper analyses the extent to which the use of agricultural biodiversity is included in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) developed by 50 least developed countries to guide their actions in relation to climate adaptation. The results of the analyses indicate that in the majority of the NAPAs, agricultural biodiversity has not been incorporated in a comprehensive manner and that increased efforts can be done at national and international levels for effectively making agricultural biodiversity work for most vulnerable countries’ adaptation to climate change. Key words: agrobiodiversity, NAPAs, smallholder farmers, developing countries, climate change adaptation

Towards Climate-Smart Agricultural Approach: Prospect for Smallholder Farmers in Semi-Arid Regions

Towards Climate-Smart Agricultural Approach: Prospect for Smallholder Farmers in Semi-Arid Regions Lavhelesani Rodney Managa, Nolitha Nkobole-Mhlongo Abstract Climate change has become a major threat to human developmental sectors in recent times. Agriculture is particularly vulnerable sector because it is highly dependent on climate variables. General decrease in total seasonal rainfall, accompanied by more frequent in-season dry spells are pervasive to sub-Saharan Africa, and significantly impact on crop and livestock production, and hence hamper food security in the region. The hardest hit by climate change is the rural smallholder farmers in the drier areas, owing to adaptive capacity and limited resources. As to carter the adaption needs of smallholder farmers to climate change, climate-smart agricultural approach provides much needed potential. However, to efficiently achieve climate-smart agriculture, evidence-base, and location specific framework that unpack complexity and define precise implementation pathway is urgently needed. This paper therefore, reviewed prospect of present and future climates change implications to smallholder farmers in developing countries. Thereafter, it drew upon a variety of current adaptation strategies within concept of climate smart agriculture, and assess the required support to increase the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers’ in semi-arid regions Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jaes.v4n2a5