Bangladesh is a country that is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In fact, the latest Germanwatch report ranks this country seventh globally in the Climate Risk Index for 2000-2019.
Each year, its over 164 million people experience frequent and extreme climatic events like river and flash floods, droughts, heatwaves, cold waves, saltwater intrusions, cyclones, and tornados.
Such events are life-threatening and damage the country’s development aspirations, but the people of Bangladesh are largely considered to be global pioneers in adaptation and resilience initiatives.
The agriculture sector is a national driver of the country’s economy, contributing to 41 percent of employment and 14.8 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, climate-related hazards incur significant losses to arable land, livestock safety and wellbeing, and revenue due to their impacts on the availability of crops that reach markets and people’s plates.
Without urgent attention to climate-resilient agricultural practices, climate change will have a huge impact on poverty and food insecurity in the country both now and in the future.
A small change in temperature or precipitation alone can severely impact staple crop yields. In 2011, the World Bank projected an 8 percent and 32 percent decrease in rice and wheat production, respectively, by 2050.
Rising temperatures also cause rising sea levels, thereby drowning arable lands in saltwater and reducing their ability to produce crops.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) estimates that about one-third of Bangladesh (or 49,000 square kilometers) is affected by tides in the Bay of Bengal.
Warmer temperatures and more changes in rainfall patterns also negatively impact soil organic matter, feed and fodder production, and animal health, thus increasing the loss of nutrients needed to grow bountiful crops and healthy grazing.
Additionally, more salinity has a profound impact on the terminative energy and plant germination, while droughts, heatwaves, cold waves, and heatwaves create harsh growing conditions for different crops.
In the longer run, Bangladesh’s efforts towards implementing Climate-smart Agriculture (CSA) have been gaining popularity as an effective strategy to address the risks and impacts of climate change, but its adoption remains slow despite the various concerted efforts of governmental and nongovernmental organizations (GOs and NGOs).
The CARE for South Asia project has identified major climatic hazards and CSA practices to promote agriculture in the country, aiming to support policy reform, capacity-building, the piloting of promising CSA projects, and knowledge sharing.
This article groups various such practices in the country with regards to the three fundamental pillars of CSA: food security, adaptation or resilience, and mitigation.
Water conservation and efficiency
Too much or too little water as a result of climate change has major consequences to the viability of the agriculture sector, which means that its conservation and efficient use is essential.
Current technologies being promoted in the country to protect this critical resource include rainwater harvesting and storage structures, drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, Alternate Wet and Dry (AWD) methods, buried pipe and solar-powered irrigation, Alternative Furrow Irrigation (AFI) for row crops, and waste/grey water harvesting.
Soil conservation and fertility management
The nutrients, level of moisture, and composition of soil play an important role in whether crops can grow well or even grow at all.
The fertility of the soil is consistently being threatened by the impacts of temperature and precipitation changes, flooding, drought, and saline intrusion.
In Bangladesh, CSA practices like vermicompost and tricho-compost, improved farmyard manure and compost manure, and efficient use of fertilizer (through such initiatives as micro-dosing) are having a positive impact on the country’s climate resilience.
Furthermore, conservation-oriented practices like cover cropping, mulching, crop rotation, and intercropping are all promoted by GOs and NGOs to improve soil fertility and retain moisture.
Vegetable cultivation in sac and bench terracing in hilly areas is practiced in some areas to address drought and landslides, while different salinity management practices are adopted to mitigate and adapt to saltwater intrusion.
Crop management
Apart from recognizing changes to climate and weather conditions that influence agricultural yield, smart crop management itself can also help farmers cope with climate change and improve their output.
Such initiatives already practiced in Bangladesh include integrated farming, double transplanting, crop and crop variety management (such as improving sees or planting high-yield, fast-maturing varieties that are tolerant to droughts, floods, and salinity).
It also includes integrated pest and disease management and traditional, yet innovative, floating garden practices for seedling production, vegetable production, and timely/early/late planting.
Agroforestry
The intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems is an effective way to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, which agriculture is a major producer of despite its nature-based industry, and also improves adaptation, fodder, and crop productivity.
Trees in croplands, rotational woodlots, improved fallow lands, fodder banks, and tree planting/afforestation are some of the key CSA practices that have been adopted in Bangladesh.
Livestock management
While climate change impacts livestock physiology, feed and fodder management, and the health and sanitation of livestock, the impacts of their grazing, water use and contamination, and other waste production can also have a negative climate change impact if left unchecked.
The promotion of local livestock breeds can reduce methane emissions and enhance adaptation and yield, while appropriate fodder and feed selection can help reduce GHG emissions on one hand and increase their feed-use efficiency on the other.
Common feed and fodder management strategies being practiced in the country include multi-species fodder banks, hydroponic fodder, promoting saline and water-tolerant fodder species, straw-based diets (urea-treated or urea molasses), straw preservation through the covering with plastic paper/bags, and silage preparation.
Bangladesh is also implementing hay preparation and Total Mixed Ration (TMR) systems. To ensure clean and healthy livestock, the country requires health cards for scheduled vaccinations, deworming, and husbandry management to assist in the early detection of health risks and epidemics that pose a serious risk to livestock, and as a result, the supply and cleanliness of meat production.
Other forms of CSA
To effectively and efficiently scale up the above-mentioned CSAs, it is critical to establish different support systems.
Climate Information Services such as climate diary, the establishment of weather stations, a weather forecast for climate-informed decisions, and the establishment of a decision support system such as an early warning system, are all also promoted as CSA technologies.
Farmers Field School, the one-stop service and community-based cluster approach, and exposure visits are other CSAs for training and capacity building.
Furthermore, weather-based insurance through a safety net, weather index-based agriculture insurance, and livestock insurance are CSAs promoted to compensate for climate-induced losses.
Community/Group Approaches such as a cooperative society and rural level information dissemination platform are also required to enhance community resilience in a sustained manner.
Key issues and Call for Action
Climate extremes and hazards vary across the region in Bangladesh due to geographical, ecological, and climatic variations.
In this context, addressing their impact requires customized technologies and practices, preferably marrying modern technologies with local and indigenous practices, to tailor mitigation to local problems and needs.
To scale up CSAs, we need enabling policies, knowledge, capacities, and financing mechanisms. This requires a multi-pronged approach, favorable pathways, and active engagement of public and private institutions, including financial institutions.
The integration and mainstreaming of CSAs into national and sub-national plans and allocation of a budget with appropriate resource-leveraging are key to the scaling-up of CSAs and their sustainability in the long run.
A high-level, multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder coordination mechanism would also help improve coherence and coordination among policies and institutions to scale up CSAs.
The writers are Dr. Pashupati Chaudhary, Senior Resilient Agriculture Specialist; Asadul Hoque, Resilient Agriculture Specialist; and Lalit Dashora, Senior Technical Specialist, all at the Climate Resilience (CLR) Department, ADPC.
They can be reached at:
pashupati.chaudhary@adpc.net,
asadul.hoque@adpc.net, and
lalit.dashora@adpc.net respectively.