does climate smart agriculture lead to resilience?

Does Climate Smart Agriculture Contribute to Resilience?

Alex De PintoSenior Research Fellow

Environment and Production Technology DivisionInternational Food Policy Research Institute

Addis Ababa, MAY 2014

A few definitions

From one of the last documents circulated by the CSA Alliance:Climate Smart Agriculture, three pillars• Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity;• Adapting and building resilience to climate change;• Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

Distinction between Adaptation and Resilience:• Adaptation capacity: the ability of humans to deal with

change in their environment (Folke et al., 2004).

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An empirical example from India

ACIAR project on: Capturing the potential for greenhouse gas offsets in Indian agriculture

Period under consideration 2010-2050 Essential components are: • IMPACT model: a global partial equilibrium model of

agricultural commodities• A spatially-explicit model of land use choices which

captures the main determinants of land use choices • Crop model (DNDC) to simulate yield, GHG emissions,

and changes in soil organic carbon

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Data and Simulations

Basic data on output prices (country-wide) and production costs (state-wide) taken from the Agricultural Statistics, 2013.

Extensive (but not exhaustive yet) search of published, and not yet published, data on changes in production costs related to adoption of alternative agricultural practices.

From DNDC we derive:• Yields changes• Carbon dioxide (CO2, from mineralization of organic matter)• Nitrous oxide (N2O)• Methane (CH4)• Soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation/depletion

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Simulated Cropping Systems

Cropping system Karif Rabi

Groundnut-wheat Groundnut Wheat

Maize-wheat Maize Wheat

Pearl millet-wheat Pearl Wheat

Rice-fallow Rice fallow

Rice-pulses Rice pulses

Rice-rice Rice Rice

Rice-wheat Rice Wheat

Sorghum-wheat Sorghum Wheat

Soybean-wheat Soybean Wheat

Source: Efficient alternative cropping systems. Gangwar and Singh, 2012

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Simulated Practices

Management technique Description

ConventionalPrior to first crop in rotation tillage to 30cm depth; subsequent tillages(following each crop in rotation) to 10cm depth. fertilizer N applied as urea on plant date; manure applied on plant date

No-till Tillage only mulches residue

AWDRice paddy is initially flooded to 10 cm – water level is reduced at rate of -0.5 cm/day to -5cm and then re-flooded at rate of 0.5 cm/day till to 10 cm

No-till + organic fertilizer (manure)

Tillage only mulches residue50% of chemical fertilizer N replaced with organic fertilizer N (manure)

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Technical Mitigation Potential

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Relevant Information: CSA(calculated from a selection of states)

Effects of Adoption of Select Mitigation Practices on Yields

Effects of Adoption of Select Mitigation Practices on GWP

Effects of Adoption of Select Mitigation Practices on SOC

Effects of Adoption of Select Mitigation Practices on Net Revenues

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Climate Smart Agriculture

Sustainably Increase Productivity Adaptation Mitigation

Best CSA

Output SOC SOC Net Revenue GWP

No Till + + ++ + +Org. Fert. + No Till -- -- +++ -- ++

AWD - + + 0 +++

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Sustainably Increase Productivity Adaptation Mitigation

Best CSA

Output SOC SOC Net Revenue GWP

No Till + + ++ + +Org. Fert. + No Till -- -- +++ -- ++

AWD - + + 0 +++

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Sustainably Increase Productivity Adaptation Mitigation

Best CSA

Output SOC SOC Net Revenue GWP

No Till + + ++ + +Org. Fert. + No Till -- -- +++ -- ++

AWD - + + 0 +++

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Sustainably Increase Productivity Adaptation Mitigation

Best CSA

Output SOC SOC Net Revenue GWP

No Till + + ++ + +Org. Fert. + No Till -- -- +++ -- ++

AWD - + + 0 +++

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Relevant Information: Resilience(resilience refers to the production system) Effects of Adoption of Select Mitigation Practices on

Yields under extreme events Effects of Adoption of Select Mitigation Practices on

Yield variability

Climate extremes were calculated by considering 97.5 and 0.25 percentiles based on annual precipitation records for the period of 2004 to 2050 at each pixel. Then assumed that climate extremes would be. upper 2.5% and lower 2.5% events at each pixel

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CSA vs. Resilience

Sustainably Increase Productivity Adaptation Mitigation Resilience

Output SOC SOC Net Revenue GWP

Better Output in Weather Extreme

years

Reduced yield

variability

Net Revenue

No Till+ ++ ++ + + + - +

Org. Fert. + No Till

- - +++ +++ - - ++ - - - - - -

AWD- + + 0 +++ - + 0

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Conclusions There seems to be compatibility between CSA

and increased resilience of the productive system, but….

We first need to fully explore and agree on the definition of CSA, i.e. boundaries and trade-offs,

The analysis results indicate a large spatial variability: difficult to make blanket statements of best practices,

This type of multi-objective analysis becomes complicated very quickly and it complicates the formulation of policy recommendations.

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