Andrea Cattaneo Agricultural Development Economics Division

FAO

Keynote presentation Best Practices in Crop Production

3rd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security, and Climate Change December 3rd, 2013

Best Practices in Identifying Best Practices in crop production under climate change

Overview

Part 1 – Challenges due to Climate Change

Part 2 – “Technical” Aspects of Best Practices

Part 3 – Incorporating Economic Decisions

Part 3 – The Role of Institutions

To 2090, ensemble

mean of 14 climate

models

Thornton et al. (2010)

>20% loss 5-20% loss No change 5-20% gain >20% gain

Length of growing period (%)

African agriculture in a +4 °C world

But these changes are likely already happening...

Source:

(FAO, 2013)

Smallholders’ response to climate change

Technologies and practices to increase resilience of agricultural systems: • Soil and nutrient management • Improving water harvesting and retention • Understanding and dealing with changes in distribution of

weeds, pests, diseases • Utilising different crops, breeds, wild relatives • Efficient harvesting to reduce post-harvest losses • Planting date management • Use of agroforestry species (soil benefits, dry season livestock

fodder, income generation, carbon sequestering, …) There is a need to prioritize among these options...

Climate Smart Agriculture

Important to build evidence-based agricultural development strategies, policies and investment frameworks to:

1. sustainably increase agricultural productivity and incomes,

2. build resilience and the capacity of agricultural and food systems to adapt to climate change, and

3. seek opportunities to reduce and remove GHGs compatibly with their national food security and development goals.

Clearly identifying best practices is a key step in attaining these goals

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Overview

Part 1 – Challenges due to Climate Change

Part 2 – “Technical” Aspects of Best Practices

Part 3 – Incorporating Economic Decisions

Part 3 – The Role of Institutions

Identifying Best Practices

The natural approach to identifying CSA best practices is to examine proxies for the three pillars of CSA:

1. Productivity

2. Resilience

3. Carbon balances

However, a best practice can really be considered such only if it is actually adopted by farmers

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Examples of potential CSA best practices

Practices Production Resilience Mitigation Adoption Barriers

Conservation agriculture ++ ++ ++ ??

Nitrogen fertilizer +++ -- ??

Integrated nutrient mgmt ++ - ??

Reduced residue burning ++ + ++ ??

Reduced tillage / no-till + + + ??

*These examples are purely illustrative and hypothetical

• How well a practice will perform in the three CSA dimensions will depend on the agro-ecological and socioeconomic contexts, and the farming system it is being applied to. •These three factors combined will also determine the barriers to adoption

Identifying Best Practices

Understanding and overcoming barriers to

adoption is a crucial aspect of identifying best

practices for CSA

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Overview

Part 1 – Challenges due to Climate Change

Part 2 – “Technical” Aspects of Best Practices

Part 3 – Incorporating Economic Decisions

Part 3 – The Role of Institutions

The Building Blocks for CSA Success:

An FAO country-based approach

1. Assessing the situation: identifying locally viable CSA

practices 2. Understanding barriers to adoption of CSA practices 3. Managing climate risk 4. Building coherent policies & Institutions 5. Guiding investment

Overcoming Barriers to Adoption for Better Project Success: The case of Zambia

Practices: Conservation Farming practices: minimum soil disturbance (MSD) and crop rotation(CR)

– MSD adoption remains very low: ~5-6% (sample size 4,187)

– Significant dis-adoption: ~90% of MSD adopters in 2004 abandoned it

– Adoption intensity is significantly higher for smallholders

Adoption: Strongest determinants

– Variability of rainfall

– Delays in the onset of rains

– Extension information

With climate information can target interventions...

Source:

(FAO, 2013)

Emerging Evidence: Malawi

• Practices: improved maize varieties, inorganic and organic fertilizers (OF), legume intercropping (LI), and agro-forestry (AF) (e.g. Faidherbia albida)

• Adoption: Important determinants:

– Land tenure positively correlate with OF,LI, AF

– Drought proneness positively correlate with AF&LI

• Yields:

– Improved seed, legume Intercropping & agro-forestry positively correlate with productivity

– Significant synergies among all three practices

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Overview

Part 1 – Challenges due to Climate Change

Part 2 – “Technical” Aspects of Best Practices

Part 3 – Incorporating Economic Decisions

Part 3 – The Role of Institutions & Investment

Tenure Security: lack of tenure security and limited property rights, may hinder adoption of SLM

Limited Access to Information, e.g. very low levels of investment for agriculture research and extension

Up-front financing costs can be high, whilst on-farm benefits not realized until medium-long term (credit)

Risk plays an important role

What effect does a practice have on risk profile? What safety nets?

What barriers to adoption linked to institutions?

Strengthening local institutions: how to improve the enabling environment?

• Local institutions (formal & informal) are “enablers” for adoption

• Three main areas where CC affects what we need to see from local institutions for enabling environments

• Information dissemination (CC destroys info)

• Risk management (CC increases uncertainty)

• Collective action (CC changes scale)

Conclusion • Technical aspects of practices are very important, but to be successful

practices need to be adopted on the ground by farmers

• Adoption will depend on economics, institutions, and appropriate investment

• Potential CSA practices should be evaluated taking these aspects into account when developing CSA investment proposals

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Assessing potential practices

Identify barriers and enabling factors

Managing Climate Risk

Defining coherent policies

Guiding Investments

Thank you!

If interested in the CSA evidence-base for Malawi, Viet Nam, and Zambia go to:

http://www.fao.org/climatechange/epic/en/