1. using AgMIP Regional Integrated Assessment Method
Evaluation of Climate Impact, Adaptation, Vulnerability and Resilience in Agricultural Systems
using AgMIP Regional Integrated Assessment Method
Sabine Homann-Kee Tui, Katrien Descheemaeker,
Patricia Masikati, Roberto Valdivia, John Antle
1. Introduction
2. Study site and approach
Climate-smart agriculture recognizes that climate impacts and vulnerability of smallholder farming systems must be addressed as part of broader pathways towards sustainable agriculture. Evaluating impacts of adaptation can inform transformation of agricultural systems, supporting food security and resilience under climate change.
Smallholder farming systems in drylands are particularly vulnerable, low state of agricultural productivity (blue ball, Figure 1). They are exposed to climate related and other forms of shocks, with longstanding ecological, social and economic effects. Climate change adaptation involve a purposeful set of actions to deal with climate effects in the context of multiple drivers and opportunities, towards states of higher productivity, food security, income and well-being (green ball). Enhancing resilience means strengthening farming systems’ capacity to maintain its functions and develop in the face of shocks and disturbances, e.g. by minimizing losses from climate change. Longer term mechanisms, institutions, policies, markets are required to support the systems to renew or re- organize themselves and capture opportunities.
This paper illustrates how AgMIP simulation-based methods can be used for quantifying impacts of adaptation for a range of outcomes. We explore trade-offs and performances for a mixed farming system in Nkayi district, semi-arid Zimbabwe, with high vulnerability to changing climate and limited capacity to adapt. Using simulation modeling for a single scenario as ‘laboratory’ we explore technical options that can be useful for the analyses of climate-smart agriculture.
Key features of current crop livestock systems
Given high levels of vulnerability, adaptations to climate variability and change provide opportunities to lift people out of poverty
Low crop productivity; e.g. maize yields 0.7 t/ha
Low livestock productivity; e.g. mortality rates 15%
High poverty levels; 76% poor and 22% extremely poor
Food self-sufficiency: 3-10 months
Implications for integrated systems modeling
Integrated farm and household approach: Its not about aggregating yields or production of crops but looking at entire farming systems in their particular current and future context.
Bio-physcial and socio-economic heterogeneity: Unlike representative farms or aggregations, heterogeneity of populations and landscapes is taken into account, for widely varying conditions and distributional impacts.
Temporal variation and systems dynamics: Understanding of systems dynamics is important, as temporal variation has implications on agricultural systems performances, well being.
Figure 2. The AgMIP Regional Integrated Assessment approach (RIA)
The AgMIP Regional Integrated Assessment (RIA) approach simulates climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation through biophysical and economic models.
(A) RAPS define the bio-physical and socio-economic environment in which (B) complex farm household systems operate in heterogeneous regions (C). Analyses of technology adoption and impacts are implemented in these heterogeneous farm household populations (D). This regional analysis may feed back to the country and global scales (E). Source: Antle et al. (2015).
Figure 1. Systems states in relation to benefits from adaptation, along pathways to sustainable agriculture
(adapted from Rickards and Howden, 2012)
3. Impacts of climate change on farm productivity
4. Vulnerability and benefits from climate change adaptation
Assuming that Zimbabwe will slowly step-up out of its economic crisis and a high emission scenario (RAP 2, RCP 8.5), we evaluated economic impacts under driest conditions, with adaptation options designed for resource limited households:
Long duration maize with 18% grain and 11% residue increases
Converting 1/3 of the maize land to maize-mucuna rotation for soil amendment and livestock feed
Application of micro-dosing (17kgn/ha) on1/3 of the maize land, second year after maize-mucuna rotation.
Effects on crops production
Modest maize yield losses under climate change (7%-8%), as higher temperature would on average not much affect crops
Soil amendments can offset climate change effects, maize- mucuna rotation as low risk strategy for resource poor farms.
Effects on livestock production
Reduced grass and crop residue availability lowers feed intake, resulting in up to 40% milk reduction, and 50% less offtake.
The adaptation package improved feed supply, which nearly offset climate change impacts.
Vulnerability: Even if impacts of climate change would be moderate on crops and livestock, more than half the farming population would be negatively affected and hence exposed to greater vulnerability, 45% of those without cattle, 61% and 71% of those with small and large herds, affected by feed availability.
Net impacts are small for farms without livestock (3%), and much larger for farms with large herds (23%). Even though those with cattle face higher absolute losses, those without cattle are much poorer, and exposed to greater vulnerability than before climate change.
Benefits from adaptation: The tested adaptations benefited most farms and enhanced their resilience. Farms without cattle would gain more in relation to their base income, but not in absolute terms, because these interventions would improve crop productivity more than livestock productivity. Per capita income would double.
Resilience: Farms without cattle would faster recover from climate shocks than those with cattle. With transitional adaptation farms adapt faster. With rapid adaptation more farmers adapt and benefits would be much larger, especially for those without cattle.
Figure 3. Effects of climate change and adaptations on maize grain and stover yields, without adaptation and different adaptation options 1
Table 1. Future (2050) farming systems vulnerability and resilience, and net economic impacts of climate change, for farming systems in Nkayi, Zimbabwe.
Figure 4. Effects of climate change and adaptations on cattle milkyields and offtake, current, future without and with adaptation, for farmers with different herd sizes.
5. Conclusions
6. Recommendations
Recommended literature
Antle, J. M., R.O. Valdivia, K.J. Boote, S. Janssen, J.W. Jones, C.H. Porter, C. Rosenzweig, A.C. Ruane, and P.J. Thorburn. (2015). AgMIP’s Trans- disciplinary Agricultural Systems Approach to Regional Integrated Assessment of Climate Impact, Vulnerability and Adaptation. C. Rosenzweig and D. Hillel, eds. Handbook of Climate Change and Agroecosystems: The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project Integrated Crop and Economic Assessments, Part 1. London: Imperial College Press.
Lipper, L. P. Thornton, B.M. Campbell, T. Baedeker, A. Braimoh, M. Bwalya, P. Caron, A. Cattaneo, D. Garrity, K. Henry, R. Hottle, L. Jackson, A. Jarvis, F. Kossam, W. Mann, N. McCarthy, A. Meybeck, H. Neufeldt, T. Remington, P. Thi Sen, R. Sessa, R. Shula, A. Tibu, E.F. Torquebiau Climate Smart Agriculture for Food Security. Nature Climate Change 4, 1068–1072.
Rickards, L. and Howden, S. M Transformational adaptation: agriculture and climate change. Crop & Pasture Science, 63, 240–250.
Rippke, U., Ramirez-Villegas, J., Jarvis, A., Vermeulen, S.J., Parker, L., Mer, F., Diekkrüger, B., Challinor, A.J. Howden, M Timescales of transformational climate change adaptation in sub-Saharan African agriculture. Nature Climate Change Letters.
AgMIP’s new simulation based technology impact assessment is a helpful tool to prospectively evaluate the goals for climate smart agriculture, for particular farm contexts and different types of farms.
Simulation ‘laboratories’ allow scientists and stakeholders to explore the performance of agricultural systems, under a range of conditions that might be relevant to address the challenges of climate change.
Stakeholders themselves can define the technologies that will be evaluated, as well as the changes needed in the institutional and policy environment to facilitate large scale uptake of these technologies.
This can inform the design of more transformative solutions, including policies, institutional arrangements and social organization, towards solving the complex issues in farming under changing climate.
The case for Zimbabwe reflects the importance of making improved technologies available, and the important role that enhancing the adaptive capacity of these systems will play.
Policy issues need to be addressed, so that benefits from potential climate change adaptations can materialize.
The AgMIP approach can be used to explore multiple pathways for for reducing vulnerability to climate change, while also allowing stakeholders to capitalize on other socio-economic trends.
Research can now assess the requirements and quantify the potential impact of more drastic interventions and pathways. This information should be strategically placed and inform decision makers at multiple levels.
At national level, through RAPs stakeholders and scientists can identify tangible opportunities and generate scenarios with real benefits in the longer term. For particular contexts they can explore alternative options that are attainable under given conditions, and identify policy adjustments.
1. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Zimbabwe
2. Plant production systems, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
3. World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Zambia
4. Department of Economics, Orgon State University