Implications of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food Security in South Asia

Abstract

It is estimated that the current food production in South Asia has increased three times from 117 million tonnes in 1961 to 348 million tonnes in 2006, but the dietary energy consumption has improved not enough emphasising the fact that the growth rate is not sufficient to tackle the emerging challenges in addition to population pressure. Ensuring food security in the future requires a great deal of additional efforts in yield improvement, with limited scope for expanding area under cultivation.

FAO has revealed recently (2008) that the Boro rice output in Bangladesh is estimated at record 17.54 million tonnes, increased by some 17.2% from the previous year and 29.3% above the 5-year average. This increase of production was mainly due to favourable weather conditions and extra efforts made by farmers and Government in response to the high food prices and production loss of 1.4 million tonnes in 2007 Aman season following severe flood and Cyclone Sidr.

We in FAO strongly feel that it is not enough; adaptation and mitigation requires socio-institutional learning process and participatory community based actions for technology refinement and transfer. Location-specific technologies and good ­practices need to be built upon an improved understanding of the links between climate change and food provision, while promoting socio-economic development and limiting further environmental degradation.