WUNRN
Food Security & Poverty in Asia
& the Pacific - Key Challenges & Policy Issues
Direct Link to Full 33-Page ADB 2012
Report:
__________________________________________________________________
Climate Change 'Biggest Threat'
to Food Security
By Amantha Perera
A woman works in a family garden in her village of Pillumallai in
Eastern Sri Lanka.
Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
COLOMBO, June 5, 2012 (IPS) -
When it comes to expressing the threat to food security posed by changing
climate patterns and extreme weather events in Asia and the Pacific, the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) does not mince its words.
"The
greatest threat to food security is climate change," the Bank said in a
45-page report, ‘Food Security and Poverty in Asia
and the Pacific: Key Challenges and Policy Issues’, released late
last month.
The report’s
findings ring especially true in
The ADB
study looked at areas that could affect food security, such as trade policies,
development, the demand for food and resource management and possible
mitigation efforts. It tagged climate change as a key player in determining
food security levels, as interventions needed to stem the impacts of global
warming go beyond national borders and surpass the authority of any single
government.
"Problems
caused by climate change are much more difficult to resolve in the short term
and will require long-term and internationally coordinated solutions," it
said.
Sri Lankan
climate change expert Riza Yehiya, an architect and sustainability consultant,
echoed the ADB’s sentiments.
"The
issues of climate change and food security in Sri Lanka are becoming
alarming," he told IPS, adding that changing climate patterns combined
with a lack of proper policies to mitigate adverse impact have put the South
Asian island in a precarious position.
Though
In 2011,
close to 20 percent of the harvest was wiped out when devastating floods
between January and February were followed by a harsh drought in some flood-hit
areas.
The worst
affected populations of these twin crises struggled hard to make ends meet.
United Nations’ updates on the impact of floods on the East coast detailed
instances of older children dropping out of school in order to help their
families who, as a result of a ruined harvest, had lost their only source of
income.
"Too
much rain or too little (ruins) any crop, not only paddy. Rainfall fluctuation,
especially in 2011, left crops vulnerable," Malika Wimalasuriya, head of
the climate change unit at the Meteorological Department, told IPS.
"
"Yield
losses are expected to be even larger (than the Pacific) in tropical regions
such as South and
Officials at
the climate change unit of the Meteorological Department highlighted that
severe water scarcity is also a very real possibility for the Sri Lankan
agriculture sector in the future, especially since rising temperatures will
exacerbate decreasing rainfall.
Yehiya
pointed out that overuse of fertiliser has made the land less productive while
the demand for food is likely to rise in the future, putting even more pressure
on producers.
"One of
the biggest problems with Sri Lankan agriculture is the lack of water
management," observed Mudalihamige Rathnayake, head of the Department of
Geography at the southern
He told IPS
that Sri Lankan farmers still rely heavily on the Irrigation Department to
release water from reservoirs, rather than taking the initiative on water
management themselves.
"We
still do not have a culture where farmers feel they have to manage their own
water resources," he lamented.
"
As ground
water supplies dry up, the threat of rising salinity emerges as yet another
obstacle to food production and security.
Some of the
island's largest rice producing areas in the Digamadulla, Batticaloa and
Trincomalee districts along the eastern coast lie very close to the sea,
heightening the risk of seawater intrusion due to rising sea levels.
Officials at
the Coast Conservation Department (CCD) told IPS that
"Even a
small rise in the sea level could increase the salinity in groundwater. You may
not see seawater intrusion on the surface, but salinity levels will change
below the ground," he said.
The CCD
official also noted the difficulty of implementing a clear policy on countering
erosion, making the coast vulnerable to extreme weather.
"To
achieve these ends (of effectively mitigating impacts), our political
leadership and the academia must work together to produce the much-need climate
change experts required to spearhead (effective) management of the
problem," Yehiya said.
Wimlasuriya
said simple strategies, like better coordination among government agencies,
could go a long way. According to him, climate change phenomena like El Nino
and La Nina could be predicted to some degree, but lack of communication
between public bodies prevents any decisive and integrated action getting off
the ground.
"What
countries like