Fourteen options for adapting agriculture to climate change

Results & impact 12 September 2023
Faced with the threat of climate change, governments all over the world are deploying significant resources to protect their agricultural systems. But behind the consensus on the need to act rapidly lies competition between several agricultural models. Which adaptation strategies are specifically driven by governments? A team from CIRAD has just published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development the results of a cross-cutting analysis of the climate adaptation policies implemented in seven countries or regions (Senegal, Colombia, South Africa, California, Guadeloupe, Occitanie and Andalucia).
In Casamance (Senegal), traditional lowland rice farming systems are under threat from sea level rise © R. Belmin, CIRAD

In Casamance (Senegal), traditional lowland rice farming systems are under threat from sea level rise © R. Belmin, CIRAD

This cross-cutting analysis of 226 policy initiatives in seven countries or regions in the global North and South has identified 14 adaptation options pursued by governments. 

These adaptation options aim to:
• make agriculture more sustainable and climate resilient and guarantee access to natural resources such as water;
• produce and disseminate knowledge useful to actors engaged in adaptation strategies;
• finance and coordinate adaptation strategies at the sectoral and territorial levels.

The results also show that agroecology and climate-smart agriculture are the two agricultural models favoured in the policy mixes of the sites studied, instead of conventional agriculture.

“In spite of the diversity of the responses to the problem of climate change, we are unable to predict whether these measures will be sufficient to address the emergency situation currently facing us”, says Raphaël Belmin, lead author of the analysis.

This study was conducted in the context of the Typoclim project coordinated by CIRAD’s Marie Hrabanski and financed by Montpellier University of Excellence. 

Reference

Belmin, R., Paulin, M. & Malézieux, E. Adapting agriculture to climate change: which pathways behind policy initiatives? Agron. Sustain. Dev. 43, 59 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00910-y

 

 

See also