This food policy report is a response to growing concerns about the impacts of climate change on Latin American economies, agriculture, and people. It assesses both local and global effects of changing agricultural yields on the economy, subnational regions, and different household types, including male- and female-headed households in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. The three countries reflect economic and geographic diversity in Latin America and more than half of the region’s population. Climate change impacts tend to be relatively small at an economywide level in all three countries. However, sectoral and household-level economic impacts tend to be diverse across countries and subnational levels. They mainly depend on projected changes in agricultural yields, the share of agriculture in regional gross domestic product (GDP), crop-specific international trade balances, net food buyer/seller position, and income diversification of households. As for gender, results from this study suggest that female-headed households may be less vulnerable than male-headed households to the effects of climate change, highlighting the importance of considering women as a source for solutions for building resilience to climate change. Given the relatively small impacts of climate change and the degree of uncertainty associated with them, it is too early to define specific policy recommendations. All three countries should try to maximize the benefits that may come with higher agricultural world market prices and to minimize the losses from reductions in agricultural yields.

This book assesses the effectiveness of changes in watershed interventions in one of the most fragile resource regions of India. Specifically the chapters examine various watershed centred interventions and their implementation process. An evaluation of the livelihood impacts, including crop production on the communities, is discussed and an assessment of the drought and climate resilience of households in the context of watershed and related interventions, including institutions and capacity of the communities, is investigated. Lessons are drawn to further identify measures to strengthen and improvise interventions for enhanced climate-drought resilience in harsh environments.

Drought is a slow-onset natural hazard that is often referred to as a creeping phenomenon. The challenge of monitoring drought’s onset and evolution, and identifying its termination or end is one that scientists, natural resource managers, and decision makers have been struggling with for decades. However, drought management must be aimed at reducing the risks of future drought events on economies, the environment, and the social fabric of regions. As with many countries, droughts are often managed as a crisis in Brazil, rather than events for which officials and communities proactively prepare. Although droughts are not new to Brazil, the recent spate of droughts in the poverty stricken semi-arid Northeast and the industrial hub of São Paulo in the Southeast has forced the country to think more seriously about finally changing its drought policies and management approaches. The book is told through the perspectives of the ministers and secretaries, state policy and technical officials, civil society organizations, and development practitioners that helped to facilitate the shift in paradigm in Brazil from crisis management and towards proactive management of droughts. It is written in a style that is appealing to both technical and non-technical audiences, and aims to provide a framework and lessons for other countries to consider when embarking upon similar efforts to improve their own drought policy and management systems.

The Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a comprehensive assessment of the scientific literature relevant to climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. The report recognizes the interactions of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies, and integrates across the natural, ecological, social and economic sciences. It emphasizes how efforts in adaptation and in reducing greenhouse gas emissions can come together in a process called climate resilient development, which enables a liveable future for biodiversity and humankind. The IPCC is the leading body for assessing climate change science. IPCC reports are produced in comprehensive, objective and transparent ways, ensuring they reflect the full range of views in the scientific literature. Novel elements include focused topical assessments, and an atlas presenting observed climate change impacts and future risks from global to regional scales. Available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The development of sustainable agricultural systems is an imperative aspect of any country, but particularly in the context of developing countries. Lack of progress in these initiatives can have negative effects on the nation as a whole. Agricultural Development and Food Security in Developing Nations is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on promoting advancements in agricultural systems and food security in developing economies. Highlighting impacts on citizens, as well as on political and social environments of a country, this book is ideally designed for students, professionals, policy makers, researchers, and practitioners interested in recent developments in the areas of agriculture.

Climate change affects various stages of the food system including production, processing, distribution, and consumption. To cope with this vulnerability, many nations have engaged in a global movement to establish strategies aimed at food security. As in other countries, in the Republic of Korea climate change has had, and will continue to have, a significant influence on the food system, creating many uncertainties. In response, the Korean government and relevant agencies under national strategies have implemented various policy measures and programs to respond to the effects of climate change and strengthen the country’s food resiliency. In this paper we examine those strategies, measures, and specific programs, and in particular those that involve agricultural extension and technology dissemination. These various sector-specific or cross-sector strategies have not only counteracted climate change impacts but also improved the incomes of farming households, who have struggled with import competition and low profitability under Korea’s generally slowing economy. The Korean government has also implemented extension and tech dissemination projects in and with developing countries with the aim of building resilient food systems in the era of climate change. We find that such programs would benefit from the formation and maintenance of international networks, and moreover, each international program must be preceded by a thorough needs assessment that takes into account the regional context and each project should promote appropriate technologies-that is, technologies customized or particularly suited to the local context.

Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change (BRACC) is a five year program whose main objective is to strengthen the resilience of poor and vulnerable households to withstand current and future weather and climate-related shocks and stresses in four districts in Southern Malawi: Balaka, Chikwawa, Mangochi and Phalombe. Resilience is operationalized as the ability of households to smooth consumption in response to shocks and stresses. This baseline report introduces the evaluation context and describes the BRACC program, details the evaluation design, summarizes main findings from the baseline household survey, and tests whether the randomizations successfully balanced baseline observable characteristics across the treatment arms.

Advances in Climate Change and Global Warming Research and Application / 2012 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Climate Change and Global Warming. The editors have built Advances in Climate Change and Global Warming Research and Application / 2012 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Climate Change and Global Warming in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Advances in Climate Change and Global Warming Research and Application / 2012 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Ethiopia is exposed to a wide range of disasters associated with the country’s extensive dependence on rainfed subsistence agriculture, climate change, resource degradation, diverse geoclimatic and socio-economic conditions and conflicts. Drought and floods are the major challenges, but a number of other threats affect communities and livelihoods. These include conflict, desert locust, fall armyworm, frost and hail, crop pests and diseases, livestock diseases, human diseases, landslides, earthquakes, and urban and forest fires. Every source of evidence suggests that Ethiopia would feel the human and economic impacts of climate change intensely, and the impacts will only continue to grow if the country continues a business-as-usual approach to crisis response, and will not be able to manage the increasing scale of the challenges. Thus, there is call by all stakeholders for a paradigm shift in the way the country deals with communities at risk, in order to take preventive actions to reduce exposure, vulnerability and impact at local level. This requires moving away from a reactive system that solely focuses on drought and supply of life-saving humanitarian relief and emergency responses during disasters to a comprehensive proactive disaster and climate risk management approach, including climate change adaptation, among which are interventions to enhance livelihood diversification, social protection programmes and risk transfer mechanisms. Furthermore, resilient agrifood systems support should include a range of proven interventions that are context-relevant and cover the whole agrifood system, such as increase in fertilizer use where appropriate and high-yielding and drought-tolerant seeds, strengthened extension and advisory systems at the kebele (local) level through the use of farmer field schools and pastoral field schools, expansion of access to credit, livelihood diversification, risk transfer mechanism and institutional development that link short-term emergency relief to long-term development pathways. This approach is essential for building resilience to natural hazard and human-induced disasters resulting in food insecurity challenges. Much progress has been made in the last 50 years in the way of managing mainly drought disaster risks. Large-scale prevention and mitigation programmes have been designed, incorporating a focus on vulnerabilities, household asset-building, and public works for environmental rehabilitation and generation of livelihoods. Preparedness has been enhanced by the development of various policies and strategic documents for assessment and intervention, early warning and response systems, and economic, social and physical infrastructure to strengthen the local economy and household livelihoods. An attempt has also been made for humanitarian response to count on an established risk-financing.