Climate change is no longer a distant threat; its affects are very visible today - erratic weather patterns, global warming, greater extreme weather events and natural disasters, and erratic rainfall. Countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia are the most affected by climate change. Natural disasters like flooding, droughts and cyclones have increased in frequency in this region and the situation is likely to get worse in the future.

part from the effect on people, this has proved to be detrimental for the agriculture sector in these countries as well. These nations are primarily agro-based economies – millions depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The effects of climate change are jeopardizing the food security of not only the billion-plus people residing in these countries, but also of the entire world as these nations act as global granaries. Erratic weather spells higher food prices and lower food security.

Asian countries, especially India and Bangladesh, are actively working towards building climate change resilience into their national agriculture planning. Earlier, climate change was perceived to be a word used frequently by environmentalists to protest against developed nations – today, climate change has gradually become a part of national policy. Gradually, nations are learning to focus specifically on making their agricultural sectors resilient to the effects of climate change.  

Over and above the National Action Plans on Climate Change, India has recently launched the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA). In 2008, Bangladesh came up with a multi-billion dollar strategy for climate change, with a major component on building climate resilience into agriculture. In 2009, it created a trust fund to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives. 

Not only the governments, but also non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector are working on initiatives and projects that take climate change resilience down to the grassroots level. These initiatives range from awareness building and training, dissemination of information regarding new and innovative techniques, and financing small farmers for installing water efficient irrigation equipment. In India, the private sector has been actively involved innovative solutions for creating water efficient irrigation systems. Private companies like Jain Irrigation Systems Limited are providing finance to small farmers for installation of micro irrigation systems. Jain Irrigation Systems Limited, in partnership with the International Finance Corporation, has set up a non-banking finance company, Sustainable Agro-Commercial Finance Limited.   

In China, the public and private sectors are cooperating with IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) to fund a weather-based index insurance project to help impoverished farmers. In India too, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company piloted the country’s first weather-indexed insurance, in partnership with BASIX, a microfinance institution. 

There is also a growing trend of revival of traditional techniques of increasing water efficiency, especially in countries like India, as they are more suited to the local geographical and weather conditions and hence, are more easily implemented. The ancient rainwater harvesting technique of ‘johad’ has been revived in the Alwar district of the state of Rajasthan by an NGO Tarun Bharat Sangh; this has led to an increase in the groundwater levels. 

Many NGOs are also getting support from foreign institutions and foundations. In 2011, the IFC, a member of the World Bank group, partnered with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, Lal Teer Seed Ltd and the International Rice Research Institute for marketing extreme weather-resistant rice seeds. This partnership also plans to disseminate information on improved technology and agricultural techniques for farmers; it is also involved in awareness generation and training for farmers.

Other than this, extensive research is being carried out on creating climate-resistant seeds. Bangladesh is one of the leading countries that are conducting research into drought and saline resistant seeds – the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute has come up with drought-tolerant varieties of rice seed. The Bangladesh Atomic Agriculture Research Institute has invented saline-tolerant variety of paddy. In India as well, research is being carried out to develop heat-resistant seeds. In 2009, the Central Rice Research Institute developed the drought-resistant ‘Sahabhagi’ paddy seed. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is working on multi-stress resistant crops (resilient against droughts, high temperatures, salinity, floods and heavy metal toxicity).  

Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh are increasingly making use of alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation for rice, which may reduce the amount of water required without reducing the yield. Supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), Farmers in northeast Thailand have experimented growing rice with less water by using green mulch and cover crops. 

The most positive trend is the fact that climate change is not being considered as a distant possibility anymore. It is being viewed as a present reality which has to be tackled through multiple approaches. Governments, private sectors as well as non-governmental organizations, at times with support from international organizations, are all working towards building resilience of the most vulnerable communities against climate change. Since there is great awareness regarding the issue among all stakeholders, it is likely that this trend will increase in the future. The focus on climate change adaptation in government policy is likely to push more provincial/state-level institutions to come up with innovative strategies. Also, the success of pilot initiatives in selected regions may work towards their replication in other areas. The private sector may also be encouraged to get more involved in building climate resilience. The greatest beneficiaries would be small farmers who bear the biggest brunt of climate-related changes.  

In the future, the impact of climate change on weather patterns is likely to be even worse. Hence, the current measures and innovations are likely to help in securing agricultural yields to a certain extent. While it is unlikely that these measures, on their own, would be sufficient to guarantee food security for the future, they would go a long way to provide the common people with some of the tools necessary for adapting to climate change. The countries’ ability to change and adapt their agricultural practices to the changing climate would go a long way in determining the global food security.