Changes in temperatures, rise in sea levels, and weather extremes such as intense floods, droughts, and storms, threaten the lives and livelihoods of poor people in the sloping lands of Asia Pacific countries.
In most upland production areas in Asia, crop yield decrease of 3─10% may occur in the 2020s and 5─30% in the 2050s, according to reports to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yield reduction is partly due to limited water resources, intense soil erosion, and evolvement of new pests due to changing climatic conditions.
Sloping lands, a fragile environment, has more than 1.5 billion inhabitants from the southern hemisphere including Asia, says a United Nations Environment Report. Many countries in Asia have sloping to upland landscapes prone to adverse effects of climate change.
South China, for example, has 90% of its subtropical regions in mountainous or hilly areas. Thailand has 35% of its total land area classified as uplands. The Philippines uplands comprise 31% and Vietnam has more than 70%.
Unfortunately, almost 50% of these upland agro ecosystems are degraded because of rapid depletion of forest cover, slash-and-burn practice of some farmers, migration of people in the uplands, and other man-made reasons. These anthropogenic causes when coupled with natural calamities further worsen land degradation.
In response to these concerns, participant-experts of the International Workshop on Sustainable Farming Strategies for Increased Resiliency of Sloping Land Agro Ecosystem amid Climate Change presented and discussed some strategies and measures.
The workshop, recently held at Traders Hotel Manila, was organized by the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center of the Asia Pacific Region (FFTC)-Taiwan and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD). Twenty-nine attendees to the workshop represented the countries of Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia, and the Philippines.
The international experts reviewed status of sloping land agro ecosystem and its vulnerability to adverse effects of climate change. They reported lessons learned and strategies on sustainable sloping lands management based on years of work experiences and cases in their respective countries.
Recommendations during the workshop covered aspects on research and development, specific technological measures, promotion and extension strategies, policy development and advocacies, and institutional and financial support.
International experts said that, if the sloping land agro ecosystem is to be resilient to the ill effects of climate change, research undertakings should be strengthened. Research focus could be on agro biodiversity assessment in the uplands, and on the implications of agro biodiversity on climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Scientific monitoring of the biophysical and behavioral occurrences in the uplands should be a continuing activity, however institutional and financial support is needed for a successful monitoring program to take place.
Promotion and extension of location- and situation-specific technologies should be enhanced by continually improving the technological recommendations and encouraging active participation of all parties involved in the project.
Cases presented during the workshop showed that strong functional partnership with the local government units (LGUs), academe, and communities is important. Raising the awareness of the LGUs and engaging their active participation in sloping land management initiatives makes a big difference in the project’s success.
Other keys to sustainable land management in the uplands are: participatory and bottom-up approach to project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation; consultation meetings to ensure stakeholders’ participation; experiential awareness to heighten awareness on conservation farming; technology demonstrations, field days; social marketing; and information, education, and communication campaigns.
Additionally, climatic data generation and climatic information and data sharing between and among local, national, and international agencies in the Asia Pacific are important, considering that those in the developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate change.
To strengthen disaster preparedness of small landholders in the sloping lands, social capital build-up and farmers social networks have to be tapped and strengthened. Social networks serve as informal risk management information sharing among peers.
Moreover, as the number of professional experts with disciplines needed for climate change studies is dwindling, more capacity-building programs should be undertaken locally and internationally. Expertise on taxonomy and related disciplines, remote sensing, and geographic information systems are among those identified.
With stronger creation and implementation of local ordinances, the people in the uplands and surrounding areas are made to act urgently and appropriately. Similarly, national legislations in support to increasing the resilience of sloping land agro ecosystems are vital inputs to climate change adaptation and mitigation.