Elsevier

Food Policy

Volume 37, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 114-123
Food Policy

Agricultural technologies for climate change in developing countries: Policy options for innovation and technology diffusion

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2011.11.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Climate has obvious direct effects on agricultural production. The reverse is more apparent than ever as greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are tallied. The development and effective diffusion of new agricultural practices and technologies will largely shape how and how well farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change. This adaptation and mitigation potential is nowhere more pronounced than in developing countries where agricultural productivity remains low; poverty, vulnerability and food insecurity remain high; and the direct effects of climate change are expected to be especially harsh. Creating the necessary agricultural technologies and harnessing them to enable developing countries to adapt their agricultural systems to changing climate will require innovations in policy and institutions as well. Potential constraints to innovation involve both the private and public sectors in both developing and developed countries. The process of transferring agricultural innovations across agroecological and climatic zones is often subject to agronomic constraints. Often, the most binding constraints occur at the adoption stage, with several factors that potentially impede poor farmers’ access to and use of new technologies. Based on discussions of these constraints, we derive six policy principles and use these principles to suggest several specific investments and policy priorities.

Highlights

Technology diffusion will shape how and how well farmers respond to climate change. ► We discuss relevant technologies and explore needed policies and institutions. ► Policies and institutions should reflect innovation, transfer and access considerations. ► Six policy principles emphasize information, incentives, flexibility, and trade inter alia. ► Policy priorities include market integration and public research support and capacity.

Introduction

Climate has obvious and direct effects on agricultural production. At a global scale, the reverse is also increasingly apparent. Agricultural activity emits greenhouse gases (GHG) through use of fossil fuel-based inputs and equipment, livestock production, soil erosion, and land conversion and deforestation. Agriculture directly accounts for 14% of global GHG emissions in CO2 equivalents and indirectly accounts for an additional 17% of emissions when land use and conversion for crops and pasture are included in the calculations (IPCC, 2007, World Bank, 2009). Accordingly, the climate change agenda has subsumed agricultural production as both a contributor to climate change and, through adjustment in practices, a potential mitigating force (e.g., Khan et al., 2009). Climate change and climate policy will have potentially significant impacts on agriculture by shaping what products and practices are most suitable in each location. We contribute to recent and related research (e.g., Nelson, 2009, Seo, 2010) by describing the potential role innovative agricultural practices and technologies can play in climate change mitigation and adaptation and asking: What policy and institutional changes would encourage the innovation and diffusion of these practices and technologies to developing countries?

Research and innovation have been central to agricultural policy for nearly two centuries, often with the goal of increasing output per unit of land, water, labor or other input. Reducing negative environmental impacts and improving micronutrient density are more recent agricultural research objectives. With climate issues adding to this already challenging agenda, the need for agricultural innovation has never been more apparent. These climate concerns are both shaping research priorities and rekindling the impetus for investments in agricultural research (Howden et al., 2007). In the coming decades, the development and effective diffusion of new agricultural technologies will largely determine how and how well farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change. This adaptation and mitigation potential is nowhere more pronounced than in developing countries where agricultural productivity remains low; poverty, vulnerability and food insecurity remain high; and the direct effects of climate change are expected to be especially harsh.

Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change because they depend heavily on agriculture, tend to be hot already, lack infrastructure to respond well to increased variability, and have limited capital to invest in innovative adaptations (see Barrios et al., 2008). To wit, whereas the Stern report (Stern, 2007) projected that a 2 °C increase in average temperatures would reduce world GDP by roughly 1%, the 2010 World Development Report of the World Bank (2009) estimates that without offsetting innovations climate change would ultimately cause a 4% and 5% decrease in (baseline scenario) GDP for Africa and India, respectively. While climate change may reduce global agricultural production by 6% by 2080 from what would otherwise occur, Africa and India are projected to see reductions of agricultural output by 30% or more (Cline, 2007).1 In 2080, we will likely produce more food than we do now, but it will likely be more expensive compared to other goods. This will hurt the urban poor and any remaining poor farmers who are still net food buyers. The political tensions and urban pressures associated with these vulnerabilities and attendant economic transformations could be particularly problematic.

Section snippets

Agricultural technologies for mitigation and adaptation

The core challenge of climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture is to produce (i) more food, (ii) using fewer resources, (iii) under more volatile production conditions, and (iv) with net reductions in GHG emissions from food production, processing and marketing. As long as climate change and the policy responses it induces do not interrupt long-term income growth or alter the long-term decline in relative food prices so much that the path towards improved diets is reversed,

Innovation and diffusion considerations

This section describes impediments to the innovation and diffusion of agricultural technologies such as those above that could help producers mitigate or adapt to climate change. It also offers some discussion of potential remedies to these impediments. Together, these constraints and potential remedies set the stage for exploring the policy responses necessary to support the development and use of these technologies. While the section builds on the set of technologies described above, many of

Policy and institutional principles and priorities

In the diffusion of existing technologies and the discovery of new ones, institutions and policies are important at multiple scales – from the inception and innovation stages to the transfer of technologies and the access to agricultural innovations by vulnerable smallholders in developing countries. Since cutting-edge agricultural technologies often emerge in developed countries, the institutional research capacity, human capital stock, innovation incentives and policies of wealthy regions

Acknowledgements

This paper began as a policy brief prepared for the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the International Food & Agriculture Trade Policy Council (IPC) as part of the Platform on Climate Change, Agriculture and Trade. We acknowledge the support provided by these organizations. We thank Charlotte Hebebrand, Ahmed Abdel Latif, Colin Poulton, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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