Food production amid the climate crisis
February 2022

Recent years have shown the devastating impacts of climate change — stronger typhoons, rising sea levels, drought, and record-breaking heatwaves. Poor nations in the Global South, who are the least contributor of carbon emissions, bear the brunt of climate change consequences while developed nations, contributing to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions, have failed to take responsibility and continue to emit dangerous levels of carbon to the Earth’s atmosphere.

A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage, and the already irreversible impacts are making it difficult for nature and humanity to adapt.

“Multiple climate hazards will occur simultaneously, and multiple climatic and non-climatic risks will interact, resulting in compounding overall risk and risks cascading across sectors and regions.” the IPCC report noted.

“Importantly climate-resilient development prospects are increasingly limited if current greenhouse gas emissions do not rapidly decline, especially if 1.5°C global warming is exceeded in the near term.” the report added.

Food and climate change

Crops rely on the weather condition to grow, harvest, and eventually consume. Vegetables and grains need an adequate amount of rainfall and sunlight to flourish, however with the changing weather patterns and erratic rainfalls, farmers and food producers are either facing long term drought or too much rainfall that causes flooding to their lands, destroying the crops and agricultural infrastructures e.g. roads, storage facilities.

In the APEX Platform, partners engage in discussions and exchanging of experience in the hope to come up with promising approaches that might help to improve the resilience of the agricultural sector and food systems in the eventual case of a more drastic rise in temperature.

“When we look at climate change from the point of view of food systems, climate change impacts like stronger typhoons, droughts, flooding, extreme weather, forest fires, saltwater intrusions, pests, and diseases create a crop failure and food production is being jeopardized, leading to a food crisis which all of us is affected.” said Dr. Chito Medina, scientist consultant of the Philippine-based farmer-scientist network Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (MASIPAG) during the first APEX regional conference plenary on climate.

“The impacts of climate change are complex, it also affects our economic interest (income, infrastructure, health (mental stress, injuries, deaths, diseases),” he added.

Food producers have been forced to adapt to climate change to continue growing foods that feed the world. Dr. Joachim Milz, Ecotop president, shared some of his experience in agriculture that is resilient to global warming. He introduced the concept of agroforestry. According to Dr. Milz, the principles of a dynamic agroforestry system includes high biodiversity, selective weed control taking into account natural regeneration, and application of the principle of natural succession of species.

“Dynamic agroforestry is a knowledge-intensive approach, it is not about ‘knowledge transfer but rather the process of ‘recognition’ and transformation of knowledge into action,” said Dr. Milz.

The agroforestry approach allows farmers to contribute to minimizing the impact of climate at the local level.

Climate change’s impacts on local communities

As experts warn that breaching the global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next years, could create irreversible impacts to the environment while local communities in Asia are already experiencing the wrath of climate change.

APEX Partners shared the impacts of climate change that they have observed in their communities. In Cambodia, the drought is hurting farmers, and planting rice has been a waste of money due to being unable to harvest and sell their crops. The youth are choosing to find work in urban areas to avoid agricultural works and become wage laborers instead.

Meanwhile, other partners have almost similar observations such as erratic weather conditions making it difficult for farmers to follow climate patterns for their planting season, while some noticed the different tastes and colors in their fruit crops.

The climate crisis will continue to be an urgent matter as global warming dangerously goes near the threshold. If nations do not take appropriate action, its devastating impacts will be experienced by everyone on Earth. To contribute to the growing discussions on climate crisis and adaption to its risks, APEX will continue its consultations with experts and with its partners to help farmers, food producers, and rural communities adapt and become resilient to the changing climate affecting the food systems.