Agriculture in South Asia is vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, adaptation measures are required to sustain agricultural productivity, to reduce vulnerability, and to enhance the resilience of the agricultural system to climate change. There are many adaptation practices in the production systems that have been proposed and tested for minimizing the effects of climate change. Some socioeconomic and political setup contributes to adaptation, while others may inhibit it. This paper presents a systematic review of the impacts of climate change on crop production and also the major options in the agricultural sector that are available for adaptation to climate change. One of the key conclusions is that agricultural practices that help climate change adaptation in agriculture are available, while the institutional setup to implement and disseminate those technical solutions is yet to be strengthened. Thus, it is important to examine how to bring the required institutional change, generate fund to invest on these changes, and design dynamic policies for long-term climate change adaptation in agriculture rather than a mere focus on agricultural technology. This is one of the areas where South Asian climate policies require reconsidering to avoid possible maladaptation in the long run.

Achieving sustainability of the cereal system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of India under progressive climate change and variability necessitates adoption of practices and technologies that increase food production, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way. This paper examines CA from the perspective of: (i) increased yield and farm income, (ii) adaptation to heat and water stresses, and (iii) reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The analyses and conclusions are based on the literature and evidences from a large number of on-station as well as farmers' field trials on CA in the cereal systems of IGP, India. Our analyses show that CAbased system substantially reduces the production cost (up to 23%) but produce equal or even higher than conventional system; thereby increasing economic profitability of production system. CA-based production systems also moderated the effect of high temperature (reduced canopy temperature by 1-4 o C) and increased irrigation water productivity by 66-100% compared to traditional production systems thus well adapting to water and heat stress situations of IGP. Our continuous monitoring of soil flux of CO 2 , N 2 O and CH 4 revealed that CAbased rice-wheat systems emit 10-15% less GHGs than conventional systems. This is the first time that CA and its components are synthesized and analyzed from food security-climate change nexus. From this holistic analysis, we suggest that wide-scale promotion of suitable CA practices by integrating into national agriculture development strategy is way forward to address food security, climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges faced by present agriculture.

Rural households in South Asia’s coastal deltas face numerous livelihood challenges, including risks posed by climatic variability and extreme weather events. This study examines major climate risks, farmers’ adaptation strategies, and the factors affecting the choice of those strategies using data collected from 630 households in southwestern coastal Bangladesh. Farmers identified cyclones, excessive rain and flooding, and salinity as direct climate risks. Increased crop diseases/pests and livestock diseases were perceived as indirect risks resulting from climatic variability. Farmers used multiple adaptation strategies against those risks such as modifications in farm management, use of savings and borrowing funds from family and neighbors, and periodically reducing household food consumption. Off-farm employment and seeking assistance from governmental as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were also common adaptation strategies. The results show that male-headed households are more likely to change farming practices and reduce consumption compared with female-headed households that conversely tended to take assistance from NGOs as an adaptation strategy. Ownership of land and livestock, as well as farmers’ prior exposure to climate change and educational training, also had a significant effect on the choice of adaptation strategy. Therefore, development interventions and policies that aimed at improving resource endowment and training to farmers on climatic risks and their adaptation strategies can help minimize the impact of climatic risks.

SUMMARYConducting farmers participatory field trials at 40 sites for 3 consecutive years in four rice-wheat system dominated districts of Haryana state of India, this paper tested the hypothesis that zero tillage (ZT) based crop production emits less greenhouse gases and yet provide adequate economic benefits to farmers compared to the conventional tillage (CT). In each farmer's field, ZT and CT based wheat production were compared side by side for three consecutive years from 2009-10 to 2011-12. In assessing the mitigation potential of ZT, we examined the differences in input use and crop management, especially those contributing to GHGs emissions, between ZT wheat and CT wheat. We employed Cool Farm Tool (CFT) to estimate emission of GHGs from various wheat production activities. In order to assess economic benefits, we examined the difference in input costs, net returns and cost-benefit analysis of wheat production under CT and ZT. Results show that farmers can save approximately USD 79 ha −1 in terms of total production costs and increase net revenue of about USD 97.5 ha −1 under ZT compared to CT. Similarly, benefit-cost ratio under ZT is 1.43 against 1.31 under CT. Our estimate shows that shifting from CT to ZT based wheat production reduces GHG emission by 1.5 Mg CO 2 -eq ha −1 season −1 . Overall, ZT has both climate change mitigation and economic benefits, implying the win-win outcome of better agricultural practices.

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