Unpacking Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities of Cotton Farmers in Pakistan: A Case Study of Two Semi-arid Districts

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of climate risks and vulnerability facing cotton farmers in semi-arid regions of Pakistan. Given the ever-increasing climate change impacts on cotton production in Pakistan, especially in semiarid regions where water scarcity puts additional pressure on water sensitive agricultural livelihoods, we have conducted this study to identify climate risks facing cotton farmers in two semi-arid districts of Punjab province (average annual contribution to total cotton production is 80%), based on various climate indicators (such as temperature, rainfall and climate extremes.). A mix of qualitative and quantitative methods has been used to explore factors of vulnerability and comparative vulnerabilities. In the cotton production stage, we found that vulnerability to climate change decreases with increase in the size of the landholding, mainly because large farmers have more financial resources at their disposal to deal with adverse climate impacts, such as crop damages and losses. Adaptive capacity, on the other hand, is found to be one of the significant factors determining the overall vulnerability at the household level, as level of exposure and sensitivity do not differ across different sized households. In other words, indicators of adaptive capacity, such as access to financial resources, diversified livelihoods and access to weather information plays a major role in reducing vulnerability against climate change.

Private adaptation in semi-arid lands: a tailored approach to ‘leave no one behind’

“…Indeed, some autonomous adaptation strategies observed in SALs, such as diversification into environmentally destructive practices (e.g. deforestation linked to charcoal production), distress sales of land and other assets and the scaling back of production and workforces, are likely to reduce future adaptive capacity, result in private actors being drawn into risky activities that increase their vulnerability, degrade natural resource bases or transfer vulnerabilities along value chains (Atela et al , 2018; Batool & Saeed, 2018; Carabine & Simonet, 2018; Crick et al , 2018a; Rao et al , 2017). Current responses also do not necessarily take future climate risk into account, for example in the selection of new crops and production methods.…”

“…Most notably, private sector adaptation policies have tended to focus primarily on the needs of larger and formal businesses, with less consideration given to smaller businesses, operating in the informal sector, which dominate the enterprise landscapes in SALs. Yet, informal enterprises, and those with more restricted access to formal land ownership, including women, mobile pastoralists and other producers who farm land that is either communally owned or allocated through informal tenure (and thus who have little or no collateral), particularly struggle to access the support and especially the credit they require through formal channels (Atela et al , 2018; Batool & Saeed, 2018; Carabine & Simonet, 2018; Stein et al , 2013). ii Female entrepreneurs often face notable additional barriers to resource access and economic participation, shaped by strong sociocultural orientations around gender roles and resource use and access.…”

“…Value chain and market analyses are approaches that can help identify risks, weaknesses and opportunities within and along SAL value chains and identify and broker linkages between private actors that help maximize opportunities for the full range of private sector actors to contribute to resilience in SALs (Batool & Saeed, 2018; Bedelian et al , 2019; Carabine & Simonet, 2018). Creating a closer link between actors along the value chain, for example, can support the development of new products based on more climate-resilient crops: This is seen in Kenya where East African Breweries Limited (EABL) has developed a new low-cost beer, providing smallholder cereal producers in Kenya's eastern regions with access to a direct market for more climate resilient crops (Business Daily, 2018).…”

“…iThe textile sector in Pakistan, for example, based on cotton produced in the country's SALs, is the largest industrial sector and accounts for around 40% of the country's industrial labour force. Indeed, 10 million people in Pakistan rely on the textile industry for employment (Batool & Saeed, 2018). …”

Evaluation the effect of subchronic feeding of transgenic cotton line (CKC1) on the faecal microbiota of albino rabbits

“…Cotton is considered to be the backbone of Pakistan economy for being used in the textile industry as well as its by‐product for animal feed. It has been genetically modified for the improved traits of insect resistance, herbicide tolerance and fibre production (Batool & Saeed, 2017; Latif et al., 2015; Salisu et al., 2018b). The risk assessment studies on GM cotton have reported that it is harmless to NTOs including the vertebrates such as mice, rats and rabbits (Rahman et al., 2015; Salisu et al., 2018a).…”