Climate Change and Food Security Research Papers (original) (raw)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) ranks Bangladesh the world’s most prone country to climate change effects highlighting increasing sea level resulting in extensive flooding, temperature rise causing complete crop failure, escalating food shortages, increasing water borne diseases, increased incidences of devastating cyclones and their effects to humans and the economy. The coastal zone of Bangladesh is ‘vulnerable to adverse ecological processes and is one of the ‘neglected regions’ in South Asia. Furthermore, the poor service provision, poorly-developed institutional structure, social inequality, conflicts regarding resource uses, poor law and order situation, improper resource management and exploitation of fisheries and absence of sweet/fresh water due to salinity intrusion has made the livelihoods of the coastal communities more vulnerable. The impact of climatic variability has further restrained the coastal livelihoods and forced to limit coping capacity with disasters and hazards. The absence of appropriate adaptive and coping mechanisms, the livelihood situation of most disadvantaged and poor people of coastal belt has been deteriorating day by day. In the backdrop of coastal people’s vulnerability, it was therefore imperative to conduct a study to assess the most appropriate alternative sustainable livelihood options for coastal people who are prone to salinity intrusion, stagnation of saline water, cyclonic storms, floods and other hazards. In order to identify alternative livelihood options following salinity intrusion objectively the study aimed at: i) analyzing the impact of climate change on livelihood of poor people in context salinity intrusion; ii) assessing the scope of introducing sustainable, market orientated and environment friendly livelihood options; iii) and examining the implication of gender dimension in livelihood options. The locations of study area were in the coastal south west region of Bangladesh. Ten villages from Bagerhat and Sathkira districts constituted the sample. The unit of analysis used was the household with total 806 households selected from ten villages of Sundarbhan, Santhospur, Kasimari and Krishnapur Unions. At least 75 households from each village were taken as sample respondents of study population. A stratified sampling technique was adopted to identify the landless poor, marginal, small, middle and large farmers. But most of the representatives were from landless and marginal categories. In this study, the sampling frame was developed on the basis of the classes’ vulnerability to salinity intrusion. The relevant information of saline affected people was collected from the village population. The unit of respondents was household heads or the appropriate representative of the same household using Questionnaires, data were also collected through qualitative methods by employing FGD, KIs and Case Study. Findings indicated that despite little variation in different villages, more than 50 percent members of households were males and the rest are females. The percentage of young age (below 18 yrs) was 35 per cent whereas the percentage of old age population (above 60 yrs) was 12 percent leaving 53 percent in the range of 19 to 59 years. In marital status 50 per cent were married and 45 per cent were unmarried and 5% were divorced, widowed or separated. At least 30 per cent were illiterate (Could not read or write). Only 17 per cent households belonged to large and medium farmer categories and majority 83 % belonged to the landless poor, vulnerable, destitute, marginal and small farmers. A population of 24 per cent got government assistance during and immediately after disasters, an average of 37 per cent got assistance from local voluntary organizations. Only 14 per cent of the population got training from Government and NGOs about the awareness programs related to livelihood of local people. It was found that all respondents from Burirdanga and Sankarkati and 80% of the respondents from Kalika Proshad, Adorshogram, Gobindopur, Gobindopur, Maniknagar, Ronsen, Solakura and Prosadnagar mentioned that the women faced a remarkable lack of opportunity in community decision making process due to domination of males and lack of political empowerment and representation. This occurrence makes poor and vulnerable women’s roles like domestic work, child care become more challenging during social exclusion especially during natural disasters. The further study revealed that the disasters have created much more challenges in maintaining the means of livelihood for the last one decade. The effect of disasters on people’s livelihoods was 87% for cyclone, 81.7% for salinity intrusion, 71.8 for flooding, 71.1% for water logging, 56.6% for tidal surge and 2.25% for river erosion. Mitigating these effects would be through: introduction palm oil tree plantation schemes as part of integrated approach; set-up of aquifers (artificial) to collect, purify and preserve the rain water for homestead use; linking private sector to develop systems for sustainable business for local producers in saline prone areas; promote growing of saline tolerant fruits, vegetables, poultry, animal fodder, agro-based raw materials, handicraft products among others that help people participate in local business markets in selling goods and services in a profitable way; multi-level advocacy campaigns to allocate a more equitable share of resources and services to the climate affected coastal people by empowering them with information and knowledge to be able to influence positive changes; Poor and vulnerable people be allowed to participate in reconstruction of devastated coastal embankment and polders under water management schemes; re-excavation of rivers like Modhumati, Bolessor, Daudkhali, and Mirakhali with many internal small khals for example, Putimari khal, Sharkati khal, Suta khal to reserve the sweet water for the purpose of irrigation and domestic use; promoting plantation of betel leaf is very much sustainable and profitable for the vulnerable and destitute women in areas of Chitolmari and Rampal; formation of producer cooperatives to be able to make savings as well as access to investment resources during times of extreme climate disasters; salinity tolerant food crops need to be introduced; the poor and marginal farmer’s needs to be facilitated with micro-credit (with soft and flexible loan; providing adequate scientific knowledge through proper training for replication of different initiatives to different parts of salinity affected areas; making fish nets as alternative livelihood to saline prone communities; embroidery, tailoring and knitting project can be initiated for the poor and vulnerable women; and cage aquaculture can be initiated for the most vulnerable women, poor and destitute people.