Taking Climate Change Adaptation to Scale: Examples of Actionable Agronomy from South Asia.

Over 1.6 billion people in South Asia – 40% of who live in extreme poverty – rely on cereals production to maintain their livelihoods. As key staples, rice and wheat are rotated during the summer monsoon and winter dry season, on approximately 13.5 million hectares of the region’s smallholder farmer dominated Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). Both crops are impacted increasing average temperatures and erratic precipitation patterns. Wheat, for example, may experience decreased photosynthesis and early senescence from temperatures >30°C. Particularly large yield losses when temperatures reach >32°C during flowering and grain filling. Higher baseline temperatures and humidity in the eastern IGP may also be linked to outbreaks of new diseases such as blast (Magnaporthe oryzaei). Rice is a less sensitive crop, though temperatures >34°C at anthesis can greatly increase grain sterility. More problematic, however, is the increasing unreliability of monsoon rains, which have been delayed and erratic in five out of the last six years, resulting in late rice establishment and low yields, or crop abandonment. Conversely, where rains are more reliable, for example in the far eastern IGP, flooding is an increasing problem. These issues present formidable challenges to development-oriented agronomy. This paper highlights the work of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project, which adopts a farming system, rather than a crop-focused approach to cereal productivity increase and climate change adaptation. We provide examples from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh to show how decision support tools, mechanization and simple agronomic management interventions can enhance the resilience of rice-wheat based farming systems. We conclude by discussing how large-scale adoption of such climate change adaption practices is leveraged through the establishment of strategic linkages between research, public and private sector actors in the wider agricultural system.