Impact Of Climate Change On Agriculture In Bangladesh
Climate Change
Climate change, considerably the most challenging issue of the 21st century, causes life-threatening problems around the earth. It continues over the longer time period, the period may be a decade or more than a decade. It shifts the magnitude and frequency of taking place a climatic event. It destroys the development endeavor in different sectors such as- agriculture, nutritional and health, environment, infrastructure, water, tourism and recreation and so on. The excessive variability in climate for instance, high temperature, uneven and declining precipitation, shortage in ground water and sea level rise are the most dominant consequences of climate change. Climate change extremely distresses millions of people; destroys farms and their production and results migration. Mertz et al. (2009) stated that developing but poor nations are more vulnerable than industrialized nations, though industrialized nations, basically rich nations, produces a high degree of greenhouse gases. Almost all developing nations are characterized by limited resource, poor and faulty infrastructure, inequitable distribution of land and highly mixed disaster risk-prone areas. Limited financial and poor technological developments limit the capacity of poor nations to cope with changes which affects them negatively.
According to UNFCCC (2007), changing pattern of land use and increasing use of fossil fuel have been producing uninterruptedly greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere. A rise in greenhouse gases such as- CO (Carbon monoxide), CO2 (carbon dioxide), NO2 (nitrogen-dioxide), CH4 (methane), CFC (Clorofluorocarbon), triggered an increase in temperature in the air. Increased temperatures lead to a great loss of evaporation. In addition, rainfall does not increase which is expectable for many developing nations. The IPCC (2001) testified that tropical region has the tolerance level nearly at maximum; therefore, a negligible raise in temperature causes a greater reduction in crop yields. Again, a decrease in rainfall increases the adverse effect on yields of crops.
South Asia is the home of nearly one-third of poor people (almost 1. 5 million people). To reduce poverty, achieve economic progress and make the development sustainable, the region faces a big challenge. But now-a-days it is posed by climatic risk factors. The adverse impact of climate change damages socio-economic and environmental circumstances. It is projected that the frequency and magnitude of happening extreme weather events in South East Asia is only going up in the near future.
Impact on agriculture
Bangladesh is an emerging and developing nations which also exaggerated by climate change. The characteristics of Bangladesh containing geographic location, high population density, low-lying topography, dependence on natural resources as well as poor institutional development are mostly climate sensitive. During upcoming decades, it carries out a high degree of risk due to extreme climatic change. For its geographical and topographic location, Bangladesh is rated as the world’s fifth most disaster prone country. Bangladesh faces many climate-triggered natural disasters such as floods (almost 80% of the total area is affected by flood), droughts (North and North-western regions are extremely exaggerated), cyclones (South and South-eastern parts are mostly suffering), tidal forces, river erosion and salinity (almost all the coastal region are experiencing salinity intrusion problem) because of global warming. Those natural hazards damage people, infrastructures, assets, farm productivity as well as national economy.
Although Bangladesh is trying to move toward industrialization, almost 85% of rural population is engaged with agriculture directly or indirectly. Almost 18. 64% of GDP in current price are come from agricultural sector. Almost 11. 2% of GDP at constant prices in (2009-2010) is backed by crop subsector, 2. 7% by livestock, 4. 5% by fisheries, and 1. 8% by forestry. By contributing 95% share of total food production, paddy acts as a prominent role. Bosello and Zhang (2005) revealed that the association between agriculture and climate change are multifarious and complex. Climate changes its nature gradually because of some natural phenomena and anthropogenic activities. The world temperature is increasing day by day due to global warming. Moreover, all the countries are not affected simultaneously or the same way. Tropical and subtropical countries are more vulnerable to global warming. Particularly, developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change than developed countries. Agriculture is the most vulnerable and climate-sensitive sectors than any other sectors because this sector depends on natural resources and climatic condition. Global temperature increasingly rises every year due to unfavorable weather and climate variability. Increasing temperature, highly uneven distribution and decreasing an amount of rainfall causes changes in water systems and land use patterns which consequently presents social, economic and environmental impacts on agricultural output.
Vulnerability in agricultural sector has created food security problems and increased poverty around the world. The volume of world paddy production has substantially shrunk because of high temperature, frequent sea storms and salinity intrusion. Though paddy is the staple crop in Bangladesh, paddy yield has been diminishing because of salinity intrusion, high temperature, uncertainty and variability in rainfall carried out by climate change. Rural farmers are more vulnerable due to climate change and its variability in Bangladesh. During June to August month, both minimum and maximum temperatures have alarmingly been increasing at a rate of 0. 03°C and 0. 05°C respectively every year in Bangladesh. On the other hand, during December to February, maximum temperature has alarmingly been decreasing at a rate of 0. 001°C and minimum temperature has been increasing at the rate of 0. 016°C every year. The length of summer, rainy and winter seasons have changed. Total area affected by salinity in Bangladesh has risen by 3. 5% (from 2000 to 2009).
Farmers’ perception to climate change
Social, economic, demographical, cultural, political, institutional and environmental factors to influence farmers’ perception and coping methods to climate change have been revealed in various studies. Shuaibu et al. , (2014) argued that coping strategies depends on intra-sectorial and inter-sectorial variation. The main attributes such as educational qualification, ownership of land, access to extensional services, market access, agro-ecological zone, availability of credit, farm size and adaptation of new technology influence farmers’ coping decision. Educational qualification, family income, training facilities and communication facilities are positively significant with the farming practices to adaptation, while farmers’ age has a negative as well as significant correlation with farmers’ adaptation strategies in response to climate change. Climate change is a long-term phenomenon whereas variability to climate is short-term. If farmers can identify the difference between climate change and its variability, they can able to cope with those changes and can reduce the negative impact of those changes.
Many farmers do not know well how to perceive to climatic change and also how to react effectively to this change. Farmers possess poor knowledge on technology to cope with climate change. They do not have much adaptive capacity for crop diversification, livestock practice and management of fresh and drinking water. But Billah et al. (2017) mentioned that paddy farmers are aware of the changing climatic conditions and have a positive perception about it.
Maddison (2006) claims that if the level of perception develops progressively about climate change, local people, especially farmers, will steadily learn about the best practice of coping strategies and techniques. Farmers’ perception to climate change is more likely connected to the increased uncertainty and variability of certain weather parameters. Banerjee (2014) stated some influential perceptions of farmers, for example- shorter wet monsoons, changes in onset and offset of seasons, changes in duration of seasons, high temperature, erratic rainfall, strong wind with excessive rains, frequent floods and unpredictable weather. Farmers perceive that increasing temperature and erratic rainfall have strong influence on agricultural production.
