Page 268 - Climate Change and Food Systems

climate change and food systems: global assessments and implications for food security and trade
1. Introduction
Climate change has already had a negative impact on Asia through extreme temperatures, frequent flooding and droughts, as well as sea
level rise (SLR) and increased salinity of water supplies for rainfed agricultural areas. Church
and White (2006) projected for the 35 Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that global mean sea level could rise by up to one metre through the twenty-first century. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC projects that the global average sea level will rise by as much as 0.59 metre (in the A1FI scenario) by the end of the twenty-first century (2090-2099) relative to the level in 1980-1999 (IPCC, 2007, p.409, FAQ 5.1). The new summary report of IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for policy-makers reconfirms these projections with greater confidence “because of the improved understanding of the components
of sea level, the improved agreement of process- based models with observations, and the inclusion of ice-sheet dynamic changes.” (IPCC, 2013, p.23) IPCC AR5 warns that about 70 percent of coastlines worldwide are projected to experience sea level change (IPCC, 2013, p.24). Such
climate change could bring complex, localized negative impacts for the food sector, especially for smallholders and subsistence farmers.
SLR is of particular concern for most Asian countries because their coastal areas – such as the mega-delta regions in East, South and Southeast Asia – have historically attracted human habitation. Farmers in Asian countries grow rice mostly
along the river deltas and low-lying areas, which are prone to the SLR-induced flooding, storm surges and crop submergence that arrive with climate change. Examples of such areas are the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, Ganges-Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy and Chao Phraya (Wassmann et al., 2004). Unlike developed countries, most of the Asian rice-growing and rice-consuming economies, at their current stage of development, do not have spare funds and resources to brace for long-term
SLR and SLR-induced inundation and flooding. This could cause great concern regarding the food security of these populous countries, some of which rely on rice imports.
Most of the Asian countries are quite dependent on their domestic supplies of rice. The International Rice Commission (2003) indicates that Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Viet Nam are the major producers of rice, producing more than 70 percent of world volume. However, due
to strong consumer preference towards particular rice varieties and qualities, world rice trade is low
in volume, accounting for as little as 5 percent of global output. The Asian rice-producing countries tend to consume most of their own production. Nevertheless, Thailand and Viet Nam are able to export rice to, for example, neighbouring countries: Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines,.
Dasgupta et al. (2009) identified ten developing countries whose land areas are most exposed
to the potential threat of a one-metre SLR:
The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belize, Cuba, The Gambia, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Taiwan,
and Viet Nam. Among these hardest hit countries, Bangladesh, China, Taiwan, and Viet Nam and
are rice-growing and rice-consuming countries.
In an updated study by Dasgupta et al. (2011),
ten additional countries were identified to be at risk for large increases in exposed agricultural area: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Mexico, Mozambique, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Uruguay —among which Bangladesh, Cuba, Egypt, Mexico and Mozambique are rice-importing countries, while Combodia, Pakistan and Uruguay are rice-exporting countries (USDA, 2012).
Among Asian countries, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines rely on imported rice. China and India are the two largest producers of rice in the world, but both countries consume the majority of their own rice production, contributing little for trade. SLR would cause significant concern with respect to food security for Asian countries. Using a partial equilibrium global rice trade model, Chen et al. (2012) investigated the potential impact of SLR combined with climate-induced crop yield change on global
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