Page 20 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

ecuador’s banana sector under climate change: an economic and biophysical assessment to promote a sustainable and climate-compatible strategy
the efficiency in the use of resources (e.g. water) and to implement national adaptation plans. At this scale, efficient management of critical resources, such as water, or combating other climate-induced threads to agriculture are examples of climate-compliant interventions that should be jointly pursued.
At the national level, climate adaptation for agriculture begins with macro- policies, regulations and institutional reform. Emphasis is placed on adaptation strategies for cross-cutting sectors, such as energy, water and infrastructure. Decisions for agricultural adaptation focus on cross-sectoral investments in research, infrastructure (i.e. irrigation) and rural financial services (banking). The implementation of national adaptation plans also will necessitate a heightened degree of coordination across sectors, institutional reforms and improved governance structures in order for multilayered adaptation decisions to take place, aimed at transitioning towards climate-smart agriculture.
Concrete planning, assessments and proposals for action, however, can
best be done at the sub-sector level (e.g. crops, livestock, agro-forestry), agro-ecologically or territorially. Designing a climate-smart, sector-level strategy requires a systems analysis that will include the economics of the sector, the biophysical implications of climate impacts, and the socio-institutional aspects that include governance and gender dimensions. A biophysical analysis of the sector will identify the sector’s vulnerable areas vis-a-vis climate change in terms of yields, disease and resource availability. The economics of the sector will
cover the policy and regulatory environment, market structure, drivers of demand and supply (including trade) and sector competitiveness, as well as the level of efficiency of resource use and the likely evolution under climate change. A socio- institutional analysis will generate an understanding of the scope to improve stakeholder participation in the decision-making (governance) process and the scope to leverage the economic and regulatory incentives by decision-makers.
A sector/territorial level assessment is the appropriate scale to develop a precise action plan that will be supported by an investment programme; institutional reforms; agricultural research and extension; market-level regulations; trade and other economic incentives to induce farmers, forestry folk and fishermen to adopt climate-compatible technologies and practices. The sector/territorial level analysis of climate smart-agriculture is a necessary bridge between national cross-sectoral policy interventions and farm-level adaptation decisions.
At the farm level, adaptation decisions are made on the basis of internal endowments and constraints, as well as external incentives. Farms and households have internal resources to cope with a changing climate and
to adapt accordingly. These include changing crop patterns, adopting new production techniques, and reallocating labour to other uses, such as outside agriculture. Farms may also exhibit limits to adaptation, owing to a lack of - or dwindling - resources (water), information, credit or a combination of the three. Smallholder farmers often face more constraints to adapt than do the larger farms. Farms also respond to external signals or incentives to change practices to improve productivity and resilience. Analysing the internal and external factors that influence the decision of farmers to adapt is an important step. It is, however, insufficient. It will need to be complemented with a sector- or territory-wide
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