Climate Change and Food Security in South Asia – HDR 2011

Abstract

Climate change has the potential to be the most significant challenge to human development in the near future, it is not only an environmental issue but also one that affect our very existence because of its direct links with agriculture and food security. The most painful reality of climate change is that it is the poorer countries that stand to suffer most, and it is the poorest in the poor countries that have the least capacity to withstand the effects of climate change. At a time when South Asia is seized with the problem of poverty and inflation, it stands to be further aggravated by climate change. Therefore, the action ought to be on the most vulnerable sector that climate change will affect i.e. food and agriculture.Across South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), large proportion of the population depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Most of the South Asia receives Monsoons every year, but rainfall in the semi-arid and sub-humid regions of South Asia is highly variable and unpredictable and influences agricultural productivity accordingly. Over the centuries, farming practices in the South Asia has developed as a response to local climatic conditions. The greatest challenge that South Asia faces is lifting some 500 million people out of poverty, but this already-formidable challenge is made all the more difficult because along with local environmental repercussions of intensive agriculture, global warming has also started to affect food production, raising food deficit over the last two decades, showing stagnation in productivity curve of the Green Revolution agricultural miracle of South Asia.The environmental challenges due to climate change, such as water shortages and storms resulting in soil erosion threaten future social upheavals, climate change migrants and political conflicts in the region.