Would you move a species threatened by climate change to an area where it isn’t currently found but where the new climate suits it better? That’s “assisted migration,” and the lively debate around it is described by Carl Zimmer in the New York Times here. He quotes a thorough review of the ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change which may be found online as a pdf here. It seems to me that assisted migration is likely to be feasible for only a small number of wild species, but what about crops? Making threatened crops and landraces available to farmers in more suitable climates sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
Is climate change an opportunity for Africa?
Kennedy Omenda is a freelance journalist who has written a very interesting article over at The African Executive. Africa’s Agriculture Can Adapt to Climate Change suggests that forecast changes to rainfall patterns, temperature and the like could actually offer Africa a chance for development. Omenda refers to farmers changing their crops and methods and people changing their diets, and benefits that will arise from increased trade and other structural improvements.
It is not a “bad†change after all, but a good opportunity for farmers to embrace new technologies and researchers to brainstorm on products that will suit the various climate patterns. Adequate infrastructure, access to markets and credit will enhance agricultural development and food security while building resilience to future climate change.
I am not absolutely persuaded, I have to admit. Maybe necessity will drive the changes needed, but, to take one example, while farmers in currently wet regions will need to grow crops that can grow with less water, what will farmers in currently dry regions, some of which are going to dryer, grow?
Fascinating aside: Africa “has about 1,150 world weather watch stations. That is one per 26,000 square kilometers—or eight times lower than the minimum density recommended by the World Meteorological Organization”. Maybe climate change will boost investment in weather forecasting that will be directed to farmers rather than pilots and soldiers.
On balance, I think the article is a sort of pro-business-as-usual, but I’d love to hear contrary views.
Project Baseline
The work at UV Irvine summarized here on the genetic effects of climate change on different kinds of plants is interesting enough. But what particularly intrigued me was the reference to a Project Baseline, “a national effort to collect and preserve seeds from contemporary plant populations.” Unfortunately I was not able to find anything more about this on the internet. Anyway, sounds like they need something similar in Armenia.
Pouring money into climate change
The Guardian in the UK reports on a new plan to tackle climate change and agriculture, to be launched today in Washington DC. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research will spend about UD 400 million a year “to help agricultural experts develop crops that can withstand heat and drought, find more efficient farming techniques and make better use of increasingly fragile soil and scarce water supplies,” according to the paper. Robert Ziegler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute, one of the CGIAR centres, did not specifically mention agrobiological diversity, but it is safe to say that the kinds of developments envisaged by the CGIAR will not be possible without making considerable use of existing biodiversity.
Later … there are CGIAR press releases here and here that give an official view.
Expert witness
I think WWF came up with a really powerful idea with their “climate witnesses.” These are ordinary people around the world who WWF has asked to act as spokespeople, a kind of warning system for climate change, and advocates for action. One is an old Kikuyu cattle-keeper, who spoke up at the recent climate change conference in Nairobi about the changes he has been experiencing. Makes me wonder if we in the agrobiodiversity community could link up with WWF and use this existing network to highlight specifically how climate change is affecting crops and crop wild relatives. Or do we perhaps need “genetic erosion witnesses” of our own?