Climate change and
Sustainable intensification
Fentahun Mengistu (EIAR)
Strengthening CGIAR - EARS partnerships for effective agricultural transformation in Ethiopia
Consultative Meeting, 4 – 5 December 2014

In the past?
• Low population
pressure;
• Good natural and
material resources
• Better environment; low
degradation, better
fertility, etc
• Better biodiversity
• Climate was congenial

And because I was amazed they said to me:
‘Honoured guest, do not be amazed, in the years that we
harvest little we gather enough for three years' plenty in the
country
And if it were not for the multitude of locusts and the hail,
which sometimes do great damage, we should not sow the
half of what we sow, because the yield is incredibly great,
And we sow so much with the hope that even if each of those
said plagues should come, some would be spoiled and some
would remain and if all is spoiled the year before has been so
plentiful that we have no scarcity
Father F. Alvares: The Prester John of the Indies. A true relation of the lands of the
Prester John, being the narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520

Today?
• Population growth
• Since 1960, the world population has more than doubled
• The demands on global agricultural production, arising
out of population and income growth, almost tripled
• Global agriculture has been successful in meeting this
increase in demand
• Urbanization
• Globalization
• NRs under severe pressure from current rates of
consumption;
• humans are using 30% more resources than the earth
replenish each year-leading to deforestation, degraded
soils, polluted air & water, fish, etc
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Today?
• Climate is fast changing
• fresh water reserves,
• fish stocks and forests are shrinking
• fertile land is being destroyed
• biodiversity is declining
• species are becoming extinct
• ecosystems and the ecological services they
provide degrading
• Food insecurity, poverty is rampant
• progress to reduce hunger; if it can be sustained
• Household income increase; change of food habit

The future?
• Change at unprecedented rate
• Globalization
• Urbanization- 64 % DC in 2050
• Burgeoning population- 9 billion 2050
• High demand for food (70% much more),
fiber, feed, energy
• Limited resources put to competing use;
land, water, fuel, material resources
• Biodiversity decline
• Climate worsen

Climate change: defining challenge of the generation
• The weather patterns that
people and ecosystems have
become accustomed to over
time are changing
• The existing build-up of GHG
concentrations- CC climate
change in the coming decades
is inevitable
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How is climate change manifesting in Ethiopia?
Frequency of abiotic & biotic stresses
• Moisture stress/drought occurrences
• Flooding
• Landslide
• Rainfall pattern unpredictable
• Drying up of water points
• Warming/cooling- shift in ecological adaptation:
warm area crops are crawling up into the cool highlands
mosquitoes,
• Sand storms
• Pests and diseases; quela birds, locusts

Pest, disease, invasive weeds incidence
• MLND
• Rusts
• Coffee wilt
• Ginger bacterial wilt
• Tomato fruit borer
• Cotton mealy bug
• Mango white scale
• Faba Bean Gall
• Water hyacinth
• Prosopis
• Parthenium
• Animal and human diseases
• etc

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• Many solutions already exist; we are all part of the
solution (Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director)
 Transition towards low carbon societies
 Taking action to minimize the negative impacts of
CC / Adaptation/ and building resilience
• Planning adaptive responses to our economy and
society today is more cost effective than
responding to a crisis tomorrow
 lessen environmental, economic & social costs
 reduces our vulnerability to CC effects

Resilience:
• Providing a safety net
• Early warning systems or disaster insurance
• Integrating risk management into development plans
• Development interventions to enhance the production,
income generation, and saving capacities

 Climate smart agriculture
 sustainably increasing agricultural
productivity, to support equitable
increases in farm incomes, food security
and development
 adapting and building resilience of
agricultural and food security systems to
CC at multiple levels
 reducing greenhouse gas emissions from
agriculture; crops, and livestock

Agricultural research help farmers to be resilient
• Enhancing and climate-proofing agricultural
productivity by improving agricultural techniques and
adopting higher-yielding, climate-proofed crops and
livestock
• Helping conservation and efficient utilization of natural
resources
• increased adaptation of crops & livestock to climate
stress
• sustainable land management; combating land and water
degradation
• resource-conserving technologies
• access to and utilization 12/16/2014 of technology and information

Local VS improved sorghum

Tide ridge water harvesting technique

Tie-ridge Farmers practice

Sustainable intensification of small scale agriculture:
a possible trajectory of the future
• More food production with much less impact on
environment; even improving the environment
• About a union of sustainability with productivity
• SI of small-scale, often mixed, farming systems has a
critical role to play in meeting the food and nutritional
demands of our planet’s burgeoning population
• an essential process for the short term and an attractive
proposition for the longer term

Issues on SI concept
• Decouple from specific production target
• Not a strategy for food system as a whole; just one
component
• Are we thinking food production or food system?
• Sustainable food security: needs multiple fronts
 DD side: decrease population, efficient food system-governance,
food loss & waste
 SS side: more food with less environmental damage
• Why only environment: broad range of social and
ethical aspects

Is SI really a viable
option given the
scale of the
increases in
production and
productivity that are
required?
Do the technologies
associated with SI
make significant
inroads into yield
gaps?
Can small-scale
household systems
rooted in agriculture
be robust enough to
cope with the
environmental and
economic shocks
that are increasingly
commonplace in the
areas where they
are practiced?
Issues on SI solution

In many, parts of the developing World (e.g.
Nepal, African Highlands) intensive (as in,
characterized by high output: input ratios),
integrated systems were the norm for
centuries until they became degraded by
population and other pressures in less than
one century!
• Are our efforts to promote a return to this
situation through SI genuinely feasible?
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What are likely to be the most significant drivers of change
under SI scenario
• population growth
• population distribution (rural vs urban)
• resource conservation / degradation,
• improvements in productive efficiency / productive
potential
• political conflict
• land resources
• input availability
• balance of trade, etc?
What are the most significant interactions amongst these
drivers likely to be?
How dynamic are these drivers likely to be in terms of their
impacts as we move towards the envisaged future

Do the components have a static, diminishing or
enhanced role in maintaining sustainable nutrition
and food security ?
What are the intermediate response variables (e.g.
social equity, food sufficiency, GDP from
agriculture) that we should (realistically) be
targeting in our efforts to support the move
towards sustainable nutrition and food security?
What are our most promising entry points /
mitigation measures?

How and where, the greatest gains in food and
nutritional security are likely to be made?
Which interventions are likely to have the
greatest potential?
To what extent do they need to be supported by
innovation in research and policy?

Ethiopia’s Development trajectory
• Climate-Resilient Green Economy strategy
• Agricultural Development Led Industrialization
• Envisions achieving middle-income status by 2025
in a climate-resilient green economy ; zero Net
emission
• Following a green growth path that fosters
development and sustainability

1. Agriculture: Improving crop and livestock production
practices for higher food security and farmer income
while reducing emissions
2. Forestry: Protecting and re-establishing forests for
their economic and ecosystem services, including as
carbon stocks
3. Power: renewable energy
4. Transport, industrial sectors and buildings: modern
and energy efficient technologies
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Building Green Economy

• If CGs/NARS of various competence
can join hands and act together with a
portfolio of strategies we would be
able to contribute to achieving the
envisaged goals
• And if this effort turn out to be a
success, it would perhaps be a model
for future R&D interventions
• Thus is whay the idea of a mega
project on: SI &CC” proposed