CONTEXT

Mounting evidence points to the fact that climate change is already affecting agriculture and food security, which will therefore make the challenge of ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture even more difficult (FAO 2016). Through Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, the 2030 Agenda calls for strengthened resilience and adaptive capacity in response to natural hazards and climate-related disasters globally. It calls on all countries to establish and operationalize an integrated strategy – one that includes food security and nutrition – to improve their ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, and to foster climate resilience and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without jeopardizing food production (FAO et al. 2018).

World Bank (2018) noted that almost half the South Asian population (800 million to be exact) are at risk of seeing their standards of living and incomes decline as rising temperatures and more erratic rainfall will reduce crop yields, make water scarce, and push more people away from their homes to seek safer places. Productivity decline leading to food supply shortfalls and increase in food prices would directly affect millions of low-income smallholder farmers, especially those who depend on agriculture for their livelihood and income in South Asia.