The value of climate-resilient seeds for smallholder adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa
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The value of climate-resilient seeds for smallholder adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa Oscar J. Cacho 1 & Jonathan Moss 1 & Philip K. Thornton 2 & Mario Herrero 3 & Ben Henderson 3,4 & Benjamin L. Bodirsky 5 & Florian Humpenöder 5 & Alexander Popp 5 & Leslie Lipper 6 Received: 19 January 2020 / Accepted: 4 August 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
Climate change is threatening food security in many tropical countries, where a large proportion of food is produced by vulnerable smallholder farmers. Interventions are available to offset many of the negative impacts of climate change on agriculture, and they can be tailored to local conditions often through relative modest investments. However, little quantitative information is available to guide investment or policy choices at a time when countries and development agencies are under pressure to implement policies that can help achieve Sustainable Development Goals while coping with climate change. Among smallholder adaptation options, developing seeds resilient to current and future climate shocks expected locally is one of the most important actions available now. In this paper, we used national and local data to estimate the costs of climate change to smallholder farmers in Malawi and Tanzania. We found that the benefits from adopting resilient seeds ranged between 984 million and 2.1 billion USD during 2020–2050. Our analysis demonstrates the benefits of establishing and maintaining a flexible national seed sector with participation by communities in the breeding, delivery, and adoption cycle. Keywords Climate change adaptation . Smallholders . Improved seeds . Climate policy Acronyms AEZ BDA CSA FAO
Agro-ecological zone Breeding delivery and adoption Climate-smart agriculture Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-02002817-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Oscar J. Cacho [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Climatic Change
FAO
GCM GFDL-ESM2M HadGEM2-ES IPSL-CM5A NorESM1-M IPCC LPJmL MAgPIE RCP SDG SSA SSP TZNPS
EPIC Economics and Policy Innovations for Climate-Smart Agriculture Programme of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations Global circulation models (also global climate models) The 4 models used are: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Earth System Model Hadley Global Environment Model 2 Earth System Institut Pierre Simon Laplace Earth System Model for the 5th IPCC report Norwegian Earth System Model Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Lund-Potsdam-Jena managed Land model Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment Representative concentration pathways Sustainable Development Goals Sub-Saharan Africa Shared socioeconomic pathways Tanzania National Panel Survey
1 Introduction By reducing agricultural production and incomes, increasing risks, and disrupting markets, climate change poses a
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