Rural response to climate change in poor countries: Ethics, policies and scientific support systems in their agricultural environment

By Kees Stigter(1)  Agromet Vision (Netherlands and Indonesia)

Introduction

In the second half of the past century, in less than fifty years, for example East Asian countries managed to climb out of extreme poverty and chart a path towards shared economic growth. Much of discussions and debate around this phenomenon have focused on the kinds of policies that these countries adopted or the nature of political regimes that spawned it. While policies and regimes have indeed been important ingredients, they obscure the key lesson from this experience: due in part to historical circumstances, leadership in these countries recognized the vital importance of managing the politics of change, which invariably would come with economic growth, and fashioned institutions to address this challenge. From this emerged strategies to promote shared growth  (Campos 2009).
Mapolu (1990) described the situation for the mid-eighties in Tanzania, in the words of my then colleague Prof. Mascarenhas (University of Dar es Salaam), as one of a peaceful peasant revolt, an unwillingness to produce, or to become part of the wider system. There was a turning back to the small farm/small plot for survival-level farming. The peasantry of Tanzania, among the poorest in Africa, was described as “uncaptured” (Hyden 1980).   Instead of linking the state with rural society, politics after independence aided in increasing the distance between them (Van Cranenburgh 1990). This is the opposite of what was said about change in East Asia above. Change was tried to be forced upon farmers in Tanzania and refused.
What we learn here, is about that importance of managing the politics of change and of establishing institutions to address this challenge. It definitely also applies to climate change. As scientists we are supposed to propose and prepare policies, so in agricultural sciences we should among others care for policies of managing the rural response to climate change and of institutionalization of that response.

Sustaining production has many agrometeorological aspects of which some are related to soil productivity. Stigter Jr. reviewed that commercial fertilizer nitrogen (N) accounts for approximately half of all N reaching global croplands today and supplies basic food needs for at least 40% of the population. Due to continuous economic expansion of some farming systems in some developing countries, the global application of N fertilizer is currently on the rise again. Fertilization is the principal source of nitrate contamination of groundwater on a regional scale. However, the application of commercial fertilizers in many developing countries, is presently limited by unavailability or economic constraints, resulting in soil nutrient losses and a land-use efficiency far too low to sustain present and future food production needs (Stigter 2010c). 
 
Soil carbon sequestration has recently been considered a higher mitigation potential than emission reductions in agriculture, although both are important. These are best achieved under management systems with higher carbon density, as well as improved soil conservation. Also, enhanced soil carbon pools provide numerous agronomic and environmental benefits, and stabilize global nutrient cycles, with the resultant long-term enhancement of the resilience of agricultural systems to climate change (Dumanski et al. 2010).
 
This paper comes back to these issues under the heading of “Policies”, because that is what we need to use our knowledge properly. But first it will be considered that if, for ethical reasons, we want to assist colleagues and farmers in developing countries, our focus should go there (Stigter 2010a). But on what basis?


Ethics

I purposely changed the positions of “ethics” and “science” in the sequence in my title compared to the tile of this workshop, because I strongly believe that ethics, such as the choice for a “farmer first” paradigm (see below), should come first. Then policies should be derived in accordance with these ethics and then science should come with research and application choices supporting the policies. Why does it almost nowhere work like that? If ethics are the moral principles governing or influencing our conduct, why are actually internal ethics of conduct in science discussed more than external ones by scientists themselves (Stigter 2010a)?
Research priorities and research agendas incorporate values of what is seen by research managers as worthwhile. Research priorities and research agendas determine the future of research by selecting scientific and technological pathways that often cannot easily be changed. Even in the selection of materials and methods and the products of science are values incorporated, especially as they relate to the impact on society. In general, the research priorities of scientists are now criticized by many (see for example also Fossey 2008; Logar 2010) and often it is these days expected of science to reduce the gap between poor and rich countries (Korthals 2008). So external ethics is these days a thoroughly accepted reason to decide to work in and for developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America.
However, that is only a first step. In my nine years at the University of Dar es Salaam (1975 – 1984), we learned two basic lessons (Stigter 2010b). Firstly, field quantification in the tropics needed special attention due to the facts that (i) such work had hardly been done in the tropics anyway; and either existing equipment had to be made suitable for tropical conditions or suitable equipment had to be designed and (ii) modeling could not yet be an important issue in many cases, due to the inhomogeneity of tropical agricultural field conditions and the absence of reliable basic data. Locally, there was no place for studying processes in the tropical environment but studies of phenomena relevant to the local agricultural production environment should be undertaken, preferably on-farm (Stigter and Weiss 1986).
Secondly, to assist farmers in decision making, little could be learned from the situation in developed countries, because in the early eighties management oriented weather services were generally not available to farmers there, while any advisories available had little practical utility and therefore were not often incorporated into the management decision making processes there (Stigter 1984). This conclusion meant that agrometeorology had to look at the local agricultural extension situation for contact with farmers. However, by the early eighties, if anything there was a top down structure along which little useful information would reach farmers, their conditions were not understood at all and the extension approach, if any, was one of “modernization”, completely out of tune with the reality of agricultural production of peasant farming. Peasants were seen as backwards and uneducated.
However, in what started as an ethical  countermovement, in the seventies and beyond, genuine interest was shown in indigenous knowledge in use and traditional techniques developed by peasant communities. We were the first to work into that direction in agricultural meteorology (e.g. Stigter 1983; 1987; 1994). A new striking example we will discuss further down in this paper.
A third lesson may be added here, that I also partly worked out elsewhere (Stigter 2006). Neither my African colleagues nor myself were those early days anywhere connected to decision makers, policy makers or anybody representing farmers or farming that could be taken serious. There were no NGOs, there were no farmers in our lives as scientists in Tanzania. The closest you could come were plantation owners who occasionally would show interest, but they were just outside mainstream agriculture. The  political situation and the dissociated peasantry described in the introduction were the main reasons for this. There was no way that science could play a role, there were no institutions anywhere linking scientists to the reality of peasant farming. Ethics could this way play no role through science. It could, however, through education, fighting for the development of a different role of science under different policies and different institutional behavior, starting at the Universities (Stigter 1982). It is interesting to note that during my work in the Sudan (1984–2001) the local situation was basically conducive to such a role of science, but institutional extension bottlenecks limited successes to initial target groups (Stigter 2006).


Policies

What we have learned in the above is that policies have to be developed to manage change. It can be derived from the above that policies in basic data taking would help to understand the tropical  environment better. Change can certainly not be managed without such polices. It also follows from the above that policies on understanding traditional techniques and indigenous knowledge in rural areas should be established. Finally, it follows from the above that there is need for new educational and extension commitments. Before going into details on the latter, let’s consider somewhat more closely where sustained soil productivity, agrometeorology and climate change touch on policy grounds in poor counties.
 Often the only available nitrogen source in the poorer parts of countries is manure, with relatively high losses to atmosphere and water, because of its inherent properties, but often good for soil structure. Full organic agriculture or a combination with relatively low inputs of artificial fertilizers should be practised. On the other hand, China and India are currently the largest fertilizer-N consumers in the world. As a result, groundwater contamination by nitrates has occurred in several regions of both countries (Stigter 2010c). Policies are needed in these fields.
Climate change is having serious negative effects on sustained and already sub-sustainable production through higher rainfall intensities (leaching and water erosion) and floods (Stigter et al. 2003) as well as drought conditions, in which the uptake of nutrients is limited by lack of water, wind erosion and fire (Breman and Kessler 1995). Policies and institutions are needed to fight this change caused by degradation.

The opportunities for enhanced carbon sequestration in soils arise because of the degraded carbon stocks in most cultivated soils. However, the sequestration potentials vary according to soil type and ecosystems, and soil carbon sequestration will continue only to the point where a new carbon equilibrium is reached. In all probability, this new level will be lower than the original carbon stock, and to a large extent it will be highly controlled by specific land management practices and inputs, operating within specific soil types and local environments. Although soil carbon sequestration has considerable potential to mitigate climate change, increases in soil organic carbon are often associated with increases in N2O emissions, which act to counterbalance the sequestration benefits (Dumanski et al. 2010). 
There are lingering uncertainties on the permanence of the sequestered carbon and on the potentials for leakage, but permanence can be assured by promoting land management philosophies such as sustainable land management that enhance economic viability while also sequestering carbon. It can also be assured through agronomic practices that “inject” more carbon at depth, using more deep rooting cultivars (Dumanski et al. 2010).
On a global scale, grassland management, agroforestry, integrated zero tillage technologies (conservation agriculture), and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from animal production have emerged as the strategies with the highest potentials for greenhouse mitigation in agriculture (Dumanski et al. 2010).
It is on all these matters that (changes in) policies will be needed as well as (in) related institutions.

Another issue worth dealing with is that of deforestation, leaving soils bare or with degraded vegetation from a carbon point of view, and the traditional believe of forests generating rainfall. Sheil and Murdiyarso (2009) recently drew attention to new scientific evidence brought forward by Makarieva and Gorshkov (2006; 2007). Pressure gradients driven by temperature and convection are considered to be principal drivers of air flows in conventional meteorological science. Makarieva and Gorshkov recently argued that the importance of evaporation and condensation have been overlooked. At the global average lapse rate, water vapour rises and condenses. The reduction in atmospheric volume that takes place during this gas to liquid phase change causes a reduction in air pressure. This drop in pressure has routinely been overlooked. So atmospheric volume reduces at a higher rate over areas with more intensive evaporation. The resulting low pressure draws in additional moist air from areas with weaker evaporation. This leads to a net transfer of atmospheric moisture to the areas with the highest evaporation.
Sheil and Murdiyarso (2009) discuss various local consequences of this biotic pump theory. Forest loss and diminished evaporation can for example reduce the penetration of monsoon rains and reduce the duration of the wet season. Clearing enough forest within a larger forest zone may switch net moisture transport “from ocean to land” into “from land to ocean”, leaving forest remnants to be dessicated. Clearing a band of forest near the coast may suffice to dry out a wet continental interior. Makarieva and Gorshkov’s hypothesis suggests that forest loss will be associated with a loss of stabilizing feedbacks and with increased climatic instability. There is scope for self-stabilizing interactions to arise. We need to unravel the feedback  processes and thresholds that operate spatially at different scales, and the influences that act upon them.
Acceptance of the biotic pump would add to the values that society places on forest cover. By raising regional concerns about water, acceptance of the biotic pump demands attention from diverse local actors, including many who may otherwise care little for maintaining forest cover (Sheil and Murdiyarso 2009).

 For some important fields where sustainable production, agrometeorology and climate change come together, we have suggested above where important (changes in) policies and (in) insitutions dealing with such policies are needed. This must include new educational and extension commitments. The latter have recently been reviewed by in WMO (2010). A most important issue in the context of this meeting is the establishment and follow up of Climate Field Schools (e.g. Winarto et al. 2008) and other farmer related educational commitments in the rural areas (field days, on-farm training exercises, roving seminars to train the trainers, farmer facilitators), that could become very important institutionalizations related to new policies in the rural response to climate change. New developments are for example taking place within WMO and in Africa, China, India and Indonesia (WMO 2010).


Scientific support systems
 
As scientists we do believe that science can be used in making this world a better place, also in the rural areas of developing countries and under conditions of a changing climate. I have argued at several occasions (most recently Stigter 2007; 2008; 2009; Stigter et al. 2009) that most existing scientific support systems (data, research, education/training/extension, policies) are insufficiently geared to rural services because they are determining their subjects from within these systems and are not guided by farmers’ problems from outside these systems. Indeed, as said when dealing with ethical issues above, in the selection of the products of sciences and their materials and methods are values incorporated, especially as they relate to the impact of scientific support systems on society.
We are in the process of submitting a book on “Applied Agrometeorology” with more than 150 contributions of more than hundred contributors, that starts with explaining in Part I, historically and as an unavoidable and lasting development, the establishment of  agrometeorological services in rural areas. Subsequently this is illustrated with 30 case studies in Part II. Close to a hundred short papers then want to contribute in Part III to nothing less than an educational revival and renewal in applied agrometeorology, in a complete separation from basic sciences in agrometeorology.
There are and will be no agrometeorological services and no agrometeorological actions support systems without supportive scientific methodologies as workable tools and approaches. Modern assessments of climatic resources, water resources, soil resources and biomass resources are unthinkable without such technologies (Stigter et al. 2009). But in the last Part IV of the book it is not about an explanatory approach to these methodologies but about exemplifying how these methods are supportively applied as tools and approaches; to get operational results in problem solving in the agricultural environment that is the livelihood of farmers. So it is shown in the twenty last contributions how the scientific methodologies guide certain fields towards the operational applications in Part III and other applications as well as how they contribute to derive the examples of Part II and make them work, including the related educational commitments.
 
We consider belonging to agrometeorological services all agrometeorological and agroclimatological information that can be directly applied (that is operational) in trying to improve and/or protect the livelihood of farmers, so yield quantity and quality and income, while safeguarding the agricultural resource base from degradation. Ten fields of such services may be distinguished (Stigter 2007; WMO 2010). However, examples for developing countries under these ten headings as recently collected (WMO 2010) teach us that almost all products developed with focused scientific support are no services but just only seeds sown for the development of actual agrometeorological services in an extension approach.
While we want to get to a situation in which, in a farmer first paradigm (e.g. Chambers et al. 1989), livelihood problems and farmer decision-making needs can guide the bottom-up design of actual services. Services should be based on products generated by operational support systems in which understanding of farmer livelihood conditions and innovations have been used (Stigter 2008). We have developed in the last decade a good idea of what is needed to develop such agrometeorological services from scientific products generated by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs), Research Institutes and Universities (KNMI 2009). But what we need is institutionalization of science supported establishment and validation of such services as part of a rural response to climate change (Examples in Appendix 1). This must be carried out through the new education/extension commitments.


Concluding remarks

In managing the politics of change that appeared to be a condition for rural responding to climate change in poor countries, institutionalization is crucial. This must be done through extension that may belong to the organizations that deliver the scientific support (NMHSs, Research Institutes, Universities) and/or through an extension service established for that purpose or given the mandate to do so. Indonesian scientists recently demanded that scientists not in the extension wings should assist in running help desks to assist in the training of solving farmers’ problems.

Governments must develop educational commitments to rural areas. General ones and specific ones. The farmers as end users of services need to be trained by the extension in the establishment of agrometeorological and other related services; and the extension officers as intermediaries need training themselves, among others in better communication with farmers on their needs, in the role of farmer innovations and in the consequences of climate change for the livelihood of farmers. This is presently often the weakest link in the chain of getting agrometeorological services established and validated (Stigter 2009).

So, rural response to climate change has ethical starting points, needs policies derived and proposed by scientists and science managers from the politics of change and needs scientific support systems encouraging the development of policies based on products generated by operational support systems in which understanding of farmer livelihood conditions and innovations have been used.


References

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Appendix 1

Examples of institutionalized  agrometeorological services with scientific support (from Stigter 2009)

For almost 20 examples in WMO (2009), no institutionalization nor any validation had taken place, although scientific support had in rather some cases been strong. But these were products developed as agrometeorological services for specific target groups without follow-ups. The ten examples of (just as a start to fully) institutionalized agrometeorological services, for which scientific support and validation could be discussed, that we collected till October 2008, are as follows:

- the Mali agrometeorological pilot projects, now 25 years old and still expanding, in which a team of applied scientists of the NMHS gives response farming advice over the growing season on cultural practices to farmers that send rainfall and soil moisture data and other relevant information to the team (Anonymous 2005; Helmuth et al. 2007; Diarra and Stigter 2008; WMO 2009). The actual scientific support is unclear but the team makes use of what is available nationally and internationally as research products. However, this needs considerable improvement and the same applies to actual field extension (Helmuth et al. 2007). It is nevertheless clear from validation exercises that this is a project from which much can be learned by others, particularly regarding involvement of farmers.

- in India, there is a growing list of weather based pest and disease models of which a slowly growing number is used to provide warnings (e.g. Stigter with Rathore 2008; WMO 2009). The scientific support comes from agricultural Meteorological Forecasting Units under the Indian Meteorological Department, that also make use of results from Research Institutes and Universities. A validation of this work has not yet taken place.

- in Cuba, the “SAT” agrometeorological service of drought forecasting and early warning is operational in the Camaguey provincial weather service since 1994. Governmental institutions rely very heavily on the existence of this agrometeorological service. The scientific support came and comes from scientists from the provincial weather service. Validation has shown existing problems of direct communication with farmers (INSAM 2005).

- in north-east Brazil, drought forecasts have been directed towards small-scale rainfed agriculturists as well as state and local level policymakers in the areas of agriculture, water management, and emergency drought relief. Most farmers in Cereá are so vulnerable to climatic variability that they are unable to respond to raw climatic predictions, irrespective of the quality and the precision of the forecast. The researchers have now changed their focus from items around the start of the rainy season to studies of dry spells and pre-season weather/climate patterns (response farming, easing preparations). The limits of the use of climate information in policy making derive in part from the levels of skill and direct usefulness of the science products themselves and in part from the necessity for a policy making apparatus to learn how to apply it usefully. In comparison to farming communities, validation gave a more positive outlook for success with the use of forecasting products for “intermediate” organizations (Lemos et al. 2002; Stigter 2004).

- in India, at a local University Murthy (2008) has started to use previous 30 days news paper cuttings with (risk) information on weather, a traditional almanac locally followed by the farmers and local relevant information on effect of weather/climate on crops, agricultural operations and animals, collected with great difficulties, to serve farmers in understanding connections between agriculture, daily weather and climate (WMO 2009). Virtually in each village where this was tried out, the farmers had questions and/or got advice on microclimate issues, which shows the importance of such issues as agrometeorological services in their livelihood (WMO 2009). Further institutionalization needs funds, the scientific support comes from the University and farmer innovations, a validation is something for a faraway future.

- in Portugal, to combat drought and to assist water use efficiency, since 1999 an Operational and Technological Irrigation Centre takes advantage of ICT potential for information services to support farmers in their irrigation decisions. They provide as an agrometeorological service a web decision support system based on weather stations, the region most common soils, crops and technologies, and users data (INSAM 2005). This is well institutionalized and validation by users is positive. Another institutionalized agrometeorological service of this kind by the provincial meteorological services in Villa Clara (Cuba) helps producers to achieve proper use of water resources for irrigation and aims to allow users to manage that water efficiently, since 2005. The agrometeorological forecasts are constructed from weather forecasts in the short and medium term and the expected trends in climate forecasting of monthly rainfall and temperatures, taking into account the local history of the behavior of the elements predicted (INSAM 2008). Validation did not take place yet.

- in Sudan, a local University, in collaboration with a Dutch University in a research education project, got the request to study the mechanism by which a Eucalyptus shelterbelt traditionally used in Egypt was most efficiently keeping disastrous wind blown sand out of parts of the Gezira irrigation scheme, where it buried crops and prevented irrigation canals to carry water. This led to the institutional design of improved shelterbelts that were subsequently applied there (INSAM 2007). External evaluation was very positive. Such a design of microclimate improvements for wind protection and settlement of wind blown sand is an agrometeorological service (Stigter et al. 2002). Various other research results to fight land degradation were obtained in that same project (Stigter et al. 2005). They could all be considered agrometeorological services for specific target groups of users, but an institutionalization phase was never reached.

- in Kenya, in Nairobi, ICPAC (IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre) provides the recent past climate over this part of eastern Africa through decadal, monthly and seasonal summaries of rainfall and drought severity and monthly temperature anomalies. The current state of climate is monitored and assessed using climate diagnostics and modelling techniques. These are derived from information on the state of the sea surface temperature anomalies over all the major ocean basins, surface and upper air anomalies of pressure, winds and other climate parameters. So scientific support systems are strong. The prediction products are provided through outlooks for a decade, month and season. Consensus pre-season climate outlook fora are also organised in conjunction with the major climate centres world-wide in order to derive a single consensus forecast for the region. An assessment of the vulnerability together with the current and potential socio-economic conditions and impacts (both negative and positive) associated with the observed and projected climate anomalies is also made on decadal, monthly and seasonal time scales. These products are disseminated to all NMHSs of the participating countries to serve as early warning information and can be used to establish local agrometeorological services (WMO 2006b; WMO 2009). No validation was reported .

- in the Philippines, PAGASA (the local NMHS) is of the opinion that the productivity of a region in a particular farming operation may be increased by the reduction of many kinds of losses resulting from unfavourable climate and weather, and also by the more rational use of labour and equipment. Greater economy of efforts is largely achieved on farm by the reduction of activities that have little value or are potentially harmful. This is what they are trying to provide institutionally, so as to assist farmers in their day to day operations. There is still much to be done and to develop, not only in the accuracy of forecasts and advisories but also in the effectiveness of such services. This also pertains to making sure that climate information and advisories reach the farmers and are understood by them (WMO 2009). No validation has been reported.

- in China, finally, Stigter et al. (2008a; 2008b; 2008c; 2008d; 2008e) have provided information on ten recently identified agrometeorological services in five provinces. In Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, this is about crop and variety planning as well as on spring wheat sowing advices in melting frozen soils. In Ningxia Autonomous Region, they are about improving microclimate for water melon in a dry mountainous area and fungus disease forecasting in wolfberries. In Jiangxi Province, planning the growing of navel oranges and their protection is dealt with, together with relay cropping of late rice into lotus. In Henan Province, services deal with more accurate determination of water saving supplementary irrigation of wheat and the forecasting of peony flowering for commercial activities. While in Hebei Province winter straw mulching of wheat and early warning of less sunshine and related low temperatures for winter vegetables in simple but very popular plastic greenhouses are the subjects. All these examples have been institutionalized by the provincial meteorological administrations concerned. Several of these agrometeorological services have locally had recent scientific support but others are in high need of much more supportive research. We are preparing validations.

1) Draft of a paper presented at the OECD policy Workshop “Sustaining soil productivity in response to global climate change – Science, policy and ethics” on 29 June 2009 at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA.