55880 MAY 2010 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Adapting to Climate Change in Bangladesh: ANIKA ALI Stress Tolerant Seeds for Stress-Prone Regions Task Manager for projects in Agribusiness and Climate Change Adaptation, has worked with IFC Advisory In the event of global climate change, agriculture will be one of the worst- Services in Bangladesh since hit sectors in Bangladesh. Increasing global temperatures, rising sea levels, early 2005. She is part of the IFC team leading the work on and melting polar ice caps result in land submergence, salinity intrusion, the Pilot Program on Climate Resilience (PPCR) in Bangla- drought, and so on--all of which drastically impact agricultural productivity desh, together with other and therefore food security and the livelihoods of millions of people in the donor operations and the government of Bangladesh. affected regions. Bangladesh, a low-lying deltaic country, is predicted by the international community of experts to be one of the first countries to be MRINAL SIRCAR Program Manager, IFC South affected, and it has already been experiencing serious impacts of climate Asia Advisory Services, currently manages sector work change. Agriculture in particular is one of the worst-hit sectors. This in Agribusiness and Textiles & SmartLesson describes the experience of the Agribusiness advisory team in Apparels. He is a member of the PPCR mission in Bangla- Bangladesh, based on a project focused on climate change adaptation and desh. building resilience of the resource-poor farmers. APPROVING MANAGER Ian Crosby, Head of IFC Advisory Services in Bangla- desh, Nepal, North East India, and Bhutan. Background brings forth a cascading negative effect on the subsequent production cycles. An increase in Since Bangladesh is only 10 meters above sea the rainfall intensity and the occurrence of level, it faces the risk of losing 17 percent of its flash floods and tidal floods all have made land mass and the displacement of 20 million farmers even more vulnerable. people as a result of a rise in sea level. Agriculture is the major economic driver in Added to this is the disproportionate growth Bangladesh, accounting for 20 percent of of population (1.50 percent per year) and loss gross domestic product (GDP) and 65 percent of arable land (1.75 percent per year). By 2025, of the labor force. Of the total 9 million an additional 19 million mouths are to be fed hectares of arable land, over 50 percent have by a relatively poorly performing agriculture already been affected by salinity intrusion, sector. Failing to take timely and appropriate submergence, or drought. Crop yields have adaptive measures and build the coping dropped to as low as 1.0 metric ton per hectare capacity may result in catastrophic in affected areas (the average yield being 4.5 metric tons per hectare). Between 1991 and 2000, 93 major disasters were recorded, resulting in nearly 200,000 deaths and causing $5.9 billion in damage, with severe losses in agriculture. Cyclonic storms and tidal surges in the Bay of Bengal have become more frequent and intense. Changes in rainfall patterns are adversely affecting the crop cycles, bringing new challenges to sustainable agriculture. For example, rising salinity levels in the coastal Drought affects approximately 1 million hectares regions have made the traditional seed of agricultural land. varieties redundant, and a belated monsoon SMARTLESSONS -- MAY 2010 1 consequences with regard to food security and livelihoods for a growing population vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The Project With the aim of addressing some of these constraints and challenges, IFC is working with leading seed companies to increase the production, distribution, and adoption of stress-tolerant seed varieties, and to promote these varieties Floods and submergence affect 2 million hectares of agricultural to farmers who desperately need them but are not aware land. of their availability or the farming practices the new seeds require. These seed varieties can withstand prolonged periods of submergence, high levels of salinity, and drought conditions. The use of stress-tolerant seeds has demonstrated a drastic reduction in crop damage in affected regions. Lessons Learned Yields have been found to be as high as 5­7 metric tons per hectare in many regions. In this context, development of 1) Work bottom-up to identify specific constraints. stress-tolerant seeds, their promotion, and the establishment of an efficient distribution system will be one of the effective Climate change adaptation is truly a context-based need, interventions toward climate change adaptation in the even within a country. In Bangladesh, the southern coastal agriculture sector and thereby contribute to food security regions are suffering from the salinity intrusion and and to the building of farmers' economic resilience. submergence issues, while the northern region is suffering from water shortage and drought issues. Thus, the specific Notwithstanding that the climate change issues overshadow locational needs, the current practices, and the capacity of the global development climate these days, projects in the the community to adapt have to be carefully considered in arena of climate change adaptation worldwide--particularly designing projects to suit the specific needs. For example, in with a focus on mobilizing the private sector capacity and Uganda, a development project distributed drought- resources to meet the adaptation challenges--are few. tolerant seed varieties among farming communities and Thus, there is limited scope of building on past initiatives. went back at the end of the crop season to check on the Each of the affected countries is setting its own objectives field performance of the varieties. The project team was and identifying approaches to deal with its own specific shocked to see that there were no crops in the field. When constraints in adapting to climate change. asked why they had not planted the seeds that they were given, the local people responded that they were suffering When the Agribusiness team of Bangladesh started from the effects of a huge famine, and they ended up evaluating the prospect of building adaptation projects eating the seeds instead of planting them. around the use of stress-tolerant seed varieties, the importance and role of these varieties were not clear to Thus, in our own context we first conducted a detailed many stakeholders. The release process of new seed varieties sector study and baseline surveys to identify the critical was slow. Policy was not favorable. The private sector had constraints being faced by the farmers, and then worked yet to see the business prospects. The public sector was slow closely with government research and extension agencies and took a silo approach, relying mostly on the Bangladesh to evaluate further results coming from the field and the Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC), the public resultant innovations that can address the constraints. This sector agency responsible for supply of agri-inputs to helped us understand the critical constraints being faced by farmers. the farmers, whether the stress-tolerant seed varieties would be beneficial to them, whether they would use them, Thus, the team undertook stepwise initiatives to induct the what kind of pricing would make the product marketable, relevant stakeholders, mobilize key partners, design specific what the technical limitations of the farmers are with projects, and ultimately roll projects out into the field. This regard to using the varieties, what other input requirements led to implementation of activities to strengthen the there are (irrigation water, for example), what the production, supply, and adoption of stress-tolerant varieties production- and supply-related constraints are (from the in the coastal belt of the country with four of the lead firms perspective of the seed companies) to ensure a consistent in the sector. During the first three months of the supply of the varieties to the market, what the policy and implementation activities, over 300 lead seed growers, regulatory issues are, and so on. The project design then dealers, and retailers were exposed to the varieties and took all of these aspects into account. their production process through field demonstrations. Training manuals on production of stress-tolerant varieties 2) Effective stakeholder engagement: Understand how of rice have been developed to build capacity of the critical the public sector role is. contract-grower farmers and the technical team of the lead firms, to ensure that they meet the potential demand. Agricultural research and extension in Bangladesh are still spearheaded by the public sector agencies. In our specific 2 SMARTLESSONS -- MAY 2010 project context, the private sector entry into this business farming community. We took this need into account opportunity to meet the adaptation challenges was entirely forourpromotionaleffortsthatwerefocusedonthe dependent on access to breeder seeds of the stress-tolerant privatesector. varieties from the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute for multiplication by the private seed companies. Further, · To draw attention to the project, we engaged the big collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Extension names in the private and public seed sector. Their is critical for the private companies to leverage their strategic engagement helped kick-start initiatives and extension networks in market development of new gainsupportfortheprojects. products. · Adiverseandhigh-profilegroupwasformedtolobby In one workshop we were able to mobilize five directors fortheinitiative.ItincludedtheDirectorGeneralofthe general of relevant public sector agencies within the Seed Wing, Ministry of Agriculture, the head of the National Agricultural Research System, top management of International Rice Research Institute Bangladesh, the all leading seed companies, the Secretary of the Ministry of Chief Scientific Officer for Bangladesh Rice Research Agriculture, and the Minister of Agriculturel herself. That Institute, the President of the Bangladesh Seed was an exceptional event, where the public and private Association, and seed experts. Their combined efforts sector representatives jointly worked out their respective ledtothespeedyreleaseoftwosubmergence-tolerant roles and responsibilities in promoting stress-tolerant rice in varietiesthatwereinthepipeline. Bangladesh. Following the workshop, we formed a core group, with public and private sector representation, that 4) It is important to catalyze other climate change provides an effective platform for us to interact with all initiatives. stakeholders. Compared with the compelling needs, we can directly 3) Raise awareness at multiple levels. address only certain constraints, but when interventions occur at multiple levels, we can begin to see strong For new initiatives it always helps to gain momentum around positive impacts. For example, our efforts at enabling the focus area of the project. Several high-level workshops, farmers to adopt stress-tolerant seed varieties might be seminars, and conferences highlighted the importance of impeded if the farming communities in the vulnerable stress-tolerant seed varieties in the context of Bangladesh. regions do not have the basic level of protection, such as Diverse groups of stakeholders were introduced to the dikes and polders, to protect them from tidal surges. In product and its importance. The initiatives provided many instances there are either no dikes available or the multipronged benefits to the project. On one hand the ones that do exist have not been maintained at all over private sector stakeholders started taking the issue seriously, the years, leading to collapse. Similarly, there are also and on the other hand it provided us access to all the key issues related to social protection, public health, water public institutions linked to the research, release, production, sources, infrastructure, and so on. IFC is working closely and supply of these varieties. These initiatives provided us, as with the Pilot Program on Climate Resilience under the champions of work in this field, smoother access to both Multi Donor Trust Fund in Bangladesh to assist in the groups, and helped us act as a catalyst in bringing them identification of such issues, and then building projects together into more collaborative initiatives. For example: around them and mobilizing relevant stakeholders, so that the cumulative results in the area of climate change · Theprivatesectorneededtoseethebusinessaspectin adaptation are more impactful and pronounced. theareaofstress-tolerantseeds,andtomaketheextra effort to research and develop their capacities to 5) Deal with the constraints of resources and institutional produce, distribute, and supply the seeds to the capacity. Demands for work on the aspects of climate change have sprung up within a short span of time. The availability of skilled and experienced resources to assist on climate change projects and initiatives is limited. The few people who are available are being pulled in 10 different directions and are assisting in projects worldwide, often leading to diminishing quality of the service. Thus, it requires careful thought and investigation to identify resources to support the projects. Running the names of prospective resources through other donor-funded organizations helps gauge their level of engagement, intensity of assignments worldwide, and quality of service provided. Farmer's field just after submergence. SMARTLESSONS -- MAY 2010 3 Conclusion The current project is a baby step in a long journey. So far, only one company has completed the first cycle of demonstration of a salinity-tolerant rice variety. Initial results show a smile on the farmer's face, but we need to gather more data on output at the farmer level to measure the results. Since varieties are new, farmers have yet to adopt and adapt to new practices. We all are going through a learning phase to see what works and what doesn't. The government recently Farmer's field three months later, showing 90 released two new submergence-tolerant percent crop revival from using stress-tolerant varieties, which has created more varieties. opportunities for the private sector--and for us as well--to scale up for a greater outreach and positive impact. The productive the private sector seed companies is the real relationship we have been able to build with strength for us, going forward. DISCLAIMER IFC SmartLessons is an awards program to share lessons learned in development-oriented advisory services and investment operations. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of IFC or its partner organizations, the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. IFC does not assume any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the information contained in this document. Please see the terms and conditions at www.ifc.org/ smartlessons or contact the program at smartlessons@ifc.org. 4 SMARTLESSONS -- MAY 2010