What Does Transformative Adaptation for Agriculture Look Like?
As opposed to incremental adaptation, which the IPCC says aims to maintain existing systems through measures such as introducing more drought-resistant varieties of crops or using more efficient irrigation, transformative adaptation is intended to change the fundamental attributes of agricultural systems in response to actual or expected climate and its effects, often at a scale and ambition greater than incremental activities. Our research found that there are often three types of actions associated with transformative adaptation in agriculture:
- Shifting the geographic locations where specific types of crops and livestock are produced, processed and marketed. For example, some Costa Rican coffee farmers in areas that are becoming too warm for coffee production are shifting to citrus instead. In Ethiopia, cultivation of staple crops like wheat and teff are shifting to higher, cooler elevations as temperatures rise. In their place, farmers are now growing maize more widely.
- Aligning agricultural production with changing ecosystems and available water and arable land. For example, farmers in Bagerhat District, Bangladesh are shifting from rice production to aquaculture in response to increased salinity due to seawater inundation. In Uttarakhand, India, mountain farming villages affected by increased rainfall variability are being abandoned and reverting to forest or pastureland. Meanwhile, more people are engaging in intensive agriculture such as vegetable cultivation and organic farming or shifting to nonagricultural livelihoods.