Needs for climate change adaptation in coffee

Sustainable intensification and climate smart agriculture

CSA and SI are highly complementary

CSA

1) Increase productivity to support income, food security and development

2) Increasing adaptive capacity at multiple levels

3) Decrease GHG emissions and increase carbon sinks

SI

1) Increased crop production to sustain livelihoods

2) Low environmental impact

3) Future generations

Campbell et al., 2014

Perceptions of cliamte change

More drought, more storms

Yield is affected but also pests and diseases

Farmers do little and if they do something, they diversify

Most of the countries that responded find the country unprepared

Coffee systems will change in the future

Climate change adaptation per location

Planning for climate change adaptation in coffee different things in different locations

- Adapt your systems

- Adapt your crops – change your crops

Current suitability Future suitability

Impact of climate change on coffee

Climate change has an impact on coffee directly and an impact on pests and diseases

Is altitude (climate) the real factor?

There is a significant interaction

between production systems

Example of Coffee Berry Disease ( but also coffee stem borer and leaf rust)

What can we do? Importance of scales

Adaptation at plant and plot level

At plant level: drought/disease resistant varieties, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, GAP, etc.

At plot level: coffee x banana, integrated soil fertility management, coffee x shade, etc.

� Soil P deficiency

� Low coffee plant density

� Soil K deficiency

� Soil P concentrat ion

� High shade tree density

� Unfavourable soil pH

� Soil Mg concentrat ion

� Elevation

� Lack of mulching

� Soil K deficiency

� Lack of mulching

� Low coffee plant density

� Coffee twig borer

� Old coffee trees

774 kg/ha (1500 kg/ha)

760 kg/ha (1464 kg/ha)

778 kg/ha (1737 kg/ha)

966 kg/ha (1701 kg/ha)

1090 kg/ha (2244kg/ha)

Yield gap analysis for coffee in Uganda

What about adoption?

Need short-term benefits for the farmers

Do attitudes matter for technology adoption?

Pessimist

Negative attitude, does

not think farming is a

good investment. Prefers

investing in off-farm

activities.

Pragmatist

Positively coping,

farming is a good

investment but children

should not farm.

Trapped

Does not want to farm and

has low hope. But seems to

be trapped in farming.

Optimist

Proud to be a farmer,

farming is good invesmtent.

Wants children to farm.

Who can invest?

Not every investment costs the same money, we need to know which strategies are

needed where, but we also need to know their cost

Who decides? Looking inside the household

- Women ‘steel’ coffee from men

- Men ‘overspend’ household income

- Men turn to women’s crops, especially in times of crises

Joint decision making and planning

- Difference at farm level?

- Difference at coffee level?

At household and community level

Community in a landscape

Coffee and other crops

Wetland

Communal grazing land

Intensifying? Adapt to CC?

Eucalyptus

Need to develop more resilient

agricultural practices

- Shaded coffee systems

- Integrated soil fertility

management

- Water harvesting technologies

- Crop diversification / shifts

Climate change adaptation at policy level

Align wetland policy with climate change adaptation plan

In the case of Rakai

Other challenges

Planning:

- Develop climate change adaptation plan at national and regional level

- What is the vision for the future?

Adoption:

- Quality of inputs

Conclusions

Possible changes in land use and crops induced by climate change

2300m

1400m

1000m

Mountain

forest

Arabica

Robusta

Cocoa / Oil palm

Lowland Forest

sea level

Change crop and move up

• Lowland forest → Cocoa / Oil palm

• Robusta coffee → Cocoa / Oil Palm

• Arabica coffee → Robusta coffee

• Highland forest → Arabica coffee

Plot level functions Full sun

monocrop

Shade tree

monocrop

Banana / food

intercrop

Polyculture

system

Forest

system

Yield quantity

Yield quality

External input use

Nutrient recycling

Production risks

Plantation life

Food security

CC adaptation

Carbon stock

Ecological services light color = low → dark color = high

• Training packages need to be planned by location

• Climate change adaptation also means developing other livelihood options than coffee

• Most of the research on climate change adaptation at plant and plot level

• There are different types of coffee farmers

• We need to have an investment scale with the technologies in training packages

• We need to know which farmers we are targeting

• Changes in behavior within households need interventions at community level

• Constraints at landscape level might prevent adoption of CSA practices

• Constraints at policy level might prevent adoption of CSA practices

• We need interventions at all levels of the system

Way forward

• Research needs to feed in more closely with existing training networks

• Need to adapt, feed into training packages that already exist

• Create platforms at international, national and regional scale to consolidate the adaptation

plans and trainings

• Research can be involved at each step of the process and use feed-back loops to improve

the process

• We cannot only work on what but also on how much it costs

• Example of cocoa in Ghana

Coffee systems: nested scales

Thank you

- PhD and MSc students

- IITA: Piet van Asten, Edidah Ampaire, Herbert Ainembabazi, Richard Asare, Sander Muilerman,

Els Lecoutere

- CIAT: Peter Laderach

- ICRAF: Philippe Vaast

- University of Goettingen: Sophie Graefe and Anthony Withbread

- WUR: Ken Giller, Pablo Titonnell, Walter Rossing, Johannes Scholberg

- NaCORI: Godfrey Kagezi, Wilberforce Wododa

- TACRi: Prof. Teri, Mr. Maro and Mrs. Suzana Mmbwambo

- CRIG: Dr. Kwapong

- HRNS: Stefan Cognini, David, Fortunate Paska

- Agro-Eco: Boudewijn van Elzakker, Willem-Albert Toose