Food security implications of failure of autonomous crop adaptation to extreme flood events: a case study in Bangladesh

Abstract

Climate change has significant implications for flooding in Bangladesh. As a consequence, millions of farmers of Bangladesh have experienced three great floods in 1988, 1995 and 1998 and have demonstrated resilience to flooding in the form of autonomous crop adaptations. However, the severity of events has meant that, where these adaptations have collapsed, millions of marginal farmers have become vulnerable, and faced acute shortage of the prime crop aman. The cumulative effects of food shortage pose obvious threats to food security, and as a consequence, human security in Bangladesh is also at threat. Farmers have employed a wide range of in-built, routine and tactical adjustments in the endeavour to revive some crop production during the huge floods. The multiple peak flows of the 1998 flood compromised most of these adjustments, and it was one of the most destructive flood events for the farmers in Islampur (a case study area) could recall for 50 or more years. An important finding was that the success of autonomous adjustment strategies is very much influenced by the nature of the flood event in terms of timing to encounter the onset of flooding, the depth of the flood waters, the duration (time flood waters stayed on the crop lands), and the occurrence of peak flows. A general conclusion was the the autonomous adjustments employed by Bangladeshi farmers when faced with floods are very resilient, and they can cope with a wide range of flood events. However the multi-peak 1998 flood exceeded the capacity for these adjustments during the peak season for growing and harvesting wet rice. If this type of flooding event becomes more common in Bangladesh as a result of climate change, the the highly resilient farming system that characterizes much of the riverine environment in the country, and which is well-adjusted to a wide range of flood events, may be exposed to severe stress. This paper examines the patterns of indigenous adjustments to flooding and human security in Bangladesh. The findings of this paper reveal that there is a need to strengthen local adaptation processes as Bangladeshi farmers adapt to the extreme flood hazards by planting local variety crops (shorter period of harvesting) instead of planting high yielding varieties (HYVs) crops. If the practice of this type of indigenous strategy to flood hazards is lost then this can lead to economic impact on millions of subsistence farmers.