Agricultural futures in the humid tropics: A multi-scale approach

International Conference on Integrated Systems –

Systems Research for Sustainable Intensification in Smallholder Agriculture

March 3-6, 2015, IITA Headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria

Randall Ritzema (on behalf of Tim Robinson)

Contributors

• Timothy Robinson (ILRI)

• Nils Teufel (ILRI)

• Ingrid Öborn (ICRAF)

• Mark van Wijk (ILRI)

• Randall Ritzema (ILRI)

• Robin Bourgeois (GFAR)

• Keith Wiebe (IFPRI)

• Mark Lundy (CIAT)

• Cees Leeuwis (WUR)

• Iddo Dror (ILRI)

Overview

• The global agricultural sector

• Three ways to consider the future

•Projections

• Systems analysis

•Community foresight

• Proposed project

• Some challenges

The global agricultural sector

Health and

nutrition

Equity and growth

Climate and natural

resource use

Agricultural production

The global agricultural sector Po

licie

s a

nd

in

stitu

tio

na

l

ch

an

ge

Economic

growth Tra

de

&

m

arke

tin

g

Changing

diets

Energy prices

Agricultural production Health

and nutrition

Equity and growth

Climate and natural

resource use

Surface temperature projections

Source: IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report

World population projection (UN 2012)

Source: Gerland et al. 2014 Year

Tota

l po

pu

lati

on

(b

illio

ns)

7 Billion

9.5 Billion

11 Billion

Continental population projection

Source: Gerland et al. 2014 Year

Tota

l po

pu

lati

on

(b

illio

ns)

Urbanisation

Projections

-

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

Hu

ma

n p

op

ula

tio

n in

th

ou

sa

nd

s

Urban

Rural

Population growth and urbanisation in Kenya

A Multi-Scale Issue

• These global/regional drivers influence the

constraints and opportunities at the farm household

level, both now and in the future

• Drivers across scales produce complex effects

• A multi-scale and multi-disciplinary, and multi-

perspective approach is needed to address the

complexity, and to move understanding toward

action.

• Proposed Humidtropics project

Project aims

•Focus on two contrasting action

sites in the humid tropics

•Assess potential futures in these

sites from 3 perspectives

•Work with R4D platforms to

propose interventions to steer

those communities and systems

along a plausible and sustainable

development pathways

Contemplating the future: 3 perspectives

•Projections- exploring the ‘context of change’

• Global/regional drivers

• Based on standard future ‘scenarios’

• Typically 20-80 years into the future

• e.g. IMPACT, GLOBIUM, FAO projections

• Systems analysis- using household survey data to explore the

impact of different scenarios on livelihoods

• e.g. IMPACT-lite surveys

• Typically to 10-15 years into the future

•Community foresight- discussing with communities what

aspirations, expectations, and concerns they have of the future

• Typically to 5-10 years into the future

• e.g. GFAR approach

Projections

•Based on different pathways

of economic development

•Changing climates

• surface temperatures

• rainfall

•extreme weather events

•Changing demographics

•population

•urbanisation

•migration

•Provides long-term context

Emissions Scenarios

RCP2.6: Mitigation scenario leading to a very low forcing level

CO2 reaches 421 ppm by 2100

RCP4.5: Stabilization scenario (forcing stabilized by 2100)

CO2 reaches 538 ppm by 2100

RCP6: Stabilization scenario (forcing does not stabilize by 2100)

CO2 reaches 670 ppm by 2100

RCP8.5: Very high GHG emissions scenario

CO2 reaches 936 ppm by 2100

Will growing periods be suitable in 30 years for certain crops?

Projections

•East Africa Strategic Futures -

Food Security, the

Environment and Livelihoods

•Exploring the future(s) of

South East Asia: Four

scenarios for agriculture and

food security, livelihoods and

environments

Regional, as well as global, projections to inform local

conditions:

Systems analysis

• Various model types- incorporating time • Trade-off Analysis

• Optimisation

• Systems Dynamics

• Some key contributions of systems analysis: • Clearer understanding of the ‘solution

space’ for action site populations

• What are estimates of best-bet options?

• What’s plausible?

• Enables linkages and comparisons between

scales, sites, and systems

• Parameterization based on

global/regional drivers

Systems analysis

•Quantitative, allows for • consideration of magnitudes, relevance and

priorities

• specified goals and objectives

• Ex-ante scenarios provide • testing of change mechanisms and

magnitude

• sensitivity analysis of context constraints

• comparison of effects on households and

household types

• longer-term perspective through dynamic

formulation

• Based on primary household data • enables understanding of variation within

action site population

e.g. will land availability constrain agricultural

production in 20 years?

Types of output

• Illustrates diversity between

households

• possible development pathways of

population groups

• targeting of interventions

•Assesses interventions

• estimating household effects

(over a number of years)

• determining sensitivity to context

(considering general development

trends)

• prioritising interventions

(in view of changing contexts)

Source: Herrero et al. (2014)

Projections of land size and labour price for three case studies (2005-2025)

Lan

d s

ize

(ha)

La

bo

ur

pri

ce (

€ p

er h

a)

Year

Sources: Van Wijk et al. (in prep); Ritzema et al. (in prep); Frelat et al. (in prep)

Tanzania: Food Security ratio

Types of output

For whole farm populations, how these potential changes together with potential interventions can lead to changes in the importance of different on and off farm activities

Crop Boost

Livestock Boost

Off-farm Boost

Ch

ange

in F

oo

d S

ecu

rity

Rat

io

Food Security Ratio categories

Community foresight

Explore people’s short-term (5-10 years) aspirations and concerns – community visioning

What constraints are affecting the achievement of desirable outcomes?

Which are the opportunities to build on? What actions does the community need to take

to reach aspirations? What are the externally-driven changes that

the community need to adapt to (e.g. climate change)?

How can the interventions address the aspirations, constraints and opportunities?

Visioning and scenario development with the R4D platforms

• Start from the global and regional scenarios and major change factors

• Scenario development workshop for the action site (2030 and 2050)

• Use systems analysis results to enhance projections of the effects of innovations, including the identified and implemented interventions

• ‘Half-way’ feed-back to the R4D platform, continue analysis, ‘final’ feed back to R4D platform

• Organize a larger action site stakeholder workshop including policy makers, different public and private sectors, etc.

Some challenges

How will the three approaches come together…

• Projections will set the broad scene: How are markets

changing? How are growing conditions changing? etc.

• Systems analysis will set the boundaries for change

and model plausible futures

• Community foresight will explore the hopes, concerns

and expectations of the communities themselves

… to be maximally effectively in informing the R4D

platform, to produce (through facilitated

discussions) a set of recommendations that will

lead to desirable outcomes, within the bounds of

plausibility, in the context of broader, on-going

drivers and changes