Malagasy Smallholders: Coping Mechanisms & Adaptation Strategies

The 38th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met from March 25–29, 2014 to complete the Fifth Assessment Report on adaptation, vulnerability and climate change impacts. And, although this extensive report covers a range of topics and geographies, it is also very pertinent to the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature’s focus area. Smallholder farmers everywhere are facing the very real effects of climate change in their agricultural production and rural livelihoods.

In Madagascar, farmers face challenges that will only be exacerbated by the impacts of climate change—vulnerabilities both unique to their island nation and common across the world’s midlatitudes. It is predicted that the country will experience an increase in agricultural pests, crop disease, extreme weather events and temperature increases that affect the crops these smallholders rely upon the most. Current high levels of chronic food security, undernourishment and poverty are compounded by little capacity to adapt to these changes. Because Malagasy farmers are largely subsistence producers with a major dependence on agriculture for sustenance and livelihoods, the lack of financial resources and formal safety nets also presents a very dire situation in the face of climate change.

Transplanting rainfed lowland rice in Madagascar. Photo: IRRI on Flickr

Research by Celia A. Harvey of Conservation International and others draws upon information gathered from 600 households across ten villages in Madagascar to learn more about their coping mechanisms and strategies for adapting to climate change.

Not surprisingly, Malagasy farmers are resilient and innovative. In skinny years, they harvest more wild plants and animals. Some adopt intercropping and agroforestry techniques. Others tap into their informal networks, borrowing money and selling assets to buy food. Last resort and less desirable coping mechanisms include eating less, reducing the number of meals and taking children out of school to sell their labor.

Malagasy farmers are very aware of climate change and have already noticed changes in temperature and precipitation affecting their rain-fed agriculture. They rely upon coping mechanisms to endure these changes from season to season, because of their lack of capacity to adopt adaptation strategies for more long-term sustainability and security. Cultivating new varieties, managing scarce water resources and engaging in soil conservation practices all take resources and require a strong knowledge base. The few smallholders who adopted some or all of these strategies didn’t perceive them as effective, which, in part, can be connected to the lack of technical, financial and institutional support.

However, the potential to adapt exists. Rejuvenated farmer extension services, integrated technical trainings and political support at the national and local levels play a role in building resilient rural communities and supporting healthy natural ecosystems that provide innumerable services in the face of climate change. Degraded forests and agricultural landscapes have increased vulnerability in Madagascar, and if smallholders are to benefit from the diverse agricultural landscapes for coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies, a strong focus must be placed on maintaining and expanding this diversity. An integrated approach to climate change adaptation in Madagascar must consolidate scarce resources of different sectors and across multiple levels of governance to foster resilience in the country’s interconnected human development, ecology and agriculture.

Lessons learned from the Malagasy farmers are applicable at the continental and global scale—smallholder farmers represent 85% of the world’s farmers and an estimated three quarters of the hungry African population. Especially in a time when climate change is expected to worsen already challenging situations, putting a face to the agricultural production, poverty and hunger exacerbated by climate change enriches attempts (like the IPCC assessment report) to understand future needs.

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Extreme Vulnerability of Smallholder Farmers to Agricultural Risks and Climate Change in Madagascar