Ganges Brahmaputra (GB) River Basin of South Asia is experiencing climate uncertainties and extremes which are disproportionately affecting agriculture, the state of food security and the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is undoubtedly important to deal with these challenges by increasing productivity, adaptation to extreme climate conditions and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, CSA has been highly adopted to reduce the climate change effects on the agricultural sector and enhance the resilience of small-scale farmers. Assessing the profitability of these practices is imperative to decide whether to continue the adopted practices. The proposed study aims to assess the profitability of CSA practices through cost and benefit analysis adopted by small-scale farmers in the Ganges Brahmaputra river basin of South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. A thorough understanding of the costs and benefits of CSA options is urgently needed to identify the best adaptation options for both short and long-term interventions in the agriculture sector amid climate change. The outcomes of the research would support the farmers to make decisions on the most profitable option and for policymakers to formulate effective climate change, agricultural policies and programs. Thus, this research fosters links between science, practice and policy linkages for sustainable food security and small-scale farmers’ resilience to climate change.
Project leader
Project collaborators
Prof. Rajib Shaw, Keio University, Japan.
The workshop brought together a diverse group of stakeholders from government, academic and civil society, and research institutes. With specific deliberations from Nepal, India and Bangladesh, the workshop exemplified the importance of climate smart agriculture (CSA) with specific focus on its cost effectiveness. The panel discussion at the end expanded the key challenges and potentials with specific examples from different countries.
Prof. Md. Anwarul Abedin, Department of Soil Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Bangladesh.
Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is not a luxury, it is essential to tackle climate variability using weather smart, water smart, energy/carbon/nutrient smart, institution/market smart and finally seed and breed smart approaches. It’s my great honour to work as a collaborator of this project. The key focus of the project was to analyse profitability of CSA practices in the Ganges Brahmaputra River Basin, which is time demanding for the farmers of this region. Our Bangladesh team is very much keen to work on in-depth analysis of CSA practices and its true implication in global south. Nevertheless, we strongly believe that our research findings have a positive impact of our end users like farmers and policy makers. Definitely, our team are ready to work together as new beginning of research in the field of CSA in the forth coming days.
Dr. Biva Aryal, Amrit Science Campus, Tribhuvan University
I have participated the project closing workshop on “Assessing the profitability of climate smart agriculture practices in the Ganges Brahmaputra River Basin” and found it very interesting. I would like to appreciate the team for the exploration of new dimension in agriculture. I am very much sure that the results of the project will be useful to the farmers and also to the policy makers.
Dr. Pradyumna Pandey, Senior Agriculture Economist, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.
It was a wonderful workshop with experience and expertise from Japan, Bangladesh and other countries. Presentations and experience sharing by the dignitaries was real ground based and would be useful for all participants. It was widely covered by participants from academia, policy makers from the Government of Nepal and farmers from the project sites. There was a wide range of active participants. Last but not the least, this program was really useful for my professional as well as practical life. I am very much grateful to organizers for their excellent technical as well as logistic management.
Project publications
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