Presentation by Philip Thornton, Theme Leader, CCAFS, at the CCAFS Workshop on Institutions and Policies to Scale out Climate Smart Agriculture held between 2-5 December 2013, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

1. Tools used in climate risk
management policies
Philip Thornton
Institutions and Policies for Scaling Out Climate Smart Agriculture
Colombo, 2-3 December 2013

2. Outline
• Importance of climate variability and the need for
managing risk
• Types of risk, what CCAFS is doing
• Some tools that can help in policy formulation
concerning risk management
• Summary and what’s needed in the future

3. How does climate variability
affect food insecurity?
• Climate variability can have substantial effects on
agricultural growth at the national level; at local level it
can crush households
• We can show links from climate variability to food
availability and then to food insecurity and poverty
• As climate variability increases in the future (though we
don’t know how, exactly), more pressure on food
insecurity and poverty, all other things being equal

4. Climate variability at the national level
12-month Weighted Anomaly of Standardized Precipitation (WASP) and growth in GDP and agricultural
GDP (data from data.worldbank.org/indicator and the IRI data library, iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/)

5. Climate variability at the household level
Herd dynamics in a Kenyan pastoral landscape with increasing
drought frequency
Thornton & Herrero (2009)

6. Some of the types of risk in agriculture

7. • Actions taken now can
reduce vulnerability in
the short term and
enhance resilience in the
long term
Risk management
in CCAFS
• Improving current
climate risk management
should reduce obstacles
to making future
structural adaptations

8. Local-level risk management
• Use of weather forecasts, seasonal
forecasts
• Index-based insurance
• Designed
diversification
• Integrating
traditional risk
management
knowledge

9. National / regional risk management
• Better food security early
warning (e.g. crop yield
forecasting)
• Informing earlier intervention
• Grain, fodder, seed banks
• Trade policies
• Improving national and regional
climate information services
(e.g. inputs to insurance indices)
1 January 2013

10. Tools 1: Weather and climate information
Example: reconstructing historical weather data in Ethiopia
STATION
BLENDED
 weather records to use for crop
forecasting, insurance indices,
economic planning, …
Greatrex, 2013
SATELLITE

11. Tools 1: Weather and climate information
Example: downscaled future climate information
Climate Analogues: finding tomorrow's
agriculture today
http://gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/Analogues/
http://ccafs-climate.org
Daily generated data for future climates
using Google Earth
http://gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/MarkSimGCM
™

12. Tools 2: Household modelling under uncertainty
Impact-household
Systems dynamics and mathematical
programming models
Data collection
Household constraints, objectives,
resources
• Climate
• Family structure
• Land management
 Impacts on income, food security,
resource use, of different adaptation
/ mitigation options
• Livestock management
• Labour allocation
• Family’s dietary pattern
• Farm’s sales and expenses
• Mitigation practices
 What are the local impacts of
policy changes at national level?

13. Tools 2: Household modeling under uncertainty
Sodo, Ethiopia (ILRI, 2010)
Current management
Introduction of cowpea

14. Tools 3: In-season crop production forecasting

15. Yield
Forecasts

16. Tools 4: Scenarios to quantify uncertain futures
The way regional
uncertainties play out will
dramatically affect
agriculture and food
security development
pathways
Using scenarios in South Asia
•
•
•
•
LEAD Pakistan organises policy
engagement
NAPA review Bangladesh funded
by ADB
YES Bank India, PANOS South Asia
Nepal adaptation policies
• Actors: governments, private
sector, civil society, academia and
media
• Scenarios being quantified using
global agricultural economic
models: IFRPI’s IMPACT, IIASA’s
GLOBIOM

17. CCAFS East Africa Scenarios to 2050 GDP per capita compared
with the SSP scenarios to 2050, $ per capita (input)
5000
4500
4000
3500
SSP1EasternAf
SSP2EasternAf
3000
SSP3EasternAf
SSP4EasternAf
2500
SSP5EasternAf
CCAFS Scen1 Ants revisedEasternAf
2000
CCAFS Scen2 Zebra revisedEasternAf
CCAFS Scen3 Leopards revisedEasternAf
1500
CCAFS Scen4 Lions revisedEasternAf
1000
500
0
2000
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050

18. Maize production in East Africa projected to 2030 under
four scenarios: results from GLOBIOM (IIASA) and IMPACT
(IFPRI). Historical data from FAO.
• Help organize strategic planning
at the regional level
• Help to guide and develop
agricultural, adaptation and
mitigation policies at the national
level
• Help to guide investments into
agriculture and food security
• Help provide a context for
research
• Provide a regional context for
local decision-making

19. Tools 5: Vulnerability mapping for priority setting
Exposure of
populations to
the impacts of
climate change
(hi, lo)
Exposure 1: Areas
where there is
greater than 5%
change in Length of
Growing Period
(LGP)
x
Sensitivity of
food systems
to these
impacts
(hi, lo)
x
Areas with more
dependence on
crop agriculture
assumed more
sensitive :
cropping <>16%
Coping
capacity of
populations to
address these
impacts (hi, lo)
Chronic food insecurity
a proxy for coping
capacity (institutional,
economic problems):
stunting prevalence
<>40%
• Areas in which food security is vulnerable to climate change using
three key thresholds
• A way to pinpoint areas for targeting of interventions
Ericksen et al. (2010)

20. Tools 5: Vulnerability mapping for priority setting
Exposure of
populations to
the impacts of
climate change
(hi, lo)
x
Sensitivity of
food systems
to these
impacts
(hi, lo)
x
Coping
capacity of
populations to
address these
impacts (hi, lo)
• Areas in which food security is vulnerable to climate change using
three key thresholds
• A way to pinpoint areas for targeting of interventions
Ericksen et al. (2010)

21. Tools 6: Integrated assessment: PE and GCE models
Model
Main exogenous drivers
Main output
variables
Computable
Population, Total Factor Supply or demand
General
Productivity, bioenergy volumes, prices,
Equilibrium (CGE) demand, (carbon) taxes capital stock, GDP,
GHG emissions
e.g. MIRAGE
Partial
Population, GDP, input Supply or demand
Equilibrium (PE) prices, bioenergy
volumes, prices,
demand, yield and area GHG emissions
e.g. IMPACT
trends

22. Tools 6: PE and CGE models
MIRAGE Modeling International Relationships in Applied General Equilibrium
• Export taxes
• WTO Negotiations / Framework
• MIRAGE CGE model with Household Disaggregation
• Climate Change, trade consequences and trade policy
options
Long
• Mitigation
• Biofuels, land use, and food prices
• Adaptation
h
o
r
i
z
o
n
Medium
Trade and Climate Change
T
i
m
e
Short
Trade Policy Analysis
Laborde, 2013

23. Some of the tools that can inform policy making at different scales
concerning risk management
Tool
Weather data tools
(reconstruction, infilling,
generation)
Household modelling
Production forecasting
Scenarios
(qualitative, quantitative)
Priority setting tools,
processes
(qualitative, quantitative)
Integrated assessment
models
(PE, CGE)
Purpose
• Improve data quality and availability for
decision making and for use in other tools
Scale
Local 
national
• Evaluating options under uncertainty for
effects on income, labour requirements,
food security, GHG emissions, …
• Within-season projection of crop yields
Local
Local 
national
• Facilitate discussions among stakeholders of Local 
plausible future development pathways
Global
• Identify robust alternatives under
uncertainty for attaining agreed objectives
• Identify “hot spots” and “cold spots” of
exposure / risk / vulnerability where
interventions could be targeted
• Future supply and demand, land-use
patterns, trade policy evaluation under
uncertain economic development pathways
Local 
Global
Regional 
global

24. Achieving coordinated and science-informed policies
1 Managing risk for sustainable agricultural growth
•
•
•
•
Approaches that consider different sources of risk and their
changing profiles
Relative benefits & costs of insurance, diversification, safety nets
More emphasis on building adaptive capacity and innovation
Integrating climate change effects on rainfall, temperature, pest /
disease patterns
2 Promoting policy coordination
•
•
•
Holistic approaches to addressing food security, agriculture, climate
change
Involve multiple stakeholders, sectors, policy areas, time horizons,
levels of governance
Need to face up to complexity, uncertainty, volatility/shocks
3 Linking policy and research under uncertain futures
•
Scenarios for looking at tradeoffs / synergies between multiple
objectives of multiple stressors on human & biophysical systems

25. p.thornton@cgiar.org