KATHMANDU, Sept 2: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said four South Asian countries, including Nepal, are vulnerable to declining crop yield due to deepening climate change impacts.
The Manila-based multilateral bank warned that four countries in South Asia -- Nepal, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh - are particularly most vulnerable to falling crop yields caused by glacier retreat, floods, droughts, erratic rainfall and other climate change impacts.
The ADB made the statement after analyzing the current trends and scenarios based on projected temperature increase indicated by a study on "Addressing Climate Change in the Asia and Pacific Region: Building Climate Resilience in the Agriculture Sector" conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
"South Asia´s vulnerability to climate change has extremely serious implications for agriculture and therefore food security," Kunio Senga, director general of ADB´s South Asia Department told a press conference on Wednesday. Senga, also outlined changing agriculture practice, diversified agriculture practices, developing agriculture science and technology as some of the measures that need further testing and funding.
Expressing concerns over declining crop production and rising commodity price in Nepal, Senga also said the ADB would focus its assistance to Nepal in developing rural roads, irrigation, rural electrification and commercialization of agriculture through the greater involvement of private sector to fight food insecurity in coming days. He also warned that the rising food prices will lead to per capita calorie availability falling to below 2000 levels over the period which would lead to 5 million additional malnourished children in the region by 2050.
Speaking on the occasion, Robert J Dobias, senior advisor of Climate Change Program of ADB, said South Asia needs an investment of at least $1.7 billion for long term strategic plan to deal with the climate change impact in the region.
The ADB also said melting Himalayan glaciers and other climate change impacts pose a direct threat to the water and food security of more than 1.6 billion people in South Asia.
According to the Study, the yields of irrigated crops -- maize, wheat and paddy -- will go down by 17 percent, 12 percent and 10 percent respectively if current impact of climate change persists until 2050 in South Asia, which is highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture and home to almost half of the world´s absolute poor.
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