Climate change adaptation policies to foster resilience in agriculture
Analysis and stocktake based on UNFCCC reporting documents
National climate change adaptation programmes can strengthen agriculture’s resilience
to adverse climatic events by investing in absorptive capacity to mitigate the impact
of a shock in the short run, adaptive capacity to effect incremental changes in the
medium run, and transformative capacity to create fundamentally new agricultural production
systems in the long run. Using UNFCCC reporting documents, this analysis takes stock
of agricultural climate change adaptation programmes in OECD countries and evaluates
their contribution to developing resilience. Significant investments have been undertaken
in the creation of decision support tools, the management of soil and water resources,
and cultivar selection and breeding to address key agricultural vulnerabilities, namely
drought, flooding and declining crop yields. Adaptation programmes developed to date
most heavily emphasise adaptive capacity to address sustained and growing climate
risks. Actions that contribute to transformative capacity are beginning to emerge,
but lag behind medium-run measures.
Published on July 11, 2023
In series:OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papersview more titles