Smallholder farmers' challenges and opportunities: Implications for agricultural production, environment and food security.

In an era of growing environmental, socioeconomic, and market uncertainties, understanding the adaptive strategies of smallholder farmers is paramount for sustainable agricultural productivity and environmental management efforts. We adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate the adaptive strategies of smallholders in Northwest Cambodia. Our methodology included downscaled climate projections to project future climate conditions and scenarios, household surveys to collect detailed demographic and socioeconomic data, crop monitoring and record-keeping to gather data on productivity and profitability, and semi-structured interviews to obtain qualitative insights on constraints and adaptation. Our analyses revealed that all smallholders are increasingly vulnerable to climate change which projections reveal will result in more intense and extreme weather events. Specifically, 92% of respondents reported reductions in household income, and 63% indicated the necessity to cut household expenses, which negatively affect agricultural productivity, as evidenced by 33% of respondents reporting declining crop yields and 10% experiencing food shortages. We also uncovered significant differences in farming strategies to mitigate vulnerability among distinct household clusters. Some households prioritise maximising yields through high-expense production strategies, while others focus on optimising inputs to enhance profit-margins, indirectly minimising their environmental impact. These varying strategies have different implications for poverty, food security, and the environment, but were doing very little to mitigate overall vulnerability. To enhance the adaptive capacity of smallholders, policies should target interventions that balance economic growth with environmental sustainability, tailored to the specific needs of different farmer and household types. Promoting the adoption of climate-resilient agricultural practices, investing in water management infrastructure, enhancing access to timely and accurate climate information, and implementing social protection measures are strongly recommended.

Response and resilience of Asian agrifood systems to COVID-19: An assessment across twenty-five countries and four regional farming and food systems.

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting health and economies across the world, although the nature of direct and indirect effects on Asian agrifood systems and food security has not yet been well understood. Objectives: This paper assesses the initial responses of major farming and food systems to COVID-19 in 25 Asian countries, and considers the implications for resilience, food and nutrition security and recovery policies by the governments. Methods: A conceptual systems model was specified including key pathways linking the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 to the resilience and performance of the four principal Asian farming and food systems, viz, lowland rice based; irrigated wheat based; hill mixed; and dryland mixed systems. Based on this framework, a systematic survey of 2504 key informants (4% policy makers, 6% researchers or University staff, 6% extension workers, 65% farmers, and 19% others) in 20 Asian countries was conducted and the results assessed and analysed. Results and conclusion: The principal Asian farming and food systems were moderately resilient to COVID-19, reinforced by government policies in many countries that prioritized food availability and affordability. Rural livelihoods and food security were affected primarily because of disruptions to local labour markets (especially for off-farm work), farm produce markets (notably for perishable foods) and input supply chains (i.e., seeds and fertilisers). The overall effects on system performance were most severe in the irrigated wheat based system and least severe in the hill mixed system, associated in the latter case with greater resilience and diversification and less dependence on external inputs and long market chains. Farming and food systems' resilience and sustainability are critical considerations for recovery policies and programmes, especially in relation to economic performance that initially recovered more slowly than productivity, natural resources status and social capital. Overall, the resilience of Asian farming and food systems was strong because of inherent systems characteristics reinforced by public policies that prioritized staple food production and distribution as well as complementary welfare programmes. With the substantial risks to plant- and animal-sourced food supplies from future zoonoses and the institutional vulnerabilities revealed by COVID-19, efforts to improve resilience should be central to recovery programmes. Significance: This study was the first Asia-wide systems assessment of the effects of COVID-19 on agriculture and food systems, differentiating the effects of the pandemic across the four principal regional farming and food systems in the region.

Climate change adaptation options in rainfed upland cropping systems in the wet tropics: A case study of smallholder farms in North-West Cambodia.

While climate change is confirmed to have serious impacts on agricultural production in many regions worldwide, researchers have proposed various measures that farmers can apply to cope with and adapt to those changes. However, it is often the case that not every adaptation measure would be practical and adoptable in a specific region. Farmers may have their own ways of managing and adapting to climate change that need to be taken into account when considering interventions. This study aimed to engage with farmers to: (1) better understand small-holder knowledge, attitudes and practices in relation to perceived or expected climate change; and (2) document cropping practices, climate change perceptions, constraints to crop production, and coping and adaptation options with existing climate variability and expected climate change. This study was conducted in 2015 in Sala Krau village near Pailin (12°52'N, 102°45'E) and Samlout (12°39'N, 102°36'E) of North-West Cambodia. The methods used were a combination of focus group discussions and one-on-one interviews where 132 farming households were randomly selected. We found that farmers were conscious of changes in climate over recent years, and had a good understanding of likely future changes. While farmers are aware of some practices that can be modified to minimize risk and cope with anticipated changes, they are reluctant to apply them. Furthermore; there are no government agricultural extension services provided at the village level and farmers have relied on each other and other actors in the value chain network for information to support their decision-making. There is a lack of knowledge of the principles of conservation agriculture that urgently require agricultural extension services in the region to build farmer ability to better cope and adapt to climate change.